Anne Boleyn was left isolated from her friends and miserable the entire time she was in the Tower awaiting her unjust death. Thanks to the informants surrounding her in her imprisonment, she was (ironically and cruelly) condemned more by her own words than anything else her enemies could come up with.
Thomas Cromwell had assigned a handful of ladies to watch over (spy on) the distrait queen while she was imprisoned in the Tower. Four of them — Mary Scrope (Lady Kingston), Margaret Dymoke (Lady Coffin or Cosyn), Elizabeth Wood Boleyn (Anne’s aunt by marriage but no friend to her), and Elizabeth Chambers, (Lady Stonor and the Mother of the Maids) – were actively hostile to Anne and the queen knew it. Anne complained to her jailor, Sir William Kingston (Mary Scrope’s husband), that she had “such about me that I never loved” and she wanted the women “of mine own privy chamber, which I favor most” to be with her. This request was not granted of course, and Anne had to make due with the comfortless comfort of ladies in waiting who actively disliked her.
Anne knew full well that they were with her so they could to report anything she said Cromwell, and thus to the king. William Kingston wrote to Cromwell that, “The Que[ne said unto me that same] nyght that the Kyng wyst what he dyd w[hen he put such] ij. abowt hyr as my lady Boleyn and Mestres [Cofyn; for] thay cowd tell her now thynge of my [Lord her father, nor] nothynge ellys, bot she defyed them alle.” While such spirit is lauded in modern times, it just marked her as more of an ‘unladylike’ target for the women who disliked her. Her aunt replied to her,” Seche desyre as you have h[ad to such tales] hase browthe you to thys.” Lady Stonor piled on by making a snide reference to Mark Smeaton, but Anne retorted that, “he wase never in [my chamber but at Winchester, and there] [unless] she sent for hym to pl[ay on the virginals, for there my] logynge wa[s above the King’s] * * for I never spake with hym syns bot upon Saterday before Mayday.”
In spite of her bravado as she “defyed them alle” and defended herself, Anne was in an extremely fragile state. Not only was she facing her own execution, she had to do it surrounded by the jeers of those who had knelt at her feet her not long before. It wouldn’t be long until she would wonder aloud about what could have made the king accuse her of such horrors, and those musings would (duly recorded by her spy-ladies) would be used as ‘proof’ of her guilt.
Anne’s excessive lack of caution around women she knew were out to get her is the opposite of the manipulative man-trap she too often portrayed as being. Historians and novelists alike have frequently been depict her as cunning, a temptress who played Henry VIII like a cheap fiddle in order to snag a crown. In contrast, her actual behaviour was often not the kind indicating a duplicitous ability to manipulate people to her best advantage.
Anne was often too frank for her own good. That was unquestionably the case when she was imprisoned in the Tower. She went over, out loud and at length and in front of hostile witnesses, any possible thing she might have said or done to cause Henry’s suspicions. It was Anne, the supposed wily serpent in the Tudor garden, who gave Cromwell most of his paltry ammunition against her by her stupidly forthright comments.
In all honesty, Anne’s entire career had been a long series of telling truths when she should have been lying, flattering, or conniving. Did she soft-soap and bribe her powerful relatives, so they would be at least semi-loyal? No, she allegedly treated the duke of Norfolk “worse than a dog” (Mackay, 2014); she was apparently more affected by the fact he was a horrible man than she was by his title and potential usefulness. Did she toady up to Cromwell, and keep him in the dark about her plans with sweet-talk? No. She challenged him openly and it cost her dearly. During her incarceration, Cromwell “took care to block access to the King” (Starkey, 2003), barring anyone of power who was sympathetic to the queen.
While she was queen, did she devote herself to fawning over the king and buttering him up for even more advantages? No. She was the only person in all of England who would call him on his shenanigans.
Cunning is perhaps not the best word to describe her.
I wonder how the ladies who were attending her felt when the queen went to her death, in part because of their efforts? Henry never evinced regret for Anne, but even Cromwell praised her after her execution in a fit of remorse (or a clever pretence of it). Did the ladies who sat with her while she ate her last meal and prepared her for the beheading ever feel guilty that they had spied on her and tried to turn every phrase she uttered into possible fodder for Cromwell’s trumped up charges? Did they think her guilty? Did they come to understand her laughter as the near-hysteria of an innocent woman condemned for charges beyond her imagination? Were they the same women who took such tender care of her body after her beheading, or did those Anne “loved most” finally get to be with her at the very end? Did Anne have any comfort at the end of her short life?