by Carol H. Morgan

Created on: August 22, 2008   Last Updated: March 04, 2011

Anne Boleyn's steep and tragic downfall was most surely parallel to her fabulous and unpredicted rise. A commoner in her day and age could almost certainly rule out ever being placed on the coveted throne of England. And there was good reason for that: Not only did royal blood protect you from the type of fate that was ultimately hers, being a foreign princess would have prevented the machinations of the factions that worked against her to ultimately replace her. So the fact that within three years from being crowned she was kneeling on the executioner's green was the result of the unspoken rules that royalty are the only match for each other marriage wise.

Though Anne's history, as any commoner's would be, is full of holes and mystery, there were many facts that made her extremely vulnerable for the ultimate injuries she was to experience in her short reign as England's Queen. Born around the turn of the sixteenth century (it is impossible to tell exactly what year) to Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn, her upbringing was that of a noble's daughter but not that of a princess that would have preparation for the scrutiny of the crown.

And since she was a commoner and a woman it is little surprise that in one of the only actual documented early references to Anne Boleyn, with whom Henry probably began a relationship with in about 1528, she was referred to as "a fresh young maiden returned from France" who had recently come to court. She had spent her latter childhood and adolescence in what was one of the freest in terms of morals court in Europe, later leaving her open to the scrutiny that was the general suspicion of French morals. She brought back with her many of the French fashions (including the French hood that scandalously exposed a bit of her hair in front) and spoke with an accent.

She used this period to engage in a few love relationships that were whispered around court during her reign, one with Henry Percy and one with Thomas Wyatt.

Henry apparently was for various reasons taken in by this local noble's daughter and lady to his Queen, and quite possibly for some of this Frenchness, education and sophistication. He was in the midst of a rivalry with his European Counterparts Charles and Francois, and was certainly wearying of the aging and dowdy Catherine. Unlike the more traditional Katherine, Anne perhaps seemed more like a jewel he could show off in his crown. And since he had given the political side of his parents' marriage success a shot, (unsuccessfully

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