by Carol H. Morgan

Created on: May 14, 2008   Last Updated: May 16, 2008

Most people know the tragic fate of Queen Anne Boleyn. There is the sense that even very soon after her execution was made public it was widely believed that she had been framed. But what of the actual evidence? And how was it that if she was innocent she was condemned to a fate that hadn't befallen very many queens of any age or land?

After examining the evidence against her, few historians think that Anne was not guilty of the incidents of adultery. Most of them have been judged to be impossible because she was never in the same place as any of the conspirators (Her brother George Boleyn, Mark Smeaton, Henry Norris and William Brereton) at the time of the acts of adultery. At other times the Queen was pregnant or still in confinement or post-miscarriage, when she wouldn't have been around men.

CROWN'S WITNESSES

Many who testified against here were only refereed to by third parties as hearsay, some were dead and some were not brought to trial because they were not available or were unwilling to come forward. She could not call the men who she knew could testify for her innocence because by the time she was tried they were condemned traitors and their testimony was ineligible. Some of those who testified were hostile to the Queen.

The case could not have been won without the testimony of Lady Rochford, the "witness" to Anne's alleged affair with her brother, could only say that she saw them kissing, allegedly with open mouths, and that they spend a great deal of time alone together in the Queen's private chambers. But George was one of her only close relatives at court, and as a commoner in this vulnerable position she would have wanted a confidante and the only place that she could have seen him alone was her chambers. And the greatest condemnation to state's evidence was that Lady Rochford later admitted that she had framed Anne and Her brother when she was about to be executed for helping Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, commit adultery with Thomas Culpepper.

Also notable were the people who did not testify for her. There were surprisingly few witnesses (considering the large numbers of people that would have been in her presence night and day). And she would have needed a conspirator as Lady Rochford served for Katherine Howard later on. And by getting rid of some of the main people she could have called in her defense (her brother) and others in her faction by accusing them of treason, the crown's case was able to eliminate the possibility that they would

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