Anne Bullen enters Henry VIII as a lady-in-waiting at the Cardinal’s masque—young, beautiful, and utterly unaware that she is about to become the fulcrum on which the English monarchy turns. The king, disguised as a shepherd, dances with her and is transfixed. “The fairest hand I ever touch’d! O beauty, / Till now I never knew thee!” In that moment, Katherine’s queenship begins to crack. Anne herself protests her innocence of ambition, insisting to the Old Lady that she would never wish to be a queen, would never trade her humble virtue for a crown. Yet the play knows what Anne does not: that the very beauty and modesty that make her refuse power are precisely what will draw the king to give it to her. She becomes, almost despite herself, the agent of Katherine’s destruction.
What makes Anne’s portrayal so poignant is the gap between her awareness and the audience’s knowledge of her fate. She speaks in Act 2 of how better it would have been for Katherine had she “never known pomp,” never risen to such heights that falling would be so terrible. The irony cuts both ways—Anne is being elevated to a queenship she claims not to want, and history (which the play’s first audience would have known) shows that she will follow Katherine into disgrace, accused of adultery and incest, and will lose her head. The play does not show Anne’s fall, but it hints at it in her absence from the final christening scene. She has given birth to Elizabeth—the future queen who will eclipse both Katherine’s sorrow and Anne’s own tragedy—but she is not present to celebrate. The text suggests she is already moving toward her doom, though no one onstage acknowledges it.
Anne’s journey is one of being chosen rather than choosing. She is promoted from lady-in-waiting to Marchioness of Pembroke, given a thousand pounds a year, crowned queen—all gifts from the king’s will, all dependent on his continued favor. She accepts these honors with grace and gratitude, yet the play subtly suggests the precariousness of her position. Unlike Katherine, who has the dignity of twenty years of marriage and genuine affection, Anne’s authority rests on nothing but the king’s desire, which can shift as suddenly as it fixed upon her. She will bear him a daughter when he desperately wanted a son, and that failure may be enough to seal her fate. The play leaves her at her coronation, triumphant and yet suspended over an abyss, loved by crowds, crowned by bishops, and utterly vulnerable to the same machinery of court favor that elevated her.
No, not for all the riches under heaven.
No, not for all the riches in the world.
Anne Bullen · Act 2, Scene 3
Anne insists she would never wish to be a queen, even as the Old Lady presses her, hinting at the folly of such protests. The line is ironic because the audience knows Anne will become queen and, historically, will be executed. Her denial of ambition is therefore both sincere and tragic—she cannot escape the fate that her beauty and the king's desire have already set in motion.
She shall be, to the happiness of England, An aged princess; many days shall see her, And yet no day without a deed to crown it. Would I had known no more! but she must die, She must, the saints must have her; yet a virgin, A most unspotted lily shall she pass To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
She will be, for the happiness of England, An elderly princess; many days will see her, And every day will have something noble to remember. If only I didn't know more! But she must die, She must, the saints must have her; yet as a virgin, A pure, unblemished lily will she pass From this world, and the whole world will mourn her.
Anne Bullen · Act 5, Scene 5
Cranmer, in prophetic blessing of the newborn Elizabeth, foresees her glorious reign and tragic death. The blessing reframes the entire play: the chaos, the divorces, the falls—all have been necessary to bring forth this child. Yet Cranmer's knowledge that she will die as a virgin and unmourned queen adds an elegiac tone, acknowledging that even the greatest happiness is shadowed by mortality and loss.
