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The Mystery of Queen Anne Boleyn’s Second Pregnancy
By Natalie Grueninger
In most recent biographies, Anne Boleyn’s second pregnancy, at the most, occupies a couple of paragraphs. Eric Ives and David Loades conclude that it ended in a miscarriage, Alison Weir in The Six Wives of Henry VIII states that ‘it was either stillborn, or died very soon after birth’ (pg. 271), Antonia Fraser suggests that ‘the most likely end was a stillbirth: probably a month or so early’ (pg. 218), David Starkey sums it all up by stating that it ‘ended in miscarriage or still birth’ (pg. 553) and Paul Friedmann, writing in the late nineteenth century, concluded that ‘Anne had been mistaken about her condition’ (pg. 151) and had never been pregnant. Only in The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn, does the author, historian Retha Warnicke, go into some detail in her attempt to unravel the tapestry of secrecy shrouding the events of the summer of 1534.
While researching my debut book, In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn, my co-author, Sarah Morris, and I examined what contemporary evidence exists and pieced together a tragic story.
Greenwich Palace
Christmas 1533 at Greenwich was a jovial and lively affair. John Husee informed Lord Lisle that, ‘The King has kept a great court and is as merry and lusty as ever I see.’ On New Year’s Day there was the customary exchange of gifts, Queen Anne presented the king with:
A goodly gilt bason, having a rail or board of gold in the midst of the brim, garnished with rubies and pearls, wherein standeth a fountain, also having a rail of gold about it garnished with diamonds; out thereof issueth water, at the teats of three naked women standing at the foot of the same fountain.
Retha Warnicke believes that Anne’s gift ‘must be characterised as a fertility symbol.’ (pg.173) If Anne was in fact already hinting at her condition then we can assume that she became pregnant sometime around November 1533.
On 5 January, in the instructions to Nicholas Heath and Christopher Mont, who were being sent on embassy to the German princes, Henry praised his wife:
‘whose approved and excellent virtues, that is to say, the purity of her life, her constant virginity, her maidenly and womanly pudicity, her soberness, her chasteness, her meekness, her wisdom, her descent of right noble and high parentage, her education in all good and laudable thewes and manners, her aptness to procreation of children, with other infinite good qualities, more to be regarded and esteemed than the only progeny, be of such approved excellency as cannot be but most acceptable unto Almighty God, and deserve His high grace and favour, to the singular weal and benefit of the King’s realm and subjects.’
It seems that Henry was already aware that his wife was again pregnant, inspiring the reference to her ‘aptness’ to procreate children.
By 23 January 1534, imperial sources had been informed that Queen Anne was ‘again in the family way’ allegedly by a letter from the newly arrived English ambassador in France. Eric Ives postulates that if the ambassador was Lord William Howard, ‘the date of arrival must have been the beginning of December, suggesting that Anne became pregnant in November 1533.’ (Pg. 394) By 28 January, Eustace Chapuys was aware of Anne’s condition and on 29 January, it was observed that, ‘The King and Queen are merry.’
In February, Henry VIII met with Chapuys and confirmed the rumours of Anne’s pregnancy by saying that he believed he’d shortly have a son.
On 27 April, Anne’s receiver-general, George Taylor, wrote to Lady Lisle of the king and queen’s good health and of Anne’s ‘goodly belly’.
By April 1534, the pregnancy was common knowledge. The king, confident and beaming, expected a prince and ordered from his goldsmith, Cornelius Hayes, an elaborate silver cradle:
A silver cradle, price 16l. For making a silver plate, altering the images, making the roses underneath the cradle, the roses about the pillars, and new burnishing, 13s. 4d. For the stones that were set in gold in the cradle, 15s.; for fringes, the gold about the cushions, tassels, white satin, cloth of gold, lining, sypars and swadylbands, 13s. 6d. Total, 18l. 1s. 10d. The silver that went to the dressing of the Adam and Eve, the making of all the apples, the gilding of the foot and setting of the currall, 33s. 4d.
At around the same time, a portrait medal was struck to commemorate the anticipated birth of a son, it was inscribed with Queen Anne’s motto, The Moost Happi, Anno 1534 and A. R for Anna Regina. Since the baby did not survive, multiple copies were not commissioned, however, the prototype survives and is today stored in the British Museum.
Replica of Anne Boleyn’s Portrait Medal by Lucy Churchill
In early June, Henry was in the midst of planning a trip to Calais to meet with Francis I. It was scheduled to take place on 20 August or soon after, presumably after Anne’s lying-in, again corroborating the argument that the queen had become pregnant sometime around November 1533.
On 26 June Sir Edward Ryngeley reports that the ‘King and Queen are merry’ at Hampton Court Palace. However, quite suddenly, on 2 July Henry leaves Anne behind and moves to The More, where he summoned Thomas Cromwell and Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, to meet him on 5 July. At around this time the decision was made to send the queen’s brother, George Boleyn, ‘with all speed’ on a special embassy to France, in order to delay the planned meeting between Henry and Francis on account of the queen’s advanced pregnancy and her desire to have her husband, the king, by her side at this time.
Lord Rochford’s instructions were as follows:
1.Rochford is to repair to the French king with all speed, and in passing by Paris to make the King’s and Queen’s hearty recommendations to the queen of Navarre, if she be there, and say that the Queen his mistress much rejoices in the deeply-rooted amity of the two kings, but wishes her to get the interview deferred, as the time would be very inconvenient to her, and the King is so anxious to see his good brother that he will not put it off on her account. Her reasons are, that being so far gone with child, she could not cross the sea with the King, and she would be deprived of his Highness’s presence when it was most necessary, unless the interview can be deferred till April next. Rochford is to press this matter very earnestly, and say that the King having at this time appointed another personage to go to his good brother, the Queen, with much suit, got leave for Rochford to go in his place, principally on this account.
2. That there was nothing she regretted at the last interview so much as not having an interview with the said queen of Navarre ; and she hopes she may be able to come to Calais with her brother in April next, if the interview be deferred till then.
Hampton Court Palace. © Gemma Higgin Sears, Iris Creations
It seems very likely that the proposed meeting was cancelled because sometime between 26 June and 2 July, disaster struck – Anne was delivered of a stillborn baby, after which the king, no doubt crushed by his wife’s failure to provide him with a living heir, left her behind at Hampton Court and commenced his already delayed summer progress.
In our book, Sarah Morris and I suggest that:
‘No longer able to face Francis, who was already the father of three healthy sons, a cover story was created to save face and the whole event swept under the carpet.’ (Pg. 167)
On 18 July we hear from John Husee that ‘The King is now at Oking [Woking Palace Surrey], and comes hither on Tuesday, and will tarry here and at Eltham till Friday, when he will meet with the Queen at Guildford. Southwark, 18 July.’
The king was planning to visit the Princess Elizabeth at Eltham Palace before joining the queen at Guildford, where they were reunited sometime toward the end of July or the beginning of August. The king and queen had been apart for more than a month, their longest period of separation since 1528, when Anne had retired from court in anticipation of the arrival of Cardinal Campeggio.
It is not until the end of September 1534, that Chapuys reports that ‘the lady’ (Anne Boleyn) was not going to have a baby after all. At the same time we hear through Chapuys that rumour had it, Henry doubted whether the queen had ever been pregnant, an idea explored by J. Dewhurst in Medical History.
Dewhurst suggested that Anne might have suffered from a case of pseudocyesis or false pregnancy, a rare condition where a woman believes that she is carrying a baby and shows pregnancy-like symptoms when she is not pregnant. The condition is yet to be fully explained, however, psychologists believe that most women who experience false pregnancy are often experiencing stress and anxiety, along with an extremely strong desire to be pregnant.
Having only just given birth to a healthy daughter in September 1533, I don’t believe this to be a reasonable argument. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Anne was under any stress around the time of her alleged second pregnancy. On the contrary, the reports we have paint the picture of a healthy and happy couple.
In the notes section of his biography of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives states:
“That it was a miscarriage and not a stillbirth or neonatal death is indicated by the queen not having ‘taken her chamber’” (pg. 394)
That there is no record of the queen having ‘taken her chamber’ is indisputable, however, does this prove that Anne did not suffer a stillbirth? Not necessarily.
Ives himself stated that it’s likely Anne was pregnant by November 1533, in which case by the beginning of July, when it’s generally accepted that she lost the baby, she would have been around 8 months pregnant.
In modern terms, a miscarriage is generally defined as the loss of a baby before 20-24 weeks; the death of a fetus at 8 months gestation is referred to as a stillbirth. In this case the mother still needs to go through labour and delivery in the same manner as mothers delivering a live baby.
Miniature of Anne Boleyn attributed to John Hoskins
In light of the evidence, it seems likely that Anne went into labour prematurely sometime between 26 June and 2 July, explaining why no records survive of the queen’s confinement. This leaves open the possibility that the loss was so devastating, so damaging, especially considering that Henry was still trying to prove to the world the righteousness of his marriage, that all present were sworn to secrecy and the whole incident erased from history.
Unless one has experienced such heartbreak, it’s difficult to imagine the overwhelming emotional and physical pain that Anne must have felt. The baby would have been well formed and the sex determinable, although, the details were not recorded. The king left Hampton Court in all haste and abandoned his grieving wife. Was the loss of an heir the reason for their extended and uncharacteristic separation? The silence of the royal nursery and the empty silver cradle, perhaps, too much for even a hardened king —and one well-versed in loss— to bear.
This event must have brought memories of Katherine of Aragon’s tragic obstetric history flooding back and sowed a seed of doubt in the king’s mind that would eventually grow to consume him. Anne had promised Henry sons and heirs but had only delivered a daughter and a stillborn baby. In the king’s eyes, she’d failed him; with Henry’s insecurities awakened, there would be no room for further disappointments.
References & Sources Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 5 Part 1 – 1534-1535 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6 – 1533. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 7 – 1534. Fraser, A. The Six Wives of Henry VIII, 1992. Friedmann, P. Anne Boleyn, trans. J. Wilkinson, 2013. Grueninger, N. & Morris, S. In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn, 2013. Ives, E. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 2004. Loades, D. The Six Wives of Henry VIII, 2010. Starkey, D. Six Wives, 2003. Warnicke, R. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn, 1989. Weir, A. The Six Wives of Henry VIII, 2007. The Mystery of Queen Anne Boleyn’s Second Pregnancy Good luck!
In Bed With the Tudors by Amy Licence
Thanks for the interesting write-up. I would love to win the book !!
Thank you ………
Always look forward to your posts.I feel such heartbreak for Anne in this post. How horrible to have gotten so far in a pregnancy to not have a living child. The way the King reacted makes me wonder if the child had been a son. That would explain the reason for swearing all to silence.
It was interesting to read that there was so much doubt about this. I had read previously that she had a still born son and that was the reason Henry started looking for an excuse to end the marriage. I did some research on the Boleyn family years back when I played Anne’s mother in a production of “Anne of A Thousand Days.”
This is a wonderful opportunity to win this interesting book. I would love to read it. Thank you!
Thanks you for the informative article. Anne Boleyn is my favorite historical person and I am always interested in reading new articles on her.
Interesting! I have read in other places that the baby was deformed. If true, that would explain Henry’s antipathy to Anne and her downfall… Unless I’m confusing pregnancy losses? Good article!
Henry’s goal was to produce a ligitmate heir to follow him. His ego would never allow him to think he was partly to blame. The question here is “what happened to cause Ann to miscarry”? Was Henry already suspecious of his wife? Did he surmise that he was not the father of this child? Did he accuse Ann of infidelity? His rage may have been enough to stress Ann to the point of miscarring. Or had he forced himself on her at this delicate time and physically caused the miscarriage…Did he leave so abruptly because he realized it was his fault and would/could not admit that?
I am never too busy to read your posts.
I am a poorly person and spend a lot of time laying down. The info on this site is a great distraction and far better than more pain relief.
Thank you xx
Excellent exploration into this pregnancy. Poor Anne–perhaps it was better she was left alone….I’d love a copy of this book, by the way!
What an interesting article, I’ve really enjoyed reading it.
I’d love to win a copy In Bed with the Tudors…it’s been on my wishlist for ages !!
Thanks for a great opportunity 🙂
Well reasoned! I really enjoy your blog.
I always have sympathised with all of Henry’s wives for the cavalier, disdainful way he treated them but, after all, he was a Tudor!!! Thank you for giving us the chance to receive your book. Good luck to us all!!!
I so enjoy reading your articles and facebook posts! I’ve been to several of the palaces.
I’m planning to visit those again, this time with a copy of your book to see what I missed.
Thank you for the chance to win.
If only Henry hadn’t been so punitive and destroyed everything he could find about Anne…such a loss!
Henry was a classic male chauvinist of the period. Since the man is responsible for the baby’s sex, Henry was the reason for the girls that lived to become Queen’s Mary and Elizabeth. The period was a tough one for the survival of children, rich and poor but to the parents it is still devastating to lose a child. Poor Anne, she went to her death for her husband’s ego! At least Jane Seymour gave the king his Prince and died (sadly) a natural death!
This was a superb piece of historical research, thank you!!!!
Thank you for another fabulous article!
Captivating read! I’ve read various historians accounts on Anne’s pregnancies: Some suggested she had suffered through somewhere between 3 and 6 miscarriages. That poor woman! I have also read that some historians suggested Anne was perhaps rhesus negative, meaning that, following her first successful pregnancy (giving birth to Elizabeth in September 1533), she would never again have been able to bear a healthy child. Thanks for sharing.
I have been fascinated with Anne Boleyn since I was young, even before I found out through ancestry.com that she is my ancestor. I try to read/watch everything I can find about her.
Fascinating stuff, love how hundreds of years later these subjects are still enticing us all!
Poor Anne, she didn’t want to marry the king and now she’s starting down the same path as Katherine. Makes one wonder what was wrong with Henry’s seed to make two of the three wives that had babies lose multiple infants.
Love your website/blog – thanks for all the research!
Fascinating
This is fascinating! Thank you for all the research you have done and presented! would love the free book! what a nice giveaway – Fondly – k
I thought I already left a comment. Anne Boleyn has certainly been an obsession of mine especially as I think Henry VIII had history re-written. I have read so many books on her. I did not always feel they were grounded in truth. Of course that is all right in fiction but in non-fiction all we have to go on is the letters people wrote at that time and the official documents and papers of Henry’s men.
When I was very young I dreamed very often of that time in history. It was only when I came across Brief Gaudy Hour when I was fourteen that I realized what period I was dreaming about. However the last dream I had about that period was back in my twenties. I haven’t had any since.
Wonderfully educational! Thank you
Oop… Forgot to mention that I am also a long time follower !
Poor Anne. One can only imagine how it must have felt, not only mourning the loss of a fully-formed baby, but to feel no safety or security in her life, at the mercy of an irascible, powerful, narcissistic husband and with nobody to turn to for love or comfort. She must have felt utterly alone.
Great Reading! Thanks so much for the onsite, but has anyone considered that all Henry was interested in was a legitimate male heir? Did he have a fight with Ann, or was she under stress because of the ongoing rumors about her and was Henry starting to believe that he wasn’t the father of this child? Or, more likely, did he force himself physically on Ann at this late stage and caused the miscarriage? Was he too ashamed of himself to be with her knowing what he had caused? Of course he would/could never admit that he did something so very wrong.
So enjoy reading about King Henry VIII and his wives. ……
Thank you for the interesting article. I’d love to win the book.
I love this blog and all the fascinating little details that bring the era to life. The library is trying to get a copy of your book for me now. Can’t wait to read it. Plan on heading back to England in early fall and I would like to make a point of stopping at some the places you talked about. I plan on going to Normandy and Brittany as well and can’t wait to see Chamont. Don’t stop….I look forward to the articles.
Thank you for this very interesting article. How sad it was that in those times women were made to feel like failures if they didn’t successfuly give birth to healthy children. God forbid if a woman only gave birth to girls!
Would love to read the book! Sounds so interesting!
Very interesting! I really feel for poor Anne,as I too know the heartbreak of losing babies. At least I know MY head is safe!
Henry seems never to have cope emotionally with disease, illness or death. Perhaps the seeds of his weakness lie in the circumstances of his much loved mother’s death soon after childbirth. It has recently been suggested a tiny illuminated picture shows Henry as a young boy dressed in green with reddish hair weeping head on arms at a bedside. Elizabeth Norton in her book ‘Bessy Blount’ repeats this possibility. Perhaps Henry a very self -centred man could not once again cope with the events.We may condemn Henry’s behaviour seeing this through C21st eyes but we do not know how other men of his era might have reacted. I doubt few women were cherished. The baby’s sex is unknown. Henry may have lost a daughter but did not feel able to face his courtiers or the world at large.There are other instances of his shutting himself away:from reality: on the death of Jane Seymour or the exposure of Catherine Howard..Henry Vii reacted in a similar manner after Elizabeth of York died..
Another fantastic article and it wad a pleasure to read. Glad to have the opportunity to win a copy.
Thanks again and looking forward to more articles.
I love your articles and newsletters. The whole War of the Roses and Tudor era is fascinating to me. To win a book would be great!
Hey there,
Thank you for the interesting read. She is such a character that draws you in no matter what. Having kids of my own i cannot comprehend the loss of one, and the stress she would have been under as well with Henry and the court really, wanting this child. Thank you for a great read.
Thanks for such a well researched and interesting article, I’ve read so many books about Anne Boleyn but never knew about this pregnancy occurring so soon after Elizabeth’s birth in September 1533.
Thank you for this article. Don’t understand why I have never heard of this before. Thanks so much for going to the trouble to research and present it so well. I do believe by the Kin’s reaction and the secrecy that this stillborn child must have been a boy. Feel so sorry for Anne having a stillborn child myself and two miscarriages. It can be healed but does leave a broken heart. Thank you for your giveaway….very kind of you!! CONGRATS to the lucky winner!!
Very interesting! I enjoyed reading it! It’s too bad more is not known of this pregnancy or pseudopregnancy. I guess I wonder why her next pregnancy was documented along with the baby’s sex and not this one although Anne having had one baby already it seems she would have known whether or not she was with child. Either way this must have been so heartbreaking for both of them!!
Very interesting article thanks for posting.
Thanks for this article, interesting…of course, Henry’s at his worst during a crisis involving women, just ups and leaves…what a tragedy.
Reading your prose is amazing. I really enjoyed this version of the events of 1534 and the Court of Henry VIII. I believe he was OBSESSED with wanting a son, and thus, when Anne delivered a stillborn one, he lost all faith in her and hope of having one by her. It is so sad how so easily Henry stopped loving Anne and had her executed in order to remarry. He could have spared her for his daughter Elizabeth’s sake. Good luck with your book sales. Happy New Year to you too! Cheers.
Thank you for for another very interesting article, love reading your blog and I learn so much from what you write .
I find it a big coincidence that her step-daughter Mary, in turn, had many ‘false pregnancies’ later on in her life. Could this be a common ruse a woman used to hold a man? However, in a Phillipa Gregory novel, Anne was accused of losing a son…. could that have been Henry’s way of covering up to the court that there really WASN’T a pregnancy after all, and to put Anne in the worst light ever with the public? What do you think?
This was so interesting to read about. I love reading about the Tudors ! Looking forward to reading your book !
This is such a sorrowful episode for Anne . I personally have had 5 miscarriages and oddly enough I thank my lucky stars they were all around the 12 week mark .to go through a much more developed pregnancy and loose the baby would be unbearable . With the pressure on Anne to produce a male heir ,her devastation must have been enormous. I know we think Henry to be hard and callous but I wonder how Anne must have viewed his behaviour and to be expected to carry on regardless under the scrutiny of the court . She must have realised she would slowly loose his love and interest because she had not kept to her side of the bargain. If the baby had been still born at around 8 months surely some form of burial would have been performed for a baby so well developed? I’ve enjoyed this piece Natalie ,can’t help thinking Anne got the best of Henry before they were married .maybe she would have been ‘most happy ‘ just being his mistress or being wed to Henry Percy !
Since watching the series “The White Queen” last year on television, I have become fascinated with early English royalty and their families, what they wore, what they ate, how they entertained themselves. Thank goodness for whatever records remain of their lives, so that authors like yourself are able to gather and share this history with the rest of us! Thank you. And, by the way, I love love love the colorful floral background on your website!
Thanks for the really interesting article. Thinking back I realise that, like you said, whenever I read about Anne’s second pregnancy there’s never much information about it. It seems strange to me that after there being information about Katherine of Aragon’s miscarriages and stillborns (or babies that died young) that this was hushed up so much (if that is the case). I guess it’s another thing from that time that we’ll really never know, unfortunately.
All I can say is “wow”…how beautifully-written! I could almost “smell & taste” the sorrow & desperation that Anne must have felt. And to have all this occur by someone who you loved & shared your bed with, is truly unimaginable! The scope of Henry’s cruelty never ceases to amaze me…but Anne conducted herself in a dignified & humble manner and remained a “Queen”, in every sense of the word, to the end.
Thanks Natalie to share with us!