Do you think Henry VIII (Tudor) felt bad about Anne Boleyn's death?

Question

after the fact? Do you think he may or may not have regretted it later on? Or felt at least guilty?

Answer 1

absolutely...not.

Answer 2

Not at all. I think he shows distinct signs of NPD - narcissist personality disorder. The man was so selfish that he never thought of anyone except himself.  He never suffered one iota for what he put her through. He'd already moved on to his next conquest.  I mean, isn't it the ultimate abuse, to have a woman put to death when she honestly did nothing to deserve it?  Come on!  I hope there is an afterlife, and the women he used and abused so badly escorted him to his doom.

Answer 3

as depicted in the movie, he didn't seem to have a guilty conscience about it

Answer 4

no way he did not care

Answer 5

well he could have let her off.... but he didn't

i'm guessing he wanted her dead more than he wanted her alive.

Answer 6

something about it may have bothered him--there's a story that on his deathbed, he suddenly cried out her name (for the 1st time since she died); along with muttering "monks, monks."

I think she may have been the last woman he really loved.  He held up Jane Seymour, but she had given him a son & died right afterwards, so she had a glow about her that never had a chance to be tarnished.  Katherine Howard was an old man's lust for a pretty young thing, and unlikely in my opinion to be genuine love.  Forget Anne of Cleves; and very hard to say about Catherine Parr--a settled sort of affection, perhaps?

Answer 7

After the pain and horror he put Katherine of Aragon through, it was evident that once he was finished with you, then you were dead to him . With Anne, i think not because he completely convinced himself that she was a w***e which offended his ego and manhood. So he just threw he aside and replaced her.

Answer 8

I think he may have felt something niggling at his famously malleable conscience at some time, but he was too much of an egotist to let it bother him too much.

When he banished Katherine of Aragon, he never saw her again.  He was betrothed to Jane Seymour 24 hours after Anne's execution.  Devastated after Jane's death in childbirth, he married Anne of Cleves, and she was happy to divorce Henry.  He was so glad of her acceptance of this that he named her the King's Sister and provided her with a good life.  When Catherine Howard's adultery was uncovered to him, he never saw her again, because he knew (as in other cases) that he might change his mind if he saw her pleading.  Catherine herself knew this, as she made a last attempt to see her husband, running towards the Chapel at Hampton Court, screaming for mercy.  She was not allowed to see him.  And after she was sent to the Tower, Henry never set foot there himself again.

I think this does argue a certain amount of conscience, though Henry was such a megalomaniac despot, he would have considered that what he did was Right, and he didn't want anything inconvenient like an innocent wife as a constant reminder to him.  It was all in the pursuit of a legitimate heir.  He blubbed publicly for weeks after Catherine Howard's death, and wailed that he had been beset by "ill-conditioned wives".  The fault was always somebody else's.  He was able to twist things so that he came out as right, and then, more or less, forget about it.

Don't forget, also, that by the time Anne had given birth to one living daughter, and had two miscarriages/stillbirths of sons, she had worn Henry down somewhat by her temper and insolence.  He had already spotted the quiet, meek Jane Seymour, and she must have been a little haven of calm in the midst of Anne's temper and failure to give him an heir.  Henry had endured about six years of frustrating pursuit of Anne, and had banished a perfectly good, if barren, wife on the pretext of his conscience, that he had married his brother's wife - and had broken from Rome.  And for what?

It was not fair; but I do think that perhaps in later life, especially on his death bed, he may well have felt some stirrings of guilt as he prepared to meet his maker.

But such is the way of all-powerful kings.

Answer 9

absolutely NOT

Answer 10

Henry VIII was pretty heartless. He disunited the Church for the first time in British history and (indirectly, at least) caused the religious bloodletting that ensued for the next three centuries (or, the the case of Ireland, longer). Having personally authorized executions and wars aplenty, do you really expect that the man would feel sorry for a woman he maintained for bedroom recreation?

If he was to feel sorry for anyone, it ought to be for that poor woman he ditched after twenty years of marriage.