Was Anne Boleyn Executed Whilst Pregnant?

From History Calling

Was ANNE BOLEYN EXECUTED WHILST PREGNANT? This theory about the second wife of Henry VIII is one which I was asked about in the comments of my recent video on the royal fertility problems of the Tudors and so in this six wives documentary from History Calling, we look at the origins of this theory and whether or not it has any merit. We’ll first examine the comments made by King Henry which some, most notably author Alison Weir, have sometimes used to argue that Anne was pregnant at the time of her death on 19 May 1536. We’ll also study the Queen’s conversations and comments made in the Tower of London during her two week imprisonment there and look at Anne Boleyn’s final speech upon the scaffold. We’ll ask how likely it is, given Henry VIII’s quest for an heir (which for him could only mean a boy), that he would have executed his pregnant wife? Like Catherine of Aragon before her, Anne had thus far failed in the task of producing a male heir, having had two miscarriages, but would Henry really have knowingly killed his potential son just so that he could marry Jane Seymour more quickly? Finally, we’ll consider whether the Victorians found any evidence of a pregnancy when Anne Boleyn’s bones were disinterred from beneath the floor of the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula in the 1870s. Let’s look at one of the most famous executions in history to see if it was even more tragic and scandalous than has previously been thought.