January 25, 1533 - Henry VIII of England secretly marries
Anne Boleyn.
The second wife of
King Henry VIII of England and mother of Queen Elizabeth I.
The events surrounding the annulment of Henry's marriage to his first wife,
Catherine of Aragon, and his marriage to Anne led him to break with the
Roman
Catholic church and brought about the
English Reformation.
Anne's father was
Sir Thomas Boleyn, later Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde.
After spending part of her childhood in France, she returned to England in
1522
and lived at Henry's court and drew many admirers. A desired marriage with
Lord
Henry Percy was prevented on Henry's order by Cardinal Wolsey, and at some
undetermined point the king himself fell in love with her.
In
1527 Henry initiated secret proceedings to obtain an annulment from his
wife, the aging Catherine of Aragon; his ultimate aim was to father a legitimate
male heir to the throne. For six years
Pope Clement VII, under pressure from
Henry's rival Charles V, refused to grant the annulment, but all the while
Henry's passion for Anne was strengthening his determination to rid himself of
his queen. On
January 25, 1533, Henry and Anne were secretly married. She soon became pregnant and, to legalise the first wedding considered to be unlawful at the time, there was a second wedding service, also private in accordance with The Royal Book. The
union was made public on Easter of that year, and on May 23 Henry had the
archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas Cranmer, pronounce the marriage to Catherine
null and void. In September Anne gave birth to a daughter, the future queen
Elizabeth I.
Anne's arrogant behaviour soon made her unpopular at court. Although Henry
lost interest in her and began liaisons with other women, the birth of a son
might have saved the marriage. Anne had a miscarriage in
1534, and in
January
1536 she gave birth to a stillborn male child. On
May 2, 1536, Henry had her
committed to the
Tower of London on a charge of adultery with various men and
even incest with her own brother. She was tried by a court of peers, unanimously
convicted, and beheaded on May 19. On May 30 Henry married Jane Seymour. That
Anne was guilty as charged is unlikely; she was the apparent victim of a
temporary court faction supported by Thomas Cromwell.
January 25, 1648- My tenth great granduncle, George Lawton, is granted 40 acres near his brother Thomas in Portsmouth, Newport, Rhode Island.
January 25, 1680- My seventh great granduncle, Matthias Conard, is born to Thones Kunders & Elin Magadelen Tyson in Krefeld, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
