The most notorious and infamous of Henry VIII’s six wives was Anne Boleyn, the Tudor Kings
second wife.
Their marriage would plunge England into a period of turmoil, in which England broke
from Rome and turned their back on the Pope and Henry became the Supreme Head of the Church
of England.
Those who could not support this often were persecuted and many were executed including
some of Henry VIII’s closest friends and advisors such as Sir Thomas More and Bishop
John Fisher.
But despite all of this, Anne Boleyn would only be queen of England for a period of time
just short of 3 years.
She would spectacularly fall from grace, as Thomas Cromwell the King’s Chief Advisor
would plan her downfall, and Anne was accused of incest, adultery and treason.
She was executed by a French Swordsman inside of the Tower of London, and then was buried
inside of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula near to the execution site.
But in the 19th century, 300 years after her execution, the grave of Anne Boleyn and her
tomb was broken into.
But what is the story of this?
On the 19th May 1536, Anne Boleyn made her way from her apartments inside the Tower of
London to the scaffold which was next to the White Tower near to Tower Green.
Many claimed she was hysterical in the tower after being sentenced to death, but in her
final moments she showed poise and calmness despite her fate.
She made a short speech to the crowd stating, ‘Good Christian people, I am come hither
to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will
speak nothing against it.
I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused
and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you,
for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good,
a gentle and sovereign lord.
And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best.
And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all
to pray for me.
O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.’
But then the French Swordsman distracted her as she knelt on the scaffold, and from the
direction she did not expect, he swung his weapon and her head was taken clean off in
one swift stroke.
But following her execution, her weeping ladies who remained with her until the end collected
the former Queen’s remains and tucked them into an oak chest which used to contain arrow
staves.
With this, they carried it into the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, and then her remains
were buried in an unmarked grave.
But this would not be the end of the story of Anne Boleyn’s remains.
In 1848, a historian visited the Chapel where Anne was buried and he was not happy with
what he saw, and he stated ‘"I cannot refrain from expressing my disgust at the barbarous
stupidity which has transformed this interesting little church in to the likeness of a meeting
house in a manufacturing town.
In truth, there is no sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery" The chapel had
fallen into disrepute, and the constable of the Tower who was appointed in 1876 agreed
that urgent work needed to be done on the Chapel, and he petitioned the Queen to approve
this work.
He wanted to make sure that the church was safe to use as a place of worship for those
who lived and worked at the Tower.
One of the biggest problems with the Chapel was the floor as it was sinking.
It was said by someone doing work on the Chapel that, ‘On removing the stones of the pavement
it was found (as reference to the burial register too abundantly proved) that the resting places
of those who had been buried within the walls of the chapel during the troublous times of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had been repeatedly and it was feared almost universally
desecrated.
When the Tower ceased to be a residence of the sovereign or a state prison, the chapel
of St. Peter appears to have gradually come to be regarded too much in the light of a
mere ordinary parish church, in which the interment not only of those who had lived
in the Tower, but even of residents in the neighbourhood, was freely permitted.
It is true that the bodies of those who had perished on the scaffold, or died as prisoners
within the walls of the Tower, were buried (no doubt intentionally) "in great obscurity;"'
but even if some memorial stone had recorded their burial place, it is doubtful whether
that would have protected their remains, for in the instance of the three Scotch lords
(Lovat, Balmerino, and Kilmarnock) although their grave was specially marked by a stone,
which is still preserved, it was found that their bones had been much disturbed, so much
so indeed as to be beyond all possible means of identification.
It is even feared that in some instances coffins had been designedly broken up and their contents
scattered in order to make room for some fresh occupant of the ground.’
But during work on the Chapel’s floor, the builders exhumed many bodies and remains and
they believed that they stumbled across the remains of Anne Boleyn.
Archaeologists exhumed the remains, and they noticed a number of physical characteristics
of one of the skeletons including the fact it had been beheaded.
Dr Frederick Mouat the professor of medicine to Queen Victoria was brought in to help examine
and identify the remains.
The slabs where Anne was laid to rest were lifted and at a depth of two feet the remains
of her were found.
Dr Mouat stated that they belonged to, ‘“to a female of between twenty-five and thirty
years of age, of a delicate frame of body, and who had been of slender and perfect proportions;
the forehead and lower jaw were small and especially well formed.
The vertebrae were particularly small, especially one joint (the atlas), which was that next
to the skull, bearing witness to the Queen’s ‘little neck’".
He then stated, ‘"the bones found are certainly those of a female in the prime of life, all
perfectly consolidated and symmetrical, and belong to the same person.
The bones of the head indicate a well-formed round skull, with an intellectual forehead,
straight orbital ridge, large eyes, oval face and rather square full chin.
The remains of the vertebrae, and the bones of the lower limbs, indicate a well-formed
woman of middle height, with a short and slender neck.
The ribs show depth and roundness of chest.
The hands and feet bones indicate delicate and well-shaped hands and feet, with tapering
fingers and a narrow foot."
He came to the conclusion that this woman in life would have been between 5 foot tall
and 5 foot 3 in life, and he confirmed that the head was severed from her body.
He noticed the small neck that Anne Boleyn was believed to have had, and with this he
concluded without doubt that these remains were definitely the Second Wife Of Henry VIII.
The remains of Anne were then gathered up and sorted along with the remains of other
prominent people buried inside the Chapel nearby.
They were then taken and stored inside of the Queen’s house in labelled lead boxes
and containers.
Five months later on the 13th April at mid day, 7 men including the Chaplain of the chapel
gathered again for the reinterment of Anne Boleyn.
The bodies that were discovered had been placed in special caskets fastened down with copper
screws with engravings on them.
The men watched on as the boxes were then reburied 4 inches below the surface and careful
note was made of the position of the burials.
On top of where Anne was buried, a marble decorative tiled floor marks the place where
she was buried.
She was interred below the communion table, second in from the left on the first full
row of burials.
She was buried between her brother George Boleyn, and Edward Seymour the Duke of Somerset.
Those men who were doing the building work inside of the chapel stumbled across the body
of Anne Boleyn, and the doctor of Queen Victoria was certain that it was Anne Boleyn.
No DNA was available to be tested of course, but it’s accepted that it was her remains
that were then buried at the heart of the chapel with some form of dignity.
Anne Boleyn is considered today the victim of Cromwell and Henry VIII’s brutal personalities
and the fact Henry just wanted rid of her.
But to do this he had to ordered his friend to create a huge web of deceit and lies against
her, and sadly she made her way to the executioner’s scaffold.
In death she was not taken far away, and was buried close by.
There are some other rumours that Anne was buried elsewhere, or that her heart was buried
in Norfolk or Suffolk at a place of great importance to her.
But today the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula is a serene resting place for the second wife
of Henry VIII.
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