Monday, January 5, 2009

So Anne Boleyn was married to Henry the eighth and all was well. Yeah...right. "Henry, after seeing the hatred of the people towards Anne, was appalled by her." (Denny 187). Anne was heartbroken and pregnant and when she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. The girl would one day become the legendary Queen Elizabeth the first. But, Henry never saw the intelligence and beauty of the baby. He saw a girl. A girl that wouldn't carry one the family line like a boy would. Henry was even more disgusted with Anne. It's no wonder after everything, that Anne was ethical.
One of the most unethical things that Anne did came after a miscarriage of her 2nd baby. Anne knew the miscarriage might cause her death at the hand of the executioner. At the time, althogh it was commmon practice to marry your cousin, you never were allowed to "fornicate with your brother" (Denny 226). But this is what Anne did. She knew she had to get pregnant again and quickly. But no only was this rumor frowned upon, it was also illegal. And if word got out, Anne knew that she would be killed.

4 comments:

Emily Fu. said...

Um. Interesting. I wonder why Anne kept flip-flopping between ethical and unethical. I guess she didn't think that it was better to die and be clean than live and be unethical. This has not much to do with your post, but did you ever read any of those princess books when you were younger? The ones from Elizabeth's or Mary's perspective? I noticed that the ones from Mary's perspective usually show Anne as really unethical, and the ones from Elizabeth's perspective showed Anne as very honest and pure. It seems she was a bit of both.

Anonymous said...

This sounds really intense so far. This paragraph really shows how oppressed women were back then. I mean the king hated the young child just because she was a girl. Even though she would be great royalty some day. I guess this is good to compare to see how the world has really come along so far.

Emily Fl. said...

Whoa sounds like a dramatic book. Sucks for Anne getting dumped while pregnant, and that he had to leave her like that. I think that he was unethical in that right (I said that because you were talking about Anne's ethics). Hopefully Anne makes it out alive!

christina said...

This is insanely dramatic. I like how it shows both sides of how women were viewed and how they dealt with it. Elizabeth knew she had to do something and fast but her only hope was illegal so I mean what should she do? This would be a rediculous situation especially after 2 miscaraiges and the birth of a beautiful baby girl who wasn't good enough just because she was a girl. They were a little too obsessed with carrying on the family line. Girls are just as important! i mean you can't have boys without them and they should have paid more attention to that!