The Real Story of Anne Boleyn's Scandalous Downfall

Hi everyone. I'm Dr Estelle Paranque, a published historian and academic, and I'm discussing with you Anne Boleyn's downfall. I'll explain why and how it happened. We will go through the sources together and Anne's last words.
More details will be available to you on my forthcoming book on Anne Boleyn (forthcoming 2024).
If you haven't yet, please check my video on Anne and Henry's love story:
on Anne's youth
• The INTRIGUING Childho...
And on Anne Boleyn Explained: Why was she so unique?
• Anne Boleyn Explained:...
Images are from wiki commons, UK National Archives, The Tudors TV show, and from public domain websites.
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Thank you so much for watching. Please don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment. I will reply to you :)

[@julirowen3988]

The irony of Anne being more safe while Catherine was still alive. Thank you for this video!

[@ElleHistory]

Indeed.. thanks so much for watching!!

[@Lessareve]

thanks for your solid research on this. I have no doubt the book is going to be amazing! I think it's so important to look into historical figures and take a step back from their public image, in order to have a more realistic, nuanced comprehension of who they were. Anne Boleyn became such a controversial figure, even in her own time, it is difficult to escape the narrative. Of course she had flows, yes she made mistakes, it still doesn't make it right to behead her in such circumstances. One actually doesn't need to like her to understand the scale of that injustice. Her death shocked all across the continent, even those who had despised her. On a more personal note, one of the things that breaks my heart is that her miscarriages were surrounded by so much pressure to deliver a son, it looks like she did not have the space and time to mourn. We talk a lot about Catherine of Aragon's miscarriages (and loss of children) and how they affected her and affected the court, but we seem to know very little about the impact they had on Anne - it seems at least the grief was not displayed publicly.

[@ElleHistory]

Thank you so very much! So very much appreciated. And yes the miscarriages are too often overlooked but it greatly affected both queens, Catherine & Anne...

[@pamelaoliver8442]

Agreed. I think with reading about so much loss "we" tend to assume they were unbothered and just carried on. I can only imagine how as a mother the loss must have affected them. Add on the social pressure and man. It's heartbreaking. Truly some remarkable people as they clearly did carry on in a lot of ways.

[@zippy4star]

The reason I first started following Estelle Paranque was her passion for what she's studied. Alongside the meticulous reading of documents and careful analysis, I think it really sets her apart and helps bring things to life. Hope we keep getting new insights into all these areas Paranque knows so well, they're so interesting and entertaining.

[@ElleHistory]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! So very kind! It means a great deal to me!

[@Jess_MW87]

My heart just hurts for Anne. It's just sad that people plotted and lied against for selfish reasons and for gain. But it makes me think of others like Marie Antoinette and Czar Nicholas II, and how after they were deposed, there was no need for them to die, but them being alive presented many issues, problems for those who wanted them gone. Like Anne living would've caused problems for Cromwell and some others. But I also find it a bit ironic that four years later that Cromwell is executed...spoiler alert. I just hope that people will continue to learn about Anne and take her into their hearts, and tell people her story.

[@ElleHistory]

This is how I feel too.. thank you for watching my content and engaging with it! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@MegIsSleepy]

I really appreciate all your high quality content! I've been enjoying going back through all your videos, and am looking forward to watching your new ones. I appreciate you!

[@HistoryRoadshow]

The times of Henry are so tragic. Anne had no chance! Another great video Elle, thank you 😊

[@ElleHistory]

Totally... Thank you, Jon. It means a lot coming from you!!

[@julesblack134]

Your ability to transport your passion really is extraordinary! I have spend so much time with the topic, but the horrible injustice to all of them and Annes bravery always get under my skin and you presented it so vividly and brilliant. Thank you so much for your work 🫶

[@ElleHistory]

Aww thank you so much! It is so nice of you to say so and I’m very grateful you’re watching my content. It means a great deal!

[@ODDwayne1]

Only someone as twisted as Cromwell could imagine such a disgusting and also adolescent story about her. We know he included his other "enemies" in the conspiracy. And made a story of moral panic and revulsion. But such men easily imagined women as concubines of the devil anyway. I hate him and Henry. And I pray as if my prayers could reach her 500 years ago. I feel so deeply sorry for what she went through. It's wonderful you're able to look more into French records and correspondences. Thank you. Looking forward to all your books.

[@carag2567]

This is a really powerful comment. I've watched this video several times but your words made me take pause and truly think beyond how I normally feel about Anne's downfall. Clearly, the men who were charged along with Anne were chosen for a reason. Smeaton; most likely because he was known to have spent a lot of time with the Queen, many eye witnesses could prove this, and as a non-noble he could be legally tortured if necessary. Norris; easily because of the "dead men's shoes" comment from Anne, Brereton; likely for his close position to Henry, therefore the implied intent to humiliate the King, Weston; for his involvement in the Norris/Anne conversation regarding Norris' reluctance to marry Madge Shelton, resulting in the "dead men's shoes" comment, and George Boleyn just to prove to all of Europe that it was the Boleyns who were evil and depraved, NOT Henry. And plus, the Boleyns were the biggest threat to Cromwell at the time. So take out their two most high ranking members, right? 😒 I love that you honor her in your prayers still. Time and space are so connected ❤

[@EVELYN-qk4wq]

👏👏👏👏👏 Where is the STANDING OVATION emoji? Great video.

[@ElleHistory]

Thank you so much!! It is so kind of you to say!! I put lots of love and dedication into my videos and it is so nice to see it is appreciated. Thank you!

[@EVELYN-qk4wq]

@@ElleHistory ❤️

[@Reign-Drop]

Hi Estelle, I saw you on The Boleyns, a Scandalous Family for PBS and just found your channel! Thank you so much! ❤

[@ElleHistory]

Oh my goodness, how kind of you to reach out! I hope you’ll enjoy the channel! 🙏🏻❤️

[@simon112]

Queen Ann was human feisty, firery, but what a heart she met her end with grace and dignity and courage, she was innocent of any crime as were her brother and the other four men, thank you as always, your passion shines through. 😊

[@ElleHistory]

Exactly, a fiery and fiesty woman who was innocent. Many thanks, Simon. I'm glad to have you here!

[@simon112]

@@ElleHistory Thank you Elle, always a plesure to learn history it's a wonderful subject,

[@alexzabeth_throne]

I discovered your channel today and I already fell in love with your content and you completely!!! I am COMPLETELY obsessed and IN LOVE with Anne Boleyn and her story! 💞👑 I'm actually in love and obsessed with ALL of England's history and ALL of the monarchs and ALL of the English royalty! 💜👑 I have ABSOLUTE IMMENSE respect and admiration for all of England and the UK and I LOVE your culture SO MUCH and I think you are THE MOST fascinating and LOVELY people in the world!!! 🥰✨ Words cannot explain all my love and admiration for all of England, your history and your lovely people!!! I am a Brazilian boy and I hope I can fulfill my dream of visiting England soon! ✨ Oh yes, before I forget, let me ask you, are you a writer and writing a book about Anne Boleyn??? 😍 Oh my God!!! Amazing!!! Pleeeease make your book go to as many countries as possible to be sold to the most different cultures, including Brazil, which is where I'm from!!! And let us know here on KZbin when your book is ready for sales, please! I would love to be one of the first to buy it! 🥰 I learned to speak and write in English just to immerse myself in the English culture!!! I hope that my English is good and that you could have understood me clearly and I'm sorry for any mistakes, I still need to improve a lot of course! 😅 And I also officially changed my name at my town's registry office! My birth name is João Paulo(a fully and traditional Brazilian name), but I have always LOVED Queen Elizabeth II and the whole culture of England very much, as I already said! So I decided to go to my town registry office to change all my birth documents to change my name! And now my name is Alexzabeth, a mix of the two first names of Queen Elizabeth II: Elizabeth Alexandra, I took the "Alex" from "Alexandra" and the "zabeth" from "Elizabeth" and I created my name "Alexzabeth" and so, I honored the beloved, glorious and great Queen Elizabeth II !!! 🥰👑💞 Thank you for this wonderful channel!!! You have no idea how much I love English history and culture!!! Much love from Brazil!! 😄😘🇧🇷💞

[@ElleHistory]

Oh what a lovely comment! I’m so glad you’re here Alexzabeth (what a great name!) I’m so so grateful. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 thank you again for being part of my audience and community. More videos for everyone and exclusive perks for my members are coming your way! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@rycoli]

Wonderful, insightful (sweetly emotional) talk. Thank you ❤

[@ElleHistory]

Thank YOU !!!

[@LindaKaschyk]

Wonderful, passionate take on Anne’s downfall and providing context and contemporary accounts to support your views. I really enjoyed reading Blood, Fire and Gold and look forward to your next book.

[@rosemarykelty8142]

What a great video, Dr. Paranque! Yes, Henry’s behavior towards Anne and the five innocent men was atrocious. I agree, Henry was too powerful for the men around him to truly fight back unfortunately. Truly fascinating about Thomas Cromwell’s words as well. Perhaps that was his way of subtly defying Henry without risking his own head (at least at that point). I’ve found it very moving too that Anne knew that she couldn’t save her own life, but that she did try to save her brother’s life and the other men’s lives. Yes, I think that she did show her true self at the end of her life. I’ve just read Natalie Grueninger’s wonderful book about Anne’s last days and it has been revelatory. All of the different motivations of Henry in bringing Anne down is just fascinating and tragic. Thank you so much, Dr. Paranque!

[@ElleHistory]

Oh I’m so glad you liked her book and my video. It means a great deal. Hopefully you’ll also like my forthcoming book on Anne. It’s such a powerful story!

[@wellingtonsboots4074]

Thank you.Those few weeks in the tower must have been so horrible for Anne and the men accused with her

[@ElleHistory]

Absolutely horrendous indeed... Thanks for watching and leaving a comment!

[@NadaOQ96]

I cannot begin to imagine the mental and emotional stress Anne and the five men imprisoned with her faced during those final days, especially Anne in the last day or two with all those delays and her fearing for the life of her daughter and the loved ones she'll be leaving behind....must have been unendurable! The end must've felt like a blessed release 😢 Who do you think was the first instigator of the plot? Did Henrat ask Cr*mwell to come up with something and the latter immediately jumped at the opportunity or was it the other way around with Cr*mwell taking the initiative and Henrat being delivered what he wanted on a blood stained platter? Also, I don't know if that was intentional on your part or not, but I love how you took out the Henry-praise from Anne's final speech 😂👌🏼💅🏼 I know she had to include it as her final earthly act of love and protection towards her child, but the irony of those words couldn't have possibly escaped her or the spectators 😟 As always, thanks for another great video 💛

[@ElleHistory]

I think Henry wanted Anne out but Cromwell saw Anne as a threat to his own position… Thanks so much for watching im so so grateful! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻😊

[@JustKrista50]

Her and Catherine of Aragon's stories are so tragic. Katherine Howard is also incredibly sad. She was literally a baby being abused by old men.

[@JustKrista50]

Just subscribed! I love your passion. It can't be forgotten or left out of her story how much her fate was determined by her family. They also used her for gain. Did they love her? Im sure. They also saw her as a tool. It wasn't just Henry not wanting to carry any of the shame of miscarriages. After all, Katherine had many too. I think his immense ego had to create sin and fault in her. It was also the desire to weaken the power of her family.

[@janyceimoto8750]

Thank you for this video. I respect your desire to let the truth be known. Anne did not deserve to be simply discarded. 😢

[@ElleHistory]

Thanks so much for watching! 🙏🏻😘

[@nirvairsingh7687]

What a video i really admire your hard work and passion for history. After watching this i would say that queen anne bolyen was a women with high temper but also with a really good heart altough her behavior with queen cathrine and princess marry was not good but also queen cathrine and princess mary were also not as good with her which is Understandable because henery was gonna divorce queen cathrine for lady anne. But also we can't say she was evil as i think she had also struggeld preety much in life and i also thought that henery was the one who first reached anne altough she tried to avoid or it may a smart play played by her to get more attention of the king but overall it was henery's choice too if he wanted he could have avoided anne when she refused to be his mistress and demanded to be queen by this we can say that henery was also looking for ways to divorce queen cathrine because she failed to give him a son. I think at the end all these poor womens were victims of a monster and also at the end no one weither queen anne bolyen,queen cathrine of aragon,or princess mary were percect. Correct me i get anything wrong. And kee up the good work🙏❤

[@ElleHistory]

Bless your heart! Very good feedback. thank you so much!

[@pamelaoliver8442]

It's always been interesting to me to hear people argue for Henry. None of his wives "deserved" what they got. Anne didn't "deserve" to be beheaded..even if she was guilty (she wasn't)...Katherine Howard certainly didn't "deserve" to die. We're talking about the brutal beheading of a human being. Their only real crime was pissing off a King. Nobody should ever have been killed for that. The modern attitudes about these PEOPLE (not just some iconic figure) are somewhat alarming at times. Guilty or not I'll never see the justification.

[@wednesdayschild3627]

Anne also put in that Tyndale Bible and literature. That removed every check on Henry. Anne saw what happened to Catherine and how Cromwell did it. She spent tons of money. Anne set up Henry to have unchecked power.

[@SumTimezTheyHaveClipUs]

The reason Anne died is because she got to involved in politics. That's why Henry warns many of his next wives once they get "brave" to "Remeber Anne."

[@ninalily]

New research has concluded that the letter in the tower is not from Anne. I mean there's evidence leaning toward it being a forgery. Which makes me very sad because i love that letter.

[@ninalily]

Its possible that Henry wanted her gone and didnt care how it happened. So Cromwell did the work and Henry was just fine with it. This was Cromwell's way of getting rid of her. Not sure why he felt the only way of getting rid of her was to accuse her of so many crazy things.

[@jmk576]

Your passion and knowledge is amazing.

[@heatherwaetzig2633]

Great video! I saw the Wolf Hall Series on BBC awhile back (haven't read Hillary Mantel's books yet) and it basically portrayed Anne's tragic end in the way you described. Cromwell wanted to take down Anne Boleyn because he blamed her for Wolsey's downfall. Very interesting I wonder do you believe Anne's death came about just because of Henry (he was angry because she had miscarriages couldn't give him a son etc.) or was Cromwell the mastermind behind her execution? Was Henry thinking on his own was he manipulated or was it a bit of both?

[@ElleHistory]

I think Henry was always behind it all.. he always did what served his purpose at the time.. Thanks so much for watching my content!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@heatherwaetzig2633]

@@ElleHistory I agree with you. Henry was the one most to blame. Poor Anne it must have been such a shock to her.

[@ninalily]

I really dont understand why henry was okay with Anne being beheaded when Anne of Cleves was able to divorce him without losing her life. If Anne was scared enough of losing her life. I really think she would have left quietly.

[@nazlsenay7312]

...ı read that Catherine of Aragon died of cancer I think Anne must really anger king Henry that is why he wanted to get rid of her

[@ElleHistory]

I have never read this and I think it’s more complicated than that. She didn’t anger him. He needed to get rid of her to be able to have a male heir.

[@wednesdayschild3627]

I know you really like Queen Anne. She did have good qualities. I think Queen Anne was a bit of a narcissist. The narcissists think nothing can happen to them. Imo the way she treated Catherine and her extravagant spending habits shows narcissism. The things she did to the monks shows narcissism. She destroyed cardinal Wolsey. She did have the option of having Catherine remove her from that situation. Narcissism is a spectrum. She did have some empathy. Queen Anne was innocent of the charges. She did not deserve to die.

[@ElleHistory]

I see your point but I quite disagree… I think her enemies wanted her to be one though… and their voices is what we have today..

[@scott6828]

Henry VIII was an pathetic miserable coward who murdered Anne Bolelyn but didn't have the guts or even dare touch Catherine of Aragon. Henry knew Anne Boleyn had no protection whatsoever.... but Catherine of Aragon however, would've resulted in a a response so violent and lethal from Spain and Holy Roman Empire that even Henry wouldn't dare test.

[@Tylwaa]

I've always wondered about why Anne Boleyn is so popular in today's society. If you look at any figure in history it's most interesting to pull information from contemporary sources, what the people thought who knew them, their family, their personality, etc. With Anne Boleyn during her lifetime, no-one seems to have like her. She didn't get along well with her family or her servants. She treated Henry's daughter like the original evil stepmother, even wanting Catherine and Mary dead, at the bottom or the ocean or Mary violently abused. The people who lived with her as Queen despised her and she returned the favor. Today some authors just discuss the "good things" she did. But her personality grated on everyone even Henry, loud, aggressive, abusive and yes even called the "great whore". When executed I don't think anyone mourned her loss, no-one. You see a vast difference with Queen Jane, she was kind, soft-hearted and loved by everyone who met her, as one contemporary wrote "For the King and England it was like moving from Hell into Heaven". If you look at the timeline of history, Anne Boleyn's popularity began to rise after her daughter became Queen Elizabeth, but even during that reign Anne was little spoken about. But her tarnished reputation began to change. We don't know a lot of what really happened, what information was destroyed? It must've been shocking and believed. Cranmer completely changed his mind on her innocence after reading the evidence that her "guilt can be proved". Her #1 supporter believed something that was shown to him, what was it? I also wonder just how close was she to France? Why did she ask the French to help her at the end but not anyone in England? Why? Was there some ties to the French that would've angered Henry? Is that why he chose a French swordsman to execute her? There's so much emphasis on how wonderful a person Anne was and didn't deserve her fate. But we don't know all the facts. Is it so hard to believe a royal didn't sleep around? If you study her contemporaries they don't paint such a loving picture of who Anne Boleyn was and I think that's a shame because any historical portrait of a person should be unbiased, including all her faults as well as her saving graces, if any. Otherwise, it's a distorted view not an historical view. Does make you wonder if you handed a book about Anne written now as she's portrayed, to a person living in her time, what would they make of it?

[@heartsonapage]

Boleyn really suffered the most in my opinion but I know five out of six suffered equally.

[@ElleHistory]

You’re not wrong. They all suffered…

[@heartsonapage]

@@ElleHistory I’m not familiar with Cleves’ story and why she suffered

[@allye5949]

Absolute power corrupts absolutely - Henry was a monster and unfortunately Anne had too much integrity to see Henry had none. A tragic end but she had the last laugh when Elizabeth became queen 🙂 Another fascinating video thank you.

[@ElleHistory]

Indeed.. thanks so much for watching and for your kind words!

[@roseg1333]

She messed around with someone’s husband not to mention dangled her possibility of giving Henry a son which was exactly what he wanted. I’m sure her dad and uncle moved the puppet strings but it was all wrong of the Bolyns to do and Henry to follow he could have comcetrated on Mary his daughter married her off and she could have had children early in life the whole course of history could have changed wars could have been avoided. I think what happened to Anne sadly is karma so to speak she went all in and played with fire and got burned.

[@SumTimezTheyHaveClipUs]

You'd probably go much farther if you weren't as inaccurate as the movies you hate. You are obviously biased, do to your feminist outlook. Alor of these women were heavily involved in the political realm, and if you think for one second, they weren't just as venomous and snake like as the men if not even worse than you aren't paying attention to the political tempature of the times. Anne, Mary, and Elizabeth were all as ruthless as Henry, if not more. They just had the cop out of throwing the deaths at the feet of men

[@ElleHistory]

Errr 😂😂😂