Anne’s Personal Life

Anne’s window at Windsor Castle

Glimpses of Anne’s personal life come together in this section to help explain the people and visual setting of her world and the dangerous Tudor court of Henry VIII. By seeing Anne’s objects and the people who surrounded her, one can better understand her world, the challenges she faced, and her personal motivations.

Anne’s coat of arms

As a motif for this insight into Anne’s life, this nineteenth-century sketch of Anne’s window at Windsor Castle is a quite literal view into her life.

Anne lived in a dangerous world for women, yet she found a place for herself, and her coat of arms represents her individual power. According to George Perfect Harding in Arms of Anne Boleyn, Anne’s coat of arms contains “the quarterings which the king [Henry] allowed her to bear of the families from which she was descended.”

Beneath Anne’s crest lies an 1842 sketch of a clock given to her by Henry as a wedding gift, according to the Royal Collection Trust.  Alongside the sketch is an inscription with their initials and the ironic motto, “The Most Happye.”

The eighteenth-century print below shows Anne among the five other wives of Henry VIII, women who would face the same dangers as Anne. Anne, the second of Henry's wives, is depicted in the top right. The image of Anne depicts her in a gable headdress and long pearls, reminiscent of some of the previous page's portraits.

Anne, the second of Henry’s wives, is depicted in the top right of this 18th century print.

Below is a seventeenth-century handwritten Boleyn family tree, part of a heraldic manuscript which depicts multiple noble English lineages. Since status was hereditary, family trees like this one were important during the Tudor Era. A powerful marriage, like that of Henry and Anne, would often mean accumulated status and wealth for the entire family.

Anne was a descendent of the Boleyns, a notable, but not overly influential court family. In documents the family name is disparately spelled as “Boleyn,” “Bullen,” and “Boleyne.” Also included in Anne’s direct family tree are her sister Mary (1499?–1543), who would also be a mistress to Henry VIII, and her brother George (1504?–1536), who would be accused as one of the objects of Anne’s affairs, and executed alongside her.

Boleyn family tree, 17th century

Anne’s tree ends with her daughter Elizabeth, foreshadowing the obstacle that would lead Henry to turn against her, as he had against his first wife: her lack of a son.