Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

She was England’s first evangelical queen.

THE DAUGHTER of an English earl, Anne Boleyn was born in 1507. She and her older sister, Mary, had the honor of going to France and serving as “children-in-waiting” to the sister of Henry VIII, Mary, who married King Louis XII of France. He died only eighty-two days after the wedding. Anne remained in France as an aide to Queen Claude, the fifteen-year-old wife of twenty-year-old Francis I, the king who succeeded Louis XII.

While ten-year-old Anne was in France, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church. The Reformation quickly spread into France, reaching a number of the nobility. One of the persons with whom Anne became friends was Marguerite d’Angoulême, the sister of Frances I and future queen of Navarre, who became one of the leaders of the French Reformation. Whether it was through Marguerite or someone else, Anne became a devout Christian.

Recalled to England in 1521, Anne became part of King Henry VIII’s court along with her sister, Mary, who became a mistress of the king. Within a year, when Anne was still fifteen, she caught the eye of King Henry VIII who began plotting to marry her. The problem was that he was already married to Catherine of Aragon. Nearing the end of her childbearing years, Catherine had not yet produced the male heir that Henry desperately desired.

When Henry asked Anne to become his mistress, she fell on her knees before him, saying, “I think your majesty, most noble and worthy king, speaketh these words in mirth to prove me, without intent of defiling your princely self, who I find thinks nothing less than of such wickedness which would justly procure the hatred of God and of your good queen against us.”

In 1527 Henry VIII determined to divorce Catherine. Informing Anne of his plan, she agreed to marry him after his divorce. However, in order to obtain a divorce Henry needed the permission of the pope, and negotiations were painfully slow.

Finally in 1532 the archbishop of Canterbury died, and the evangelical Boleyn family was able to get Thomas Cranmer, a convert of the Reformation, selected as the next archbishop. Meanwhile, Cranmer was in Germany consulting the university theologians on Henry’s divorce problems and himself marrying the niece of one of the Lutheran Reformers.

By November 1532, convinced that once Cranmer was archbishop of Canterbury a divorce would be forthcoming, Anne began living with her future husband. By the end of December, she suspected that she was pregnant; and in January Anne and Henry were married secretly, since the king’s divorce from his first wife had not yet been granted.

Thomas Cranmer was installed as archbishop of Canterbury on March 30, 1533. He immediately granted Henry’s divorce, and Parliament severed the ties of the Church of England with Rome, making Henry VIII head of the church.

As queen, Anne was the first to demonstrate how royalty could aid the Reformation. She appointed evangelical bishops and aided the evangelical cause through her carefully chosen personal chaplains, Nicholas Ridley and others. Her personal life demonstrated her faith. Whenever she dined with her husband, she would discuss the Bible with him. She also helped distribute Bibles. As long as she was alive every parish in England was required to have an English Bible in its church. More important, she was a student of the Bible, preferring to read the Bible in French, the language in which she first heard the gospel.

Henry’s affection for Anne faded when during her three years as queen she failed to produce a male heir, giving birth to only a daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I. Having fallen in love with Jane Seymour, the king conspired to have Anne falsely convicted of adultery, and on May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Her last words were: “To Christ I commend my soul, Jesu, receive my soul.”

Reflection

Anne Boleyn was a great Christian, but like King David, she used poor judgment in the area of moral restraint and began living with Henry VIII before they were married. How do you react when a Christian young woman around you becomes pregnant out of wedlock?

[Jesus] said, “All right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!”

John 8:7