|
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 prot�g�, 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
|
|