Anne Boleyn's Early Life Part Two: Education at the Court of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria

                                                      Written By: Katelyn Abbott

                                         A picture of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria

Sir Thomas Boleyn had continued his diplomatic career as an ambassador under King Henry VIII and during this period his brilliance and his charm won him many admirers throughout Europe. He encountered the Archduchess Margaret of Austria the regent of the Netherlands when he was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Netherlands in 1512-1513. Thomas found her to be a brilliant, cultured, and deeply well-educated lady and was greatly impressed by her court which was “Europe’s premier finishing school” where the elite of various European countries fought for their daughters and their sons to be placed in her household. Young men and women with positions in Archduchess Margaret of Austria’s household got to be educated and “finished” with Margaret’s Hapsburg nephew Prince Charles and nieces Princess Eleanor, Princess Mary, and Princess Isabella and other children of “the elite of Europe.” Margaret was so impressed by Sir Thomas Boleyn that she offered to let Anne have a place in her household and he took her up on her offer.

Anne’s childhood came to an end after her father’s return to England in the spring of 1513. Her father sent her off with an escort Bouton to complete her education as a maid-of-honor in the court of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria. Anne came to have a new wardrobe made for her at her father Sir Thomas Boleyn’s express commands which may have made Mary envious of her for her to be presentable at the Hapsburg Court.  Sea travel was difficult and the voyage that Anne had seemed to have been worse than usual. It is thought that Anne hated sea travel perhaps because of such a horrible journey across the ocean at such a young age.

However Anne bounced back. According to historian Eric Ives in Archduchess Margaret of Austria “Anne Boleyn could have had no better mentor.” Archduchess Margaret of Austria had been a strict caretaker and was called Madame who expected nothing short of excellence from her charges in her care. One can be sure that Anne served her as a “demoiselle d’honneur” at her court because she was listed in a list of eighteen “filles d’honneur” at a dinner in the Baron of Reiffenberg’s  “Chronique Metrique de Chastellain et de Molinet.” She came to impress the Archduchess Margaret of Austria with her manners and her studiousness. In an undated letter to Sir Thomas Boleyn, shortly after Anne’s arrival in the Netherlands, Margaret praised Anne to him saying, “I find her so bright and pleasant for her young age that I am more beholden to you for sending her to me than you are to me.”

Margaret was delighted with her new charge because of Anne’s brilliance and charm and ended up having an especial liking for her who referred to her as “la petite Boulin” as an affectionate pet name for her. Anne must have been excited at the Palace of Malines with its’ beautiful paintings and tapestries everywhere that was visited by the greatest architects, musicians, painters, poets, scholars, and sculptors of the day and fascinated by the worldly Margaret. Fun times for Anne were the balls, dances, and pageants that the Archduchess Margaret of Austria hosted at her court. She was good at helping out at every turn as her mother Lady Elizabeth Boleyn had instructed  her to do  so even if it was only at small things such as lifting up a skirt trailing unnoticed in the mud or picking up a dropped handkerchief and imitating all of the honorable ladies at court to perfection by watching them. Having been close to Margaret had helped Anne to obtain special elements of knowledge that were not written in books of how to behave and live in a royal court. Indeed it was the Archduchess Margaret of Austria who advised Anne that “to trust in those who are at your service; will lately put you in the ranks of those who have been deceived.” This advice from the Archduchess Margaret of Austria would follow Anne during the rest of her entire whole life.

Anne was given formal instruction in French by a male tutor named Semmonet from Margaret’s own  household although it is possible that she might have already had  learned some rudimentary French at  home. She began her lessons by writing out letters which had been composed for her to copy. Then at the next stage they moved onto to dictation. One of these dictation exercises survives in the form of a letter sent by her to her father. It was written by Anne at La Vure:

Sir,

I understand by your letter that you wish that I shall be of all virtuous repute when I come to Court and you inform me that the Queen will take the trouble to converse with me, which rejoices me greatly to think of talking with a person so wise and virtuous. This will make me have greater desire to continue to speak French well and also spell, especially because you have so recommended me to do so, and with my own hand I inform you that I will observe it the best I can. Sir, I beg of you to excuse me if my letter is badly written, for I assure you that the spelling is from my own understanding alone, whereas the others were only written by my hand, and Semmonet tells me the letter will wait unless I do it myself, for fear that it shall not be known unless I write to you, and I pray you that in the light of what you see you will not feel free to part from the will which you say you have to help me. For it seems that you are where you can, if you please, make me a declaration of your word and on my part be certain that there shall be neither nor ingratitude which might check or efface my affection, which is determined to as much unless it shall please you to order me, and I promise you that my love is based on such great firmness that it will grow less, and I will make an end to my after having commended myself right and humbly to your good grace.

Written at five o’clock by your very humble and obedient daughter,

Anna de Boullan

Anne’s spelling in the letter is bad as it is so bad that at times the meaning is comprehensible, but she made rapid progress because of an apparent promise her father Sir Thomas Boleyn had made as a visit to the English Court with the prospect of conversation with Queen Katherine of Aragon to her, Archduchess Margaret’s encouragement, and the teaching of her tutor Semmonet. She began to speak French well and came in time to speak it like a native. Anne had developed her conversation and deportment skills and studied art, the beauty in fabric, culture, dance, literature, music, and poetry while she was there along with her likely learning the important lesson “Even if you are only a girl, it behooved you to keep your eyes and ears open.”  The access that she had to Margaret’s superb library of books which contained brilliantly illuminated manuscripts, historical work, music books, poetry, and works by authors such as Aesop, Aristotle, Boccaccio, Boethius, Christine de Pizan, and Ovid would also have been invaluable to Anne as she would have used them to cultivate her future tastes. Anne was most likely have been instructed in music alongside Prince Charles, Princess Eleanor, Princess Isabella, and Princess Mary by their music instructor Henri Bredemers.

Hugh Paget quoted Jane de Longh (the author of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands), as saying of what life for someone like Anne would have been like at the Archduchess Margaret’s court:

“The noble and ladies of her court reflected the influence of the taste and preferences of their mistress. They made music, wrote poetry, composed, and recited at this little court in the quiet and seclusion of Malines.”

Anne was most likely present at Lille when Archduchess Margaret of Austria entertained King Henry VIII there with banquets, dances, and masques in the autumn of 1513. Anne might have been one of the “damsels” with who King Henry VIII danced with. This could have been the first time that Anne saw King Henry VIII if she was there. Anne did watch as the King’s best friend black-haired and brown-eyed Charles Brandon started a courtly flirtation with Archduchess Margaret of Austria and him ending up scandalously asking her to marry him. For this greatly offended Archduchess Margaret of Austria as he had encouraged gossip about their meeting in particular with him stressing her attraction to him and a possible marriage between the two of them and King Henry VIII had to publicly apologize to her because of it.

Anne only remained in the service of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria for around fifteen months because Princess Mary Tudor, the younger sister of King Henry VIII, requested for Anne to be part of the entourage of attendants chosen to accompany her to France for her marriage to the French King Louis XIII.