Note: This is excerpted from a post I made to the old Adrian BBS a few years ago. It is put here for your amusement.
As one who has always been fascinated by the tragic story of Anne Boleyn, I feel moved to point out a couple of historical inaccuracies that are commonly believed:
1) Anne Boleyn was NEVER Henry VIII's premarital lover. Certes, he fathered a son by Anne's older sister, but the main reason why Henry deigned to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne was that Anne would not put out until she was Queen of England. A sort of "get that ice or else no dice" kind of arrangement. Of all of Henry's wives, she was most certifiably virgin (at least, she hadn't yet slept with Henry) on her wedding night. This leads me to...
2) The reason Henry was excommunicated was that he was attempting to annul a marriage which had as its keystone Catherine of Aragon's virginity. Catherine was originally married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, Henry's older brother, as a marriage pact between England and Spain (Catherine being the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of 1492 fame).
However, Arthur, being a sickly young lad, died before the marriage could be consummated (or so Henry VII's lawyers maintained). Since the marriage was (legally) unconsummated, Catherine was free to marry Arthur's younger brother Henry, which she did so once Henry was King of England (eighth by that name).
When Henry fell hard for Anne Boleyn, he tried to prove that Catherine's marriage to Arthur had indeed been consummated, which therefore made HIS marriage to her null and void, despite the fact that their union had produced a number of stillborn sons and one rather healthy daughter (Mary, aka Mary Tudor, aka Bloody Mary, later to marry her dashing nephew Philip, briefly joining the kingdoms of England and Spain under one rule).
Of course, the fact that Spain's forces had surrounded the Vatican may have had something to do with the writ of excommunication, but most probably it was Henry's telling the Pope to perform an unspeakable act on his own person. The excommunication was a last-ditch effort by the Pope to convince Henry not to divorce Catherine. Excommunication was certainly NOT Henry's idea.
Well, we know where the story goes from there.
Pope tells Henry to go to Hell (literally). Henry takes his ball and bat and goes to play Church on his own island, divorces Catherine, and marries Anne. Anne produces a stillborn son and a redheaded daughter as fierce as her father, Henry realizes that he's no better off than before (worse, in fact - he's alienated his two worst enemies AND most of Europe) and gets Cardinal Woolsey to cook up a way for him to weasel out of the mess.
Anne gets accused of adultery (including with her own brother!) and loses her head. In the meantime, Catherine of Aragon dies of consumption and is buried as the Princess of Wales, thereby keeping her head. Henry marries Jane Seymour, who dutifully produces a son and dies in childbirth, thereby keeping her head. After a lengthy period of mourning for his "favourite wife", Henry then marries (briefly) Anne of Cleves, who closely resembles a horse, in Henry's opinion. Anne graciously allows Henry to divorce her in favour of the beautiful Catherine Howard (cousin to Anne Boleyn) and retires to a cottage in the country as the "King's Sister", thereby keeping her head.
Catherine Howard is an incorrigible flirt who may or may not have gotten knocked up by someone else at Court, gets accused of adultery, and loses her head (just like her cousin Anne). Henry, by now wary of beautiful young women, opts for a widow in her mid-30's for Wife Number Six: Catherine Parr. Catherine has the good sense to keep out of trouble, nurses Henry's gout and obesity, and survives his death, thereby keeping her head (she later has a son by Husband Number Three, which proves that she was not barren).
Henry's son, Edward VI, is just as sickly as his Uncle Arthur, and dies within a few years. Fearful of Catholic Mary riding into town and ripping their precious power base to shreds, the Protestant Court slaps the crown on Edward's cousin Jane, who reigns for 8 days before being deposed by the wildly popular Mary (daughter of the wildly popular Catherine of Aragon), and loses her head. Mary reigns for a while, wreaking havoc and setting to rights what her father overturned when he Protestantized the country, marries her nephew Philip (gorgeous even by our standards today), and dies of ovarian cancer.
Then that little redheaded girl we mentioned earlier becomes Elizabeth I, Queen of England, reigns for a gloriously long time, sets the country back on (Protestant) track, defeats her brother-in-law's Armada, and wills the country to a Stuart (who was, after all, the rightful claimant). James I takes the throne in 1603. His son gets on the bad side of Parliament and loses his head at the end of a costly Civil War, which throws the country into ruins less than 50 years after Elizabeth's death (she kept her head).
Putting a Stuart on the Throne of England is when all Hell breaks loose and I lose my interest in History.........
--Nigel