Read The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn Online
Authors: Alison Weir
Tags: #General, #Historical, #Royalty, #England, #Great Britain, #Autobiography, #Biography & Autobiography, #Biography, #Biography And Autobiography, #History, #Europe, #Historical - British, #Queen; consort of Henry VIII; King of England;, #Anne Boleyn;, #1507-1536, #Henry VIII; 1509-1547, #Queens, #Great Britain - History
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn (74 page)
40
LP
41
Ibid
42
Excerpta Historica
(
LP
911);
Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant; LP;
Carles
43
Sergeant; Warnicke
44
Milherve;
Excerpta Historica (LP
1107)
45
Miscellaneous Antiquities;
Strickland
46
Some sources call her Mary, but there is no record of a Mary Wyatt, nor does a Mary Wyatt appear in the extensive pedigree drawn up by David Loades in his edition of George Wyatt’s papers.
47
Hare;
Westminster Abbey
guidebooks
48
Excerpta Historica (LP
1107)
49
Froude, Note D in Thomas (
LP
911); Carles
50
Excerpta Historica (LP
1107)
51
Froude, Note D in Thomas
(LP
911);
Histoire de la Royne Anne de Boullant; LP
52
Abbott; Younghusband
53
Chapman:
Anne Boleyn
54
Ives; Impey and Parnell
55
Carles
56
Lisle Letters
57
LP
58
Foxe
59
LP;
Wriothesley
60
Wriothesley
61
Murphy
62
Chapman:
Two Tudor Portraits
63
Cited by Murphy
64
Wriothesley
65
Harleian manuscripts
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 (
LP
911)
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 (
LP
911);
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
138CHAPTER 14: WHEN DEATH HATH PLAYED HIS PART
Bell
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.
