Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 39 minutes ago
On the morning of 19 May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn walked calmly across the grounds of the Tower of London to the scaffold where she would meet her death. Within minutes, the second wife of King Henry VIII was dead, executed by a single stroke of a French swordsman's blade. Her dramatic rise from lady-in-waiting to Queen of England had transformed English history, and her equally dramatic fall changed the course of the Tudor dynasty forever. Yet although millions know the story of her execution, far fewer know what happened to her body afterwards or why her coffin was opened more than 340 years later.
On the morning of 19 May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn walked calmly across the grounds of the Tower of London to the scaffold where she would meet her death. Within minutes, the second wife of King Henry VIII was dead, executed by a single stroke of a French swordsman's blade. Her dramatic rise from lady-in-waiting to Queen of England had transformed English history, and her equally dramatic fall changed the course of the Tudor dynasty forever. Yet although millions know the story of her execution, far fewer know what happened to her body afterwards or why her coffin was opened more than 340 years later.
