If you were going to be executed tomorrow morning at the Tower of London on the orders of your
spouse in front of a couple of thousand people for crimes you didn’t commit, what would you wear?
That was the question facing Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII,
in the hours before her death on 19 May 1536 and in this video from History Calling,
I’m going to tell you not just what she chose, but why she chose it, because believe it or not
there was a whole etiquette around how to dress for death in Tudor England if you were a member
of the elite and going to the scaffold. Anne’s outfit, from the fabrics she chose,
to the style of her hood and the cut of her dress, tells us a lot about her self-image
and her understanding of how clothing was used to communicate to an audience. Furthermore, it shows
that this famously fashion savvy Queen knew how to make a statement, right up to her dying breath.
Anne Boleyn was sentenced to death on 15 May 1536 and had a few days to prepare herself,
as best she could, for what was coming. Along with praying for forgiveness for her sins,
taking the sacrament and deciding what her final words would be, she also had to choose the clothes
she would die in. She’d been imprisoned in the Tower since her arrest on 2 May and had a smaller
than usual wardrobe with her to pick from. When she stepped out of her lodgings on the morning
of the 19th to be executed on a scaffold built here, next to the White Tower, the spectators got
their first look at what she had selected. We have several descriptions of what she apparently wore.
The first source is known as the Spanish Chronicle, because it was originally written
in Spanish by an anonymous author. It says that she wore ‘a night-robe of damask, with a red
damask skirt, and a netted coif over her hair’. This document is notoriously unreliable though.
The account it gave of her final speech (which you can hear all about in my video
on the execution of Anne Boleyn, linked onscreen and in the description box),
is vastly different to what other sources record for instance and it also claimed that Anne’s
father died of grief several days after her, when in fact Thomas Boleyn lived until 1539.
Next we have a document also originally written in Spanish by an anonymous Imperialist writer
(which we can tell in part not just by the language by their hostility to Anne
who they refer to as having been unjustly called the Queen). Its real date is unclear (it’s dated
16 May, which can’t be correct because that was before the executions it describes of Anne’s
brother George and the Queen herself), but the level of detail suggests that it was composed
by an eye-witness not long after her death. It says that after she had made her final speech
‘She was then stripped of her short mantle furred with ermines, and afterwards took off her hood,
which was of English make, herself. A young lady presented her with a linen cap,
with which she covered her hair, and she knelt down, fastening her clothes about her feet,
and one of the said ladies bandaged her eyes.’ This source seems much more reliable than the
Spanish Chronicle and I would be inclined to take its information as being mostly true, making
allowances for some small details which the author may have forgotten to include, or misremembered.
Finally we have a letter written on 10 June 1536 in Portuguese and sent to a man in Lisbon
which also describes George and Anne’s deaths. The author tells us that Anne was ‘wholly habited in
a robe of black damask, made in such guise that the cape, which was white, did fall on the outer
side thereof’. This same writer continues that after she had made her final speech,
‘she took her coifs from her head [which I suspect is a reference to her hood],
and delivered them to one of her ladies’ then put on ‘a little cap of linen to cover
her hair’. Just before she was killed her ladies wrapped a bandage around her eyes.
This source’s main weakness is its obvious hostility to Anne and the inaccuracies it
contains, for it falsely states elsewhere that the Privy Council had declared her daughter Elizabeth
to be the child of her brother George Boleyn and attributes a second speech to her, made to her
ladies just before she died, but which no other source mentions. That said, its date of 10 June
places it barely 3 weeks after her death, other details (such as her main speech) tally with other
sources and crucially, its account of her outfit chimes very well with the Imperialist source I
just mentioned. There would also be little reason to lie about her outfit, whereas the inaccurate
details regarding her speech and the paternity of Elizabeth were useful as ways to slander her.
So if we bring these descriptions together and look at where they overlap, what we get is a
picture of Anne wearing a dark coloured dress, probably grey or black damask, with a short,
fur lined cloak over the top. This cloak was probably ermine as the Imperialist writer says,
because that tallies with the Portuguese writer’s description of it as being white and if the fur
of a stoat (which is what ermine is) is taken from it in winter, then it is indeed white.
She had an English style gable hood on, like the one you see her wearing in this image
and after she removed it, she put a linen coif of unknown colour over her hair to hold it in place.
That coif probably resembled the cap you see in this image, which is supposedly of her. The final
piece of clothing (if we could call it that) that she ever donned, was a blindfold or bandage around
her eyes. Despite what you see in movies and TV shows about her life, there is no suggestion that
she was wearing any jewellery that she had to take off before her death, though if you are interested
in her jewels, do check out my video on her famous B necklace which I’ll leave linked for you.
Personally I doubt the Spanish Chronicler’s assertion that her skirt was red.
No one else mentioned it and had she worn red I think they would, as that was the colour of
Catholic martyrdom and it really would have stood out on a proto-Protestant like Anne.
Mary Queen of Scots wore red to her execution for instance and the point she was making,
about being unjustly killed for her faith, was immediately picked up on by those who saw her.
See my video on her execution for more details. Again, I’ll leave it linked
for you. For now though, let’s analyse what Anne’s choice of clothing tells us.
Just before I do that though, if you’re enjoying this video please remember to give it a thumbs up
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every time I upload. You can also follow me on Instagram and check out my Patreon page,
both of which are linked in the description box below. And now, back to Anne.
Starting from the top, Anne’s choice of an English style, gable hood suggests she sought
to emphasise her position as an Englishwoman. She had spent much of her life in France,
was being executed in the French manner (with a sword rather than an axe)
and by a French executioner and was famous for having popularised the French hood at
the English court, which sat further back on the head and showed off the wearer’s hair.
Yet she did also wear English hoods, as this portrait medal of her struck in 1534 shows and
at the last, she chose to identify with England, the country she had been crowned Queen of.
[Waxwork picture] Next we have the dress. Maria Hayward has noted in her article on the clothing
worn to elite executions during the Tudor period (details of which are in the description box),
that the most popular colours for clothes to die in were black, grey and red. Black was an
expensive colour, which suggested the condemned’s social position but which was also in line with
the mournful tone of the occasion. Hayward also argues that grey was a neutral colour which
‘may be an indication of the accused acknowledging their liminal legal position once they had been
condemned’. Red, as I’ve already mentioned, could be construed as the colour of Catholic martyrdom,
but Hayward also contends that given its expensive nature it also allowed the victim
‘a last flamboyant act’. On a more practical note, a dark colour or red were also wise choices
as they would help to disguise the blood stains once the person’s head was off,
perhaps making the job of those who had to deal with their bodies slightly less gruesome. It would
also have made the garment easier to clean and repurpose, but we’ll come to that in a minute.
The neckline at the back of the dress is not mentioned in the sources, but Tudor dresses of
this era tended to have square necks like the ones you see on some of these waxworks of Henry
VIII and his wives and we can assume, as Anne’s biographer Eric Ives has done, that the neckline
of her dress was cut in that manner. Had it been higher and presented an impediment to the sword,
she likely would have needed to disrobe further. As Hayward also explains, when necklines were
high, the condemned often had to ‘remove a number of items in the hope of a swift death’.
The fabric of the dress seems to have been damask, showing Anne’s status as
this was an expensive material. I couldn’t find an image of a Tudor era damask dress,
no doubt because so few clothes survive from that long ago, but the brown material you
see on this 18th century dress is made of that fabric and gives you a very good idea
of how luxurious it was. The fur of the cloak is likewise very significant. Not only was ermine
expensive, sumptuary laws in force during this era meant that most people were not allowed to
wear it and by donning it Anne made another subtle reference to her high rank and position as Queen.
What would have happened though to these expensive garments after her death?
When Anne Boleyn was dug up by the Victorians in the 1870s (which I have a whole video on that you
can check out later), no remnants of any clothing were found with her, though that in itself
doesn’t tell us what she was or wasn’t wearing when she was placed under the floor of the Chapel
of St Peter Ad Vincula. She’d been disinterred at least once before in the 1750s (which we
know because a woman who died at that point was found buried underneath her by the Victorians),
so even if there were any scraps of material left at that stage, they might well have been taken as
souvenirs+ More likely though, anything she was still wearing had long since rotted away.
It’s unlikely however that she was wearing very much. Certainly her expensive hood and cloak,
removed before her death, would not have been buried with her. As Hayward explains, given the
value of the fabric and perhaps embellishments on the garments worn by elite execution victims,
their clothes generally went to the executioner, as a kind of perk of the job
and it is highly possible the headsman of Calais, who executed Anne, was allowed her
raiments. Certainly when Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded and all her clothes burnt (to prevent
them from being used as relics), the fact that the executioner and his assistant did not get them
and were instead given a cash bonus was thought unusual enough to be remarked upon.
The alternative in Anne’s case is that her ladies kept the items, having removed her dress and
whatever footwear she had on before burying her, but again this would have been highly irregular
and there’s no reason to suppose it happened. We can say though that it’s quite likely that
Anne went into the ground in just her smock, however there’s no definitive evidence one
way or the other and we could equally argue that given her position as a Queen, or former Queen,
she was spared the indignity of being stripped for burial. In short, we’ll never know.
Now we come to modern onscreen depictions of Anne’s final outfit. I don’t have space to include
every actress who’s ever played her here, but I’ve put together images from eight different shows or
movies which cover her execution so that we can have a look at how her final outfit has been shown
and which production did the best. Apologies for the fact that some of these images are a
little bit blurry. They’re screenshots so I just had to work with what I could find.
Up first we have Merle Oberon from the 1933 movie, The Private Life of Henry VIII. The costume
department here have created an almost exact replica of the dress Anne wears in her famous B
necklace portraits and actually, it’s not bad as a representation of her execution outfit. It’s a
black dress in the appropriate style and she wears a hood, though it’s a French hood rather than an
English one. There is no cloak however and I don’t think this movie showed her with a linen cap or
blindfold either, but I couldn’t watch the whole thing online, so do let me know if I’m wrong.
Next up we have Geneviève Bujold in the 1969 film, Anne of the Thousand Days. The colour
and neckline of the dress are good and it has large sleeves, which is period appropriate.
Ms Bujold does also wear a linen cap, though she has this on before she ascends the scaffold steps.
She never wears a hood however, her cloak is not made of fur and there’s no blindfold.
The movie is brilliant as is her performance and the costume department were generally on fire,
but there are quite a lot of errors and omissions in this particular outfit.
This is Helena Bonham-Carter in the 2003 TV show, Henry VIII.
The most startlingly inaccurate thing here is the colour of the dress, which is pure white.
Presumably this was to highlight Anne’s innocence but it’s completely at odds with the real woman’s
outfit and I found it even stranger because Ms Bonham-Carter was pregnant at the time of filming
and a darker colour would have helped to disguise her bump more. She’s also missing
a cloak. On the upside, the square neck and large skirt on the gown are correct,
as are the cap and blindfold, but the sleeves are too fitted and there’s never a hood.
We now come to Natalie Portman in the 2008 film The Other Boleyn Girl. The sleeves and skirt of
her dress are too fitted for the Tudor era, but otherwise the costumer here did a pretty
great job. Ms Portman wears an English style gable hood (the only actress in our group who does so),
has a dark coloured dress with a low cut back and a short, white, fur cloak over the top.
She has a white coif over her hair, though this is already on under her hood and not put
on on the scaffold and my only other gripe is the lack of a blindfold, but I can understand
that actors like to have the use of their eyes in a scene to communicate with the audience.
Next we have another Natalie, this time being Natalie Dormer in the TV show The Tudors
and I think this particular episode at the end of season 2 also aired in 2008. This show has always
been a guilty pleasure of mine and actually stays far closer to the historical record than a lot of
people give it credit for, but an area in which it was consistently inaccurate was the costumes and
this one is no exception. The colour of the dress is all wrong as Ms Dormer is in a kind of lilac
shade, but the general silhouette isn’t too bad as it has a square neckline, cut low at the back too
and slightly flared sleeves (though this should have been taken further). The cloak
is present and furred which is good, but it’s full length and mainly red, rather than white.
There’s no hood or blindfold, though Ms Dormer’s Anne does put on a coif before the execution.
We now come to Claire Foy in the BBC’s 2015 adaptation of Wolf Hall.
The colour of the dress is good, but the skirt and sleeves are too fitted and I’ve never
understood what happened with her hood here. What she’s wearing is neither a French nor
an English hood, but what looks like a modern hairband with a veil stuck to the back of it.
It’s especially odd as this show had plenty of its cast members wearing period correct hoods.
But anyways, she has a fur trimmed cloak which is good, though it’s full length again instead
of cropped and only the trim is white. Later in the scene she wears both a coif and a blindfold
which is also very good. Finally she’s one of the few actresses who doesn’t have to take off a load
of jewellery before the execution, which is a nice authentic touch because as we’ve already seen,
there’s no evidence that Anne was wearing jewellery immediately before or when she died.
Moving on to the TV show Reign in which Krystin Pellerin plays Anne very briefly in
a dream sequence. This show was renowned for the completely inaccurate costumes it often displayed,
especially in the earlier episodes and though this is nowhere near as bad as some of the other
supposedly 16th century outfits it put its cast members in, it doesn’t have much to recommend
it as a depiction of Anne’s final ensemble. It’s black with a square neckline which is good, but
there’s no cloak, no hood, no coif, no blindfold and the cut of the dress is all wrong for the mid
Tudor era. I am prepared to give this scene a bit of a pass though as it is a dream sequence,
so maybe the sleeping Queen Elizabeth I just imagined her mother in this very odd outfit.
Last but not least we have Jodie Turner-Smith in Channel 5’s Anne Boleyn.
The outfits in this show were actually pretty good as regards the silhouettes,
even if I always felt that Anne should have been more elaborately dressed just to set her apart
from the other ladies at court and the costume department haven’t done a bad job here. The dress
is the correct colour and cut and Ms Turner-Smith did wear a hood, though it was actually a French
hood with a white veil over her face, which wasn’t accurate. There’s no coif over her hair,
but she had a furred cloak, even if it was too long and the blindfold is present. Overall,
this was a pretty decent effort, especially for a show which I don’t think had a big budget.
So what’s my verdict then? Which depiction of Anne’s outfit is the best in my opinion?
Well for me, it’s definitely Natalie Portman’s in The Other Boleyn Girl.
That movie had its problems when it came to historical accuracy but the costume for this scene
wasn’t really one of them. Other than the fitted sleeves and skirt and the lack of a blindfold,
it was very well done and if you’re trying to imagine Anne’s clothes in her final moments,
this is the visual I would advise you to aim for, at least until someone else does it better.
And that my friends, brings us to the end of this study of Anne Boleyn’s final outfit. As always,
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Let me know in the comments below which of the onscreen versions of Anne’s final outfit
you like the best and if you need another Anne Boleyn or fashion history hit right away, try
one of these options next. Whatever you select, please enjoy and until next time, keep learning.