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 it seemed since Katherine's family had since lost their prestige), why not try for their passion?
Well he soon found out why it wasn't good to ignore politics when you marry not just as a man but as the head of a nation: marrying a common subject had many problems. One was that instead of the increased admiration abroad that he craved, he garnered ridicule for her common status and questionable morals (ironically morals she had likely acquired in France). And more importantly for his practical success as a ruler, because she represented only one power faction of his subjects and wielded that power against the others, perhaps even rashly, the others busily worked against her to get her rival, the passive Jane Seymour, on the throne instead. In the end she became so unpopular that Henry had no choice but to give her up, whatever his personal feelings on the matter, because she was doing his crown harm and little good.
The first thing that soured her chances to remain on the throne was of course her inability to have the son that Henry married her for. In the one living daughter and other miscarriages, Henry surely saw his history with Catherin repeating itself. And he didn't want to wait as long this time.
Their relationship and her fate is littered with tragic irony, but one of the bitterest was that sealing her fate was actually Katherine's death from what was rumored as cruel treatment or even poisoning by Anne herself. She would have remained protected as long as Katherine lived, because Henry would have known that if he had Anne executed Katherine would have renewed her legal assertion that they were still married. But since that didn't happen, he told his advisers he wanted out and quickly.
Trumped up charges were produced on adultery with five men, witch craft, and conspiring for the death of the king. 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 chance of others supporting her side of the story.
For Henry's part, he was probably protected in even wondering about her guilt in the very one-sided manner with which her trial was conducted. He never seemed the least bit two ways about it, displaying if not total cold heartedness, at least singleness in purpose. In a gesture seen as magnanimous but in actuality was probably an icy cold final touch, he called for executioners by sword from France, the country Anne was closely affiliated with. Henry waited to hear the cannon sound her death and was off like a shot himself to the Seymours, where he was betrothed the next day.
The proceedings and general feeling about Anne's guilt, including that from Henry hismelf, against Anne look more and more like a frame-up as they are examined through history. She wasn't really even tried for the crimes that could have convicted her of treason. Adultery in of itself was not legal justification for her death, because adultery by or with the Queen was not treason by law at this time. Therefore, the charges of incest and the alleged plotting of King's death could only be considered treason at her trial, and neither of these were proved. Therefore, Anne's statement that Henry "made her a marchioness, then a Queen, then a martyr," rings true.
It is likely that this dramatic fall, back to the point from which Henry raised her and further, is because she was not raised to repell any and all suggestion of being culpable of human weakness as is a princess. Her previous time in France, her betrothal to a normal boy with normal feelings, and her very public display of emotion and jealousy toward her rivals while she reigned played off the ambivalence and even bitterness that those in court and in the public felt at having a commoner raised above them on the throne, what was believed to be a very sacred position for those only posessing royal blood.