On 3 June 1937 the Duke of Windsor, who had been King Edward VIII of England a few months before, wed the twice-divorced American Wallis Warfield Simpson in France, where they would live out the remainder of their married lives together. This tends to get romanticized – he had to give up a throne just… Read more A Former King Marries His Former Mistress
Anne Boleyn was crowned queen on 1 June 1533. It was a day of many mixed blessings for the new queen. She was publically acknowledged as Henry VIII’s wife, adored by her husband, and she was heavily pregnant with the baby she felt sure would be a boy. On the other hand, supporters of the Henry’s… Read more Anne Boleyn Crowned Queen of England
Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt is remembered as a seductress and man-eater. What she SHOULD be remembered for is her devotion to her nation and her children. From the evidence, Cleopatra’s main goals were to keep her kids safe and keep Egypt independent of Roman control. She seems to have genuinely fallen in love with Mark Antony… Read more Cleopatra Selene
On 26 May 1830 the Congress of the United States passed one of the worst legislative acts in human history, an act so breathtakingly vile that it would serve Hitler as a prototype for his own Holocaust in Germany. I speak, of course, of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Basically, a bunch of white… Read more Legalized Theft and Murder
Lady Jane Grey, who was briefly Queen of England before being deposed by her cousin, Mary I, married Guildford Dudley, the youngest surviving son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, on 25 May 1553. Why did Jane, great-granddaughter of King Henry VII, marry a relative nobody like a recently made duke’s youngest boy? Because… Read more Jane Grey Weds Guilford Dudley
Henry VIII became engaged to Jane Seymour on 20 May 1536, one day after beheading his second wife, Anne Boleyn. On the morning of Anne’s death, he had a barge waiting for him in order to whisk him downriver to Jane as soon as the former queen’s head was off, and while Anne’s body cooled… Read more Funeral Food and Wedding Feasts
It’s May 19th, the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution, so let’s talk about Anne’s enduring and unjustified reputation as a home-wrecking whore. Bearing the historical facts in mind, what exactly did Anne do to be slut shamed for more than five centuries? She refused to date a married man until she knew he was getting… Read more For Anne Boleyn
George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford, was was brought to trial on 15 May 1536, accused of incest with his own sister, Queen Anne Boleyn. Until the day of his trial, people — even his enemies — thought George would be acquitted. No one really believed he had slept with his sister, and he was a great… Read more The Trial of George Boleyn
Queen Anne Boleyn was put on trial on 15 May 1536. According to Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, she was tried “by a tribunal composed of the principal lords of the kingdom … the Duke of Norfolk presiding over it .” The trial took place in the Tower rather than in Westminster Hall, “yet the trial… Read more The Trial of Anne Boleyn
On the surface Anne Boleyn’s judicial murder seems quite straightforward. Henry VIII wanted to marry a new, hopefully more fertile, son producing wife, and so he ordered Thomas Cromwell to rid him of his troublesome and miscarrying second queen. Cromwell, a brilliant legal mind, soon came up with a way to dispatch Anne and a… Read more The Plot Against Anne Boleyn