by Karen Davies | Nov 22, 2025 | Blog, History
In 1535, a grim prophecy circulated through England’s uneasy court:
“When the Tower is white and another place green, then shall be burned three bishops and a queen.”
— attributed to the Abbot of Garadon
Many believed the queen foretold was Anne Boleyn.
Anne’s final writ of 18 May 1536 makes the terror unmistakable:
“Anne, late queen of England… adjudged to death, that is to say by burning of fire according to the statute, law and custom of our realm of England, or decapitation, at our choice and will… We moved by pity do not wish the same Anne to be committed to be burned by fire… upon the Green within our Tower of London aforesaid, the head of the same Anne shall be caused to be cut off.”
Yet the prophecy would be fully fulfilled under Mary I’s Marian Restoration.
Three of Anne’s bishops – Hugh Latimer (16 October 1555), Nicholas Ridley (16 October 1555) and Thomas Cranmer (21 March 1556) – were burned at the stake in Oxford.
Three bishops. Burned. Two decades after Anne’s execution.
A queen nearly burned.
Three bishops who did.
by Karen Davies | Nov 22, 2025 | Blog, History
Did Henry VIII Try to Erase Anne Boleyn From History?
The Primary Sources Say Yes — And the Usual Excuses Don’t Hold Up.
A popular new argument insists Henry VIII didn’t try to erase Anne Boleyn, that dismantling her household, removing her badges, and burying her quietly were simply “standard protocol” for a disgraced queen.
But when you return to the documents written in May 1536, by ambassadors, clerks, bishops and royal administrators, a different picture emerges.
Henry VIII didn’t just execute Anne Boleyn.
He tried to eliminate her memory.
1. Her badges and monograms weren’t removed — they were destroyed
On the very day of her execution, 19 May 1536, Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys reported:
“The King has already caused her badges and arms to be taken down and effaced in all the places where they were.”
— Chapuys to Charles V, 19 May 1536, CSP Spain, vol. 6
“Effaced” means chiselled off stone, scraped from ceilings, hacked out of woodwork, a deliberate, physical purge.
Henry did not do this to the emblems of Catherine of Aragon, Anne of Cleves, or Katherine Howard. Their symbols remained visible long after their falls.
2. Her imagery disappears from royal inventories
Later Crown inventories record:
“Item: sundry hangings lately belonging to the late Queen are not now found.”
— Letters & Papers, vol. xi, no. 1040
When items and artworks associated with Anne vanish from the record, someone removed them.
3. Her household was broken up before she legally ceased to be queen
Clerks noted in early May 1536:
“The Queen’s ladies are discharged and her household dissolved.”
— LP x.972
“Her servants to repair elsewhere, the Queen’s estate being determined.”
— LP x.994
This happened before her trial, annulment, or execution, when she was still legally Queen of England.
4. The annulment reveals Henry’s intention — historical deletion
On 17 May 1536, two days before Anne’s execution, Archbishop Cranmer annulled the marriage, declaring it invalid from the start.
“We pronounce and declare the marriage… to be invalid and of no force.”
— Cranmer’s Sentence, LP x.911
The annulment served one purpose: to erase Anne’s queenship from the historical, dynastic, and legal record, to make her a queen who “never was.”
5. Her burial was designed to silence, not commemorate
Tower records note she was buried:
“The body of the said Anne was buried… without pomp.”
— LP x.911
Wriothesley adds she was placed amongst others “without any mark,” and that:
“her body was put into an elm chest which was made to put bow-staves in, and was buried without any other ceremony.”
— Charles Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England, vol. 1, p. 41
Anne had been an anointed queen, yet she was buried without monument, inscription, or even a coffin.
6. The survival of private objects doesn’t disprove erasure
Anne’s Books of Hours and the book George Boleyn gave her at Alnwick endure only because they were already outside royal hands when she fell.
The Pattern Is Too Consistent to Ignore
A queen’s historical existence is normally secured through:
- her heraldry
- her official portraits
- her badges in royal palaces
- her household and inventories
- her legally recognised marriage
- her tomb and epitaph
Anne Boleyn lost all of these in May 1536.
Not because Henry remarried. Not because punishment required it. Not because protocol demanded it.
But because Henry VIII behaved as though she had never existed, and wanted history to do the same.
Her unmarked grave remains the final, brutal proof.
So what do you think?
Was Anne Boleyn the most deliberately erased queen in English history, or was Henry VIII simply rewriting an inconvenient past?
Ask me anything about Anne Boleyn.
by Karen Davies | Oct 22, 2025 | Blog, History, Writing
“It is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
— Martin Luther, Diet of Worms (1521)
The word occult comes from the Latin occultus – meaning hidden.
It speaks of what lies beyond sight: the unseen world, the life beyond this one, the forces beneath the surface of things.
Magic had always existed, as trickery, and as the belief that hidden forces could be summoned and directed.
Scripture taught that true power belonged only to God.
When Christ’s followers received the Holy Spirit, they performed wonders, but by submission, not command.
That was the line between faith and sorcery: Obedience versus control.
By the Middle Ages, that line had blurred.
The Church claimed authority to dispense grace through sacred rituals.
At the heart stood the Mass – the belief that bread and wine became the very body and blood of Christ.
To the Reformers, this was not faith but presumption.
They believed the Church had usurped divine power, claiming miracles that belonged only to God.
In their eyes, this fulfilled Christ’s warning: the False Prophet performing wonders in His name.
The Mass became the most contested ground of all.
If a priest could turn creation – bread and wine – into the Creator Himself, then humanity had seized the authority of God.
That, the Reformers said, was the greatest magic of all.
The moment when religion crossed into sorcery.
🕯️ The true battle was never between witch and priest, but over who held the power to command the divine.
by Karen Davies | Oct 22, 2025 | Blog, History, Writing
“The Law of God is eternal and cannot be changed, though heaven and earth pass away.”
— Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians (1535)
The oldest heresy was obedience.
When witch hunters spoke of the “witches’ sabbath,” they meant something specific.
They meant those who gathered at sundown on the seventh day.
Some historians now argue the witch trials were never about religion – just fear, famine, and feuds.
They note that executions were carried out by secular courts, not church courts.
But the Church condemned witchcraft as heresy, then handed the accused to the secular arm.
The judgment began in the church courts. It ended at the stake.
Modern scholars claim Christ never spoke of witches – that Scripture barely mentions magic.
The record says otherwise.
Christ warned of false prophets and lying wonders (Matthew 24:24), of unclean spirits that return (Luke 11:24–26), of those who cast out demons in His name but are unknown to Him (Matthew 7:22–23).
He didn’t say the word witch – but He confronted the power behind it.
And Scripture speaks plainly:
“There shall not be found among you one who uses divination or consults the dead.” — Deuteronomy 18:10–12
Saul, forsaken by God, sought the Witch of Endor.
The next day he fell upon his own sword.
Beneath these verses lies the deeper revelation – the Sabbath.
“And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it.” — Genesis 2:2–3
That seventh day, Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, was blessed before Moses, before Israel, before the Church.
In the fourth century, Emperor Constantine I moved the day of rest from the seventh day to the first.
From Sabbath to Sunday.
From commandment to resurrection.
Those who kept the original Sabbath were condemned as heretics.
And when fear met theology, they were whispered about as witches.
Those who gathered at sundown on the old day were accused of keeping the witches’ sabbath.
They were not conjuring spirits.
They were keeping faith.
🕯️ The truest haunting is forgetting who changed the day.
