Chilling find shows how Henry VIII planned every detail of Boleyn beheading

[DGUtley]

Chilling find shows how Henry VIII planned every detail of Boleyn beheading.

Archives discovery shows the calculated nature of the execution and reinforces the image of the king as a ‘pathological monster’

4152.jpg

It is a Tudor warrant book, one of many in the National Archives, filled with bureaucratic minutiae relating to 16th-century crimes. But this one has an extraordinary passage, overlooked until now, which bears instructions from Henry VIII explaining precisely how he wanted his second wife, Anne Boleyn, to be executed. In this document, the king stipulated that, although his queen had been “adjudged to death… by burning of fire… or decapitation”, he had been “moved by pity” to spare her the more painful death of being “burned by fire”. But he continued: “We, however, command that… the head of the same Anne shall be… cut off.”

Tracy Borman, a leading Tudor historian, described the warrant book as an astonishing discovery, reinforcing the image of Henry VIII as a “pathological monster”. She told the Observer: “As a previously unknown document about one of the most famous events in history, it really is golddust, one of the most exciting finds in recent years. What it shows is Henry’s premeditated, calculating manner. He knows exactly how and where he wants it to happen.” The instructions laid out by Henry are for Sir William Kingston, constable of the Tower, detailing how the king would rid himself of the “late queen of England, lately our wife, lately attainted and convicted of high treason”.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...leyn-beheading

2037.jpg

[Peter1469]

In HBO's The Tudors, that was depicted well.

[Lummy]

The "B" stood for "Behead this Beta". LOL

[Cotton1]

She totally lost her head!

[carolina73]

King Henry VIII,
To six wives he was wedded.
One died, one survived,
Two divorced, two beheaded.

and

Boleyn and Howard lost their heads,
Anne of Cleves he would not bed,
Jane Seymour gave him a son – but died before the week was done,
Aragon he did Divorce,
Which just left Catherine Parr, of course!