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00:00She was our most infamous queen, the second wife of Henry VIII, tried on his
00:18orders for crimes of adultery and treason. Anne Boleyn was led from her
00:25rooms at the Tower of London to her death by an executioner's sword.
00:40This Tudor saga is one of the most familiar tales in English history.
00:48But to really understand Anne's rise and fall, we need to know more about those who helped
00:53shape her. Her tight-knit, cunning and power-hungry family.
01:00The Boleyns are one of the great stories in British history. It is an extraordinary epic
01:08of hubris and pain, the good and the bad kind of ambition.
01:15Every member of the family had a part to play. Thomas Boleyn, the ambitious patriarch. George,
01:26the fearless son. His sisters, Mary, the reluctant mistress. Anne, the calculating courtier. And
01:36their brutal uncle, Thomas Howard. The Tudor public had always been used to stories of tragic falls,
01:45the stories of falls of kings and princes. But even they might not have imagined a fall
01:51as graphic as the fall of the Boleyn family. Based on rare original letters and documents,
01:58the Boleyns will tell this story from their own perspectives. The court could produce no proof
02:05of my incestuous guilt. Other than that I had spent hours in the presence of my own sister.
02:13I will not say your sentence is unjust. My savior has taught me how to die. And he will strengthen
02:20my resolve. The family played a dangerous game and paid the ultimate price. But they left a remarkable
02:32legacy. Changing the course of British history and taking their name from obscurity to the apex of power.
02:50The Boleyns are the most powerful noble family in England. But they are under huge pressure. Unless they
03:11can convince the Pope to approve Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, their plan to make Anne queen
03:18will be in ruins.
03:22Thomas Boleyn must still be feeling very apprehensive because they are in uncharted waters.
03:27Henry could wake up and decide that he doesn't want to marry Anne Boleyn anymore.
03:31And where does that place the Boleyns in a very dangerous position?
03:36They always have relied on Wolsey and Wolsey is now gone.
03:41They have to find alternative routes to an annulment.
03:46And that's really where we see George Boleyn come into his own.
03:51Since Anne has been involved with Henry, her 27-year-old brother George has had a meteoric rise.
04:01From the lowest rungs of the royal court to the very heart of the king's inner circle.
04:07The two siblings are incredibly close.
04:16Perhaps one day you can let me get a word in any way.
04:22Their affection for each other is captured in a remarkable text from the time.
04:28George translates a book of religious writings and in the front writes his sister a dedication.
04:38Besides the perpetual bond of blood that we share, our friendly dealings which have so many and such diverse benefits have bound me to love you in so many different ways.
04:49In every one of them I am powerless and forever in your debt.
04:54George Boleyn talks about how he hasn't sent Anne jewels or he hasn't sent her gold because she has enough of these.
05:01Instead he sent her something for her mind, for her soul, for her spirit.
05:06Tis not jewels or gold whereof you have plenty.
05:11But I have been so bold to present unto you these writings of mine,
05:15which humbly desire of you to overlook the weakness of my dull wit
05:21and instead see the strength of faith that drives them which I know you share.
05:27It speaks absolute volumes for the relationship between these siblings who are so similar to each other and their interests.
05:34And one particular interest was very, very dear to both their hearts.
05:39They were both incredibly interested in religious reform.
05:53England, like most of Europe at this time, is a Catholic country.
05:58The English church is controlled by Rome.
06:01But George and Anne think the absolute power enjoyed by the Pope should be challenged.
06:12It's a belief Anne developed as a teenager in France when she befriended Margaret of Angoulême, the sister of the French king.
06:20Anne Boleyn had discussions with Margaret of Angoulême about religion, about the new reformed ideas, about the corruption of the Catholic church, about the Pope's authority.
06:36She's never going to forget these years.
06:42By 1531, the concept of questioning the Pope, though heretical, is gaining powerful momentum across Europe.
06:49And the Boleyns are determined to capitalize on this new movement for their own gain.
06:59We can see George and Anne becoming increasingly vocal about this usurped authority of the Pope and trying to push Henry into taking control of his church.
07:12Anne had a copy of William Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man.
07:17And this book is such an important text in the early Reformation, incredibly anti-papal.
07:23It speaks about the Pope usurping the king's authority, about the king having the power over the church, not the Pope.
07:31It was a banned book in England.
07:33George and Anne's religious beliefs provide a potential solution for the family.
07:42But not all their relatives see it that way.
07:46Anne Boleyn's uncle, Thomas Howard, is of another generation.
07:50He's increasingly ambivalent about the attacks on the Roman Catholic Church.
07:55For many people at the time, there is a different moment at which they get cold feet at the pace of evangelical change.
08:01Thomas Howard gets cold feet a lot earlier than everyone else does.
08:08But while the family remained divided, Anne does persuade the only man whose opinion really matters.
08:17Anne left this book by William Tyndale for Henry to read.
08:21And when he read it, he did indeed seemingly think, exactly, this is what I've believed all along.
08:26He wanted the church to solve the divorce. The Pope won't let him.
08:32This says kings can do what they want.
08:36But it's not quite that simple.
08:39To succeed, he needs to convince the church in England to switch allegiance from Pope to King,
08:46overturning a millennium of religious tradition.
08:48It's a massive task that will need skill and diplomacy.
08:55He is looking for someone who can break the mould and start again.
09:00And it's interesting that the man who begins to enter the political frame at this point is Thomas Cromwell.
09:06It would have been in the 1520s that Thomas Cromwell first met the Bullins and probably across a crowded room because they weren't in the same social class at all.
09:21At that stage, Thomas Cromwell was a very minor official of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal Wolsey.
09:27Thomas Cromwell's rise at court at this stage is remarkably discreet.
09:34In a very shadowy way, he was a councillor of the king, a member of the royal council.
09:39But who was he? An MP with no particular office at court?
09:45Since the fall of his beloved master Wolsey, Cromwell has quietly been rising in the king's estimation.
09:55And the Boleyns know a potential ally when they see one.
10:00From Anne's point of view, Thomas Cromwell might seem like an answer to a prayer.
10:07He's full of ideas. He is by no means committed to the papacy, on the contrary.
10:12He seems dedicated to the purpose of getting her annulment, and he's no threat.
10:20He comes from a background which is neither noble nor gentry.
10:26Both sides were people of the Reformation.
10:30They wanted to see change in the church.
10:32This is the man they can do business with.
10:42This is the man they can do business with.
10:43In February 1531, George Boleyn gives a speech to an assembly of powerful English church leaders.
10:55Trying to convince them to break with Rome.
10:58It's the biggest moment of his career so far.
11:02And it's Thomas Cromwell who is by his side.
11:05The king's supreme authority as a ruler in his realm is grounded in God's word.
11:14And in no case should it be restrained by any popish laws or traditions.
11:19This is a major appointment for George.
11:22All the leading churchmen of the day.
11:24They're all there and they're all watching him.
11:26He has to make this speech.
11:28And he's there with the weight of the fact that they all know that he's Anne Boleyn's brother.
11:32So it must have been hugely daunting.
11:34It is the king's duty alone to execute the office of spiritual administration in the church of which he, not the Pope, is head.
11:51That's the essence of it, Master Cromwell, is it not?
11:53It is indeed, sir.
11:55I think churchmen at this stage really didn't understand what was happening.
12:00And they could not believe that the king wanted to break with the Holy Father in Rome, the Pope.
12:09But the speech works.
12:12The very next day, the church authorities take the extraordinary step of declaring Henry supreme head of the Church of England.
12:23Henry now has what he wanted, which is to make religious policy himself.
12:28This is a revolution.
12:29This is a king who had always traditionally had power in the secular realm, now claiming that he had power in the ecclesiastical one as well.
12:39And this gives him at last a machinery by which he can pronounce the divorce he wants from Catherine.
12:45It goes far beyond what Wolsey achieved or didn't achieve in relation to the annulment. So they could feel proud about that.
12:54The Boleyns may have bypassed the Pope's authority, but in so doing, they have scandalized most of Catholic Europe.
13:08The family are seen as dangerous iconoclasts, prepared to smash a thousand years of religious tradition to get what they want.
13:23Thomas Boleyn, part of the older generation, isn't quite so radical in his beliefs as his children.
13:28But he's made up his mind to support them, whatever the cost.
13:35We do begin to see a marked shift in Thomas Boleyn's personality and his character.
13:41He is becoming more assertive. He is the father of the future Queen of England.
13:45But also I think we see a frustration. Once Thomas Boleyn is on board with his daughter marrying the king, he pours himself into ensuring that that's going to happen.
13:58And he expects this of everyone else at court, but it's not the case.
14:03There are still quite a lot of Catherine of Aragon supporters and this frustrates him.
14:08Thomas is painfully aware that his family is beginning to make enemies at court.
14:20And much of the vitriol is directed at Anne.
14:26There's always mutterings about anyone who's in power, but it's particularly noticeable about Anne.
14:31And sometimes they take pretty threatening forms.
14:35So there's one story that circulates in this period about Anne finding a drawing within her prayer book.
14:42Come, Nancy, hear a book of prophecy.
14:47This is the king, this the queen, weeping and wringing her hands.
14:52And this is myself, with my head off.
14:55With my head off.
14:58It bodes certain destruction if I'm to marry the king.
15:02In the story, Anne has no idea who is responsible for this drawing.
15:08But one thing is clear.
15:10She now knows how unpopular her family's quest for power has made her.
15:18It's a mere bauble.
15:20I have hope the nation will rejoice and the children I will bear.
15:24And so I'm resolved to have him.
15:26Whatever becomes of me.
15:31Let them grumble.
15:34This is how it will be.
15:37We can see Anne becoming more and more defiant in this period.
15:42She was pushing for her queenship and for her marriage in spite of really, really huge opposition.
15:48Coming from the very, very highest level in Europe, not just in England.
15:53And so she must have felt often as though she was really pushing alone.
15:59The Boleyns desperately need foreign allies.
16:03And so Anne turns to her old friend, France.
16:06Anne Boleyns remains very devoted to France and to her Frenchness.
16:15So she's always favoring the French ambassadors of the English court.
16:21They always converse in French when they see each other.
16:23Anne, of course, has those links with the French court, her connection to Francis the first and to his courtiers and circle, that she can offer Henry as a lure, as a way of engineering this relationship.
16:45Here is Anne saying, yes, of course, I can speak to the French. I know their languages. I know what's doing.
16:53Trust me, we can bring Francis around. And once Francis has recognized me, then Europe will recognize me.
17:00A meeting is organized in Calais between Francis and Henry.
17:08As his mistress, Anne isn't formally invited, but she manages to steal the show anyway.
17:16According to one report, Anne and eight other masked women, including her sister Mary, sneak into the royal banquet and perform a dance.
17:26Only at its climax does she reveal herself to the French king.
17:56And after that, the king took off their visors and then they danced with gentlemen of France an hour after.
18:08He knows who she is. She's removed the mask from her face.
18:13And this is seen as public French approval for a future marriage between Anne and Henry.
18:22And Anne is delighted.
18:23This is a clear message to the world that Francis I is here to support Anne.
18:32Anne is relieved. She finally has the support she needs to become Queen of England.
18:38The meeting at Calais really needed careful organization. Who did it? Thomas Cromwell.
18:47Henry is increasingly reliant on Cromwell to solve his problems. Not least, how best to sell his potential new queen to the public.
18:57The printing presses back in London were churning out a little pamphlet to show the good folk of London what was happening in Calais.
19:08And showing how Anne was dancing with the king of France.
19:12All this is presented to them in a really quite innovative way. Government propaganda sort of dressed up like a tabloid newspaper.
19:21That's Thomas Cromwell's idea.
19:23Anne and Henry now have the confidence to marry in secret.
19:32Probably in 1533.
19:35Certain that Henry's first marriage will soon be annulled.
19:38And shortly afterwards, the English church does just that.
19:47This is still, of course, a deeply contentious and fraught situation.
19:53The Pope hasn't officially sanctioned their relationship.
19:56In fact, he's insisted that Henry separate from Anne.
20:00And the court itself is not wholly unified in accepting the Boleyn marriage.
20:08The pressure and public scrutiny are starting to take their toll on the family.
20:14Even more so when Anne falls pregnant.
20:17One source reveals a heated argument between father and daughter.
20:27Thomas understands, perhaps even more than Anne, how much they are all relying on this baby.
20:35You ought to take it away.
20:37And thank God for the state you find yourself in.
20:40It's your only security, so show it off.
20:43I am in a better condition than you ever wished me to be.
20:48You cannot and will not tell me what to do.
20:55Thomas Belim, he's an experienced diplomat.
20:58He knows that although Anne is married, she's pregnant.
21:02The road ahead is not necessarily free of bumps.
21:05They still haven't really dealt with Catherine of Aragon,
21:08because although her marriage has been officially annulled,
21:11it's only been annulled in England.
21:13And the Pope is still refusing to grant the annulment.
21:15So Thomas Belim, if not Anne, would have been well aware of the dangers that they face.
21:23For now, they put their differences aside.
21:27Despite the risks, they have the most important day in their family's history to enjoy.
21:33The defining moment of 1533 is Anne's coronation.
21:43Anne's parents are in attendance and watching this moment.
21:45It was absolutely the proof that everything they had worked for over the past seven years had been worth it, as far as the Boleyns were concerned, because Anne Boleyn had gone from being a nobody to being crowned Queen of England.
21:59There she is, the star performer, all attention on her, dressed in white, in a chariot, showing herself to the people of England as their queen, and being accepted in a holy place as the anointed wife of a king.
22:17London ran with booze, and it was full of music, full of ceremony.
22:35Well, who was organizing all this? Surprise, surprise, Thomas Cromwell, in every respect. The coronation was his work.
22:45Thomas Cromwell recruited people to write fancy Latin prose, alongside beautiful, splendid pageants.
22:52It must have been a little sick-making to feel that he had done all this for Anne. She had been at the centre of the triumph, and he'd got no credit at all.
23:09The family has finally reached the summit of their ambition. A Boleyn sits on the throne.
23:15In September 1533, Queen Anne goes into labour to deliver the heir that Henry longs for.
23:27But the baby is a girl.
23:32There's no doubt that Elizabeth's sex was disappointing to both her parents.
23:36Although Anne is a fond mother to Elizabeth later on, and clearly devoted to her, she's not the prince that she's promised Henry.
23:47But Henry puts a brave face on it.
23:50He's convinced that with this new marriage, God now does favour him.
23:55There's evidence that Anne is fertile, and that he is himself still potent.
23:59There will be sons to come, he says.
24:01And I think at this point, that is exactly what he thinks.
24:04Catherine of Aragon and many of her allies have been exiled far from court, replaced by Anne's own supporters and relatives.
24:21Anne also takes her sister Mary into the household.
24:25Mary has been a widow now for more than five years.
24:29She has two children to support, and it's a big step up socially for her.
24:36She's now the sister of the Queen, and she's expected to behave in a way befitting the Queen's sister.
24:42But Mary has a secret.
24:45It was a shock to Anne when Mary appeared at court, pregnant, in the summer of 1534.
24:48This is outrageous.
24:49It was a shock to Anne when Mary appeared at court, pregnant, in the summer of 1534.
25:03This is outrageous.
25:06Mary has found love.
25:15She has found a man nine years younger than she is, the handsome young William Stafford, who was a soldier and from a mere gentry family.
25:28And a huge scandal erupts.
25:39This is a household in disorder.
25:41And so, to restore order, Anne has her expelled from court.
25:48You can imagine how hurt Mary's feeling.
25:53She's pregnant and she's been rejected by her sister.
25:56Mary writes to Cromwell, hoping that he will convince Anne to forgive her.
26:06He is now the steward of Anne's household, responsible for the management of its members.
26:12But there's a problem between Anne and Thomas Cromwell.
26:18And the problem is that Anne had decided that she was the greatest enemy of the Cardinal Wolsey.
26:24And during 1529, she was at the head of the party, bringing the Cardinal down.
26:30Anne had destroyed his beloved master.
26:34And that was something that I don't think Thomas Cromwell ever forgot.
26:39Perhaps the Boleyns have been too hasty, throwing their lot in with Thomas Cromwell.
26:46And now Mary is going behind Anne's back to a man with no loyalty to her sister.
26:52We acknowledge our fault. That we were wrong to be so hasty and bold without their knowledge.
27:00But one thing, consider this.
27:04He was young. And love overcame reason.
27:08And for my part, I saw so much honesty in him that I loved him as well as he did me.
27:14And I'd rather beg for my bread with him than to be the greatest queen in Christendom.
27:19She can't resist pointing out.
27:23Look, the world has been showing me no interest.
27:28I am nothing to the world.
27:30And yet this man, this man William Stafford, I'm everything to him.
27:35And so, good master secretary, please appeal to the King's mercy on our behalf.
27:40That he, knowing what it is to follow one's heart truly, will take pity on us.
27:46Or if you are able, speak to the Queen.
27:49For so far as I can perceive, she is so highly displeased.
27:51We are never like to recover her grace's favor.
27:55Which is too heavy to bear.
27:56Seeing as there is no remedy, for God's sakes, help us, Mary Berlin.
28:09There's no evidence that Cromwell ever helps Mary in her plight.
28:14He has his own career to worry about.
28:21It's really what you might call amorphous the way in which Thomas Cromwell's influence spread.
28:28And I suspect we can't see it because it was entirely played out in terms of his access to the King.
28:35How many hours he spent with the King, rather than how many hours Thomas Howard did for Thomas Bullen.
28:42And suddenly, Thomas Howard, Thomas Bullen would realize they weren't there as much.
28:48George Bullen really wasn't figuring any more now.
28:51He's on the edge.
28:53As Thomas Cromwell is just everywhere.
28:55It was all very subtle, very graded, and with no official announcements attached.
29:04The Bullen family has become splintered, isolated, and less able to exert influence.
29:12Anne is at court with her brother.
29:15Her sister has been exiled.
29:17And her father and mother have retired to their home in Kent.
29:23Thomas Bullen withdraws to Hever Castle and begins to play a much more local role as a magnate.
29:29Is perhaps recognizing the dangers of being at court.
29:32He's done what he needed to do in dynastic terms.
29:35He's established his family.
29:37At court, it's a losing gamble to stay there.
29:40Having got what he wanted, moving to Hever was a very sensible policy.
29:44Get out of the way. You've got what you want now.
29:49By 1534, Anne is feeling acutely vulnerable.
29:53And she knows that most of Catholic Europe still don't recognize her as the rightful queen.
29:58Once more, she looks to France for help in bolstering her position.
30:09She wants to arrange a betrothal between her one-year-old daughter Elizabeth and the son of the French king.
30:16It would be a sign to the outside world that Francis considered Elizabeth to be legitimate and the marriage to be valid.
30:26And Anne is obviously hopeful that Francis will agree to this.
30:29After all, it was through his recognition of her that she went ahead with the relationship with Henry.
30:37Anne attempts to charm the French ambassadors as she has always done before.
30:47But she misjudges the situation.
30:50The king of France gets cold feet.
30:53It doesn't recognize the union because, let's face it, at that time in Europe, the Catholics didn't recognize the union of Henry the Youth with Anne Boleyn.
31:08Anne Boleyn is the mistress.
31:10The queen remains Catherine of Arrogant.
31:17Anne is completely devastated.
31:20She realizes that she's now left alone, like she has no one else in Europe to support her.
31:27She's rejected.
31:28The French visit comes at the end of a really awful year for Anne Boleyn.
31:39You can't dress it up any other way.
31:41She falls out with her sister and exiles her from court.
31:45Support for her is falling away.
31:47She hasn't given the king a son.
31:49And we can see this in Anne's psychology.
31:51She seems to get more anxious, more difficult to live with, if you like.
31:56And then she falls out with her uncle, Thomas Howard.
32:02Thomas Howard and his niece have never fully seen eye to eye.
32:07Now, in her desperation, Anne lashes out at him.
32:12And in reports from the time, it's clear he isn't prepared to accept her rebukes.
32:21The Queen Anne heaps more injuries on me than on a dog.
32:23So much so that I was obliged to quit the royal chamber before I beat her head until it resembled a baked apple.
32:30The Great Whore.
32:32The Grand Putain blames me for the perfidies of the French.
32:37Her own father has always counseled her thus.
32:40Even her incompetent brother can see they have played us for fools.
32:44But it's me that must be scolded for her blindness.
32:47Thomas Howard had always been cognizant, he had always been vocal about the risks of Anne marrying into the royal family.
32:59He had said that there were going to be trials and tribulations ahead.
33:01And now it looks as if Anne is stunned and surprised that these tribulations are coming to her from the form of a notoriously unreliable ally in the form of France.
33:13The relationship between Thomas Howard and Queen Anne is reaching an adhere.
33:17It is defined by mutual loathing and equally vibrant mistrust between the two.
33:26Anne has alienated her influential uncle and been abandoned by her closest allies.
33:33But just as she reaches rock bottom, fortune seems to change.
33:37She learns of the death of her greatest rival, Catherine of Aragon.
33:49Anne views Catherine's death as fantastic news.
33:53Finally, she's the only queen in England.
33:56She's the only person who's Henry's wife.
33:58Nobody else can claim this.
34:01This is a real high in Anne's life.
34:02Because not only has her rival finally died, but she's also pregnant.
34:11But just a few weeks later, on the day of Catherine of Aragon's funeral, everything goes wrong and Anne Boleyn miscarries her baby.
34:22We know that it's a boy, that it's probably around 13 weeks.
34:28It must have been horrendous for her.
34:36Anne feels not only that her child has slipped away, but the things are slipping away for her too.
34:43The son that she could have delivered to Henry and vindicated her whole career and her role as queen was taken away.
34:50Again, psychologically very damaging.
34:52Henry is not very good when people fail him.
34:55Henry is not very good when people fail him.
34:58Her failure leads Henry to question the marriage.
35:03If God had thought that it was legitimate, why was he denying Henry and Anne the male child that they both wanted and needed?
35:13So Henry was distressed, he was having arguments with Anne, and it was at that point that Anne's enemies begin to move in.
35:27Anne has been through a lot at this stage.
35:29I don't think perhaps she's recovered from the very traumatic miscarriage that she has had, and she's increasingly concerned by the fact that the king isn't paying her as much attention in the marriage bed.
35:43The person that Henry is distracted by at that point is that demure, quiet, blonde, light-haired, light-eyed, shy girl, Jane Seymour.
35:59Jane is being very carefully trained.
36:17She's come to the court with her two brothers, and they're very much the people calling the shots behind her.
36:25They're yet another Tudor family of hopeful, aristocratic lineage who have come to court to make their mark.
36:37The Seymours were a family whom Cromwell had known since the days of Thomas Wolsey, and Thomas Cromwell was their friend.
36:46As it became apparent that the king wanted to be close to Jane, well, Cromwell vacated his rooms at court for that to happen.
36:57And Jane was instructed how to act in front of the king, which was basically to repeat the Anne Boleyn trick of refusing to allow the king to sleep with her until she had a promise of marriage.
37:11What really tips the balance against Anne is the decision of Thomas Cromwell to work against her.
37:22Thomas Cromwell seems to have been determined to bring down the whole of the Boleyn crew.
37:28Maybe he was anxious that Anne would make a faction that could disturb him or threaten him.
37:37He needed, as it were, to cut out the Boleyns like a poison.
37:43Perhaps Anne senses the impending danger to her and her family.
37:48Her father, Thomas, is now rarely at court to advise her.
37:55Certainly court is something of a young man's game.
37:58And I think that Thomas Boleyn had begun to tire of the endless factional battles and the intrigues.
38:04Perhaps he was feeling his age and he just chose to move away from court and focus on his role as Lord Privy Seal and, of course, on the County of Kent and all of the landowners who so relied on him.
38:14But back at court, records provide evidence that around this time, Anne's behaviour starts to become erratic.
38:29Why do you look so sad?
38:30There is a very real sense for Anne here that everything is slipping away.
38:34There's a strangeness to her behaviour at this time.
38:37She has these flirtatious and then admonishments of men in her chamber.
38:44What is it? Why are you moving?
38:46We can see rumours of the flirtatiousness of Anne Boleyn's household starting to leak out and it being commented upon.
38:53She is friendly with a young musician, Mark Smeaton, who is very much beneath her own status.
39:00He is perhaps in love with her.
39:02And also, she is friendly with Henry Norris, who has always been a good Boleyn friend and is close to the King.
39:08You've been keeping Madge in suspense far too long. Surely it's time now to ask for her hand?
39:13I think I shall wait a while longer.
39:16You're looking for dead man's shoes then? For if anything were to before the King, you would look to replace him and have me?
39:21You can almost feel the tension at court in April 1536. The sources are crackling with this tension and we can imagine what Anne's mental state is like.
39:36She goes between such great highs and great lows. She's clearly anxious, trying to put on a brave face, trying to put on a show of confidence and queenship.
39:45And she's still fighting. She certainly isn't down. But she's no longer secure in Henry's affection and Henry's love.
39:56And she knows full well he can bring her down as quickly as he has raised her.
40:01On the 2nd of May 1536, Anne's worst fears are realized. And it's a member of her own family who delivers the Boleyn.
40:19Thomas Howard is the one who arrests his niece. That responsibility is technically his. Yes, he is asked to do it because he's the Duke of Norfolk, because he's Earl Marshall, because it falls in the purview of the roles he holds.
40:36Yet it's still a shuddering, unnatural moment to see an uncle arrest a niece.
40:57He makes sure to ostentatiously tut, tut, tut at her. And this rings as the actions of someone petty, grandstanding. It's the actions really of a bully.
41:18We can only imagine Anne's mental state when she arrives at the tower.
41:33She's so confused. And she's clearly looking around to try and find a reason for why she might be held.
41:52She refers to members of her family. She talks about her mother dying of grief.
41:57And most poignantly, she asks, where is my sweet brother?
42:03And she wants to know what is happening to George and is he all right?
42:09And George Boleyn is very much not all right.
42:12George has also been arrested and brought to the Tower of London, along with several other male courtiers.
42:33They, and Anne, are set to be tried publicly at Westminster, with a very familiar face presiding over the trial.
42:45Queen Anne has been the wife of Henry VIII for three years. She has despised her marriage and entertained malice against the King in that time.
42:58In following her carnal lust, she did procure various of the King's servants to be her adulterers, by base conversations and kisses, touching gifts and other vile provocations.
43:11Anne Boleyn is charged with having an adulterous affair with Henry Norris, Francis Weston, another of the King's gentlemen, William Brereton and finally Mark Smeaton, the young musician that she'd found standing looking longingly in her chamber window.
43:27Anne, like many others, was playing the game of courtly love with the men around her privy chamber and in the court.
43:39That means she is rife for gossip. And there can be stories told that she is playing with these men and in fact sleeping with these men.
43:52There was now evidence, very, very dubious evidence, that Anne had been committing adultery.
44:00And that's the sort of thing which Thomas Cromwell would realise could be fed into the ear of the King to see what would happen.
44:07He had the chance to start poisoning the King's already shaky confidence in his wife.
44:15So where a mature, sensible King, in full control of his faculties, would have said, don't be stupid, it's just gossip.
44:24Now Henry, in his paranoid, schizophrenic rage, looks at those men who knelt before the Queen and told her they love her and thought,
44:34yeah, I just missed, how did I miss that? She is obviously a whore.
44:39I bet she had sex with a hundred men, he said.
44:44You know, so it's his insane fury that drives this.
44:52But it's not just Anne who must be brought down.
44:57George Boleyn, brother of the Queen, must also be eliminated.
45:03There's no question of leaving him around.
45:07They were so close, they were brother and sister.
45:10So how can you destroy George so utterly and completely alongside Anne?
45:16Also several times at Westminster, the Queen incited her own natural brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, gentleman of the Privy Chamber, to violate her.
45:27Alluring him with her tongue in his mouth and his tongue inside hers, whereby he carnally knew the said Queen, his own sister.
45:38It's such an outrageous accusation.
45:42At one level, one should think, well, it's just laughable.
45:46But another, it's, it's so deeply hurtful to her and to him.
45:53Nobody really believes the charges against George Boleyn.
45:58He put up such a good defence at his trial that people were actually wagering while it was going on that he would be acquitted.
46:04The court could produce no proof of my incestuous guilt, other than that I had spent hours in the presence of my own sister.
46:16Then a further charge was shown to me, in writing, with warning to read it and not speak it.
46:23There's one moment where he's given a piece of paper which lists some of the accusations against him.
46:31And Cromwell explicitly tells him not to read them out aloud because they're insults to the King.
46:37George doesn't care.
46:39He reads them out in front of the thousand plus audience.
46:44I addressed it to the assembly.
46:48That the King was not adept at copulation.
46:52That he had not the virtue nor the power to.
46:59There you are.
47:04They said I knew of it from my sister.
47:10That it was our joke we shared around court.
47:14This is what really sealed George's fate.
47:18The fact that he has read this hugely embarrassing accusation out so that everyone can hear.
47:26He's embarrassed the King.
47:27But embarrassment isn't a capital crime.
47:33And neither, in most cases, is adultery.
47:39In order to eliminate the Boleyns permanently, Cromwell needs a clear-cut treason charge.
47:46You're looking for dead man's shoes then?
47:49Or if anything were to befall the King, you would look to replace him and have me?
47:53Essentially what Anne had said here is, when the King dies, you'd look to have me.
48:01You want her to marry me.
48:03Anne here has admitted to imagining the King's death.
48:07Now, there is no doubt in my mind that Anne is not plotting the King's death here.
48:13She is engaging in that art of chivalry, but she's overstepped the mark.
48:18She's been reckless.
48:19Because you have offended our sovereign, and the King's grace, in committing treason against his person, you have deserved death.
48:42You deserve death.
48:45And death is your judgement.
48:53It has taken four decades for the Boleyns to reach the height of their ambitions.
48:59And all but two weeks to bring them down.
49:05Anne, George, and her supposed lovers are all sentenced to death.
49:09George will be the first to die on the 17th of May, 1536.
49:13There is a falcon carving in the Tower of London, and it is, of course, Anne Boleyn's falcon.
49:24It's the butler falcon. It's her grandfather's falcon.
49:26And it's been carved into the stone, and it has no crown.
49:30It's more than likely that George Boleyn carved this falcon.
49:35It feels to me that it's a poignant mark of respect to the family to whom he had been so dedicated.
49:42George is beheaded only a few yards from where his sister is imprisoned in the Tower, awaiting her own fate.
49:58Anne's execution is scheduled for two days later.
50:04But she maintains her innocence until the very end.
50:07I have ever been a faithful wife to the King.
50:16Though I do not say I have always shown him that humility which his goodness to me merited.
50:23Or appreciated the honors to which he raised me.
50:25I have had jealous suspicions of him, which I did not have discretion or wisdom enough to conceal.
50:37That I have not sinned against him in any other way.
50:44Don't imagine I say this in the hope of prolonging my life.
50:48My Saviour has taught me how to die.
50:51And he will strengthen my resolve.
50:59The Tudor public had always been used to stories of tragic falls.
51:04The stories of falls of kings and princes.
51:07But even they might not have imagined a fall as graphic as the fall of the Boleyn family.
51:20The Tudor public had always been used to.
51:24Anne Boleyn is beheaded on the 19th of May, 1536.
51:31Her parents, Thomas and Elizabeth, don't attend the executions of their son and daughter.
51:37They remain out of sight at the family home in Kent.
51:41I don't think that Thomas Boleyn is a martyr by temperament.
51:50And I think he realizes that there is no way of saving the children.
51:57And so it would be an act of suicide, martyrdom, if he went down with them.
52:01Thomas does return to court.
52:18Indeed, we know he's present at the christening of Jane Seymour's son, Edward.
52:23This is usually used as evidence of Thomas being ruthless, as moving on and clambering up the ladder again.
52:35But he doesn't really have a choice at this point.
52:39This is Thomas' world and he has to get on with it.
52:44At Edward's christening in October 1537, the Lady Elizabeth, no longer the Princess Elizabeth, was at the ceremony as well.
52:58But we don't know if she greeted her grandfather or if she recognized him.
53:03And it's very probable that he was just a man in the crowd.
53:07This was going to be pretty much the last time she ever saw him.
53:11The Boleyn family has been shattered into pieces.
53:22So has the alliance between the Boleyns and the Howards.
53:27Understandably, there isn't a particularly close relationship after 1536.
53:33The sheer horror of what Thomas Howard had presided over precludes any chance of a meaningful rapprochement.
53:39Thomas Howard in the future does what Thomas Howard does best.
53:46He carries out the government's heavy work.
53:48There's an extraordinary letter he writes saying that every fault of the last 20 years were the result of his enemies and the relatives who didn't appreciate him enough.
53:58So until the very end, this is a man who is almost allergic to the concept of personal responsibility for his faults.
54:06Thomas Boleyn will never forgive his brother-in-law.
54:12But he does extend forgiveness to another member of the family.
54:16His only surviving child, Mary.
54:18Whatever quarrels or differences she had had with George or with Anne, they must now all surely have been forgotten.
54:28The good thing was that she became reconciled with her father.
54:32And so, it seems, things have turned full circle for Mary Boleyn.
54:39Although, unlike Anne, she was never one of the greatest queens in Christendom, she was a survivor.
54:47She had not only children, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
54:56This long, long line stretching into the future, she also has a queen.
55:02Our current queen, Elizabeth II, who is Mary Boleyn's direct descendant.
55:09Anne also has a daughter who will go on to shape the future of England.
55:29Queen Elizabeth I takes England's throne 22 years after the execution of her mother, Anne, and her uncle, George.
55:42In 1578, the queen visits Norwich Cathedral, near the home of her Boleyn ancestors.
55:50There, she has a throne placed, directly opposite the Boleyn family tomb.
55:55It's a poignant visit, in the sense that Elizabeth had always closely aligned herself with her father, Henry VIII, and her Tudor lineage.
56:08She had shied away from her mother, Anne Boleyn, and her Boleyn heritage.
56:16And yet, here she is, in Norwich Cathedral, which looms so large in the lives of her Boleyn relatives.
56:23She couldn't really talk about them openly.
56:28She couldn't talk about her mother because of the disgrace on her mother's name.
56:33Her mother had died a traitor.
56:36But by sitting there, facing her ancestors, she was daring people to say any more ill of the dead.
56:45Her dead.
56:46Elizabeth, in entering that space, must have been overwhelmed with emotion.
56:55She must have felt the weight of history of her family on her shoulders.
56:59And we have evidence that Elizabeth is moved to tears, that she has water standing in her eyes.
57:09And so this clearly is a very moving and spiritual experience for her.
57:14What does the Boleyn story mean when you stand back from it?
57:26It's the story of how any landed family in Plantagenet and then Tudor England might rise to the top.
57:35This story would have gone nowhere if it had not been for Anne.
57:41And she left an heir to the Tudor dynasty, who happened also to be quite exceptional,
57:48with her mother's intelligence and her father's personality.
57:52The Boleyns definitely changed the course of English history through love, through passion, through talent.
58:05The poet Thomas Wyatt writes a poem about how there is always thunder rolling around the throne.
58:11And that's a fantastic image, that the most troubled space is the space nearest to the throne.
58:20And that's the circle in which the Boleyns had made the mistake of stepping into.
58:25These bloody days have broken my heart.
58:28My youth, my lust, they both depart.
58:31And all my blind ambitions gone.
58:36The fall is grievous.
58:37Those who turn from fortune's peak will quickly learn.
58:41As thunder rolls around the throne.
58:52The story of a teenage princess and the man who would win her heart.
58:57The young Victoria streaming on BBC iPlayer.
59:00Out from Joan of Arc to Genghis Khan.
59:02Know your history with your Dead to Me podcast.
59:05That's on the BBC Sounds app.
59:07The Problem in one news.
59:10It's a great day.
59:12Stimple Watchers and our vipid dip.
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59:19The mission ofanalysis has had sweetness based on filme Θ or Persu Chambers off as a guest.
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