Anne Boleyn Part Twelve: Role as the Queen of England

                                                         Written By: Katelyn Abbott

 A picture of Queen Anne of England

 

 

Anne’s reputation as a religious reformer spread throughout Europe and she was hailed as a heroine by Protestant reformers. Even Martin Luther believed her rise to the English throne was a good sign. Anne constrained King Henry VIII to be tolerant of heretics. Protestants that did leave from England for fear of persecution of their religious beliefs were able to return to England thanks to Anne’s protection of them such as Robert Barnes who preached openly in London unmolested. Anne ended up securing the freedom of another convicted heretic Richard Herman who Cardinal Wolsey had sent into exile for having advocated the translation of the Bible into English which was something Anne was strongly in favor of along with an English evangelical such as Thomas Patmore who had been imprisoned for heresy by the Bishop of London. Facts show that not a single heretic was burned at the stake while Anne was the Queen of England and her goal for the advancement of a more tolerant religious point of view was unusual in an age that favored rigid religious practice. Anne had gone on to employ various women to smuggle illegal books into the country and she had written to release evangelical women imprisoned for their faith like a ‘Mrs. Marye.’ However it also lent ammunition to her detractors as for to many of them it was proof that she herself was a heretic. She also saved the life of the French reformer Nicolas Bourbon as she had appealed to the French royal family to spare his life as a favor to the English Queen. Nicolas Bourbon would later refer to Anne as “the queen whom God loves.” Thomas Alwaye, prosecuted for buying English New Testaments and other works, petitioned his cause to Anne and praised her goodness ‘as well to strangers and aliens as to many of this land.’ 

Anne had tried to save Catesby Priory from closure at the request of the nuns and even offered to buy it herself in 1533, but when King Henry VIIII learned that the nuns there were unable to support themselves he was compelled to refuse her request. In 1535, Anne sent her officers to examine the famous phial of the Holy Blood at Hayles Abbey in Gloucestershire which had been revered for centuries and they came back to report that it was the blood of a duck which was renewed as necessary by the monks who charged pilgrims to see it. Anne ordered it to be removed from public view, but as soon as her men had gone, the monks put it back and people still flocked to see it. In December 1535, Anne visited Syon Abbey and she harangued the nuns about their popish forms of worship. Seven out of the ten bishops appointed by 1532 and 1536 were reformers and showed her influence over King Henry VIII.

The French ambassador had told the Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys in February 1534 that Anne had cried when she had heard of the death of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's correspondent Nicolas Hawkins.

Margaret Tudor the Dowager Queen of Scotland did call Anne “ Our Dearest Sister” in a letter in 1534. She ended up working to persuade her young son King James V of Scotland to acknowledge King Henry VIII’s new marriage to Anne. Anne wrote to her sister-in-law Margaret Tudor the next year with her sending her a gift of some precious materials being cloth of gold, silver, and tissue.

In 1535 Miles Coverdale’s English translation of the Bible was published in Zurich which was dedicated to King Henry VIII and his “dearest wife and most virtuous Queen Anne,” but was never officially sanctioned in England.

 A second picture of Queen Anne of England

A typical day for Anne would be that Anne would awaken in her luxurious four-poster bed with its silken sheets and the golden tassels imported from Florence each morning. Breakfast would be eaten by her with her ladies-in-waiting and she would come to hear Mass one of her chaplains would say behind a screen as was customary since she was in her disable state. Anne did appear to wash herself with scented toilet soap and scented washing water, brush and carefully do her hair, dress, end up dabbling on cosmetics, fasten on her jewelry, and get perfume on with the help of her ladies-in-waiting once Mass was over. She ended up reading any important letters or petitions which would have arrived for her and grant audiences with her to English courtiers that wanted to speak with her. Anne frequently made sure that her ladies-in-waiting and her wards were dressed fashionably (in French fashions of French gowns and hoods outfitted with themselves with the finest jewels, pearls, and textiles and embellishing themselves with fine jewels for she had felt that they were a direct representation of her and got them to always look their best so when foreign dignitaries came to pay their respects to Anne they would regale their own courts with tales of how well kept the English ladies in her service were)  and took great care in their education and their readings with her having them attend lessons in dancing and music and learning how to speak French. Great deals of Anne’s time were spent doing charity work and ending up sewing shirts and smocks for the poor with her ladies-in-waiting. Anne had been an expert needlewoman as she had made some of her own clothes---an embroidered headpiece and coif said to have been worked on by her are at Hever Castle as well as bedding, carpets, nightgowns, and wall hangings for Anne had been instructed on how to make cloths for the altars of churches, dressmaking, and shirt making for her future husband as a child. George Wyatt had related that Hampton Court was made sumptuous by “rich and exquisite works wrought by her own hand and needle, and also by her ladies” and in 1598 a German traveler Paul Hentzner saw there was an exquisite tester that Anne had made for King Henry VIII’s bed. Her needlework was still on show with that on Mary II even in the late seventeenth century although none of her pieces at Hampton Court survive today.  She would have luncheon in her chambers with her ladies-in-waiting and in her free time she would entertain herself with art (such as in drawing and painting), board games such as backgammon, cards and dice playing, chess, conversation with her maids-of-honor and her ladies-in-waiting, dancing, embroidery, fervent praying, gambling, gardening, having to take exercise in the Long Gallery in bad weather, journal keeping as she had done for her entire whole life, knitting, listening to music, making music, needlework, playing with her dogs, reading, singing, tending to sewing, and writing poetry while she engaged in outdoor pursuits such as archery, bowls, falconry, horseback riding, and hunting in fine weather. She greatly most likely loved to have her neck and shoulders massaged by her cousin Lady Madge Shelton. Anne organized and presided over banquets, courtly games, dances, gambling parties, hunts, jousts, masques, pageants, and sporting events as the Queen of England in support of her husband that King Henry VIII would plan at his palaces. She would eat dinner with King Henry VIII who she would have debated the Bible with at the dinner table and retire to sleep in her chambers with her ladies-in-waiting at night. There would always be one of her ladies-in-waiting sleeping on a pallet near her bed ready to attend to her needs should Anne acquire anything during the night.
  

                      A picture of Queen Anne of England presiding over the English Court

As the Queen of England, Anne had presided over a magnificent court at the English Court. At meals the wine that Anne would drink and the food that she would eat were always of the finest quality though she apparently did not eat very much as she was concerned with staying thin. She had been into spending lavish amounts of money on cosmetics, furs, gowns, head-dresses, jewels, ostrich-feathered fans, perfume, riding equipment, splendid furniture, and upholstery to maintain the ostentations display required by her status. Numerous palaces came to be renovated to suit King Henry VIII’s and her extravagant tastes. Anne did happen to be fond of animals and she ended up having two dogs-- one was a favorite of hers called Purkoy who she had received as a gift from Lady Lisle and the other dog was a greyhound called Urian who she had received as a gift from William Brereton that had named him after his brother who was a groom of the Privy Chamber. She enjoyed birds as well and she often listened to their ‘pleasant song’ with Lady Lisle but she greatly disliked monkeys, peacocks, and pelicans. Lady Lisle had given her a songbird in a cage and eighteen dotterels which were deemed to be a dainty dish in that time she enjoyed very much and ended up having the purpose to tickle the palate of Queen Anne in order to gain favor with her so that she could secure positions in Anne's household for both of her daughters Anne Basset and Elizabeth Basset. Anne was rarely seen in public without a book of devotions in her hands. She did have the colors of her livery for her servants to be blue and purple, her motto was “The Most Happy,” and she picked a white falcon with a crown and a scepter standing with wings elevated on a tree stump covered with Tudor roses as her personal device.

Actually several religious texts, owned by Anne Boleyn, as the Queen of England survives to this day. Basically some of them had been beautifully illuminated manuscripts with decorative borders in the French Renaissance style. Clearly the Bible that she kept on display in her chambers most likely would have been her presentation copy of William Tyndale’s New Testament of 1534 which is bound in black leather and bears the name ANNA REGINA ANGLIAE in faded red lettering on the gold page edges. Anne did also own a French translation of the Bible by the humanist Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples which was printed at Antwerp that same year and dedicated to King Henry VIII and herself with crowned Tudor roses and their initials appearing on the binding of it. Her manuscript of Clement Marot’s sermons on the Good Shepherd ended up coming from one of the foremost workshops in France and had her arms and falcon badge emblazoned on the frontispiece which may have been a gift from King Francis I to her himself. Anne got a translation of “The Epistles and Gospels for the LII Sundays in the Year” by Lord Morley at Christmas 1532. She had another important illuminated manuscript called “The Ecclesiaste” which was the King’s arms impaling her on the front cover and a binding of black velvet with brass corners on it.
 
 Meanwhile a group of young gentlemen came to visit Queen Anne’s chambers where there would be drinking of fine wine, eating of good food, fun to be had in acrostics, dancing, poetry, singing, and word games, gossiping, and joking. The young gentlemen would flirt with Anne’s ladies-in-waiting and sometimes even danced with Anne. Anne would go on to choose them as gambling partners and hunting companions and she had exchanged gifts of money and trinkets with all of them in accordance with the accepted conventions of courtly love. She reportedly never stepped beyond propriety as she even would go so far as to reprimand them if they became too jovial with her ladies-in-waiting or her. There was nothing new in this for a group of young men had also served as Katherine of Aragon’s adherents in the 1520s. This behavior would only later cause harm to Anne’s reputation.

A picture of Anne’s arms as the Queen Consort of England

Anne made every effort to play the traditional role of the Queen of England. She had been in charge of governing her lands she had since her elevation to Marquess of Pembroke as well as the lands and revenues that Katherine of Aragon had previously been responsible for. Anne came to be generous, kind, and wise and did happen to be essentially good at her role as the Queen of England. She ended up doing much for charity as she disturbed blankets, clothing, food, and wine to the needy, ended up sewing shirts and smocks with her ladies-in-waiting for the poor, funded educational foundations, gave alms to the poor weekly to the values of one hundred crowns, provided for widows and poor householders, sometimes paid for livestock for destitute famers, and was known to have on at least one occasion to have personally tended to the ill on her travels. Anne had spent more time than her husband King Henry VIII inquiring after how she could help the English people out during her summer progress in 1535. However few of her biographies mention her charitable acts at any length and these were also not publicized during her own lifetime. One famous story of Anne’s charitable deeds tells of how a certain parishioner who lost most of his cattle. When Anne visited the parish she interviewed the man’s wife and gave her a gift of twenty pounds.

 Anne was a patron of the arts such as Hans Holbein (for she had him design for her an antique-style standing cup and cover decorated with an imperial crown and her falcon badge supported by satyrs as well as the metalwork on the binding of her illuminated manuscript “The Ecclesiaste” and monogram jewelry for her and executing a set of portrait drawings of the young women of the Queen’s circle)  and scholars. She ended up making personal contributions to Cambridge and Oxford Universities and she founded a new grammar school with fee-paying and free places in the collegiate church of Stock by Clare along with her funding the studies of poor scholars among them who was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s bastard son Thomas Winter. In Queen Anne's own court a book of poems called the Devonshire Manuscript was written.  The humanist scholar and theologian Erasmus had dedicated books to her.

A picture of the only surviving likeness of Queen Anne in this medal from 1534