Long ago, when our English ancestress immigrated to the American colonies in the late 17th century, she brought with her a star chart, the stories it revealed, and a golden ring. My grandmother told me this, and her grandmother had explained it to her. This story has remained in our family for generations. The star chart tells the story of the last hour of Anne Boleyn and the rise of Lady Jane Seymour as predicted by an astrologer to the King of England, Henry VIII. The family legend and the chart reveal what happened in the last hour on that English morning of May 19, 1536.

The star chart is a map of the planetary movement for a particular time. It is divided into twelve segments called houses. Each house represents a different area of life and individuals within a person’s life. Every house literally provides a home for the planets stationed there, giving that planet a place to manifest its energy through various individuals. According to the stars and the twelve houses of the star map, zodiac wheel, or astrology chart, as we call them today, this is how the King, the doomed Queen, and various members of their family and court spent the last hour of one Queen’s life and the beginning of the next Queen’s reign. As the falcon badge of Anne Boleyn began its descent, the phoenix emblem of Jane Seymour began to rise.

The star map remains in my possession, as does the golden ring. So it was explained to me and now I can reveal to you that which has been a mystery. The mystery of how that one moment in time came to be.