Do official records show contradicting descriptions of Queen Anne Boleyn?

Did researchers ever accurately identify her remains?

Is there any real evidence that shows she was executed at all?

Join me for the thrilling conclusion of the Queen Anne Boleyn saga!

Joseph Gregory Hallett reports that the original chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula was destroyed by fire in 1512 and was rebuilt in the “ecclesiastical Tudor style.”

When the chapel was undergoing restorations in 1876, the surveyor found the stone slab floor sunken in two places

When a body is buried the ground around it will appear level. As time passes the earth will naturally compact.

Hallett tells us that these sunken areas were the reported graves of Queen Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.

Their graves had been robbed, “probably many times.”

He goes on to quote Sir Thomas Mores (which may have been a name fabricated by the Yeomen Warders) from 1876 saying:

“a heap of distorted female bones were found ‘not lying in the original order,’ as though they had been dropped there.”

Hallett tells us that it was not uncommon for nobility to employ grave robbers to switch or steal bodies as needed.

In fact, Napoleon’s body was stolen three times!

Hallett claims that Napoleon's body is now buried in the Horse Guards building in Westminster.

When the Queen’s remains were inspected, those involved agreed to cover up what they found.

According to Hallett, all of the bodies found were either “absent from their grave,” or “did not conform to their age, height or facial description.”

Surgeon General Sir James Mouat’s description of Anne Boleyn via her remains contradicts his own previously recorded description.

He reports a small forehead and well-formed lower jaw, yet stated earlier that she had an “intellectual forehead” and a “rather square, full chin.”

Hallett draws our attention to the fact that Mouat’s statement does not include any reference to the head being separated from the body, which leaves the claim of a completed execution in doubt.

He goes on to say that Mouat was proficient in “Victorian guesswork,” not medicine.

Hallett claims that between the Queen’s grave being robbed perhaps more than once, and the jumbled set of mismatched bones being unidentifiable, there is no tangible evidence that suggests Queen Anne Boleyn was ever executed in the Tower of London.

Where will our trip down the [] hole will take us next time?

Your guess is as good as mine!

Check back next time as we uncover more hidden history with Joseph Gregory Hallett!

@threadreaderapp unroll please