Anne Boleyn Research Paper

Anne Boleyn’s birth date is unknown; even the year is widely debated. General opinion now favors 1501 or 1502, though some historians persuasively argue for 1507. She was probably born at Blickling Hall in Norfolk. Anne Boleyn was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who would later become Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard. After living in France for a time during her youth, Anne returned to England in 1522 and soon established a residence at King Henry VIII's court as maid of honor to Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's Queen consort at the time.
By the mid-1520s, Anne Boleyn had become one of the most admired ladies of the court, attracting the attention of many men, among them Henry Percy, the 6th Earl of Northumberland. …show more content…
Henry was desperate to have Anne, so he quickly configured a way to officially abandon his marriage with Catherine. In his petition for annulment to the pope, he cited an excerpt from the Book of Leviticus stating that a man who takes his brother's wife shall remain childless, and claimed that he and Catherine (who was his brother's widow) would never have a son who survived infancy because their marriage was a condemnation in the eyes of God.
Webster’s dictionary describes a “Renaissance man” as one who “has wide interests and is expert in several areas.”1 This definition, I believe, describes a Renaissance woman as well. I turn to Anne Boleyn and her impact on History. Anne Boleyn has been described as an “adulteress,” “concubine,” or even a “witch.” History has proven that she was none of those things. I believe wholeheartedly that Anne was the quintessential Renaissance woman. Her “training” into becoming a Renaissance woman started during her days in a “succession of French-speaking continental royal …show more content…
Many of the reformist pieces Anne owned being in French, her interest in church reform was probably sparked during her early years in France through her close friend, Protestant Princess Renee. Anne would be the one to supply Henry with a book key to his future cause – establishing a national church independent from Rome – this book was the martyr Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man, which stated all princes, being divinely chosen by God, should be freed from papal tyranny. Illuminating the Book, a list of all the books owned by the wives of Henry VIII, shows Anne owned at least a whole library of books of theology like this. As queen, she would be at Henry’s side through every step of the summer 1535 progress which was so key to gaining favor from the highly reformist progress around the Severn. On a more personal note, Anne owned various religious pieces describing the Lutheran idea of salvation through faith alone, but, again, she was not quite a Protestant at all. Imprisoned in the Tower of London she begged for the Sacrament, and her last earthly morning was spent attending Mass; yet, that she was a Catholic woman, debating and reading about the Reformation, funding poor Protestant scholars, encouraging the English Bible with such a fire, and urging the freedom of persecuted heretics, is