Predicting the Fall of Anne Boleyn

There can be few moments which have captured the imagination of historians, authors and the public like the fall of Anne Boleyn. The events which led to the arrest and execution of Henry VIII’s second wife, alongside her brother and a number of courtiers, in May 1536 have been seen very differently by historians. Perhaps the most enduring recent interpretation has presented Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, as having orchestrated an elaborate plot to remove Anne and her supporters from court. After all, Cromwell himself admitted to the Imperial Ambassador of Charles V, Eustace Chapuys, that he had ‘discovered and followed up the affair’. 

What has been overlooked, however, is that in the same conversation, Cromwell claimed that it was a prophecy made in Flanders ‘threatening the king with a conspiracy of those who were nearest his person’, which had ‘roused his suspicion and made him enquire into the matter’. This suggests that Anne was not simply the victim of a pre-planned attack, but rather that Cromwell undertook an investigation into Anne’s circle based on a prophetic warning of danger to the king.