66 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
67 Excerpta Historica (LP 1107)
68 Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant; LP; Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP911)
69 Henry VIII: A European Court in England
70 Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant
71 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
72 Ibid
73 Chronicle of King Henry VIII; Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
74 Wriothesley; Harleian manuscripts
75 Carles
76 LP
77 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
78 Excerpta Historica (LP 1107)
79 Herbert; Strype
80 Chronicle of King Henry VIII
81 LP
82 Carles
83 Ives
84 Milherve
85 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911); Excerpta Historica (LP 1107); Aless
86 Carles
87 Excerpta Historica (LP 1107)
88 Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant
89 Excerpta Historica (LP 1107). Wyatt family tradition had it that, on the scaffold, Anne gave the prayer book she was carrying to Margaret Wyatt, who thereafter always wore it on a chain in her bosom (Strickland). It is sometimes claimed that this prayer book was the illuminated “Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” which had been made for Anne in 1528 in France, and which she inscribed: Remember me when you do pray, that hope doth lead from day to day. This book is now on display at Anne’s former family home, Hever Castle in Kent.
However, this cannot have been the prayer book Anne is said to have given to Margaret Wyatt, which was preserved in the latter’s family for generations, and was shown in 1721 to the engraver and antiquary George Vertue by its then owner, Mr. George Wyatt of Charterhouse Square, London. It was also mentioned in Horace Walpole’s Miscellaneous Antiquities, printed at Strawberry Hill in 1772. In 1817, George Wyatt’s editor, Samuel Singer, claimed that the Wyatt prayer book was in the possession of the publisher Robert Triphook, who himself produced another edition of Wyatt’s memoirs of Anne Boleyn, which was privately printed in that year. However, the description of Triphook’s book differs from that of the Wyatt prayer book, which was then still in the family’s possession.
The Wyatt prayer book is now Stowe manuscript 956 in the British Library. It is bound in pure, richly chased gold enameled in black, in an intricate pattern, and closely resembles one of Holbein’s designs for jewelry and goldsmiths’ work, having the same arabesque ornaments. It measures not quite two inches in length and just over an inch and a half in width, and has a ring for threading through a neck chain or girdle. Small as it is, it contains 104 leaves of vellum, on which are inscribed metrical versions of twelve abridged psalms by the Tudor lawyer and writer John Croke. Tiny prayer books like this one had been given by Anne Boleyn, in happier days, to all her ladies, as aids to devotion.
It is not inconceivable that Holbein himself designed this example for Anne Boleyn, although far more likely that it was commissioned for the Wyatts, as his original drawing shows the initials T.W.I., which are missing from the prayer book binding. These initials suggest that the prayer book was made to mark the marriage of the poet Wyatt’s son, another Thomas Wyatt, to Jane Haute in 1537, a theory borne out by that indefatigable researcher George Wyatt’s failure to mention it in his account of Anne Boleyn. Nor is it mentioned in the family memorials compiled by his descendant, Richard Wyatt, in 1727.
The tale of Anne giving the prayer book to Margaret Wyatt would appear to arise from a misreading of the first-recorded mention of the book in George Vertue’s manuscripts; in his “Notes on Fine Arts” (1745) he says he saw in the possession of Richard Wyatt “a most curious little prayer book manuscript on vellum, set in gold, ornaments graved gold, enameled black—such as were given to Queen Anne Boleyn’s maids-of-honor—and was thus given to one of the Wyatt family, and has been preserved for seven generations to this time.” This only states that Anne gave such books to her ladies—which is attested elsewhere—and that she gave one to a lady of the Wyatt family who served her. No mention is made of this gift being given on the scaffold, and that circumstance seems to have been inferred by later writers. There is also no record of any lady of the Wyatt family serving Anne Boleyn as a maid-of-honor. Jane Haute passed on what she knew of Anne Boleyn to her son George Wyatt, so if she knew anything about a prayer book, he would surely have recorded it. (See On a Manuscript Book of Prayers)
90 Chronicle of King Henry VIII
91 Abbott
92 Wriothesley; Excerpta Historica (LP 1107)
93 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
94 Aless
95 Carles
96 Chronicle of King Henry VIII
97 Carles; Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP911); Excerpta Historica (LP 1107)
98 Harleian manuscripts
99 Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant; Froude: Pilgrim (LP 911)
100 Wriothesley
101 Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant
102 Ibid
103 Younghusband
104 Excerpta Historica (LP 1107); George Wyatt
105 Wriothesley
106 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
107 Excerpta Historica (LP 1107)
108 Ridley: Henry VIII
109 Chronicle of King Henry VIII
110 Abbott
111 Chronicle of King Henry VIII
112 Ibid; Tytler; Strickland
113 George Wyatt
114 Carles
115 Abbott
116 Chronicle of King Henry VIII
117 George Wyatt
118 Carles
119 Wriothesley
120 Chronicle of King Henry VIII
121 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
122 LP
123 Milherve; Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant
124 SC
125 Erickson: First Elizabeth
126 Carles
127 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
128 Anthony; Abbott
129 Carles. Annabel Geddes, the former Director of the London Tourist Board who founded the London Dungeon, has suggested that Anne’s head was sewn back onto her body by her women before burial, as Charles I’s was in 1649, but no eyewitness account mentions this.
130 LP
131 Wriothesley
132 Wainewright; Wriothesley
133 Maria Hayward; Ives
134 Lisle Letters
135 LP
136 Froude, Note D in Thomas (LP 911)
137 Harleian manuscripts
138 Bell
CHAPTER 14: WHEN DEATH HATH PLAYED HIS PART
1 LP
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 Corpus Reformatorum
5 SC
6 State Papers
7 LP
8 Ibid
9 Ives; “Faction”
10 LP
11 Ibid
12 LP; Erickson: First Elizabeth
13 LP
14 Friedmann
15 Ives: “Frenchman”
16 LP
17 Constantine
18 Friedmann
19 Williams: Henry VIII and His Court
20 LP
21 Jenkins
22 Lisle Letters
23 Rawlinson manuscripts
24 Gross
25 Additional Manuscripts; Fraser
26 History of the King’s Works; Fraser
27 Coverdale’s Bible, with Anne Boleyn’s initials embossed on the binding, is now in the British Library.
28 LP
29 Lisle Letters
30 LP
31 Hall
32 LP
33 Ibid
34 Ibid
35 LP; Warnicke
36 LP
37 Ibid
38 LP
39 Foxe
40 Lisle Letters; LP
41 Harleian manuscripts
42 LP
43 LP; Lisle Letters
44 LP; Lisle Letters; Complete Peerage
45 Wriothesley
46 Journals of the House of Lords
47 Lisle Letters; LP
48 LP; Wriothesley (editorial notes); Kelly
49 LP
50 Statutes of the Realm
51 Elton: Policy and Police
52 LP
53 Ibid
54 Lisle Letters; LP
55 She died at Reading Place, a tenement of the Abbot of Reading, in the Ward of Baynard’s Castle in London, and was buried in the Howard aisle in St. Mary’s Church, Lambeth (LP; Nichols).
56 LP
57 Ibid
58 Dictionary of National Biography; Complete Peerage
59 Cavendish: Metrical Visions
60 LP
61 Ibid
62 LP. The original is Cotton manuscript Vespasian, FXIII, f199.
63 Porter
64 LP
65 Ibid
66 LP; Fox
67 Smith: Tudor Tragedy
68 Cited by Williams in Henry VIII and His Court.
69 Smith: Tudor Tragedy
70 Statutes of the Realm
71 SC
72 LP
73 Original Letters
74 By Julia Fox in Jane Boleyn
75 LP
76 Lisle Letters
77 LP; Lisle Letters
78 Henry VIII: A European Court in England
79 LP
80 Ibid
81 Ibid
82 Ibid
83 Ibid. Later, in 1538, Audley was given Walden Abbey in Essex, which he converted into Audley End House; the present house was built on its site in the early seventeenth century.
84 Murphy
85 LP
86 The Renaissance at Sutton Place; LP; Royal manuscripts
87 LP
88 Ibid
89 Murphy
CHAPTER 15: THE CONCUBINE’S LITTLE BASTARD
1 Neale: Elizabeth
2 Williams: Elizabeth; LP
3 LP
4 Perry
5 Waldman
6 LP
7 Neale
8 LP
9 Cotton manuscript Otho
10 LP
11 Ibid
12 Ibid
13 Ibid
14 Excerpta Historica (LP 1107)
15 LP
16 Ibid
17 Erickson: First Elizabeth
18 LP
19 VC
20 Clifford; Prescott
21 VC
22 SC
23 VC
24 SC
25 LP
26 Cited by Neale in Elizabeth
27 Lisle Letters
28 Cited by Somerset
29 Ridley: Elizabeth I
30 Strype
31 Cited by Somerset
32 Relations Politiques de France avec l’Ecosse
33 SC
34 Erickson: First Elizabeth
35 Gristwood
36 Foxe
37 Arnold
38 VC
39 Ibid
40 Erickson: First Elizabeth
41 Jenkins. It is often stated that she made only two recorded references to Anne Boleyn, but that is not true.
42 Somerset
43 Statutes of the Realm; Ridley: Elizabeth; Neale: Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments; Johnson
44 Dunn
45 VC
46 Somerset
47 Ibid
48 “Household Expenses”
49 Parker
51 Ives; Somerset; Ives: “Fall Reconsidered”
52 Elizabeth: Exhibition Catalogue
53 LP
54 Ibid
55 Ibid
56 Ibid
CHAPTER 16: A WORK OF GOD’S JUSTICE
1 Ives: “Faction”
2 LP
3 “Vitae Mariae”
4 Clifford
5 Cavendish: Metrical Visions
6 Friedmann
7 VC
8 Bruce; Loades: Henry VIII and His Queens
9 Warnicke: “Fall”
10 LP
11 SC
12 Ives: “Fall Reconsidered”
13 Somerset: Ladies in Waiting
14 Loades: Henry VIII and His Queens
15 Ives: “Faction”
16 Loades: Henry VIII and His Queens
17 Smith: Henry VIII
18 Loades: Henry VIII and His Queens
19 Loades: Mary Tudor
20 LP
21 Strickland
22 Lofts; Strickland
23 Warnicke; Cutts
24 Brewer’s British Royalty
25 Abbott
26 Bell
27 This plan is reproduced in Younghusband’s The Tower From Within.
28 Dodson
29 LP
30 Bell
31 VC
32 Bell
33 Abbott
34 Bell
35 Abbott
APPENDIX: LEGENDS
1 Forman; Jones; Underwood; Westwood and Simpson
2 Underwood
3 Foister
4 Forman
5 Forman; Underwood
6 Forman; Jones
7 Underwood
8 Ibid
9 Ibid
10 Abbott
11 Jones; Matthews; Underwood
12 Underwood
13 Ibid
14 Forman; Abbott
15 Underwood
NOTES ON SOME OF THE SOURCES
1 LP; Bernard: “Fall”
2 Ives: “Faction”
About the Author
ALISON WEIR is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Innocent Traitor and The Lady Elizabeth, and several historical biographies, including Queen Isabella, Henry VIII, Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Life of Elizabeth I, and The Six Wives of Henry VIII. She lives in Surrey, England, with her husband and two children.
Copyright © 2010 by Alison Weir
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published by Jonathan Cape, a division of Random House Group Limited, London, in 2010.
Title page art : detail from The Tower of London, painting by Michael van Meer, Album Amicorum, 1615, Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections, ms.La.III.283, fol.346v