A rather orthodox doxy

‘His cursed concubine.’ That was the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys’ judgment on Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn.

‘His cursed concubine.’ That was the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys’ judgment on Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. And that was mild. The abbot of Whitby called Anne a ‘common stud whore’. The judge Sir John Spelman noted during her trial that ‘there never was such a whore in the realm’. And, of course, Henry VIII beheaded her.

Anne, rather like our own Diana, caught some heavy flak for having a sexy reputation. She was gossiped about as the court bike long before she shacked up with the king, and was convicted by a jury of the greatest nobles in the land (including the Duke of Suffolk, the Marquess of Exeter, and the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Westmoreland, Derby, Worcester, Rutland, Sussex and Huntingdon) on charges of quintuple adultery while married to him.