The Fall Of Anne Boleyn

Channel 5

Weekdays starting Tuesday 1 December

Every year, on 19 May, the Tower of London receives an anonymously delivered bouquet of red roses and a request that the flowers are placed on the grave of Anne Boleyn. It’s a reminder of the powerful hold that Henry VIII’s second wife, the mother of Elizabeth I, exerts over our collective imagination.

But how did Anne, who was executed for adultery, fall from favour so spectacularly? It’s a question explored here by Tracy Borman, joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces, in three episodes that chart Anne’s arrest, trial and execution, events that were largely orchestrated by the king’s fixer Thomas Cromwell. Her research makes for a revealing series rich in telling details.