Did ANNE BOLEYN have a PSEUDO PREGNANCY in 1534? Causes of pseudo pregnancies. Six wives documentary 

Do you think Anne’s 1534 pregnancy was genuine or not? Let me know below and remember to SUBSCRIBE with NOTIFICATIONS switched on and check out the DESCRIPTION BOX for suggestions for books, movies and TV shows about Anne. You can also join my PATREON site for extra perks at www.patreon.com/historycalling

Given that she became pregnant so soon after the birth of Elizabeth, her uterus would not have had the time to recover. It makes great sense that she lost a baby in the late second trimester or early third, and she's lucky to have lived through it.

This story, as well as Mary Tudor’s pseudo-pregnancy, I have always found fascinating. It appears to happen even today when women are under stress trying to get pregnant. It also says that their husbands can exhibit the same pregnancy symptoms as their wives. A sort of sympathy pregnancy. The human brain is so much more powerful than we give it credit for.. Thanks again for these thoughtful gems from history.

I just wanted to thank you for mentioning what is called today; a missed miscarriage. You mentioned a baby "being miscarried and not yet delivered of her body" I believe words of a doctor... and many people, are not aware this can happen. They automatically presume a miscarriage to be losing a baby out of your body, that dies due to being far too premature. I also thought that at one time, and have had four such miscarriages myself. However I have also miscarried another baby, (which was technically the fourth of five pregnancies total that I lost) and this was a missed miscarriage. Having had one daughter followed by three miscarriages at this point, I felt the familiar knot of dread upon finding a few spots of blood in my knickers. However it was only a couple of tiny dots, and I'd bled fairly heavily whilst pregnant with my daughter, and she was fine. But just to be certain I went to hospital, over exaggerated the amount of blood loss, in order to get an early ultrasound. I was 11 weeks pregnant, and wasn't due an official dating / nuchal fold scan for two weeks. The sonographer said, "aha there's your baby!" at which me and my husband were thrilled, but she soon went quiet and excused herself out the room for a minute. She came back with an obstetric consultant, he had a look at the screen as he scanned me again, and then told us the baby had no heartbeat. I was correctly 11+ weeks pregnant, however my baby was only 8 weeks developed, maximum. My baby had been dead inside of me for three weeks at that point and I'd had no idea. I then heard someone scream out in the corridor and ran out to find out who was hurt, and a few moments later two nurses scooped me up off the floor and I realised the woman screaming was myself. God this was 18 years ago now and that just brought tears back! It was a Friday and we went home for the weekend to wrap our heads around the news, and I was booked in for an operation on the Monday morning. Over the weekend the thing that broke my heart the most, was that I didn't want to lose my baby...but my baby didn't want to leave Mummy either! I didn't want my baby to be taken from me, on an emotional level anyway, as I felt like this baby didn't want to be separated from me. Having never heard of missed miscarriage prior to this, it was a surreal thing to come to terms with. I'd presumed babies die and the body flushes them out soon after....or that for some reason the baby detaches, and dies during the process of being delivered. But physically I knew I had to have the baby removed, because the hospital were already concerned that I'd been carrying it dead for 3 weeks already, and so infection was a probability. I also learned at this point about another strange phenomenon that can happen as a result of missed miscarriage, and that is calcified babies! Yep! If the baby stays inside, the body can eventually roll the baby around and turn it into a calcified lump, something similar to how gallstones form from small deposits that build up. Isn't that just crazy sounding? 😳 It's pretty rare, however, far MORE common than you would have thought, if you even knew about it in the first place. Obviously it's more common in poorer countries with less access to healthcare. I read about one lady in India, I believe she was 70 if I'm not wrong? She'd been pregnant at least 40 years prior, and had known her baby had died. She was further along in her pregnancy and the baby stopped moving. She told her husband she'd lost the baby, but that was a lie. She felt exactly like I did emotionally, that if her child had wanted to leave her, it would have done so on it's own. So she told no one so her baby could stay with her. Over the years she wore baggier clothes to hide the belly that was NOT going flatter, despite apparently losing a pregnancy. In fact over her later years her belly began to grow as more and more calcified material clung onto the already sizeable "stone". I think her family presumed the lump was some type of stomach tumour or gastric swelling, and she allowed them to continue thinking that. They very rarely saw doctors anyway. It was only when her son, found her crippled over with pain when she was in her 70's, that he took her to the hospital and paid for it for her. And that's when her secret was removed and she could no longer deny the truth. Think how many women, who are pregnant one minute, and then they are not, yet there was no foetus expelled from her body.....for instance a talk show guest. How many of us have muttered disgust at that woman on the TV, automatically presuming she'd lied about being pregnant in the first place!? I know I have. Missed miscarriages are not well known about, not even to women, who like myself, had experienced "normal miscarriages" prior to that one. So I'd just like to thank you for highlighting that they are a thing. Most miscarriages are unpleasant, but there's an extra emotional torment attached to missed miscarriage. As demonstrated by the Indian lady I mentioned, and many others like her, who are in denial of "losing" their baby. It's not lost, they still have it, all to themselves. Our brains are fascinating in the way they switch logic around to help us cope with life's difficult circumstances. Lots of love to all Mothers who have lost babies, are unable to bear babies, or indeed have lost living children too as I have - my next pregnancy the following year I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, but he died unexpectedly aged 5½ years, from chickenpox. 😢 In fact lots of love to all Mothers, dealing with children with medical issues, or just dealing with children at all! I think we've all had at least one moment where we ask ourselves why we ever bloody had kids in the first place...in fact if you've only had one such moment, do you know how lucky you are? 🤣 My daughter when she was a teenager, I wouldn't wish those years on Hitler! 😮 Children eh? They certainly give our hearts a workout that's for sure! Good or bad, happy or sad. ❤❤❤❤❤

When considering the pseudocyesis (as a psychological) theory, keep in mind they didn't have much context for things like PCOS or uterine fibroids. Both can cause very irregular menstrual cycles (putting them anywhere from a week late to no cycle for half a year) and even bloating to the degree it looks like pregnancy. Upon a palpating exam by the doctors, uterine fibroids could have mislead them to believe it was a pregnancy. If she wasn't pregnant and didn't experience a loss that was kept quiet, she could have experienced one of those two conditions. They, along with endometriosis, can be passed along as a genetic predisposition. Each of these conditions make it more difficult to conceive as well. Some food for thought.

Thank you for a thought provoking video. To me, I would say that she was actually pregnant. She certainly seemed to have no troubles conceiving. Only an idea but, perhaps of Catherine of Aragon’s so many miscarriages and stillbirths ( poor woman) , Henry didn’t want to advertise the similarities. No matter ones opinion of Anne, to have a miscarriage ( of a son) in January and to be executed by may, seems very cruel. Sort of “ out with the old and in with the new’ type of scenario. Anne doesn’t seem to be the personality to have a psuedo pregnancy. How sad and traumatic for any woman who has this condition. The pressure these poor queens must have been under to produce a boy. One hopes that when these men finally met their Maker it was clearly pointed out “ it was your fault boyo”. Thank you 👵👵👵👵🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

Anne Boleyn, my favorite English Queen has gotten a bad rep. We see history through her enemies. She was smart and she was a victim of her greedy family and Henry VIII. It shows how smart she was that she converted Henry to protestant (good!) and kept him occupied for so many years. How would things have gone if only she had given the monster a son.

In "the other Boleyn girl", they made it out that she miscarried in the middle of the night and was too scared to tell Henry, so she told someone to "either bury it or put it on the fire"

Considering who she was married to I think perhaps she miscarried but kept it quiet. Catherine had multiple miscarriages and one living child, Mary. Anne had maybe four pregnancies and one living child, Elizabeth. Jane had one child, Edward and we will never know if she would’ve continually lost pregnancies (maybe if she had the court would’ve looked at Henry as the one at fault). Anne of Cleves remained a virgin, Katherine Howard, despite her young age and probable fertility, never did conceive by Henry. I still think Henry’s side of genetics were at fault but without modern DNA testing or prenatal care (including aminocentices) we will never know

I just want to throw out there that “phantom kicks” are insane and can feel very real. I had them all the time for a couple years after I had my first, and quite often would get paranoid that I was pregnant again. Thankfully modern medicine exists, and I was able to tell that there wasn’t any baby in there. Lol Edit: I think she was really pregnant though

I think it was real. Miscarriages were very common among Henry's wives because of the pressure they felt to produce a son, and also the times.

First word I saw was phantom, said to myself "Elizabethan ghost stories!" then I read "pregnancy" then I said "oooooo a ghostly knock upward", still cool. Nice video. :)

Anne Boleyn's history is a very sad one. She was a victim from the beginning of her own ambitions and of the court of King Henry VIII. I do believe she was pregnant, and I believe it was a very agonizing situation due to the pressure to produce an heir. It is one of the many sad stories of the British monarchy.

I love your narrative voice. You're very expressive, and so it is engaging to listen to you speak. You don't sound stiff like you're reading from a script. Your cadence is close to conversational, and you use a wide variety of tonal inflection. All of these add together to create an interesting and lively listening experience. Subbed.

I have only ever been mildly interested in this era of British history because my main interest is ancient history, but I am fascinated by your videos on the topic! You're a wonderful story teller!

It would be interesting to know what her general health was like after the birth of Elizabeth. I have read her mother was at court for the birth and remained for quite some time after. Missing periods is the usual mark of being pregnant, but I read that she ate very little trying to lose her baby weight so that Henry would return to her bed, as she had become aware of him taking a mistress during her pregnancy. Under eating is not conducive to getting pregnant, but she would have gathered all the information available about procreation to make her chances of getting pregnant (knowing when she was likely to ovulate) would have been known to her. Her sister Mary, who knew Henry very well and had had two children already would have been a good source of advice for her. If she miscarried, she would have been unavailble for sex for at least a short period of time, so looking at Henry's mistress activity might shed some light on that.

I would like to put forth an alternative option, which I cannot prove, but since it happened to me, I think it could be a possibility. There is a type of pregnancy called a Blighted Ovum in which the body does actually go through potentially the entire pregnancy - and even labor - except there's no baby. I understand this to be different from a phantom pregnancy in that a phantom pregnancy has no actual growing of a gestational sac in the uterus and that all the symptoms (including weight gain and a rounded belly) are simply the body convincing itself that its pregnant. With a Blighted Ovum, the body actually is pregnant, except there's no baby. So basically, when I had it, I went through the first trimester having a positive pregnancy test and all the symptoms, but something felt off. At some point, in the beginning of the second trimester, I decided to go in and see what was going on and an ultrasound was done which confirmed that there was no baby in the womb. I was told that my body might eventually go through a miscarriage, or it might wait the entire 9 months and then go through labor. I was given medication to take to trigger the 'miscarriage' but because I was in the process of moving, I didn't have time. I waited a little over a month to finish up our move and get settled in, and then took the meds. It brought on the miscarriage, and that was as painful and laborious as the previous miscarriages I'd had - which were almost equal to the two actual labors I'd had with my sons. It included water breaking and passing of an approximately 4 month along gestational sac. So, my point is that she could have had what everyone thought was a real pregnancy because it more or less is real, until she was far enough along that it became obvious that there was no baby inside - nothing inside the womb to feel when palpated and no kicks, etc. At that point, when she miscarried, there would have been nothing but the gestational sac to come out, and so - to me - that actually explains why/how she would have had a real pregnancy but no one ever talked about her having a miscarriage or even what gender the baby was - since she would have been far enough along for a gender to be determined. Shrugs. Just my two cents. :-)

I agree with you. I think she must have had a miscarriage. And it was covered up. It must have been so sad for her. Knowing how Henry was he didn't want his abilities to be in question!!!!! Thank you for a great video again!! X

I wonder sometimes with Henry's extreme obsession to have a legitimate male heir, if he didn't suffer with "false pregnancies." 😂😂

I read an interesting article suggesting that Anne was Rhesus negative and this was suggested as the reason for her several miscarriages after giving birth to Elizabeth. Obviously in those days there wasn’t an Anti D injection to protect any future pregnancies

I’ve been an “Anne Fan’’ since I was 10 and I have to say I really love your videos! I’ve read most books on her, including the Eric Ives excellent Biography, so this is a very “done” subject for me. But I always find your videos fresh and very interesting! So thank you for all of the time and effort you put into them. Keep up the great work! 🙏🏻

I have just recently found your channel in the last week, and have binge-watched so many of your Tudor series videos! They're so good!! I love to see all the many sources (primary and secondary) at the end of your videos. As an amateur historian-haven't published anything, with only a Bachelor of Sciences in History and a year's experience in a university's small Archives & Area Research Center-I love all aspects of history and histology, and add as much of it as I can to my fanfiction, fantasy, and historical fiction stories. Finding your channel and engaging in these discussions and replying to other commenters has been so refreshing and down right fun for me. Thank you so much!! I would love to have more in-depth discussions with you about all things history. Can't wait for your next upload.

I am continually so impressed with the quality of these videos. Thank you for your hard work. I look forward to them every week. Another book on Henry VIII's wives that was quite good and provided a different perspective was "Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation Of The Wives Of Henry VIII" by Karen Lindsay. It is a nice counterbalance to consider against the more common messages we hear about the women.

My mother lost a unborn son at 5 months into pregnancy. She had a rare medical condition where her uterus had three compartments. I was first born and carried in the largest of the compartments. My 'brother' carried in the second largest died in utero , but was never delivered. My sister was carried in the smallest and last compartment and was very premature with low birth weight. After my sister's birth, my mother had a complete hysterectomy and the evidence of the male fetus was discovered. My mother was told that this was a rare event and she donated her uterus to Tulane University's medical collection in New Orleans, Louisiana. This scenario would fit perfectly with the accounts of Anne's pregnancy.

It's quite something how many times Anne became pregnant in such a short time.

it's hard to think that Henry was a reasonable king and person until the last eleven years of his life and then he's just lost his mind. You don't realise that all those wives took place in a just over a decade.

Poor lady was so desperate for a son, who knows what effect this had on her health.🌹

always so well researched and well presented :)

Truly appreciate the time and effort you put in to your presentation of the topics you present to all of your subscribers. So professional and factually accurate. You work is very appreciated and always look forward to more content.

I love your channel. I learn so much 😃

Another fine video. My week is now complete! I love Egyptian history and am eagerly looking forward to that. Can hardly wait for the Halloween video and I hope you do more than one. Be well.

Beautifully presented,you are so engaging and captivating i feel so happy to have found you as you have reacquainted me with my love and fascination of historical episodes i have long neglected,thank you

I thank you for another incredible video!

I'm so glad I just discovered this channel. Fascinating topics and great videos :) I agree with a comment that has already been made here, I think we should always keep in mind that people in those days were unaware of medical conditions such as endometriosis and PCOS. I have endometriosis and many of the symptoms are more commonly associated with pregnancy, such as morning sickness, irregular periods, pain in the lower tummy and back, etc. Women back then really didn't know what was going on with their bodies.

Absolutely love this channel. ❤️

Thank you for your excellent videos & so kind of you to reply to comments ⭐️💖👍🏼

Great video I enjoyed it can't can't can't see more tomorrow soon. Your videos are great history. 👍

This is slowly becoming one of my favorite history channels on RU-vid ✌️❤️ Also just wanted to add that I find your voice absolutely soothing 😊

This was really interesting. Thank you

This is my guess, she got pregnant within 6 weeks of Elizabeth's birth, had a miscarriage. early in 1534, and was pregnant again in 1534 which is why the Spanish ambassador thought the child would be born later. Some historians believe she had at least 4 miscarriages after Elizabeth which was why (although still evil) why Henry was ready to have her executed after her last.

I agree with you… it was a real pregnancy that she lost… was kept quiet so it wouldn’t be used against her… Queen Victoria sucked me into the interesting world of the English monarchy…. I loved learning about Anne Boleyn and the complex relationship with her sister Mary… but the more I learn… the more I don’t like and the more I want to learn about the RIGHTFUL QUEEN 👑 Queen Katherine of Aragon… She was a true and worthy Queen… and Henry did not deserve her… and we would NEVER have had a Bloody Mary had Henry done right by his rightful and legitimate family.

i cant wait to hear your take on this, something i’ve always wondered about!

Yes, she had 4 pregnancies. Elizabeth, one premature stillbirth & 2 miscarriages. Stepdaughter Mary had 2 phantom pregnancies.

It's not a pseudo pregnancy, it's a missed miscarriage. The pregnancy ends, but a miscarriage doesn't happen - the foetus and tissue is absorbed into the body. There is an infection risk, therefore today, a procedure to remove any tissue remaining in the uterus would be performed. The 'd' you refer to with regard to the cost of the cradle is said as pence - i.e. 4 pounds, three shillings and six pence.

It's was more common than people think Mary 1st could be diagnosed the same, my friend from childhood was diagnosed few years ago, her and her husband been trying for 8 years and she thought she was genuinely pregnant, it was concluded she miscarried (which again is more.common than people think) but her body continued and even went into labour, It was a hard day for her to be told there's no baby

Probably one of the most ironic things is that while Henry was obsessed with having a male heir, it was his *daughter* Elizabeth who actually went on to become one of the greatest monarchs in British history.

Thank you.

There's anecdotal evidence that Mary I had ovarian or uterine cysts or tumors, and that she probably died from ovarian or uterine cancer. Cysts can become large enough to cause the swelling of the abdomen. If the intestines are near the cyst, then material moving inside the intestines can give the feeling of a baby moving within the womb. These cysts can suddenly burst or decrease in size over time. There would not have been knowledge of these cysts as a diagnosis. And doctors were not permitted to examine the body of a monarch. In modern times, they are surgically removed if large, painful, troublesome, or they don't go away in a reasonable amount of time. Pretty sick of the myth of Mary I (and others) as an irrational female who imagined wished-for pregnancies.

Topic request: given your research into all things Tudor, I'd love to hear your take on Henry VIII's relationship with Mary Boleyn, and whether he was the father of one or more of her children.

Anne Boylen is so interesting, ur vids on her and others really make them come alive for me. Im watching on yt right now a 3pt docu called The Boylen's: A Scandalous Family. So i was excited to see this! Hope u have a good weekend, thank u 🤗

Maybe she lied? And tried to get pregnant later? And would have said it was premature later. She might have been frightened of what King Henry would have done if she would not have quickly produced a male heir.

I think it was a miscarriage. I also think that there is a link between Mary, Catherine, Anne, Elizabeth and Jane Seymour. Is it possible Henry passed a sexually transmitted disease to all of his wives, causing miscarriages, sterility in his children and birth complications that killed Jane. It just seems the only common link in all of this misfortune is Henry. His sons also die early, possibly another link if they were born infected with a disease.

Why am I watching is at 2.30 in the morning

No. No she didn’t. I am thinking what Ann’s problem was endometriosis or she had a negative blood type. Some of the issues she’s had I also have had. Sometimes people just have lots of miscarriages and it’s very sad

Ive had 3 psychosomatic pregnancies. And according to my doctor if you have 1 you are likely to have more. In my case they got worse each time. The first time it lasted 14 weeks, the second time 19 weeks and the last time it lasted 29 weeks. At last one I actually got medical help to end it.

Wouldn’t surprise me surprise me if people were poisoning Catherine’s babies for miscarriages and it wouldn’t surprise me if Ann B babies were poisoned as well for miscarriages she had a lot of pressure on her to give Henry a son so a pseudo pregnancy isn’t too far-fetched with that amount of pressure on any woman…? 🤷‍♀️

You have a very lovely voice :)

As I often do, I agree with your theory history calling, queen Ann was pregnant, sadly she lost the baby, as for the French ambassador he disliked Ann to put it mildly,thank you as always. 😊👍

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="22">0:22</a> Thats interesting that they say this is portrait of Anne, when she was known for being a dark brunette. Or maybe her hair color wasn't really common knowledge back then.. I assume this was painted posthumously. Also this is really interesting, this is the first time I've heard of this supposed phantom pregnancy. Of course I do remember Mary 1 well documented phantom pregnancy, but never for Anne, which makes it so fascinating. Thank you for the excellent video and research.

Love your shows the Tudor's 1 my favorite families :) loved queen Elizabeth I stories also Queen Victoria's family how Queen Elizabeth II is related :)

Just goes to show. These poor Tudor women were so desperate to get pregnant. What, CoA, Mary I, and it wouldn’t surprise one bit if Anne had one also.

Brilliant! I knew very little about Anne's 2nd pregnancy, & I certainly didn't know there was so much evidence for it- thankyou for enlightening me! It does sound like a miscarriage, for all the reasons you said, & pseudocyesis is just soooo rare- it's surprising enough that it happened to Mary I. However exciting & interesting these theories are, commonest things are commonest, & even today, miscarriages are sadly still quite common, it's just people rarely talk about it. A 16thc woman having several miscarriages & stillbirths, but still some healthy births & surviving children, doesn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary, but when you have a track record like poor Queen Anne Stuart, I _do_ think theorising about medical issues is in order.

I watched this, kinda hoping for more of an explanation of this. My mom had 2 miscarriages and it's a forbidden topic. The one time I tried to ask about it, my dad shut down the topic and said it was never to be talked about. She briefly mentioned the word chemical pregnancy, right before he interrupted. I do know they had a period of 4 years of trying to conceive. When a fertility doctor was consulted, he dismissed them as young. At that point, within a year or so, their 1st born came.....followed by 11 natural healthy ones. She's talked about being a very nervous person and how dad helped her to calm down. I'm an adult now and not the greatest relationship with either of them, but still wonder.

Mary I was famous for phantom pregnancy. To me, it’s not clear if there was one or two. The evidence for the second sounds too sketchy for me to be convinced it was phantom pregnancy. The evidence available for the first sounds sufficient.

I really enjoy your videos - thank you. I wonder, at some point, if it might be worth considering a video about Eustace Chapuys? He seems to have been everywhere at the Tudor court for quite a bit of time and had opinions on everything. I would love to know more about him. And yes, my next move is to look for a book. By the way, I've ordered the Ives book. Is it true that Anne's sister Mary is a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II though her mother?

I also agree with your logic. We know Henry & Anne likely would have engaged like rabbits, setting forth tons of possibilities for bunnies lol. We also know that Henry may have been in poorer health starting about that time, and his contribution may have led to more than one miscarriage for Anne. I do find the French Ambassador capable of gossip so not a good source. But of course, none of us were there. I'm grateful for researchers like yourself who consider the facts we have and maybe together, we'll discover new info! Your videos are like Christmas morning!!!

Fascinating! I cannot imagine what it would be like to be under so much pressure to conceive and produce a son, and to do it all in the public eye, knowing full well your position and life were not secure without it, and that many around you were your mortal enemies. Poor women.

Poor Anne deserved better no matter what her pregnancy status.

I agree you!

Poor homely woman....

I think she was actually pregnant. The fact that Elizabeth was a girl was not ideal for Anne, but it did prove that she could conceive and have a healthy baby and it was only her first pregnancy. She probably thought that she could go on to have a boy, I don't see her being so desperate that she would experience a phantom pregnancy by that point. Pseudocyesis used to be more common than it is now, but statistically speaking a miscarriage is way more likely.

I believe Anne had Postnatal depression after Elizabeth followed by postnatal pychosis after the 8 month miscarriage.

The currency was Pounds, Shillings and Pence. So a sum of money would be rendered verbally as 'so many pounds, so many shillings and so many PENCE, not 'd'.

I'm really interested in the blue over heavily embroidered dress in the first portrait you showed. Can you point me in the direction of the picture?

I think that she was pregnant. But also, my have lost the baby due to stress. Worrying way to much will cause you to stress out. Trust me, I should know. I have really bad anxiety and that causes me to worry way to much, then I start stressing out really bad.

Lancelot de Carles wrote of Anne miscarrying a male baby. He wrote a poem stating that Henry's jousting accident, made her collapse and land on her belly which caused her to give birth “avant terme”, prematurely, to “ung beau filz”, a beautiful son, who was born dead. But, he also wrote 'poems' about her numerous affairs.

I don't think she has a pseudo pregnancy.

That drawing that you showed between queen mary and that of her and her mother is not of Anne, it is of Mary Tudor queen of France

Thank you, another great video. It's interesting I am wondering why i hope Anne was pregnant and lost her baby rather than going through pseudocyesis? Both being such tragic and horrible things to happen. Perhaps it's because of "Bloody Mary" and, Anne Boleyn has to be better than Mary right? I don't know.

Read Joanna Denny's Anne Boleyn book! :)

I think Anne was pregnant in 1534. At best I think we can say Chapuys didn't approve of Anne. He never called her anything but 'the concubine'. He'd have had an absolute field day with the idea of Anne having a phantom pregnancy, and I just don't buy that he wouldn't have heard about such a thing, even if he'd found out from a second hand source if he wasn't around at the time. I think it's far more likely than Anne miscarried and it was kept pretty quiet. That earjy in the marriage I just wonder if Henry would have fretted about a miscarriage given that Anne had presented him with a healthy child, albeit a girl. I suspect a miscarriage would have bothered him far more later, when there was no sign of the son he was so desperate for and he was starting to tire of Anne. I think it's pretty likely that Anne was pregnant four times in the course of her marriage. Obviously the timings are debatable, but I think it's likely. She came from fertile stock. Her father stated that his wife, Elizabeth Howard, had given birth every year up until at least 1505, with them having married, according to Alison Weir, between 1495-98, and we know of 5 children from the marriage, Thomas, Henry, Mary, Anne and George. I think it’s quite plausible that Anne was pregnant four times and after Elizabeth she either had miscarriages or stillbirths. The possibility of a miscarriage relatively soon after Elizabeth’s birth might add some fuel to the idea that Anne was Rhesus negative. At least on the face of it, it would follow the pattern of a healthy birth followed by miscarriages or stillbirths that fits with being Rhesus negative. If that’s right, and we obviously will never know, Anne could have got pregnant again, but every time would have ended the same way, miscarriage or stillbirth.

I'm honestly shocked more of Henry's wives didn't have phantom pregnancies due to the amount of pressure on these women

Rochfort and Champlais were court mechaninists. Also so known as spin doctors of the day... Spelling errors are mine as I didn't look em up.. I do recall the stories from my 1970's studies

So freaking sad. Watching this while nursing my sweet little one and thanking God I was born in an era of modern medicine

i wonder if it could have been an infection of some kind causing the swelling in her belly? you would think she would be very ill if that were the case or even die from it. puzzling!!

funny enough i have pcos and was having pains in my lower back and stomach and down my leg and 1 really bad period where it went on too long i did get a scan and it was empty. i was also feeling sick at times and hormonal so it was like my body thought i was pregnany but i wasn't. turned out it was either a fantom one or suffering from stress. not that im looking to get pregnant at all. but when it comes down to it our bodies can be so weird.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="186">3:06</a> I've been showing since 9 weeks but it really popped last week at 13 weeks. But I've got a pretty flat stomach in general

Didn’t Henry have syphillis which made having more than one healthy baby impossible for almost any woman? I remember reading that it was thought that Edward died of congenital syphillis and his sisters suffered from it also, which made them infertile.

The cause is probably either one desperately wants to be pregnant...or on the other end, is terrified of it.

I doubt it was fake. It is strange that no miscarriage is mentioned but as Ann was a health woman, it may have been dismissed as these things happen. It makes sense with Henry's sudden turning on Ann in 1536. After a 2nd miscarriage, this was starting to look like Catherine all over again. Henry wasn't going to wait 20 years again, so got rid of Ann.

Love your history on Anne. Do you think it might be possible than ,Anne, near

I thought there were some surviving contemporary sketches of Anne Boleyn by Hans Holbein?

I always find the phrase "fell pregnant" kind of strange. Fell? I also have problems with "she got herself pregnant", which you also hear and which I believe is anatomically impossible. Both phrases seem to cast the woman in a dark, or at least very strange light. It brings to mind "fallen woman" and "fallen flower" and all the other "fallen" phrases of yore, which definitely cast aspersions on a woman's virtue (always connected to virginity).

We will never know for sure. It could be either: 1 - Anne was pregnant and miscarried during the summer progress, giving the propaganda machine the opportunity to hush down the facts, or 2 - she was so anxious to ''give'' Henry the son he was obsessed with having, that emotional pressure led to a phantom pregnancy, immediately after the disappointing news of her first child having been ''only'' a daughter. If I had to pick one of those two possibilities, I would, like you, conclude that it was number 1, Anne was really pregnant and miscarried.

Just to let you know - the "d" is merely an abbreviation (never said) for pence (from denarii).

I think she had a miscarriage or the baby came way too early and didn't survive, and they wanted to keep it quiet to make it seem like there aren't problems on her or Henry's part, due to the 'the health of the monarch is the health of the realm'

Have you heard the theory from the Historian Allison Weir in which she suggested that Anne was RH negative? So after birthing her first baby without problems that she could never birth a living child again due to the complications of the blood? Very interesting theory….

So the medal is the only contemporary portrait of Her?

these poor women.....the pressure to produce a son. awful.

I know you like accuracy, so please excuse my being pedantic,but the currency should be pronounced shillings and pence(the d)Anyway ,please keep up the good work