It’s May 1536. Anne Boleyn has just been beheaded at the tower of London. The crowd falls silent. Onlookers are shocked. Some didn’t believe it would really happen. There’s some hesitant cheering, some applauding. The queens ladies in waiting scream, wail, fall to the ground. One rushes forward and gathers Anne’s head in a white cloth. Others drag her body from the stage. Somewhere a cannon fires. Anne is carted away. She’ll be buried in a shallow, unmarked grave. Meanwhile, as the cannonfire fades away, Henry VIII hops on a barge. His wife’s decapitated body is still warm and yet, he moved on long ago. He has his sights set on another woman, Jane Seymour. By the end of the month, he’ll make her his third wife.

Sources:

• Tudor Times "Why Did Jane Seymour Die In Childbed?"
• The Tudor Society "Christina of Denmark"
• Local Histories "Women in the 16th Century"
• Historic Royal Palaces "Thomas Cromwell"
• Historic Royal Palaces "Catherine Howard"
• English History "Queen Catherine Howard to Master Thomas Culpepper"
• Smithsonian Magazine "The Myth of Bloody Mary"
• Royal Museums Greenwich "Why is Mary I Known as Bloody Mary?"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Elizabeth I Achievements"
• History Extra podcast series "Six Wives"

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