The Royal Life With Henry: Was it really all that?
An In-depth Interview With Anne Boleyn
Question 3: What are you most worried is going to happen on your execution day?
“I just hope my head comes off cleanly and in one or two blows at the most. I’ve been through enough pain and the last thing I need is to have a horrible marksman as an executioner. I don’t need to be running down the street in a desperate attempt to save my life gushing blood and missing some neck. That’d be disgusting. What I do want, however, is to mess with Henry’s mind a little bit. Give him the old puppy eyes and then spit in his face kind of thing. A final ‘I don’t care about you’ before my head goes on a stick. I know I’m dying anyway, might as well have fun messing with people before I go. Another thing, tell Henry that I hope his next wives don’t give him any children.”
by Emily Ahlgren
Even before Elizabeth and the miscarriages, life and marriage with King Henry VIII wasn’t as happy and carefree as it seemed. We tried to get the real story out of Anne Boleyn, former queen of England, fresh after the drama and at the height of nerves before her execution.
To start it off, we asked her how she came to marry Henry and what made her say yes.
She replied, “Well at first, I thought he was really gross and that he just wanted to marry me because he was tired of screwing my sister. She was his mistress and on top of that, he was still married to that Catherine from somewhere unimportant. Disgusting. At the time I was coming out of an engagement too, so his sudden proposal was a lot to take in. Then a friend told me that he was next in line for the
Question 2: It hasn’t been long since all the drama went down between you and Henry. Can you tell us what happened?
“Pretty much everybody knows about Elizabeth, she’s perfect and incredibly smart, but what most people don’t know is that Henry and I had three miscarriages after her. Do you know how hard those were? Henry didn’t have to go through the physical pain of giving birth four times. He only had to overreact in disappointment when Elizabeth turned out to be a girl and the three others turned out dead. I can’t control the gender or if they’re alive and he most certainly cannot either. Elizabeth will certainly grow up to be a stronger and better ruler than he ever was while I get convicted of adultery, incest, and witchcraft. Really, I think Henry is mad a dozen sons didn’t jump out from between my legs. It’s not that easy, quick, and painless, Henry.” Anne continued to go on frustratedly about all the things her husband didn’t and couldn’t understand. Execution nerves much?
throne, even though he was completely incompetent. I couldn’t really see it through his fat folds, but the amazing wealth he had was incredible. I figured if I couldn’t be happy with Percy, then I could be rich and be queen.”