To celebrate the upcoming release (April 9, 2013) of Susan Bordo’s The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen, I will be giving away five copies! I am also very excited to share with you this blog-post written by Susan and based on material from the book.
Conditions of Entry
For your chance to win a copy of The Creation of Anne Boleyn you must be subscribed to On the Tudor Trail’s newsletter (if you are not already, sign up on our homepage).
Then simply leave a comment after Susan’s guest post, ‘At the Scaffold’, between now and April 14, 2013.
Thanks to the generosity of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in New York, this giveaway is open worldwide!
Don’t forget to leave your name and a contact email.
Good luck!
At the Scaffold by Susan Bordo
Despite her proclaimed readiness to die, until very near the end Anne still harbored the belief that Henry might pardon her. It was not an unreasonable expectation. Not only had no British queen up until then been executed, but the last-minute rescue of the condemned queen was a centerpiece of the romance of chivalry, which was still being avidly consumed at court via Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. In the Arthurian legend, Guinevere is condemned to death twice for treason (the second time for adultery with Lancelot) and both times is saved from the stake by Lancelot—with King Arthur’s blessings. Arthur had, in fact, suspected the queen’s infidelity for years, but because of his love for her and for Lancelot, had kept his suspicions a secret. When Modred and Aggravane, plotting their own coup d’etat, told the King about it, he had no choice but to condemn his queen, while privately hoping she would be rescued.
It was a romantic fantasy—but one which Henry and Anne had grown up with, and which no doubt shaped their ideas about love. The Arthurian romance, even today, has the power to move us. And in 1536, many of the outward trappings and habits of courtly love still existed. Henry was himself an adroit and seductively tender courtier, who at the beginning of his courtship of Anne had written seventeen letters in which he pledged himself her “servant” and swore his constancy. The pledges may (or may not) have been made manipulatively, but his infatuation was real and the gestures were convincing. Why wouldn’t Anne, who Henry had in fact been honored like Guinevere for six years, cherish the hope that she, too, would be rescued from death?
Henry had no such plans in mind, however. As Anne prepared for her death, Henry was spending much of his time at Chelsea, visiting Jane Seymour and making plans for their wedding. Chapuys describes the king as showing “extravagant joy” at Anne’s arrest. Convinced (or making a great show for posterity) that Anne was an “accursed whore” who had slept with hundreds of men, he was “very impatient” and wishing to have the thing done with “already.” Ironically, Anne, on her part, felt the same way. Expecting to die on the 18th, she took the sacrament at 2 a.m., having prepared her soul for many hours. By now all who were in close contact with her must have been convinced of her innocence, whatever their politics. She had insisted that Kingston be present when she took confession, so her assertion of innocence of the charges would be public record. Even her old enemy Chapuys was impressed by the fact that Anne, before and after receiving the Sacrament, affirmed to those who had charge of her “on damnation of her soul, that she had never offended with her body against the King.” In the 16th century, to speak anything other than the truth at such a time would be to invite the utter condemnation of God. Anne had nothing to gain and her salvation to lose by lying.
She was prepared to die. Yet, cruelly, the execution was delayed twice, once in order to clear the Tower of possible sympathetic observers, the second time because the executioner had been delayed. The first delay dismayed Anne, who thought that at the newly appointed hour she would already “be dead and past my pain.” Kingston, who seems to have been an absurdly literal man, took her to be referring to the physical pain of the execution itself, and reassured her that “there would be no pain, it was so subtle.” Anne replied with her most famous line: “I have heard say the executioner is very good, and I have a little neck.” And then, according to Kingston, “she put her hand around [her neck], laughing heartily.” Kingston flat-footedly interpreted this to mean that Anne had “much joy and pleasure in death.” He apparently did not “get” Anne’s irony, or the fact that at this point, she was probably becoming a bit unhinged. At the news of the second delay, she was distraught. But “It was not that she desired death,” as she told Kingston (or perhaps one of the ladies, who then told him) “but she had thought herself prepared to die, and feared that the delay would weaken her resolve. “ So much for Kingston’s theory that Anne felt “joy and pleasure” at the prospect of death.
What she may have felt was something closer to what James Hillman describes as the state of mind that often precedes an attempt at suicide: a desperate desire to shed an old self whose suffering had become unbearable, and thus be “reborn” in the act of dying. This imagined rebirth, for Hillman, has nothing to do with belief in reincarnation, or even in heaven, but the perception, ironically, that the soul cannot survive under existing conditions. What Anne had been through was certainly enough to shatter any hold her previous life may have exerted on her. She had been discarded by the man who had pursued her for six years, fathered her daughter, and seemingly adored her for much of their time together. The person she was closest to in the world—her brother George—had been executed on the most hideous and shameful of charges. The rest of her family, as far as we can tell, had either abandoned her or—as Anne believed of her mother–was awash with despair and grief over what was happening. Still recovering from a miscarriage, her body and mind undoubtedly assaulted by hormonal changes and unstable moods, she had been sent to prison on absurd, concocted charges, and “cared for” there by women who were hostile spies. She knew she would never see her daughter Elizabeth again, and—unlike the fictional Anne of Anne of the Thousand Days, who predicts that “Elizabeth will be queen!”—had no hope, after Cranmer’s visit, that her child would ever be anything more than she had seen Mary reduced to: a bastardized ex-princess forced to bow down to any children the new wife might produce for Henry. She had been given reason to hope that she would be allowed to live, only to have those hopes crushed at her sentencing. In a sense, she had already been through dozens of dyings. Nothing was left but the withered skin of her old life, which she was ready to shed.
As she mounted the scaffold, wearing a role of dark damask (black in some reports, grey in others) trimmed with white fur, with a red kirtle (petticoat) underneath—red being the liturgical color of Catholic martyrdom—political and national affiliations continued, as they had through her reign and would for centuries to come–to shape the descriptions of her appearance and behavior. To an author of the Spanish Chronicle, she exhibited “a devilish spirit.” A Portugese witness who had snuck in despite the ban on “strangers”, wrote that “never had she looked so beautiful.” An imperialist observer described her as “feeble and stupefied” (which would be understandable, and not incompatible with her looking beautiful as well.) Wriothesley says she showed “a goodly smiling countenance.” French de Carles commented on the beauty of her complexion, pure and clear as though cleansed by all the suffering. For all, the spectacle of a queen, wearing the white ermine of her role, mounting the stairs to the scaffold, was unnerving.
Unlike her trial speech and her “last letter,” Anne’s remarks on the scaffold made the more conventional bows to the goodness and mercy of the King—in this highly public context, it was virtually required, if only to prevent any retribution against surviving relatives—and asked the people to pray for her. She did not admit to guilt for the offenses with which she was charged or accuse the judges of malice, but did make reference to the “cruel law of the land by which I die.” By now, the four young ladies who had accompanied her to the scaffold (clearly not the hostile spies that had lived with her in the Tower, but others, more intimate with her, who she had been allowed to have with her in these last moments) were weeping. Anne, having helped them take off her robe—an act that in itself must have demanded great composure and courage—“appeared dazed” as he kneeled down, modestly covering her feet with her dress, and asked the executioner to remove her coif, lest it interfere with his stroke. The executioner realized that she was afraid of the pain of an impeded blow; she kept looking around her, her hand on her coif, anticipating the moment. Clearly “distressed” at the task he was to perform, he told her that he would wait until she gave the signal. “With a fervent spirit” she began to pray, and the Portuguese contingent, unable to bear it, huddled together and knelt down against the scaffold, wailing loudly.
Anne gave the signal. But either the executioner or someone else in charge had devised a scheme to distract Anne at the last moment, so the fatal blow would come when she wasn’t expecting it; he turned toward the scaffold steps and called for the sword, and when Anne blindly turned her head in that direction, he brought the sword down from the other side and swiftly “divided her neck at a blow.” As these things went—others had died only after multiple clumsy hackings—it was an easy death: if the naturalist Lewis Thomas has it right, it was far easier than her weeks of suffering in the Tower: “Pain, “ he writes, is useful for avoidance, for getting away when there’s time to get away, but when it is end game, and no way back, pain is likely to be turned off, and the mechanisms for this are wonderfully precise and quick. If I had to design an ecosystem in which creatures had to live off each other and in which dying was an indispensible part of living, I could not think of a better way to manage.” He quotes Montaigne, who nearly died in a riding accident and later described the “letting go” that he experienced at what could have easily been the very end:
“It was an idea that was only floating on the surface of my soul, as delicate and feeble as all the rest, but in truth not only free from distress but mingled with that sweet feeling that people have who have let themselves slide into sleep. I believe this is the same state in which people find themselves whom we see fainting in the agony of death, and maintain that we pity them without cause…If you know not how to die, never trouble yourself; Nature will in a moment fully and sufficiently instruct you; she will exactly do that business for you; take you no care with it”
While I was in London, conducting interviews for this book and visiting sites of importance, I had an experience that reminded me of Lewis’s essay. Returning to my hotel from a day-long visit to the Tower, I was obediently following the crowd across a busy intersection when I heard a voice call out “Watch Out!” and, struck on my lower back, was knocked to the ground. The impact was forceful and disorienting; I had no idea what had happened. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw the red of a London bus. “I’m about to be run over by a bus!” I thought, disbelieving but sure; it seemed impossible, on my innocent little research trip, that I should die in this arbitrary, unexpected way, but that was clearly what was about to happen. I tried to lift myself up, and realized that although I was hurt, I wasn’t about to be crushed, for I’d been hit not by the bus I’d seen out of the corner of my eye, but by an impatient bicyclist; the bus had slowed to a stop by the time I was on the ground.
I was bleeding from a bad scrape on my arm, and sharp darts of pain in my back and side accompanied every breath, in a way that I recognized from a hair-line rib fracture I’d once received in an auto accident. I suppose I ought to have gone to the hospital just to be sure everything was okay, but I didn’t. And eventually, everything did heal. The only injury that remained was existential: the memory of that moment when I was sure that I was about to be extinguished, just like that, without warning. I had felt terror, yes, but then, when the fatal blow seemed inevitable, an eerie calm overcame me. It seemed useless to struggle—a feeling that I had never before experienced, in a life devoted to making things happen, protecting myself and those I love, and constantly moving forward. For a moment, when I thought I was about to be struck by that bus, I relaxed into the unfamiliar sense of “letting go.” It was only for an instant, and then, when I realized that the bus had stopped and escape from the traffic was still possible, the self-protective fear returned and I scrambled to my feet, and hobbled across the street to the sidewalk where my husband was standing, looking alarmed.
Dostoevsky, too, had experienced a close brush with death—by the Czar’s firing squad, a sentence from which he was reprieved at the last moment—and fictionalizes his experience through a character in The Idiot. His account, though very different from Montaigne’s or mine, nonetheless describes a radically altered state of consciousness, not characterized by pain but a sense of the infinity of time, stretching his final moments into an extended reflection culminating in the sense of impending re-birth into the “new self” that James Hillman describes:
“About twenty paces from the scaffold, where he had stood to hear the sentence, were three posts, fixed in the ground, to which to fasten the criminals (of whom there were several). The first three criminals were taken to the posts, dressed in long white tunics, with white caps drawn over their faces, so that they could not see the rifles pointed at them. Then a group of soldiers took their stand opposite to each post. My friend was the eighth on the list, and therefore he would have been among the third lot to go up. A priest went about among them with a cross: and there was about five minutes of time left for him to live.
He said that those five minutes seemed to him to be a most interminable period, an enormous wealth of time; he seemed to be living, in these minutes, so many lives that there was no need as yet to think of that last moment, so that he made several arrangements, dividing up the time into portions–one for saying farewell to his companions, two minutes for that; then a couple more for thinking over his own life and career and all about himself; and another minute for a last look around. He remembered having divided his time like this quite well. While saying good- bye to his friends he recollected asking one of them some very usual everyday question, and being much interested in the answer. Then having bade farewell, he embarked upon those two minutes which he had allotted to looking into himself; he knew beforehand what he was going to think about. He wished to put it to himself as quickly and clearly as possible, that here was he, a living, thinking man, and that in three minutes he would be nobody; or if somebody or something, then what and where? He thought he would decide this question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way off there stood a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them.”
Anne’s preparations for dying, facing the inevitability of her execution, may also have been filled with internal good-byes, existential confrontation with the mystery of “being” and “nothingness”, and imaginings of becoming one with nature. I like to think of her final hours as immensely rich, in a way that I cannot comprehend but that were sustaining to her, even beyond her more conventional—but extremely deep, for Anne—religious faith. And then, at the end, I hope that nature or God (it makes no difference), gave her no more to figure out, no more to regret, no more to say good-bye to, no more work to do, and took care of her dying.
Find out more about the book and the author here.
Love the article and I can’t wait to read the book!
She has always fascinated me!!
Brenda Carroll
skyelass@gmail.com
Looking forward with great anticipation to reading this book whether I win or not 🙂
Awesome post, I can’t wait to read The Creation of Anne Boleyn!
Susan Bordo here, with huge thanks for all these great responses so far, and
also reminding readers in the UK that for legal reasons (an upcoming British
edition) the book is most easily available, free shipping, at The Book
Depository and many sites other than Amazon UK. (US, French, Italian and
other Amazons are just fine to order from, too.) I send warm hugs to Natalie
and her fans, and good luck to all in the drawing for the book!…Susan.
Love these stories and theories!
Can not wait to read.
i cant wait to read this book. Sounds very interesting.
What a great article! I read it twice just to ensure I didn’t miss anything the first time 🙂
What a wonderful book to come for an amazing woman who was indeed ahead of her time. Looking forward to sharing this with my sister.
Interesting – I never would have thought to reference Le Morte d’Arthur as an influence on Anne and Henry, but of course it must have been part of their awareness at the time. I have to re-read it now…Also, looking forward to reading your book, Susan!
Love this era and how you bring it to life. Thank you!!
It’s true, everyone sees Anne Boleyn differently. I truly look forward to fully reading this. Based on the article, I think this author’s take on her is more in line with mine, which sounds exciting.
Thank you so much for this wonderful post. I devoir any new work about Henry’ wives. A truly remarkable collection of women.I am poorly at the moment, and my guilty pleasure is factual history, and not only reading this site, but books on the subject makes being poorly easier to deal with. Thanks got all the hard work that goes into the site.
I think Anne must have lived in fear after she married Henry and even after Elizabeth was born. After all she could be replaced as easily as Catherine was. I don’t believe that she was as bad as many reports give. I think being a strong willed woman she did whatever she had to in order to keep what she had and to protect the future of her daughter. I am so happy to have found this site. It gives me much relief that I can find out as much information as I can digest about the Tudors. I have been fascinated with them and their lives for years. I would so love to have this book to add to my slowly growing library.
..Amazing that Elizabeth I, Anne’s daughter became one of the most revered queens in Englands history, despite her own quirks.. 🙂
This book looks interesting! I love reading new insight on anything Tudor!
So excited to read this book. Lokkig forward to gettig it!
I’ve always had a thing for history and this blog just fuels it even more.thank you for making this so all can read
Such a sad and insightful article. I really look forward to reading Ms. Bordo’s book. What has always struck me about Anne Boleyn was not only what she accomplished but what she left behind. Standing on the scaffold knowing you were leaving your daughter in such an uncertain and precarious position would be heart breaking. The strength both mother and daughter possessed was staggering. The idea of her finding peace at the end after such betrayal gives me comfort.
Excellent article – thank you for posting 🙂
What a great article! I would very much LOVE to win Susan’s book–I think it will be wonderful. Thanks so much for all the work you do to make On the Tudor Trail such a pleasure!
Thank you for this insightful, but heart wrenching article. I have been to the Tower of London on the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s death and wondered so much about what her final days must have been like.
I hope at some point she found peace.
Very moving! I don’t live in a fantasy world, but, whenever I read of Anne’s untimely death I always hope for a different outcome! Odd, I know! Anne is my favorite of all of Henry’s Queens. I always wish her life had ended so differently. I’m looking very forward to reading the book. Thank you for writing it!!
mara6919@gmail.com
Can’t wait to read the whole book. Anne was a fascinating woman!
I want this book so badly!!!!
*I am an Anne fan to the bone <3
Beautiful article. I can’t wait to read your new book. I hope I am able to win one of the free copies! God Willing! ^_^
Would love to have this book! Everything fascinates me about Anne Boleyn. She is my 1st great grand aunt of the wife of my 3rd cousin 11x removed. My direct line comes from Mary Boleyn, her sister. From these royal ancestors, my history traces down through the Levesons to my Great, Great Grandmother, Emma Eardley Jones Haslam. Tracing my ancestors from medieval England and Normandie to my Pioneer ancestors who came to the Salt Lake Valley and then to me is really quite remarkable. Just one variation in a marriage or death in history could have produced an entirely different “me!” The fact that she died from a beheading with such remarkable courage and strength is truly admirable, and I am delighted to know that I am from this lineage, if ever so distant! Love this website by the way!
That is awesome! Thank you so very much for sharing. It is always great to learn about Anne from many different sources to get a wider and better perspective of her. It is so fascinating to know that so many people today still follow Anne and Henry’s lives together and the impact that Anne unknowingly made upon the future – not just with Elizabeth – but also herself and her strength and resolve.
For my 10th birthday I recieved a book about Jane Grey, and my lifelong love of Tudor history was launched. Anne Boleyn is the most fascinating and enigmatic of the many interesting characters. Looking fowrard to reading this new book!
I would love to read this book.
So excited,I can’t wait to read this book.I love reading abut Anne Boleyn,Henry VIII and all of his wives.Well pretty much anything from that time period 🙂
This was an amazing post. Very thought provoking and touching. I would love to read Susan Bordo’s book!
Anne was a victim of Henry’s obsession with a son.
Imagine her horror, when she finally realized, that he was not going to save her! Thank you for the giveaway!
I really love the article, here in Argentina is really difficult to find this kind of good books! Looking foward to have it on my hands! 😉 in the mean time I print it, like the others excellents articles of this page!
thank you so much On the Tudor trail, to give us this posibility. The best news on my twitter page!
A big hug and kisses from Argentina!!
Susan Bordo here, with huge thanks for all these great responses, and
also reminding readers in the UK that for legal reasons (an upcoming British
edition) the book is most easily available, free shipping, at The Book
Depository and many sites OTHER THAN Amazon UK. (US, French, Italian and
other Amazons are just fine to order from,) I send warm hugs to Natalie
and her fans who have commented so generously here, and good luck to all in the drawing for the book!…Susan.
You know despite reading a number of books on the Tudors, I still cannot understand why Henry could so easily toss Anne away like a piece of garbage. If he truly and passionately loved her enough to break with Rome why did he not fight for her? Why did he so easily believe the creepy lies of others who were only serving themselves and not the King. Did he ever really love her or was she only ever seen by him as a baby maker? Did Anne really love him? Did she feel pressured by Henry to marry him because it was too dangerous to keep saying no? Surely Anne should have realised he had a dark and cruel side given the callous, heartless and disrespectful treatment of Queen Catherine and their daughter Mary. Was Anne walking on eggshells the whole of her relationship with Henry?. I wonder then if she saw her death as inevitable and a welcome relief. How it must have troubled her re her poor mother, watching the disintegration of her family and both mother and daughter powerless to stop it. Well done Ms Bordo for bringing a personal and unique perspective of a Queen that was shamelessly and cruelly treated!
I love this article, it really shows what anne must have felt as she went to the scaffold, to her death. Cant wait for the book to come out!
I’m in the market for some new Tudor fiction, and this sounds absolutely fantastic! I’m sure I’m a bit late to enter the competition, but I’ll have to get my hands on a copy ASAP!
We have had an overwhelming response to this giveaway! Thank you all for your interest, the competition is now closed and five winners will be randomly selected and announced in the next 24 hours. I will publish the names of the winners here and also email you each individually. Thank you again and good luck! Natalie
Okay, the winners have been randomly selected and so without further ado: Suzanne, Sheila Parks, Brittanee Barkley, Rebecca Dudley and Eliza – CONGRATULATIONS! I will be sending each of you an email shortly, please keep an eye out for it. Thank you for participating.
Yay!!! I’m one of the winners! Thank you very much, Natalie and Susan!! Natalie, I just sent you an e-mail with my address!! 🙂
Congratulations all you lucky ladies. Happy reading. 🙂
everything was so brutal. it is amazing to me how easily they killed everyone. gosh.
almost like gangs.