On this day in 1536, Anne Boleyn suffered the heartbreak of miscarrying her final pregnancy. Coincidentally, it was also the day Katherine of Aragon was laid to rest at Peterborough Cathedral, following her death on the 7th of January that same year. You can read more about this here. I have often seen the timing of these events viewed as a form of poetic justice – Anne losing her child on the day the woman she replaced as queen was buried. However, I strongly reject this interpretation. Anne’s miscarriage was a tragedy, and while the timing is an unusual coincidence, it is nothing more than that – a coincidence. To label the loss of a child as justice is not only reductive but deeply insensitive.

What caused Anne Boleyn’s Miscarriage?

The exact cause of Anne’s miscarriage remains unknown, but it is often suggested that the shock of Henry VIII’s fall during a jousting tournament nearly a week earlier may have hastened her loss. However, Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador, dismissed this explanation in a dispatch dated the 10th of February. Instead, he attributed the miscarriage to Anne’s supposed inability to carry children or her fear of being banished from court, much like Katherine of Aragon before her. In his words:

“On the day of the interment the Concubine had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3½ months, at which the King has shown great distress. The said concubine wished to lay the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, saying he frightened her by bringing the news of the fall the King had six days before. But it is well known that is not the cause, for it was told her in a way that she should not be alarmed or attach much importance to it. Some think it was owing to her own incapacity to bear children, others to a fear that the King would treat her like the late Queen, especially considering the treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel, to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents.”¹

Whatever the cause of her miscarriage, it is certain that Anne must have been devastated. She could not have known that this would be her final pregnancy, as her execution would follow less than five months later. However, the immense pressure she faced to provide Henry with a male heir was undoubtedly overwhelming. It is possible that this constant strain – combined with stress and anxiety – contributed to the tragic loss.

Another report, written by Charles Wriothesley, also addresses Anne’s miscarriage. He records:

“This yeare also, three daies before Candlemas, Queene Anne was brought a bedd and delivered of a man chield, as it was said, afore her tyme, for she said that she had reckoned herself at that tyme but fiftene weekes gone with chield; it was said she tooke a fright, for the King ranne that tyme at the ring and had a fall from his horse, but he had no hurt; and she tooke such a fright withall that it caused her to fall in travaile, and so was delivered afore her full tyme, which was a great discompfort to all this realme.”²

Wriothesley’s account places Anne’s miscarriage on the 30th of January, rather than the 29th, as Candlemas was observed on the 2nd of February. It is possible that Anne miscarried late on the 29th, and the event carried over into the early hours of the 30th, depending on how long the ordeal lasted. While this is purely speculative, it might explain the discrepancy between two equally reliable sources.

Unlike Chapuys, Wriothesley attributed Anne’s miscarriage to the genuine shock caused by the King’s fall during the jousting tournament on the 24th of January. However, another explanation for Anne’s loss comes from Jane Dormer’s writings, which suggest an entirely different cause:

“The king seeming to affect Jane Seymour, and having her on his knee, as Queen Anne espied, who then was thought to be with child, she for anger and disdain miscarried, as she said, betwitting the king with it, who willed her to pardon him, and he would not displease her in that kind thereafter.”³

Dormer’s account suggests that Anne’s jealously and anger over Henry’s increasing affection for Jane Seymour – his future wife – caused her to miscarry after witnessing a display of intimacy between the two. This interpretation is corroborated by Chapuys in a later dispatch, where he wrote: “The said Concubine attributed the misfortune to two causes: first, the King’s fall; and, secondly, that the love she bore him was far greater than that of the late Queen, so that her heart broke when she saw that he loved others.”⁴

It seems likely that the unfortunate miscarriage was the result of a combination of factors rather than any single cause.

Was the Baby Really a Boy?

Both Chapuys and Wriothesley claimed Anne miscarried a male child. This detail has often been interpreted as Anne losing “her saviour” – the long desired male heir who could have cemented her position as queen. But is this claim truly accurate?⁵

According to Wriothesley’s report, Anne believed that the baby was only fifteen weeks old. At this stage, even with modern technology, it would be too early to determine the baby’s sex with absolute certainty. If the child had indeed been male, it would suggest that Anne may have miscalculated the date of conception. However, it seems more plausible that Anne had calculated correctly, and the supposed determination of the baby’s sex was made by “an amateur diagnosis by the queen’s normal attendants” rather than by experienced and trained midwives.⁶ At such an early stage, the baby would have been far too small to accurately determine its sex.

For this reason, I disregard the comment that Anne miscarried her saviour – I believe the miscarriage to be more of a “first crack” in Henry’s confidence in his marriage to Anne rather than the push towards her downfall. At this stage, their relationship was salvageable.

Was This the Beginning of Anne’s Downfall?

Eric Ives did not think so, stating “The miscarriage of 29 January was neither Anne’s last chance nor the point at which Jane Seymour replaced Anne in Henry’s priorities. It did, nevertheless, make her vulnerable again.”⁷ I could not agree more. I firmly support Ives’ view that, while the miscarriage likely added significant stress for Anne and increased her vulnerability to the politically ambitious figures at court, it did not create an irreparable rift between Henry and Anne at this stage.

1. ‘Henry VIII: February 1536, 6-10’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, January-June 1536. Edited by James Gairdner (London, 1887), British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol10/pp98-108. ↩︎
2. Wriothesley, Charles. A chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559, p33 ↩︎
3. Clifford, Henry. The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, p. 79 ↩︎
4. ‘Henry VIII: February 1536, 21-25’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, January-June 1536. Edited by James Gairdner (London, 1887), British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol10/pp126-135. ↩︎
5. Neale, John E. Queen Elizabeth I, p. 13 ↩︎
6. Ives, Eric William. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: “The Most Happy,” Blackwell, Malden, Mass, 2006, p. 296 ↩︎
7. Ives, Eric William. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: “The Most Happy,” Blackwell, Malden, Mass, 2006, p. 300 ↩︎