Anne Boleyn's Letter from the Tower

by Sandra Vasoli

  My last and only Request shall be, That my self may only bear the Burthen of your Grace’s Displeasure, and that it may not touch the Innocent Souls of those poor Gentlemen, who (as I understand) are likewise in strait Imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your Sight; if ever the Name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your Ears, then let me obtain this Request; and I will so leave to trouble your Grace any further, with mine earnest Prayers to the Trinity to have your Grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your Actions. From my doleful Prison the Tower, this 6th of May.

  Your most Loyal and ever Faithful Wife,

  Anne Boleyn13

  Figure 4 - Burnt Fragment of the letter

  © 01/09/2015 The British Library Board, Cotton Otho CX f232r

  Figure 5 - Burnt Fragment of the letter

  © 01/09/2015 The British Library Board, Cotton Otho CX f232v

  Upon reading the missive, one is struck by its tenor of familiarity that which, even in the direst of circumstances, is emblematic of the close relationship between husband and wife. Her opening line, “Sir, Your Grace’s Displeasure and my Imprisonment are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant”, is reminiscent of arguments known to couples throughout the ages. She then chastises him for having allowed her to be confronted by her uncle, Norfolk, who was antagonistic towards her.

  In the second paragraph she confirms an understanding that her position as queen was not due to birth of royal standing, as were most other European princesses. Instead, she acknowledges that their foundation was based upon love – a very unusual occurrence in royal marriages of the day. She accedes to the notion that the preservation of her role as his wife and queen was dependent on his continued devotion to her. She then delivers a blow by telling him she is well aware that his “Fancy” has turned to “some other subject”. She is quick, though, to express her humility, recalling that he chose her from a “low Estate”. She pointedly refers to herself, in the letter as well as in her signature, as “Anne Boleyn, with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself”. This statement in particular is remarkable. Here she reminds him that she was simply Anne Boleyn when they met, and he pursued her relentlessly until she capitulated and became his queen. She now addresses him as that self-same woman. There is, in this very point, a subtlety of meaning expressed that seems impossible – and improbable – for a forger to invent.

  Further on, Anne is true to the piquant nature for which she was well known. She asserts that if he has already decided she is guilty of his “Infamous Slander”, and her death will “bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness”, then she hopes for Henry’s sake that God will pardon him for his “unprincely and cruel usage”, for, as she admonishes him – they will both shortly appear before God and be subject to His judgement. She adds the final jolt: she is confident God will know her to be innocent and she will be sufficiently cleared. Her implication is strong – as for Henry? She worries for the salvation of his eternal soul due to his “great Sin”.

  Anne continues by agonising for the men she knows have been unjustly imprisoned on her behalf. In this paragraph one can feel her anguish. She begs Henry to be lenient with them if ever he loved her, exactly as a woman would do when beseeching a man with whom she had been intimate. Finally, she closes by affirming herself – not as queen – but as Henry’s loyal and ever faithful wife, Anne Boleyn.

  The characteristics displayed in this very personal, highly charged message reflect everything we have come to know about Anne and the way she conducted herself. Honest, outspoken, unafraid to speak her mind. Heedless as to what might be considered proper in such desperate circumstances, she told Henry what she wanted him to know. And she did so as wife to husband, not from queen to king.

  The letter flows onto the opposite side of the single page. On the reverse, positioned about an inch below Anne’s signature, there is an intriguing postscript. This passage has been damaged significantly, but at least two antiquaries were able to record the words before they were lost. The message is as follows:

  The King sending a message to Queen Anne, being prisoner in the Tower, willing her to confess the Truth, she said she could confess no more than she had already spoken. And she said she must conceal nothing from the King, to whom she did acknowledge herself so much bound for so many favours, for raising her first from a mean woman to be a Marquess, next to be his Queen, and now, seeing he could bestow no further honour upon her on earth, for purposing to make her, by martyrdom, a saint in heaven.14

  The handwriting of both the body of the letter and the footnote is identical. As for the timing of these two messages, one might realistically imagine that the letter from Anne to the king had been composed and drafted, but before it was sent from the Tower, a message arrived from the king demanding that Anne confess the truth. The scribe then, in the presence of Constable Kingston, recorded Anne’s response, which she desired to be sent along with her initial letter to Henry.

  8 Thrush, A. and Ferris, J. ed., The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

  9 Richardson, R.C., “William Camden and the Re-Discovery of England”, Trans. Leicestershire Archeological and

  Historical Society, 78, 2004.

  10 Keynes, Simon,” The Reconstruction of a Burnt Cottonian Manuscript”, British Library articles, www.bl.uk; 1996.

  11 Burnet, Gilbert, Historie of the Reformation of the Church of England, Part One, London, 1679, pp 203 – 205.

  12 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, January-June 1536; 3 May, Otho, C. x. 222.

  B. M. Singer’s Cavendish, ii. 220. Ellis, I. Ser. ii. 56

  13 British Library, Cotton Otho C X fol. 232 r

  14 Ibid.

  The letter’s mystery

  Thus we are left with a great enigma.

  If Anne created this composition, did she actually place a quill to paper and write? If so, what happened to that document? If not, what is the background of the letter that is now part of the Cotton Library?

  As is most often the case when we reconstruct history, there are undeniable facts available to us, and gaps that must be filled to recreate and understand an event. The circumstances resulting in this letter fit the pattern. We have clues and some solid evidence, but to present a convincing case for a logical conclusion we must employ reasonable deduction. Therefore, we can construct a plausible scenario with the information that is accessible.

  Let us presume that Cromwell and Kingston did not allow Anne to write a private message to her husband. Cromwell was necessarily consumed by his role as enforcer. At that point, his very life depended upon his plan’s success, and it would have behoved him to ensure nothing went amiss with Anne’s imprisonment, trial and sentence. It was important that he knew precisely what Anne said to the king and a sealed letter would entail too much risk. Instead, and as a compromise, they may have permitted her to dictate her thoughts while a scribe, under the watchful eye of Kingston, placed her words on the parchment, which would then have been handed to Cromwell for intended delivery to the king. Cromwell, upon receipt of Anne’s scribed letter, read it and made the decision – admittedly a treacherous one, but at that volatile time, what action was not without peril? – to hide the letter amongst his most personal belongings, ensuring that Henry would never see what his wife had expressed to him. Were Henry to read her entreaty and be moved by it, the possibility was too great that he would reverse his decision, and that chance was untenable for Cromwell. He was, after all, a lawyer, and one who valued efficiency to achieve an end result. He was also an avid student of the Machiavellian principles that espoused that clever scheming was required to manage effectively, even if it meant disposing of kindness or morality.15 These characteristics might have lent themselves to his determination never to provide the king with his wife’s last communication. Cromwell’s training and practice in the legal arena informed
his decision not to destroy the document. Evidence must never be destroyed, but rather manoeuvred to one’s advantage to obtain the desired outcome. And so, hidden within his most private papers, the scribed original letter lay for at least four years.

  Several very reliable accounts report that the parchment that became part of the Cotton collection was “said to be found among the papers of Cromwell then Secretary”.16

  The Stowe Collection of manuscripts, also held in the British Library, includes a copy of the original letter. This may well be the earliest known copy and it is part of a volume entitled Collection of Letters of Noble Personages. At the top of the page is written:

  Queen Anne Bulling

  For King Henry the 8 ffounde amongst Cromwell’s papers17

  A later copy of the letter, source unknown, states “found amongst Cromwell’s papers”.

  The historian and theologian Gilbert Burnet (b 1643 – d 1718) states: “The copy I take it from, lying among Cromwell’s other papers, makes me believe it was truly written by her.”18 So we may be fairly certain that the letter now in the Cotton collection was discovered by someone searching Thomas Cromwell’s papers after he, too, was beheaded for treason in 1540. How long after his death was this document, along with the letters from Kingston chronicling Anne’s time in the Tower, found? We don’t have any direct evidence to tell us. Who disclosed the letters and why did Cromwell hold them in private? Again, nothing written by any of the contemporaries of Cromwell’s, or the early antiquaries, gives us a definitive indication of the letter’s earliest provenance.

  Let us examine the knowledge we do have in the hope that we might draw a believable conclusion.

  The library’s Stowe collection contains the first known handwritten copy of the original letter. The British Library references this collection as representing various transcripts written in three professional hands, one being that of the Feathery Scribe. The collection is dated as being completed prior to 1628. The transcribed letter, from “Anne Bulling”, is in fact the work of the Feathery Scribe.19

  Roy Flannagan explains that the “Feathery Scribe was an anonymous copyist who has, in recent years, been so named because of the light, wispy style of his script. He was one of the most prominent and most easily distinguishable of the many copyists who flourished in London in the 1620s and 1630s. He was master of a consistently accomplished script, almost pure secretary but for the occasional adoption of italic for names or headings.”20 He was prolific, and worked for prominent statesmen and nobles of his day.

  Figure 6 - © 01/09/2015 The British Library Board, Stowe MS 151

  Who might have commissioned the Feathery Scribe to copy and preserve Anne’s letter? As Beal states in his study of the scribe, “Among the Feathery Scribe’s clients were almost certainly various MPs, including the ubiquitous collector Sir Robert Cotton.” Another eminent figure whose documents the Feathery Scribe is said to have copied was William Cecil, Lord Burghley.21 Therefore, we know that someone of importance contracted the Feathery Scribe to reproduce the letter in order to preserve the words for posterity, directly from the one found in Cromwell’s papers, prior to 1628.

  In the years following the discovery of the letter, distinguished historians and antiquarians have made specific reference to it in their writings. Some actually saw the original, others did not. All had an opinion of it, however. One of the first chroniclers to mention the letter was Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648), in The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth. This work was published in 1649. Herbert says: “after which another Letter in her name, but no Originall coming to my hand, from more than one good part, I thought fit to Transcribe here, without other Credit yet then that it is said to be founde among the papers of Cromwell then Secretary, and for the rest seems antient and consonant to the matter in question.” He then reprints her text, which is followed by this comment: “but whether this Letter were elegantly written by her, or any else heretofore, I know as little, as what answer might be made thereunto”.22

  Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643 – 1715), a Scotsman, was a highly regarded intellectual, fluent in numerous languages and knowledgeable in philosophy and theology. He was passionate about history and had a great respect for original documents. In 1679, he published the first of three volumes of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. Volume I recounts events during the reign of Henry VIII, and Burnet devotes numerous pages to the downfall of Queen Anne Boleyn, who he describes as a “good woman” and “of a cheerful temper”. His notation about the Tower Letter is as follows:

  Yet, in a Letter that she wrote to the King from the Tower […] she pleaded her innocence in a strain of so much wit, and moving passionate eloquence, as perhaps can scarce be paralleled, certainly her spirits were much exalted when she wrote it, for it is a pitch above her ordinary style. Yet the copy I take it from lying among Cromwell’s other papers, makes me believe it was truly written by her. 23

  Next we read John Strype’s (1643 – 1737) entry in his Ecclesiastical Memorials and the Reformation of it and the Emergencies of the Church of England under King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Mary I. He mentions the letter, quoting the addendum in which Anne refers to Henry making her a saint in heaven. Strype’s Memorials was published in 1833.24

  Sir Henry Ellis (1777 – 1869) was a well-known scholar, whose lifelong interest in books and documents led him to positions of authority at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and ultimately to his role as head librarian at the British Museum. He was an avid antiquarian, holding the position of secretary in the London Society of Antiquaries for some time. With the access he had to precious documents, he published multiple volumes of Original Letters Illustrative of English History. In 1825, he included in Volume II some commentary about the letter in question. He states:

  Anne Boleyn’s last memorable letter to Henry the Eighth is […] universally known as one of the finest compositions in the English language, and is only mentioned here, to obviate a notion which has gone abroad against it as a forgery. The Original, it is believed, is not remaining now, but the Copy of it preserved among Lord Cromwell’s papers together with Sir William Kyngston’s Letters, is certainly in a hand-writing of the time of Henry the Eighth: and Sir William Kyngstons evidence will show that Anne was too closely guarded to allow of anyone concerting such a letter with her. That it rises in style above Anne Boleyn’s other compositions cannot be disputed, but her situation was one which was likely to rouse a cultivated mind; and there was a character of nature in the Letter, a simplicity of expression, and a unity of feeling, which it may be doubted whether Genius itself may have feigned. 25

  James Froude (1818 – 1894) was an English writer and publisher. Over a period spanning two decades he wrote The History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. His writing has been criticised as being overly emotional rather than factual, and he referred to Anne’s imprisonment, and the letter, in the following passages:

  Instead of acknowledging any guilt in herself, she perhaps retaliated upon the king in the celebrated letter which has been thought a proof both of her own innocence, and of the conspiracy by which she was destroyed. This letter also, although at once so well known and of so dubious authority, it is fair to give entire. [he reprints the text] […] This letter is most affecting; and although it is better calculated to plead the queen’s cause with posterity than with the king, whom it could only exasperate, yet if it is genuine it tells (so far as such a composition can tell at all) powerfully in her favour. On the same page of A second requisition to confess from the king, and a second refusal.

  The tone of the queen’s answers not what it ought to have been, even on her own showing. The manuscript, carrying the same authority, and subject to the same doubt, is a fragment of another letter, supposed to have been written subsequently, and therefore in answer to a second invitation to confess. In this she replied again, that she could confess no more than she had already spoken; that she migh
t conceal nothing from the king, to whom she did acknowledge herself so much bound for so many favours; for raising her first from a mean woman to be a marchioness; next to be his queen; and now, seeing he could bestow no further honours upon her on earth, for purposing by martyrdom to make her a saint in heaven, This answer also was unwise in point of worldly prudence; and I am obliged showing to add, that the tone which was assumed, both in this and in her first letter, was unbecoming (even if she was innocent of actual sin) in a wife who, on her own showing, was so gravely to blame. It is to be remembered that she had betrayed from the first the king’s confidence; and, as she knew at the moment at which she was writing, she had never been legally married to him.26

  In the 1850s, Agnes Strickland wrote and published Lives of the Queens of England: From the Norman Conquest. It was a colossal task and her research is recognised as well-done. While her style of writing was not acknowledged as having been particularly excellent, she strove to do her subjects justice. She addresses both the 6 May letter and the addendum in which Anne thanks Henry for raising her to the level of martyr in such a way that the author assumed them as fact. She also, interestingly, mentions that the addendum was notated by either Cromwell or his secretary.27

  It is clear that the pre-eminent experts throughout the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries treated the letter in a way that gave credence to its historical significance. It is worth noting that none offer information on how the Kingston and Boleyn letters were discovered, or by whom, nor do they comment on how these documents became part of the Cotton library collection. But at least most of them believe that, although not written in Anne’s hand, the letter is an authentic composition by the imprisoned queen.