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Summary
Anne Bullen and her attendant, an Old Lady, discuss the downfall of Queen Katherine outside the queen’s quarters. Anne is saddened that Katherine lived for so long without reproach and yet is about to fall from grace. She also thinks Katherine’s demise will be even more bitter because she has known such heights, and she suggests it may be better to have been born poor and happy than rich and miserable. Feeling so sorry for Katherine, Anne declares that she herself would never want to be a queen. The Old Lady assures her that she would, since Anne has a woman’s heart and therefore has a natural desire for wealth and eminence. The Old Lady says she would consent to be a queen for mere pocket change, while Anne insists that nothing could convince her.
The Lord Chamberlain enters with a message from the king, who has such a high opinion of Anne that he wants to honor her with a new title and an increased annual income. Anne says the only thing she can give in return is thanks, and she prays for the king’s well-being. On his way out, Lord Chamberlain notes to himself that Anne has such a wonderful mix of beauty and honor that she can’t help but have attracted the king’s eye, and he suspects that she may give birth to a child who will bring glory to England.
The Old Lady exclaims that she has been serving at the court for sixteen years and has had no improvement in her situation, whereas Anne has received these blessings almost without trying. Anne’s new title, given merely as a sign of respect and without requiring any obligation, promises more future gifts, in the Old Lady’s opinion. Anne quiets the Old Lady and worries what will happen next. She asks the Old Lady not to mention her new title to Katherine, then she returns to comfort the queen.
Analysis
In this scene, Anne Bullen speaks at length for the first and last time in the play. Her youthfulness and reluctance are both on full display, made plain by the contrast between her and the Old Lady who attends her. The Old Lady emphasizes how long she’s had to labor without any meaningful rise in rank, which she gives as the reason she’d jump at the chance to be queen. Anne, by contrast, is too wrapped up in her concern for her mistress, whose misery Anne can’t stop thinking about. Of course, despite her protestations, it won’t take long before Anne agrees to marry Harry, becomes his queen, and has his child. So, what is it that will change her mind? Perhaps it’s the king’s gifts and affection that will convince her. Alternatively, perhaps Anne has a secret ambition that her concern for Katherine prevents her from voicing. The Old Lady invokes this latter possibility when she notes that, as a woman, Anne must have some innate ambition for power. We never do find out why Anne agrees to become queen, but Shakespeare leaves this suggestion of her womanly ambition hovering.
Ultimately, it doesn’t seem to matter much what Anne’s intentions are, since the action of this play seems to be oriented toward the child she will eventually bear. On this reading, Anne is arguably important less as a thinking and feeling character and more as the mother-to-be of the future Queen Elizabeth. This point is underscored by the Lord Chamberlain when he observes to himself that Anne’s “beauty and honor” (2.3.93) betoken a luminous future, and that “from this lady may proceed a gem / To lighten all this isle” (95–96). Shakespeare’s audiences in the early seventeenth century would surely have understood these lines as a reference to their late queen, Elizabeth.
