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Letter from Anne Boleyn to Cardinal
Thomas Wolsey
1529
Background
The tone of this letter differs remarkably from the preceding
letter. The disastrous and humiliating legatine hearings at Blackfriars
in May 1529 had finally convinced Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn that Wolsey
could not secure the annulment. Anne now believed, and with good reason,
that the Cardinal had never intended for her to be queen of England and
had hoped the endless delays of the annulment would cool Henry's passion
for her. She was angry, and now more receptive to the anti-Wolsey machinations
of her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, and other other noblemen who resented
Wolsey's influence with the king. Anne now became their willing partner
in destruction; they had their way and in October of 1529, the Cardinal
fell spectacularly from grace.
Upon Wolsey's fall, his position was filled by
his far less ostentatious and more cunning protégé, Thomas Cromwell. He
learned the lessons of Wolsey's life well, and his initial support of
Anne Boleyn was tempered by a realistic understanding of Henry VIII's temperament.
My lord,
Though you are a man of great understanding, you cannot avoid being
censured by every body for having drawn on yourself the hatred of a king
who had raised you to the highest degree to which the greatest ambition
of a man seeking his fortune can aspire. I cannot comprehend, and the
king still less, how your reverent lordship, after having allured us
by so many fine promises about divorce, can have repented of your purpose,
and how you could have done what you have, in order to hinder the consummation
of it. What, then, is your mode of proceeding? You quarreled with
the queen to favor me at the time when I was less advanced in the king's
good graces; and after having therein given me the strongest marks of
your affection, your lordship abandons my interests to embrace those
of the queen. I acknowledge that I have put much confidence in your
professions and promises, in which I find myself deceived. But, for
the future, I shall rely on nothing by the protection of Heaven and
the love of my dear king, which alone will be able to set right again
those plans which you have broken and spoiled, and to place me in that
happy station which God wills, the king so much wishes, and which will
be entirely to the advantage of the kingdom. The wrong you have done
me has caused me much sorrow; but I feel infinitely more in seeing myself
betrayed by a man who pretended to enter into my interests only to discover
the secrets of my heart. I acknowledge that, believing you sincere,
I have been too precipitate in my confidence; it is this which has induced,
and still induces me, to keep more moderation in avenging myself, not
being able to forget that I have been Your servant,
Anne Boleyn.
to Letters of the Six
Wives of Henry VIII
to Primary Sources
to
Tudor England
to Anne
Boleyn website
to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey website
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