Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII’s relationship has intrigued historians for centuries. Theirs was a relationship that changed the course of English history, but what do we know of Anne and Henry, the people?
Little survives of Anne as Henry had all of her portraits, emblems, and badges destroyed after her execution, and the letters she wrote him were stolen during her lifetime. Only a few personal things of Anne’s remain – her book of hours, currently on display at Hever Castle, and a letter said to have been dictated by Anne to Henry while she was in prison in the Tower of London. From these first-hand accounts of Anne Boleyn, we know she was an extremely pious reformer and that her views on faith and kingship had a profound effect on Henry.
Before Henry met Anne, he was staunchly Catholic. In 1521, the Pope honoured Henry with the title Fidei defensor or ‘Defender of the Faith’ in recognition for his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defence of the Seven Sacraments). The king had written the piece in response to the German monk Martin Luther’s De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae (The Babylon Captivity of the Church), which challenged some of the central doctrines of the Church and the authority of the Pope in Rome.
Martin Luther’s book and other reformist books such as William Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Good Christian Man were banned in England. Cardinal Wolsey, Henry’s chief minister, carried out book burnings at the open-air pulpit of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. If found with a copy, the person was labelled a heretic and faced the death penalty.
Martin Luther and William Tyndale believed in justification by faith alone. The belief that individuals had a direct relationship with God, and priests were not needed as intermediates. The Babylonian Captivity was a period in Jewish history when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took the Jews captive and taught false worship. Martin Luther used it metaphorically to attack the Church. William Tyndale’s book discussed obedience to God and the right of kings as ordained by God directly from the Bible.
Anne owned a copy of Tyndale’s banned book, and in 1526 when the king wanted to marry her, she gave it to him in the hope that he would come to learn that his right to rule was ordained by God and therefore above the pope. I believe it says a lot about Henry and Anne’s relationship that she could share Tyndale’s book with him without fear of persecution.
Another very telling piece of evidence about Anne and Henry’s relationship is Anne’s book of hours, which contained prayers and psalms. It contains two messages between Anne and Henry. The first, written by Henry to Anne, reads: ‘If you remember my love in your prayers as strongly as I adore you, I shall hardly be forgotten, for I am yours. Henry R forever.’ Henry wrote this beneath an image of the wounded Christ, perhaps in a bid to convey he loved her so much it hurt.
Anne replied in a witty couplet beneath an image of the Angel Gabriel visiting Mary to tell her that she would have a son. ‘By daily proof you shall me find to be to you both loving and kind’. Perhaps she was assuring him she would give him a son.
These messages between Henry and Anne show they gave great thought and consideration to what they wanted to say to one another, using biblical stories metaphorically to convey their intentions.
In his fifth love letter to Anne, written in 1528, Henry thanks her for her New Year’s gift to him – a silver ship pendant. He thanked her, not only for the gift, but for the ‘fine interpretation’ and ‘the beautiful mottoes of the letter so cordially expressed.’ One can only wonder what fine interpretation and mottoes the king was talking about and why Anne sent him this unusual gift, where she got it from, and whether she had it specially commissioned.
Given the thoughtful way Anne and Henry communicated, and how deep-rooted their relationship was in faith, it is possible that Proverb 25.4 & 5 had something to do with her choice.
25.4 ‘Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer. 5 Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.
In marrying Anne and breaking with the Pope, the King was establishing his rule in righteousness with reform and an English Bible.
Two further points have influenced my thinking on this matter. In breaking with Rome, Henry declared himself head of the English Church in a series of Acts known as the Acts of Supremacy. I believe the choice of the word ‘supremacy’ supports Henry and Anne’s enthusiasm for reform because chapter one of the book of Hebrews is titled the Supremacy of the Son, meaning Christ. Henry was establishing himself as God’s anointed over his people in place of the pope, whom Anne and Henry and the reformers believed had usurped God’s authority.
The king also called his divorce ‘the great matter,’ which at first sight would appear to be a description of what was an important matter. However, closer examination of Anne and Henry’s communications identifies a pattern of symbolic communication between two highly intelligent people.
Proverb 25.2 reads: ‘It is the glory of God to conceal the matter: But the honour of kings is to search it out.’
In the Bible story of Esther, Queen Esther says: ‘My father told me it takes the glory of God to conceal the matter. And it takes the honour of Kings to search it out.’
This proverb aligns beautifully with the reformers’ cause, which was a quest for truth—the word of God or Church dogma? The reformers were urging the king to search out the true word of God with a Bible in English and to break with the pope.
This ties in with what has been in dispute for the last 485 years: did Anne get her Almoner Skip to preach a coded sermon using the story of Queen Esther to warn her husband against the advice of his chief minister Thomas Cromwell? Some believe the address marked Cromwell out as Haman, the king’s wicked adviser, Anne as Queen Esther, and Henry as King Xerxes, and this was why Cromwell moved against Anne to bring her down.
In what is believed to be Anne’s final letter, written while she was imprisoned in the Tower of London and found amongst Cromwell’s papers after his execution, Anne uses the very same phrase Queen Esther used to King Xerxes when she begged for her life and the life of her people.
Esther says: ‘If I have found favour in thy sight, (O king) and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request.’
In her letter, Anne says: ‘If ever I found favour in your sight – If ever the name of Anne Bullen has been pleasing in your ears – then let me obtain this request.’
It can be challenging for us to place ourselves in the Tudor world because our world is so different in many ways, but these things had huge meaning in the minds of Tudor people.
It is clear that Anne and Henry, before it all went so tragically wrong, communicated in a beautifully deep and meaningful way with one another.