Anne Boleyn and the Mob Attack: Why Tudor Women Turned Against Her

Anne Boleyn and the Mob Attack is one of the most dramatic but overlooked events in Tudor history. In 1531, thousands of London women and some men in disguise, allegedly formed a furious mob with one goal: to hunt down and kill Anne Boleyn, the king’s controversial mistress and future queen. This shocking episode, reported by a Venetian ambassador, wasn’t just a rumor or court scandal—it was a real act of political and religious protest led by ordinary Tudor women.

Let’s explore what caused this violent uprising, why so many women opposed Anne, and how this moment reveals deeper tensions about gender, power, and faith in Henry VIII’s England.

Transcript of The Mob That Hunted Anne Boleyn: Why Tudor Women Rose Up

In November 1531, the Venetian ambassador Lodovico Falier sent a report to King Charles V describing an event that frankly sounds like it came straight out of a Tudor thriller. He says, more than seven weeks ago, a mob of seven to eight thousand women of London went out of the town to seize Boleyn’s daughter, the sweetheart of the King of England, who was supping at a villa on the river, the king not being with her. Having received notice of this, she escaped by crossing the river in a boat.

The women had intended to kill her, and amongst the mob were many men disguised as women. Nor has any great demonstration been made about this because it was a thing done by women.

This was not just gossip. This was political violence, and it targeted a woman many already saw as England’s queen-in-waiting. So what would drive thousands of women—and some men disguised as women—to try to kill Anne Boleyn? That is what we are going to talk about today.

Today, we are talking about the way women saw Boleyn, and specifically this incident. You read about it in historical fiction novels quite a bit. It is one of those things that kind of pops up, and sometimes you wonder, was that really true? Did a mob really chase Anne Boleyn?

In fact, I had initially entered into Google, “Tell me about the time a mob chased Anne Boleyn,” and it came back and said, “This isn’t a story that happened.” So then I was like, wow, Google doesn’t even think it happened. But there it is, right there in the Calendar of State Papers online. I will stick a link down below—the letter from the Venetian ambassador, Lodovico Falier

So to understand why the fury was aimed at Anne Boleyn, we have to first look at the woman she was replacing: Queen Katherine of Aragon. Catherine was a beloved queen by this point. She had been married to Henry for two decades. She had suffered public heartbreak after heartbreak. She was seen as the very embodiment of royal dignity and Catholic virtue.
Women in particular noticed this.

Cardinal Jean du Bellay reported in 1529 that if Henry’s divorce had been left solely up to the judgment of English women, he would have lost decisively. Wherever Katherine went, she was adored. Women lined the streets to cheer her, shouting encouragement and calling out “Care for nothing!” as she passed. They saw her as one of their own—a loyal wife cast aside for a younger woman.

To many, Anne was not a love match. She was a homewrecker. And worse, her rise represented an upheaval in everything that women were supposed to value: marriage, family, religion, and loyalty.

The attempted attack on Anne near the river was not an isolated incident. In fact, just a year later, there was a major riot in Great Yarmouth, and once again, it was women at the center of the unrest.

Sir Thomas Audley, a senior official in Henry’s government, was dispatched to investigate. His report suggests that the riot was clearly anti–Anne Boleyn, but that the authorities hesitated to make too much out of it. After all, it was just women. And if it was more serious, surely their husbands had secretly put them up to it—because, you know, a woman couldn’t possibly think to protest on her own. That wouldn’t be a thing that would happen.

Anyway, this was typical of how Tudor England viewed female protest—as foolish, emotional, or manipulated. And yet these same women had a vast informal communication network through markets, churches, alehouses, and gossip chains that could spread rumors faster than any royal decree.

Anne wasn’t just facing resistance at court. She was being targeted by a grassroots movement—sharp tongues and sometimes sharpened knives. Of all the women who opposed Anne Boleyn, none loomed larger or ended more dramatically than Elizabeth Barton, the so-called Maid of Kent.

At the height of her influence, Elizabeth Barton had thousands of followers and was making bold public prophecies. She warned Henry that if he married Anne Boleyn, he would die within a month. She claimed it wasn’t just immoral—it was against the will of God. And here’s the thing: people actually believed her. Women especially flocked to her speeches, seeing her as a spiritual counterbalance to Anne’s rise. Even high-ranking clergy paid attention.

But that kind of influence made her very dangerous. Barton was interrogated, publicly humiliated, and forced to confess that she had made it all up. In 1534, she was executed along with five of her closest supporters. Her head was placed on London Bridge—a nun, decapitated for daring to speak against the king’s new love interest. And yet, her message had already spread. The damage to Anne’s reputation had been done.

So historians have long wrestled with a question that feels just as relevant today: why did so many women loathe Anne? Retha Warnicke argues that it was personal, not just political. Anne’s marriage was viewed as an assault on traditional family values. As long as she was Henry’s mistress, people could tolerate her. But when she became queen while Katherine still lived, it crossed a serious line.

Many women saw it as adulterous, destabilizing, and profoundly immoral—a threat to their own marriages. If the king could so easily put aside the queen with no ramifications, no consequences, their own husbands might do the same. And in a period where women didn’t have the ability to earn their own money and were entirely dependent on their husbands, that was a real threat—not just to their marriages, but to their lives and their children’s lives as well.

Sharon Jansen points out that female protest during the 1530s wasn’t just about the marriage. It was also religious. Anne represented reform, change, and uncertainty, while Katherine represented tradition, ritual, and faith. Women who felt anxious about England’s spiritual direction saw Anne as the problem.

And let’s not forget—Anne was assertive, educated, and opinionated. To some, that made her exciting. But to many Tudor women raised on ideals of obedience and humility, she was downright threatening.

So Anne’s rise wasn’t just controversial. It sparked a gendered revolution. While powerful men schemed in council chambers, it was the women who were filling the streets, shouting from windows, spreading gossip, and in at least one case, picking up weapons. Anne divided a kingdom—and Tudor women made sure she knew it. So there you go—a little bit on this episode about the time Anne was nearly attacked while she was having supper at a villa by the river.

Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.

She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).

Dive Deeper!