Anne Boleyn is said to have wanted the crown for vanity and glory. For the chance to carry out spiteful acts unchallenged. For an empty life of pleasure and parties. For senseless power and selfish gain. So why, then, was every policy, project and plan of hers from the moment she gained said power based on charity, poverty and education?
She may have only reigned for three short years, but don’t believe the lies they still try to sell you of a vacuous and cruel existence comprising only of pregnancy attempts and bullying. Anne spent her time on the throne fighting for what she believed in: championing the young and the poor, placing key evangelicals in high-profile religious roles around the country and becoming patron to a long list of reformists, even bringing them into the inner circles of the royal court to work directly with her. This was what she fought seven years for – as revealed by the overwhelming amount of evidence that gets buried deep beneath the tales of debauchery.
When I say Anne was a political figure, it’s not a glib analogy for her playing the game in order to survive the Tudor court. She may not have been allowed a seat in Parliament due to her gender, but as you will discover here through to the final pages of her story, Anne was a politician in every other sense of the word. The core members of her team were like her own political party. Yes, there were members of the Boleyn faction who had their own agenda in supporting her rise to power – the duke of Norfolk, for one. But those who worked with her on a daily basis on the policies she pushed forward were as committed to reform as she was, and not just in religious spheres. Anne worked with a dedicated team around the country who would feed back news of where help was needed, so she could tend to these cases on her yearly summer progresses.
As we’ve seen, the general consensus is that Anne merely whispered seductively in Henry’s ear at night, planting suggestions – Cavendish nicknamed her ‘the night-crow’ on this basis.293 But evidence shows that she took her role as queen incredibly seriously. She worked for the people. In order to implement changes, she and her team would draw up plans and policies, drafts and documents and present them to the king, when she would have to argue her case for each cause she was fighting for.
It is important to remember, in the sixteenth century the monarchs of Europe had power equivalent to that of today’s presidents and prime ministers. They still had to get approval from their councillors to back their policies, but their ability to instigate change was undeniable. And unlike any of Henry’s wives before or after her, Anne was intent on using that power to its full effect.
During Anne’s reign, the evil seductress was patron to a long list of underprivileged youths. Chaplain William Latymer said in his sixteenth-century biography of the frivolous flirt that ‘she favoured good learning so much’ that she paid large sums to cover their education at Cambridge University.294 John Cheke wrote in 1535 how the morally corrupt schemer hugely increased her already generous donations to Cambridge, and that she would fund any impoverished student, just so long as one of her chaplains could vouch for them being a good, smart person with an inclination to learn.295
What a bitch.
So what other dastardly plots did she and her family conspire in during her reign?
Well, Foxe verifies Latymer and Cheke’s claims that Anne was well known for supporting young students at Cambridge University, as were her brother and father. Among these students were Nicholas Heath, the future archbishop of York, Thomas Thirlby, future archbishop of Norwich, and William Paget, who would go on to become a lord.296
A lot of the students Anne championed had reformist connections, in line with her religious zeal for a future of change. Latymer reports Anne was patron to John Beckynsall, a scholar in Paris to whom she gave £40 a year to learn Greek. We might make the obvious connection that this could prompt further studies of the New Testament in its original Greek, or simply encourage more people to read and understand the scripture unhindered by translations; indeed, Beckynsall stayed in Paris beyond his studies, and went on to teach Greek to the next generation of students.297
In September 1535 another of Anne’s chaplain’s, Matthew Parker, petitioned for her to become patron to a certain William Bill, who was too poor to accept his recently offered fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge. So she funded his studies, and it’s quite touching to learn that William went on to become almoner to her daughter, Elizabeth I, who also appointed him as dean of Westminster.298
Other scholars aided by Anne included William Barker, whom she put through his studies at Cambridge, which again led to favour with Elizabeth I.299 In addition to these individual cases, Anne donated £80 a year directly to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and even persuaded the king to exempt both from a new clerical tax that stopped them from haemorrhaging cash and instead allowed them to plough it back into the education of their students.300
But not just satisfied with funding such established places of education, Anne also launched her own grammar school, making sure the teaching positions were well paid and that free education was provided for students who couldn’t afford the tuition fees. On top of that, ten scholarships were set up, offering students a potential six years of further education at Cambridge.301
We also have evidence that Anne launched education initiatives within the area of reform she believed in most passionately: that of reading and understanding the scripture of the Bible. After placing chaplain Matthew Parker at the Stoke-by-Clare church near Sudbury, she appointed a lecturer to lead a Bible study group there four days a week. Here the congregation could begin to truly understand the undiluted word of God, which up until now they had heard only in Latin, a language reserved for those who could afford an education.
Bible study might be something modern-day Christians take for granted, but we have to understand how radical it was when Anne Boleyn first set this up in the 1500s.302
Not quite the depiction we see of her in the modern media today, is it?
Of course, you could argue that it was normal practice for royalty to fund individuals or educational institutions, and not even worthy of our attention when there are so many accusations of lewdness and depravity we could be focusing on. Yet the sheer extent of Anne’s work in this area, and the level of involvement she clearly had, proves that it was not merely carried out in her name – it was personal. Every case we uncover has her fingerprints all over it as an opportunity for her to make a political impact, whether in relation to her religious cause or government policies. And as you’re about to see, Anne’s career in politics was just getting started.
Of course, it took a team of dedicated workers to help her achieve the mass humanitarianism we are about to uncover, and it was in the run-up to her taking the throne alongside Henry that a certain fellow named Thomas Cromwell made an appearance in Anne’s life. The first evidence we have of her liaising with Cromwell was when she sent him a verbal message on 8 March 1529 at Hampton Court, his master Wolsey’s residence.303 It would be but a mere seven years later that he would plot her murder. How time flies when you’re deceiving those who trust you.
By the time he came to know Anne, Thomas Cromwell had been an agent for Wolsey for fourteen years, jumping ship to the royal household during his master’s fall from power. Yet he didn’t move immediately into the direct service of the king, as is often presumed. Instead, he continued to oversee Wolsey’s land and property, which had been seized by the Crown, until June 1530.304 It’s at this point that Anne took him in as part of the Boleyn research team working towards the annulment with the Collectanea satis copiosa.
But as an ally of Wolsey’s for well over a decade, would she have ever entirely trusted Cromwell? You’d be inclined to think not, but quite a few key members of her faction defected from the other side. So did she ever really trust any of them? But whether she forged forward with blind trust or caution, we can’t deny how closely the two were to work over the years before he went into the direct service of the king. That Cromwell organised Anne’s coronation and the christening of her daughter, Elizabeth, indicates an impressive level of trust on Anne’s part.305
But should we really be surprised? Even Cromwell’s enemies conceded that his social skills, charm and hospitality were second to none.306 Frankly, I would expect nothing less from the slick former lawyer who always knew the right thing to say, the right way to play every situation and could hold his nerve, as well as his tongue, when things got too heated.
Cromwell’s biographer MacCulloch has recently debated whether he and Anne were as close as history has presumed. Here, a quote from Chapuys, who himself worked closely with Cromwell, is useful evidence to draw on: ‘All I can say is that everyone here considers him Anne’s right hand [man], as I myself told him some time ago.’307
And when we consider that Anne went on to appoint Cromwell as her high steward at £20 a year, it seems clear that they developed a close working relationship. Rather irritatingly, we have no confirmation of what year he was appointed, only evidence that he served in this role as late as 1535.308
But it was as early as 1532 that petitioners would often approach Anne through Cromwell, or simultaneously approach them both, proving it was common knowledge by this point that the two were working together and that he would pass any petitions on to her.309 However, the difference between Cromwell and Anne was that, ever the businessman, he expected to be paid by his petitioners and, indeed, received money on the side for the help he gave.310
As we’ve seen, a large number of petitions sent to Anne were from students in need of financial support, but also a good portion were from reformists whose very lives were in danger owing to the cause for which they were fighting. This meant a large part of Anne’s religious activism was about using her power as queen to help and protect fellow evangelicals who were soliciting the wrong kind of attention while out there campaigning for change.
One of our earliest recorded cases, at the end of 1530, shows Anne was too impatient to wait for the protection of the official title of queen before responding to an appeal from a Thomas Alwaye. Thomas wrote to Anne for aid after being arrested and imprisoned for owning an English Bible and other illegal religious books, later saying, ‘I remembered how many deeds of pity your goodness had done within these few years . . . as well to strangers and aliens as to many of this land.’311
This was similar to the case of Thomas Patmore, who also petitioned Anne before she officially became queen. Patmore was an evangelical parson who was of the controversial reformist belief that priests should be allowed to marry, and so had been arrested for marrying his own priest to a housemaid. This, following earlier brushes with the law, when he was fined for distributing copies of Tyndale’s New Testament, led him to being imprisoned for two years before he saw hope in Anne’s impending reign. Patmore petitioned her in the few months before her wedding when she was marquess of Pembroke, allowing us to date this story to potentially as early as 1 September 1532. Anne is said to have taken the matter to the king and eventually Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley, Cromwell and Cranmer were appointed to investigate, at which point Thomas Patmore was released.312
This shows us that Anne most definitely did not shy away from controversial cases in those delicate early days, at a time we’d imagine she would be focused on gaining public approval or simply enjoying her newfound glory as queen-to-be.
As soon as she gained the power she has been accused of so mercilessly pursuing, she sought out those who were suffering at the hands of the Church; for example, she became patron to a traumatised Richard Tracy, who had been through the ordeal of having his father’s dead body dug up and burned because his will made reference to his doubt that the Church, as opposed to God, could grant salvation to the dead. In 1534 Anne also helped the Antwerp merchant Richard Herman – who was cast out during Wolsey’s reign for supporting an English Bible – gain reacceptance by his peers.313
Then, as well as reports that she helped childhood friend Clément Marot when he was wanted for translating the Psalms, we also have the curious case of the French humanist poet and religious reformer Nicolas Bourbon. Bourbon was jailed in 1533 for his provocative book Nugae, in which he thoroughly let rip on those who opposed the humanist new learnings. The interesting thing to note here is that Marguerite d’Angoulême became his patron in the 1520s, with Bourbon going on to tutor Marguerite’s children in 1529. It’s known that he was very close to Clément Marot, leading us to question if Anne also knew him personally from her final years in France. The fact that he would reach out to Anne for help in England over Marguerite in his homeland may tell us all we need to know here. Bourbon sent a letter to Anne via her cousin Dr Butts314 and she convinced Henry VIII to intervene in his case.
Following Bourbon’s successful release from prison, Anne offered him amnesty in England, paying all his expenses and introducing him to her trusted inner circle, where she also secured him a place in her cousin’s household.315 Tudor fans may recognise Dr Butts as being the king’s physician, but something that is rarely highlighted is that he often worked with Anne, bringing her attention to people in need who she might be in a position to help.
Bourbon became eternally indebted to the entire Boleyn faction for taking him into their hearts and homes. Declaring his gratitude in a statement to the whole team, Bourbon thanked Butts, Latimer, Cranmer, Holbein and Cromwell, but none more so than Anne Boleyn herself, saying, ‘Your pity lighted upon me from the ends of the earth, snatching me in my affliction, Anna, away from my troubles . . . How can I express my thanks, still less, Oh Queen, repay you?’316
When Bourbon released a new edition of Nugae in 1538 it was updated with stories of how Anne mediated for him in France and how generous she was to him in England.317 Tellingly, Bourbon returned to France in the year of Anne’s death, 1536.318
Yet, not just reserving such extreme acts of amnesty for those she was acquainted with, it’s reported Anne went out of her way again in 1534 for a reformist scholar in Paris, Mr Sturmius, and appealed to the king to negotiate his release from prison. As it turned out, Sturmius continued to live in Paris until 1536 under the protection of Guillaume du Bellay, but it’s clear from Latymer, who tells us the story, that Anne had extended an offer of further help that he thankfully didn’t feel the need to take up.319 Similarly, she helped a gentlewoman in France, Mrs Marye, to escape to safety in England ‘for religion’, as Latymer simply states. He doesn’t give us the backstory, so we can only presume she was another outspoken reformist who caught the attention of the French authorities. Immediately after she arrived in England, Anne sent for her and apparently ‘entertained her so lovingly and honourably as she confessed that her trouble had purchased her liberty, and that she gained more by her banishment than she could have hoped for at home.’320
Exactly how Anne convinced Henry to rescue the very heretics he was arresting and suppressing in England is uncertain. However, we should not underestimate the force of nature that Anne Boleyn must have been; nor should it be assumed that she used her sexual wiles to persuade him, as many would have us believe. The sheer number of people she got the king to save, not to mention the controversial causes she persuaded him to support, means that this approach would fast have become pretty exhausting. Cromwell and Wolsey had learned how to work effectively with the king over the years, implementing policies and encouraging him to pursue alliances that he wasn’t totally behind; do we presume they turned on the seductive charm to get what they wanted? No, history has allowed them quick-witted intelligence. So how about we use our modern, rational minds to presume the same of Anne?
But what all these stories provide is proof, actual hard evidence of how Anne wanted to use her power as queen, and why she accepted Henry’s marriage proposal in the first place. The reports you are reading are the result of that infamous ‘ambition’ we are repeatedly told she possessed. Ambition: the one word that features universally across all interpretations and analyses of Anne’s character. Yet this is never a compliment on the part of modern biographers; it’s never implied as a positive trait for a woman to have. Imagine you are playing historical bingo: blink and you would get a full house for the number of times they use the phrase ‘ambition turned her head’, almost as if she was a socially acceptable young lady until she had the brazen self-confidence to want to be more, once again backing up the rhetoric that to have ambitions of being a powerful woman your intentions have to be bad. As though this apparent icy ambition automatically replaces other traits such as kindness, empathy and goodness.
Well, Anne Boleyn is just one example of the good that can be accomplished when an ambitious woman gains power.
Sadly, one life that Anne tried and failed to save was that of the most hunted of English reformers: the Bible translator William Tyndale. The authorities finally caught up with him in July 1535, imprisoning him for over a year. Thomas Boleyn’s godson, Thomas Theobald, was sent to Antwerp to find out more about his arrest, and reported back to Cranmer in the hope that his patron Queen Anne could get the king to save him. Though she could not ultimately help, as she was arrested and killed herself mere months before Tyndale’s execution,321 Anne was to controversially show her solidarity with him shortly before she died. On 6 February 1536 she had Cranmer preach a sermon at Paul’s Cross while the evangelical was still in prison, in which he reiterated Tyndale’s sentiments in declaring the pope the Antichrist. As MacCulloch reminds us, Tyndale was the only major English writer at that time to have done this, so Cranmer’s bold alliance with his condemned countryman is one that can’t be missed – and one the archbishop of Canterbury would only have dared do with the absolute support of his evangelical patron, Queen Anne.322
Yet saving the lives of reformists was just one aspect of Anne’s campaign. In July 1535, while on summer progress, she and Henry visited Sudeley Castle for five days. The king met with Cromwell at Winchcombe Abbey to plan the dissolution of the monasteries, and Anne spent her time investigating another major issue: the duping of the public with fake holy relics.
Hailes Abbey was brought to her attention due to the fact that it housed a notorious relic that was making huge amounts of cash, this being the ‘blood of Christ’. Yes, the actual blood of Jesus Christ, supposedly taken from him while he was nailed to the cross and captured in a crystal container. Now, as modern-day readers, we must overlook the logistics, not to mention sacrilege of such an act, and remind ourselves that in the sixteenth century the existence of relics was an everyday fact of life. The people vehemently believed in their veracity. So the claim that this blood was said to have never congealed since the abbey received it in 1270 did not raise suspicions, but rather turned Hailes into one of the most famous pilgrimage sites in England. Thousands would pay every year to view and touch this ‘holy relic’ in the hope of being healed by its divine powers. Not only that, but visitors were told that they would only see it if their sins had been forgiven after confession, bringing us back to the whole contentious issue of whether priests could forgive your sins rather than God.
So, as an evangelical who was against such beliefs and determined to fight against all corrupt practices within the Church, Anne investigated. Latymer describes how she sent her chaplains to ‘search and examine the truth of this abominable abuse,’323 a quote that backs up her modest reform beliefs and proves she wasn’t against the act of pilgrimage itself, just the deception and manipulation of the people. After all, shortly following her marriage to the king in early 1533, Anne was heard to have said to Norfolk that if she wasn’t pregnant by Easter she would undertake a pilgrimage to pray to the Virgin Mary.324
And so, Anne’s chaplains reported back that the relic was indeed a fake, the ‘blood’ actually being a resin made of honey and saffron (not duck’s blood as was rumoured at the time). Horrified, Anne informed Henry, who clearly agreed this was unacceptable practice and had the offending relic removed.
However, Henry was forced to intervene again in 1538, as by this time the abbey had put the so-called ‘blood’ back on display, showing that ‘abuse of pilgrimage’ was one thing Henry was committed to stamping out, even after he had stamped out Anne herself.325
Since Anne’s murder, this boundless stream of evidence of her good work has been censored and suppressed. When non-history-fanatics think of Anne Boleyn, do they recall her fighting for religious reform and freedom? No, they think six wives, six fingers and beheaded. Her truth has been suppressed for too long, and that’s why this chapter needs to exist in its entirety. #WomenArentNumbers #SheIsMore #StopSuppressingHerTruthOrYoullHaveMeToDealWith
Though Anne’s religious work was clearly her driving force, it would be matched only by one other passion, and that was her extensive work in poverty relief. In the vital months leading up to her death, this cause would be exceptional for Anne in terms of the dramatic lengths she went to address it.326
But what would have prompted such dedication to poverty relief? After all, she didn’t come from an underprivileged background herself. Was it perhaps the many carriage rides between the royal court in London and her family home of Hever Castle, during which she witnessed the real poverty of the people for herself? Or do we have the answer within the pages of one of her favourite reformist authors?
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples’s popular book The Ecclesiaste encouraged those in positions of privilege, like Anne, to be generous to the poor. Lefèvre spoke of kings, princes and chancellors alike being those who should show a ‘holy example of life’, pointing out that it was in these walks of life that ‘more injustice, more oppressions of poor widows and orphans’ and ‘more disorder in all manners’ occurred.
These words obviously had an impact on Anne; her chaplain Latymer reports that in the months leading up to the yearly summer progress, Anne would request huge quantities of canvas, from which she and her ladies-in-waiting would make smocks and sheets for the poor. Foxe explains that Anne liked to have her ladies personally making clothes for the needy to show them what an exceptional position of privilege they were in, and to remember those less fortunate.327 She would further request flannel material from which they would sew petticoats for men, women and children, which were then distributed to the parishes that Anne visited along the summer progress route. From there, it would be the priests’ job to distribute them among the townsfolk who were most in need.328
Anne was apparently ‘particularly receptive to female petitioners’,329 even helping her aunt Katherine Howard (no, not that Katherine Howard) in her attempt to divorce and escape her husband. Foxe tells us how Anne also gave generously to widows and families of very low income, and would donate £3 or £4 (approximately £1,300–£1,700 in today’s money330) so that they could buy livestock to create an ongoing form of income and food supply.
On becoming queen, Anne was given multiple grants of lands, which provided her with income from the taxes of the people who lived there. This made her richer during her reign than any of Henry’s other wives, before or after. It was this money that Anne gave away, sort of like a Tudor Robin Hood, taxing the rich to give to the poor. And notes show just how involved in the taxation process she became, proving she had a good head for business to support her charity work and political activism. She was no puppet merely acting out the standard duties expected of a queen.331
It was while on the summer progress of 1535 from Windsor to Bristol that Anne heard about a local evangelical couple who had lost their cattle and were being told it was God’s punishment for turning against Catholicism. Anne invited them to visit her, whereupon she gave what sounds like an impromptu sermon, reassuring them that God was actually testing their strength. To help them get back on their feet, she gave the couple a lump sum of money, saying that if it wasn’t enough to come back to her and she would see them right.332
But Anne’s charity extended beyond her summer progress. It’s reported she would send her sub-almoners to the towns around her permanent residences to make lists of the families most in need, and would then distribute money to them accordingly.333 The duchess of Richmond told Foxe that Anne would even carry a small purse with her every day to donate money to the people she passed on her travels.334
In addition to all this, Anne, of course, had her official royal alms to distribute – an allowance that all queens were given for charitable donation. This was the norm, and not exclusive to Anne; but it is interesting as a gauge to show just how far she went beyond the standard expectations of her role.
At the Royal Maundy service it was traditional for royalty to give alms to the poor, but it was said that Anne pushed to increase the usual amount; and, in fact, when she gave ‘over and besides’ the usual donation during one particular service, one woman told the almoner that she must have been given someone else’s donation as it was far too much. He assured her it was the right amount, and when he relayed the story to Anne she said she wished she could have doubled it for the woman’s honesty.335 I suppose in the slippery Tudor court honesty was quite a rarity.
However, there has been great speculation over how much Anne’s alms actually came to, with some saying Foxe hugely exaggerated her yearly donations.336 But regardless, her almsgiving was just a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of her charitable work. It’s certainly not something we need to exaggerate in order to prove her good intentions as queen. Even the Scottish theologian Alexander Alesius wrote of how he had heard great stories of Anne’s charity to the poor, proving just how renowned she was for her generosity.337 So much for being hated by all who knew of her.
So, you may understand the tinge of frustration felt when, alongside every acknowledgement of the overwhelming and undeniable good Anne did in her life, historians feel obliged to pick her true intentions to pieces.
Did she campaign for the people because she genuinely cared, or was it merely a ploy to outshine Katherine of Aragon’s own charitable pursuits?
Similarly, did those who dedicated religious works to Anne do so because she shared the same faith, or because it was a queen’s duty to be a patron and she actually cared not a jot for them?
Did she really support young reformists because she was passionate about education, or did she simply want to push for an evangelical future in order to break from Rome, gain royal supremacy and take over the world?!
She’s not a comic-book super-villain!
Every good deed is pulled apart, with historians, novelists and screenwriters alike hunting for any potential ulterior motive Anne could possibly have had so they can keep selling you the notorious legend. It’s perplexing and tiresome in equal measure. Particularly when modern biographies of Cromwell, Wolsey, Luther and Tyndale don’t pick apart the motives for their good work in a similarly rabid way. I don’t read accusations of Cromwell wanting to be the king’s chief minister for the power and prestige. Instead, his biographies celebrate his rise from the doldrums of Putney, applaud the policies and laws he put in place and marvel at all the good he did for the country in spite of having Henry VIII to contend with. His murder plots are discussed, of course, but they are not the main focus, and they always come with an apologist slant.
Similarly, Wolsey is seen as a humble man of the church, the butcher’s son turned cardinal who was committed to Catholicism and was browbeaten by the king, when all he wanted to do was run the country efficiently. But when his riches were exposed during his downfall – it took Cavendish three pages to list the inventory338 – no one points out how excessive and vulgar it was. No, instead they focus on how Anne Boleyn went round to pick over the spoils herself, deflecting his greed on to her.339
So, is it then unreasonable to ask why it appears to be predominantly the women in history who are relentlessly accused of scheming their way to wealth and power purely for their own selfish gain? Are we being too sensitive when we question the standard rhetoric that they didn’t really want to change the world? They just wanted jewels and gowns of cloth of gold to parade in at balls and feasts, where they could flirt and write silly little poems to boys in books and plot each other’s demise (poisoning, of course).
Yes, there will always be exceptions to the rule, but as a progressive society this misogynistic trend is too prevalent to overlook. Readers need to be made aware of it because it’s distorting how we understand and piece our history together. It basically comes down to bad writing, because only badly written characters are one-dimensional and intent solely on world domination. Which explains why Anne Boleyn makes a great fictional character, yet her story doesn’t quite add up in the pages of the non-fiction history books.
So if you want to discover who Anne really was, it means considering that her good deeds could have been genuine. It certainly fits more realistically with the uncensored narrative of her story so far, wouldn’t you agree?
I think the problem stems from the fact that many of the stories about Anne’s activism come from ‘martyrologist’ John Foxe, whose Acts and Monuments (popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs) was, as the title suggests, a round-up of the lives and work of evangelical/Protestant activists. The reason Foxe’s stories of Anne have been called into question over the centuries is because he features only a ‘best of’ compilation of her good deeds, hence presenting us with an unrealistic, saintly woman devoid of any human fault. But as Thomas S. Freeman points out, there were eight volumes of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and with each one he added more and more evidence that Anne was in fact the opposite of the evil caricature that had been created following her death. Because of this, he has been accused of invention and embellishing the truth,340 but his primary source for these stories was, among others, Anne Boleyn’s own silkwoman Joan Wilkinson.
Joan was close enough to Anne that in 1536, when Latymer was sent to Europe to buy illegal religious books for his queen, the instructions were to pass them on to Joan, supposedly to appear as inconspicuous as possible. As it would turn out, on this occasion Latymer returned home to find Anne in prison.341
But here we have the statements of a woman who served within the very household that has been accused of running amok with revelry and depravity, as was described in the jolly biography The Life of Jane Dormer. Even though Dormer herself was not born until two years after Anne’s death and the biography was written in 1645, reports that Anne spent her reign taking part in ‘masks, dancing, plays and such corporal delights’342 have been taken more seriously than eyewitness accounts of those in her household, like Wilkinson.
Jane Dormer married one of Princess Mary’s closest advisers, so you can see why her biographer Henry Clifford might have had this vapid view of Anne’s time as queen, as seen through the eyes of an enemy. But let us ask ourselves, why would Anne waste seven years fighting to be queen if she merely wanted to spend her days partying? She could have married any man of wealth to achieve such a lifestyle much more quickly and easily, not to mention without the ensuing international Catholic hate campaign and politically motivated murder.
Alas, from the varying accounts of life in the queen’s chambers, it’s clear that historians believe there could only have been one way in which Anne and her ladies spent their days. Either they were piously slaving away for the poor from the crack of dawn until they fell into their beds, only stopping along the way to pray in the solitude of the chapel;343 or they spent their every waking hour dancing, flirting, plotting each other’s downfall and having illicit sexual affairs, as though Anne’s household was the Vegas of the Tudor court.344
May I interject as the voice of reason and propose that daily activities probably included a bit of both (minus the affairs and murder plots, of course). Why is it considered so improbable that Anne’s household worked during the day – pausing regularly to pray, as a Book of Hours will attest was customary – then, like anyone, let their hair down in the evening with a dinner and dance?
Media depictions repeatedly have Anne wistfully spending her days doing nothing more than sitting on a throne, reading a book, surrounded by ladies doing needlework, like something from the pages of a Jane Austen novel. But the evidence of the sheer amount of work Anne got done during her few short years as queen prove her days would have been intense and full-on. Yes, she read many books, but the girl also had a lot of work to get through.
As a large part of her patronage to all those youths, and in addition to her refugee work and domestic charity, Anne would have had to read through daily appeals from petitioners. This would inevitably be followed by endless meetings with her advisers regarding who was the most in need, and how she wanted to proceed with each case. At the same time, she would be overseeing the year-round preparation for the summer progress ‘charity drives’, managing her ladies who were making the bedding and clothing ready for distribution around the country. Then, of course, she had to fit in Mass, which we know Henry VIII attended up to five times a day.
Yet ‘work hard, play hard’ was a phrase that could have been invented for Anne Boleyn. It has to be said, here was a queen who loved a good jolly, with contemporary reports telling us she was a talented singer and composer. Indeed, the Royal College of Music in London houses Anne’s sixteenth-century music book, a compilation of the favourite pieces she liked to play during her many evenings of entertainment. She was a renowned patron of the arts, and this was reflected in her own joy and love of them that she shared with the ladies of her chamber.
But something we need to realise is that the royal court was built on feasts, tournaments, pageants and masques. What may seem to us like an endless stream of pointless parties was actually an integral part of court life and how you were expected to make your mark. The Tudors practically invented schmoozing; it was here, amid the dancing and revelry, that factions were forged, marriage alliances made and politics discussed, all over the innocence of a goblet of wine and a platter of sweetmeats. So, we must be aware of not misreading the traditions of the day.
A letter from Edward Baynton (Anne’s vice-chamberlain) to George Boleyn on his trip to France in 1534 states:
And as for pastime in the queen’s chamber, [there] was never more. If any of you that be now departed have any ladies that ye thought favoured you and somewhat would mourn at parting of their servants, I can no whit perceive the same by their dancing and pastime they do use here, but that other takes place, as ever hath been the custume.345
Of course, it should come as no surprise that this letter has been jumped on over the centuries as proof that all Anne and her ladies ever did was spend their days frivolously partying. But it might appear to the more rational reader that his letter was just a bit of playful banter with the lads; Baynton teasing that Anne’s ladies didn’t miss the men and were having plenty of fun without them. He doesn’t mention dancing with other men, and doesn’t mention flirting. He doesn’t even insinuate this is all the ladies ever did, simply that at that moment they were enjoying more free time than usual. (Something that, in itself, confirms the rest of their day was taken up with work.)
This does not make Anne and her women silly and vacuous. Nor does it undermine any of her political, religious and charitable work. It merely highlights how human the residents of the Tudor court were, unwinding after stressful days with dancing, singing and card games. Not that we can really blame them, when we hear the contrasting reports from those who directly served Anne, who confided that she was in fact an incredibly strict mistress during working hours.
Anne’s chaplain William Latymer reports how she would ‘rebuke’ or ‘sharply punish’, even banish from court altogether, those ladies who did not uphold her high moral standards.346 This sounds like the overly sensitive actions of a woman determined to prove just how seriously she took her prestigious new role. No doubt she was eager to replicate the renowned household of Queen Claude, in which she herself was raised.
Indeed, when Anne became queen and first appointed her chaplains, Latymer says she declared how they all must act, herself included, considering they were ‘so high a personage; not found wantones, not pampered pleasures, not licentious liberties or trifling idleness, but virtuous demeanor, Godly conversation, sombre communication and integrity of life’.347
I suspect Anne was laying it on rather thick here. After all, she was addressing men of the church. But the general, overall sentiment of her words appears in alignment with the more realistic reports of life in Anne’s household. Particularly when we hear she has been accused of adopting a rather holier-than-thou attitude – which is often highlighted as scathingly hypocritical, given what a renowned flirt they say she was back in her youth. (A holier-than-thou slut? Do you see how the negative propaganda often contradicts and catches itself out?) But not to dismiss the reports of this apparently condescending superiority, we must realise that by the time Anne held her own court and was responsible for a group of young ladies, she had done a lot of growing up. She was no longer the excitable new girl at court playing along with the games of courtly love. By the time she became queen of England, Anne’s religious conviction had deepened greatly; so it’s understandable that she might now advise her ladies to use their precious youth wisely, not waste it on the silly frivolities of courtly love; particularly knowing, as she now did, how it could come back to haunt you many years later.
To this end, she was known to have instructed even the minor members of her court to attend chapel daily and avoid ‘infamous places’ such as ‘evil, lewd and ungodly brothels’. Latymer reveals she also lectured her chaplains, saying ‘I assure you, you shall profit more in one day with good examples, than in a year with many lessons.’348
Yet for all the realities of Anne’s strict household, it’s reassuring to hear she still had the human touch, as illustrated in a story Latymer tells in his Chronickille. This is of a Mrs Jaskyne, a member of Anne’s privy chamber whose husband fell ill at home in Essex while she was away on progress with the queen in Woodstock. Mrs Jaskyne wasn’t allowed to go home to see him, so she pleaded her case to Latymer, who brought this to Anne’s attention (we can only presume the person preventing her returning home was Edward Baynton, Anne’s chamberlain).349 As soon as she heard of this plight, not only did she grant the woman leave, but made sure she had provisions and more than enough money to cover her journey.350 Stories like this seem to disprove that there was any distance and indifference between Anne and her staff. In fact, a report from the constable of the Tower while Anne was in prison tells us just how deeply she cared for the members of her household, as she was worried about who was making the accused men’s beds for them, which cries more of maternal instinct than sexual prowess.351
But clearly these life lessons in honesty and integrity fell on deaf ears, as it was the members of Anne’s very household who would, in just a few short years, conspire to frame her for adultery and treason.
