Helena Bonham Carter as Anne Boleyn
The anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s death is approaching so I’ve decided to take a closer look on events that occurred before Anne’s death. One of the most popular myths about Henry VIII’s second wife is her alleged involvement with witchcraft.
It all started with Imperial ambassador’s report. Eustace Chapuys, always ready to report anything that about Anne Boleyn, wrote that Henry VIII told one of his courtiers that he;
‘made this marriage seduced and constrained by sortileges and for this reason he held the said marriage void and that God had demonstrated this in not allowing them to have male heirs and that he considered that he could take another.’
How Chapuys did come to such knowledge? Henry VIII’s first cousin, Marquis of Exeter who was in touch with ambassador, reported that the king confided this information in one of his courtiers. What was the meaning of the king’s words? It is all dependant if we are reading it in original language in which Chapuys reported them. Eric Ives wonders;
“Thus, did Henry use the term ‘sortilege’, or was the word provided en route? Even if Henry did use the noun, since its primary English meaning was ‘divination’ and since Henry spoke in the same breath of male heirs, the simple construction is that he was referring to the premarital predictions that union with Anne would produce sons”. (p. 298)
