The Executions of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard
Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn was led King Henry VIII's second wife. In 1536 she was taken to the Tower of London and imprisoned on charges of adultery. Upon being found guilty she sentenced to death. Anne, the mother of Princess Elizabeth, was heard to remark that her death would be swift as she had 'a little neck' and that the executioner was supposed to be very good.

And so the Queen of England, only 3 years into her marriage to King Henry VIII and only weeks after the burial of Catherine of Aragon was taken from her cell, knelt down and with a single swing of the sword, beheaded. She had been found guilty of committing adultery with 5 men: they also were executed.

It is quite possible that Anne Boleyn was innocent of these charges. Henry VIII had already fallen in love with Jane Seymour and there was a rumour that Anne, like Catherine of Aragon, was unable to give birth to a boy: she had, on weeks before her execution, failed to give birth to a son.

Catherine Howard

Catherine Howard was Henry VIII's fifth wife. She was much younger than the now aging King. She was full of life and energy, which had attracted Henry to her. However she too was to fall foul of the Tudor court and she was suspected to have been having an affair within months of her marriage. A distraught Henry ordered an investigation and his wife, his fifth wife, was condemned to be executed in the same way that only four years previously his second wife had perished. Catherine Howard was executed in 1542. One year later King Henry married his sixth, and last, wife, Catherine Parr.