11/19/07 |
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The Age of Anne BoleynBy Wendy J. Dunn
At time of
canvasinge this matter so, At the birth of Anne Boleyn, if a seer had predicted her important role on the stage of English History, I feel certain her father – Sir Thomas Boleyn- would have scoffed. Indeed, of all possible futures for this girl-child, it would not seem conceivable that Anne’s destiny lay as a crowned Queen of England, consort of Henry VIII. At best, her father probably thought of a future where one of his daughters, surviving the perils of infancy and childhood of this period, achieved a marriage strengthening Boleyn’s own status at court. But to ever imagine his daughter Anne as Queen and spouse to a King? The possibility of that would have been entirely remote. Later Earl of Ormonde and Wiltshire, Thomas Boleyn- or Bullen as the family was known then- was but a knight at the time of Anne's birth. A son of a man whose own father, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, stood even lower on the rungs of English society- a self made man who became a Mayor of London and gained an heiress, the daughter of Lord Hoo and Hastings, as his wife.(i) Thomas Boleyn, the ambitious father of Anne Boleyn continued building upon what his grandfather first built and rarely- that is, until his daughter Anne had the misfortune to miscarry the King's son in 1536- missed a step to raise his family higher in the Tudor hierarchy. Indeed, Thomas Boleyn had done well enough for himself when he married Lady Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of Thomas, Duke of Howard, head of a prolific family, with bloodlines stretching back to Edward I, through his second marriage to Margaret of France. But, at Anne's birth, Sir Thomas Boleyn- with his daughter's future as mother to one of England's best-loved monarchs hidden from him-had no reason to leave documentation about the date of her birth. This being the case- Anne's birth year, as indeed the place of her birth, is shrouded in the deepest mist of history, and has long been fodder for lively debate amongst Tudor historians. My reason for entering this fray is a belief that the arguments for Anne's birth in 1507 are much stronger than the other suggested years of 1502 or 1501, indeed, as early as 1499.
For many
historians, the crux of the matter appears to revolve around Anne
Boleyn's sojourn over on the continent. Thomas Boleyn, using the
contacts he made abroad during his time as a successful diplomat, sent
Anne first as a fille d'honneur at the court of Margaret, Duchess
of Burgundy. After a brief stay in Burgundy, Anne's father arranged for
her to go onto France, perchance to join her sister Mary as attendant to
Mary Tudor, the youngest surviving sister of Henry VIII, on her marriage
to Louis XII of France. (ii) Because the first sojourn occurred in 1514,
historians have argued that Anne Boleyn must have had reached either the
age twelve or thirteen, usually the youngest ages considered for a
fille d'honneur.
I believe Retha Warwicke, in her 'Rise and fall of Anne Boleyn,'
argues a very good case that Anne Boleyn was no more than seven on her
arrival at Margaret's court. Not only does she cite the example of Anne
Brandon, six-years-old in the same time period as Anne Boleyn, placed
also in Margaret's care but in addition she cites a letter from the
Regent to Thomas Boleyn. This letter comments how Anne was "so well
spoken and so pleasant for her young years." (3) These words imply
strongly that Anne was younger than twelve or thirteen, because it is
extremely unlikely that the Regent would have commented on her 'young
years' if Anne had neared or reached her teenage years. In this period,
though admittedly not a common occurrence, girls of twelve were unlikely
to be regarded in their 'young years', as they could be legally wed, as
well as have their marriages consummated. During the reign of Elizabeth, members of Anne's own family believed the Queen's mother to be the younger sister, as shown when Mary Boleyn's grandson attempted to claim the Earldom of Ormonde through this fact of his grandmother's seniority. As Fraser comments, this seniority was not contested "although in the reign of Anne Boleyn's daughter there were plenty who would have done so, if it had been untrue." (9) There is another a bit of evidence to sway my belief about how young Anne actually was during her time on the continent. Anne spoke English with a French accent until the day her husband and Thomas Cromwell found a legal way to murder her. An accent natural to our speaking voice is something usually acquired at a young age. That Anne had a French accent on her return to England suggests strongly that she first came to the Continent as a child. Also, the very fact that Anne seemed so 'French,' another thing not making her popular, either with the English court or with the common people, implies that she had been away from her family and England during the important character developing years of her childhood. Supporting this view are the words of George Cavendish, loyal gentleman usher of Cardinal Wolsey. Cavendish wrote in his 'Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, This gentillwoman Mrs Anne Boleyn beyng very yong was sent in to the realme of ffraunce.(10) Surely Cavendish's choice of the words 'very young' tells us more than anything else that Anne was a child in France, and goes against the argument that, in 1527, Anne Boleyn first caught the King's eye when she was at least twenty-six. Even in today's world, women of twenty-six are unlikely to be regarded as 'girls.' Yet we have contemporary description from William Forrest - a supporter of Catherine of Aragon who was in England during her 'divorce' from the King- of Anne as a 'fresh young damsel.' (11) We also have Anne Boleyn's own words to consider. Firstly there is Anne's letter written to the King after he arranges for her to be a maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon, just after the fire of the king's passion really started blazing bright. Anne writes at the start of this letter, It belongs only to the august mind of a great king to whom nature has given a heart full of generosity towards the sex; to repay by favours so extraordinary artless and short conversation with a girl. Anne's words are also documented just before the final downfall of Cardinal Wolsey. One night, Henry VIII decided to sup with Catherine of Aragon, the woman he was working hard to divorce. Not surprisingly, even though somewhat surprising to the King, he found Catherine of Aragon not prepared to be her usual companionable self, rather her antagonistic mood soon resulted in an argument. Henry then went to Anne Boleyn, in hope of receiving some sympathy from his mistress, only to find Anne angry in turn. After saying that she feared he would one day return to Catherine, she went on to say: I have been waiting long and might in the meanwhile have contracted some advantageous marriage, out of which I might have had issue, which is the greatest consolation in this world, but alas! Farewell to my time and youth spent to no purpose at all.(12)
If she had been
twenty-six at the start of her relationship with the King, Anne could
not lay claim to being either a 'girl' or having 'spent' her youth
during the long years prior to her marriage to the King. It is also
extremely unlikely that she could have lied about her age. Anne had too
many enemies who would have delighted in telling the truth to the King.
Anne's
relationship with the twenty-year old Henry Percy, later Earl of
Northumberland, needs to be considered here too. This relationship,
documented by George Cavendish as well as later brought up during the
trial for Anne's life, possessed all the hallmarks of 'first love,' both
of them entering into this relationship as if naive of how their lives
were controlled by their place in Tudor society. Moreover, there are
potent hints suggesting that Anne and Percy may have pre-contracted
themselves to one another, which would have put into question the
legality of any future marriage entered into by Anne and Percy. (13) Mary Stuart, four-four at her death, suffered with rheumatism for years prior to her death and was found to have mostly grey hair after her execution. By his forties, gout already caused great daily agony to William Cecil, later crippling him as an old man. Elizabeth in her late thirties, whose constitution as Queen was generally sound, developed a painful leg ulcer, which caused one suitor to offend her by calling her 'an old creature with a sore leg.' (16) . When Robert Dudley died at fifty-five he was almost unrecognisable as the handsome, dark 'Gypsy' who had come as close as any man to marrying Anne Boleyn's daughter. That same daughter, after her recovery from small pox at twenty-nine, said to a deputation who petitioned her to marry and thus safeguard the realm with heirs of her body, "The marks they saw on her face were not wrinkles, but the pits of smallpox, and although she might be old, God could send her children as He did to St. Elisabeth." (17) Keeping in mind the cadence of the time, I construe her response in that Elizabeth is referring to a time in the future, when would indeed be 'old, ' but still the unspoken concern about the "delay of the ripe time for marriage"(18) is apparent. By thirty-seven, Elizabeth, no doubt seeking reassurance from her courtiers to the contrary, was indeed protesting that she was too old for marriage.(19) We even have the utterance of her father to reflect upon, when he said: "I am forty-one years old, at which age the lust of man is not so quick as in lusty youth."(20) Thus, it is clear that they, like us, were aware of 'youth' as compared to 'maturity.' With so many children and teenagers scythed down by the grim reaper, probably more so. There is little doubt that Henry VIII passion for Anne Boleyn was the 'Grand Passion' of his life. But Henry was a King, only the second of his dynasty, desperately in need of a son to secure the succession of his crown. To turn his kingdom upside down to achieve his marriage with Anne Boleyn, he must have felt confident of her ability to bear children, and healthy children at that. Cardinal Wolsey attempts to wave a French princess under his King's nose were not helped by the fact that Renče of France, like her mother before her, had a physical defect, which resulted in her walking with a limp and caused expression of doubts about Renče's suitability to bear children(21) . But such a woman also would not have appealed to Henry, who took great pride in not only his physical appearance, but that of his children too. Early in 1528, Wolsey wrote to the Pope defending the King's choice of Anne on the grounds that she was likely to have children, (22) which suggests Anne Boleyn was youthful. When it is considered that Catherine of Aragon was only thirty-two when brought to bed of her last child, a still born daughter, it seems very unlikely that the King would place his hopes and faith in the ability of a twenty-eight-year-old woman to give him sons. Anne Boleyn came from a class that generally married young, though admittedly not as young as did Princesses of the time, many of whom married not long into their teenage years, after infant or childhood betrothals. Anne's own mother married by the time she was seventeen, her sister Mary probably married William Carey in her teenage years. Anne herself would have expected to be wed by her very early twenties, the 'ripe time' for marriage. In 1519, aged only thirty-three, Catherine of Aragon was described as the 'King's old deformed wife.'(23) Of course, by then Catherine - in ten years of marriage- had given birth at least six times, resulting in only her daughter Mary surviving beyond the first weeks of infancy. Grief and the constant strains of pregnancy can swiftly age any woman. But Anne Boleyn had, physically and psychologically, a great deal to cope with too. Even so, on the day of her execution a witness said Anne Boleyn 'never looked more beautiful.' On the scaffold, when she removed her pearl encrusted coif to replace it with a simpler head covering, Anne Boleyn revealed her black hair to be as black as ever. Do these descriptions gel with a woman of thirty-six, decidedly middle-aged by the times-who been through the terror of imprisonment, a trial for her life, months of fear and uncertainty while her husband and his ministers plotted to get rid of her, and a tragic second miscarriage barely four months before her death? I don't believe so.
Whenever there is confusion about something from
the past I believe it best to seek out 'voices' from the time, to
discover whether there are voices from the past that can help untangle
the confusion. Sometimes the voices are silent, leading us to
conjecture, but in the case of Anne Boleyn's age there are, I believe,
enough 'voices' that do speak. And not only the voices I have already
put forward. Only a couple years before her marriage to the King, Anne
was described as 'young.'(24) William Camden wrote in his Annuals
Anne Boleyn's birth date as being 1507. Jane Dormer -Lady in waiting and
confidante to Catherine of Aragon's daughter Mary Tudor - believed Anne
Boleyn not quite twenty-nine when she died.(25) Mary Tudor, who had many
valid reasons to hate Anne Boleyn and as the daughter of Catherine of
Aragon, would have been in the perfect position to be aware of Anne's
true age. I want to end this investigation by comparing three portraits.
Two portraits depict two women aged around twenty-seven years, one Henry
VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, painted by Holbein
(3) Retha W. Warnicke, work cited, page 12
(9)Antonia Fraser, work cited, page 119
21 Warnicke, work cited, page 63 Copyright Wendy J. Dunn 2001
Thank you Marilee from
English History
for kindly providing the images for this conclusion.
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When
these three portraits are studied side by side, it is clear that that
the Horenbout portrait shows some one who could indeed be described as a
'fresh young damsel, ' a young woman no more than twenty. The other two
portraits show women with shadowed eyes, lines etched all around, skin-
especially around Mary 's mouth and Jane's chin - losing it elasticity,
clearly much maturer women, both fast losing the freshness of youth.
There is a fourth portrait to consider -
a drawing by
Holbein depicting Anne Boleyn during her brief time as Queen. Though
drawn from different angles, Holbein's drawing clearly shows the same
woman as that painted by Horenbout, but time has passed, the girl in the
miniature has become the woman. But still evident is that this woman is
not much older than that shown in the portraits of Jane Seymour and Mary
Tudor. It is a portrait, I believe, of a woman who has not reached her
middle thirties. 
11/19/07 |
This site was last updated 11/19/07