Anne Boleyn was accused of many things such as high treason, witchcraft, adultery, and incest. Suspicion arose against King Henry and Jane Seymour, his mistress at the time, both of whom were banqueting on the Thames at the time of Boleyn 's arrest. Pamphlets circulated throughout all of London that mocked the trials against Boleyn and the men and supported the Queen. On May 17,1536 Anne Boleyn 's brother, George Boleyn and the other men who were accused were executed. The keepers of the Tower noted that Boleyn seemed ready to be done with life and actually seemed happy. One of the King 's men by the name of Lord Kingston had brought her the news that the King had changed her sentence from a burning, which was a traditional execution method for women, to a beheading, and that Henry had employed a well-known swordsman from Calais to carry out her execution, rather than having the queen beheaded with an axe. She then replied to the news by stating a quote that she is known for; "He shall not have much trouble, for I have a little neck." She is well known for this quote because it not only showed her personality but her attitude towards the entire situation. On the morning of May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn was escorted to the Tower Green and made a small speech before her execution, where she stated, "…I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I …show more content…
Several dark legends began to circulate about Boleyn after her death, however, these allegations were later put to rest, and after 1558, Boleyn was revered as a heroine by English Protestants. She was especially praised through the works of John Foxe, who argued that Boleyn had saved England from the evils of Roman Catholicism. He also argued that God had provided proof of her innocence by making sure that her daughter, Elizabeth I, would later become queen. A common view of Anne Boleyn in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the image of her being a romantic victim; a stubborn and beautiful woman who was unjustly put to death by her unfaithful and self-centered husband, which led to her presented as a tyrant by most historians. Now, historians argue that Anne Boleyn had been one of the most intelligent, ambitious, and significant queens in all of European