The Creation of Anne Boleyn (48 page)

40. Pascual de Gayangos (editor), “Spain: May 1534, 21–31,”
Calendar of State Papers, Spain
, Volume 5, Part 1: 1534–1535, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=87897
.

41. Pascual de Gayangos (editor), “Spain: June 1534, 16–30,”
Calendar of State Papers, Spain
, Volume 5, Part 1: 1534–1535, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=87899
.

42. James Gairdner (editor), “Henry VIII: February 1534, 11–20,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 7: 1534, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=79296
.

43. Loades 2009, 71.

44. Froude 1891, 316; Friedmann, vol. II, 1884, 10.

45. Froude 1891, 280.

46. Friedmann 1884, 10.

47. Pollard 1919, 304.

48. Pascual de Gayangos (editor), “Spain: September 1533, 1–15,”
Calendar of State Papers, Spain
, Volume 4, Part 2: 1531–1533, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=87789
.

49. Ibid.

50. Starkey 2004, 420.

51. Weir 2010, 36.

52. Ibid., 30.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid., 10.

56. Pascual de Gayangos (editor), “Spain: May 1536, 16–31,”
Calendar of State Papers, Spain
, Volume 5, Part 2: 1536–1538, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=87961
.

57. Weir 2011, 82.

2. Why Anne?

1. The exact passage is Leviticus 20:21: “And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.” (KJV)

2. Letter 4, Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, in Norton 2011, 42.

3. J. S. Brewer (editor), “Henry VIII: February 1528, 11–20,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 4: 1524–1530, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=91312
.

4. J. S. Brewer (editor), “Henry VIII: February 1528, 11–20,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 4: 1524–1530, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=91312
. An almost word-for-word description of Anne also occurs in James Gairdner (editor), “Henry VIII: January 1534, 1–5,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 7: 1534, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=79289
. The repetition suggests that Wolsey’s early description of Anne had become official governmentspeak.

5. Pollard 1919, 176.

6. J. S. Brewer (editor), “Henry VIII: February 1516, 16–29,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 2: 1515–1518, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=90899
.

7. J. S. Brewer (editor), “Henry VIII: December 1527, 1–9,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 4: 1524–1530, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=91303
.

8. Froude 1891, 23.

9. Ibid., 32.

10. Cavendish 1905, 12.

11. Strickland and Strickland 2010, 575.

12. Ibid., 576.

13. The exact nature and number of Anne’s pre-Henry relationships are fuzzy, but virtually all historians believe that she had some sort of serious romantic entanglement with Henry Percy, heir of the fifth Earl of Northumberland.

14. Cavendish 1905, 15.

15. Ibid., 16.

16. Dixon 1874, 107.

17. Anderson 1977, 30.

18. Hirst 2007, 161.

19. Ibid., 163.

20. Ives 2005, 40.

21. Rawdon Brown (editor), “Venice: October 1532,”
Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice
, Volume 4: 1527–1533, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=94635
.

22. George Wyatt’s
Life of Queen Anne Boleigne,
in Norton 2011, 17.

23. Ibid.

24. Vincent 2009, 149.

25. Pitman 2003, 61–62.

26. Pointer 2005, 78–79.

27. If you happened to have been born with less than shining gold tresses, there were many recipes for curing that. You could take the scrapings from rhubarb, steep them in white wine or clear lye, and wet your hair with the solution, leaving it to dry in the sun (repeat if necessary). Sulphur and lead were also useful and could bleach freckles too. But the most successful procedures depended on lye—a great deal of it. (The success was temporary; golden tresses, tortured by lye, usually fell out over time.) Other formulas were employed to achieve the “whitely” complexion that was most admired. You can soak wheat in water for fifteen days, then grind it and blend it with water, strain it through a cloth, and let it crystallize through evaporation. You then mix it with rosewater, which “will obtain a make-up which will be as white as snow.” White ceruse (containing lead carbonate, lead oxide, and lead hydroxide) could also be smeared on the face to simulate a pale matte complexion. (It was poisonous, but other popular recipes—such as egg whites—left the face shiny and stiff.)

28. Actually, the sociobiological arguments fall apart against the historical and geographical spectacle of human diversity.

29. Connor 2004, 97.

30. Daneau 1575.

31. Sander 1877, 25.

32. James Gairdner (editor), “Henry VIII: June 1533, 1–5,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 6: 1533, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=77553
.

33. Norton 2011, 19.

34. Loades 1968, 22. Modern spelling applied.

35. Wyatt 1817, 424.

36. The third nipple, too, is reported as fact (or is described as “widely rumored” or as she “was said to have,” a characterization that tends to perpetuate itself) on numerous websites, many of which cite the popular
The Book of Lists,
first published in 1977, as their source. This book, which the authors admit was written “for fun,” quickly became a source for schoolchildren “to spice up their schoolwork.”

37. Bailey 2010.

38. Chapman 1974, 28.

39. Smith 1973, 119.

40. When I asked Howard Brenton in an interview why the blonde Anne—I thought that perhaps he was making some point by going against archetype—he said it was simply because a wig would have been too uncomfortable for the blonde actress to wear. Of course, Raison could have dyed her hair, as Natalie Dormer did, and I wonder if Brenton would have given up so easily if other historical facts had collided with his cast’s preferences. My suspicion is that our own lingering blonde fetishism, still asserting itself even in an era of multiracial aesthetics, played a role.

41. Drew 1912, 14.

42. Wyatt 1817, 424.

43. de Carles 1927, 234.

44. Wyatt 1858, 3.

45. The history of the mole is a case in point. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a mole’s “disruption” of the skin changed from being the devil’s handiwork to nature’s accentuation of especially pretty features (such as the lips or the eyes). Men and women alike began to put false spots (beauty patches) on areas of their faces they wished to draw attention to. (Or they might use them to hide scars or pockmarks.) Like actual moles, these mimic moles developed a code, but the meanings were far less menacing than the medieval interpretation: A spot on the forehead showed majesty, on the nose sauciness, on the midcheek gaiety, and near the corner of the eye passion. A patch on the lips invited a kiss. “It is a Riddle,” mused Robert Codrington in his seventeenth-century conduct manual, “that a Blemish should appear a Grace, and that a Deformity should adde unto Beauty.” (Vincent 2009, 150.) But that is often the way ideals of beauty change.

46. Meyer 2004, 19.

47. Ives 2005, 18.

48. Margaret of Austria to Sir Thomas Boleyn, in Norton 2011, 25.

49. Cholakian and Cholakian 2006, 4.

50. Erasmus 1995, 292.

51. Starkey 2004, 258.

52. Pizan 1997, 119–20.

53. Knecht 2008, 227.

54. Benger 1821, 137.

55. Singer 1827, 120.

56. Pollard 1919, 191.

57. Ibid., 191–92.

58. James Gairdner (editor), “Henry VIII: September 1535, 11–20,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 9: August–December 1535, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=75668
.

59. Ives 2005, 33.

60. Only Aristophanes, as depicted in Plato’s
Symposium,
had up until then come close to providing a model of the kind of love that Shakespeare—and
we—
think of as “romantic”: two personalities who find their wholeness, power, and peace in coming together. And Socrates, not Aristophanes, won that debate in Plato—and thus in medieval culture, which was strongly shaped by neo-Platonism.

61. From Sharon Jansen’s introduction to France 2004, 8.

62. France 2004, 51.

63. Vives 2000, 127.

64. Ibid., 105.

65. Ibid., 55, 57.

66. Ibid., 131.

67. Ibid, 132.

68. Ibid., 178–9.

69. Ibid., 245, 255.

70. Castiglione 1903, 176–77.

71. Ibid., 177.

72. Ibid., 179.

73. Ibid., 180.

74. Ibid., 179.

75. This was important not just to fulfill ideals of feminine conduct, but because her official function was to serve as a lady-in-waiting to a princess or queen.

76. A. Jones 1987, 45.

77. Cavendish 1905, 35.

78. Tyndale 2000, 184.

79. Lorenzo Campeggio wrote Rome that Henry knew more about the Bible than a great theologian, and the French ambassador Guillaume du Bellay reported to France that the king needed no lawyer since he understood the case so well. Henry more than once tried to persuade Thomas More, pointing out the key texts in the Bible from which he had concluded that his marriage to Katherine was unlawful.

80. Starkey 2004, 285.

81. Ibid., 285–86.

3. In Love (or Something Like It)

1.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/5194183/Love-letter-from-Henry-VIII-to-Anne-Boleyn-on-display-for-first-time.html
.

2. Letter 16, Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, in Norton 2011, 45.

3. Letter 5, Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, in Norton 2011, 42.

4. Ibid.

5. Hirst 2007, 304.

6. Ibid., 307.

7. Ibid., 199.

8. Weir 1991, 173–74.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 174.

11. Letter 5, Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, in Norton 2011, 42.

12. Letter 14, Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, in Norton 2011, 45.

13. Michael Hirst, interview with author, telephone, Lexington, KY, April 28, 2011.

14. Letter 16, Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, in Norton 2011, 45.

15. It’s not known just how rapacious Henry was. Kelly Hart’s recent
The Mistresses of Henry VIII
says we can be certain of Lady Anne Stafford, Bessie Blount (who provided Henry with a son), Mary Boleyn, and Mary Shelton, and we “can confidently add” Jane Popincourt, Elizabeth Carew, Etiennette de la Baume, Elizabeth Amandas, and Mary Skipforth, and “there were undoubtedly many, many more” (199). Other historians argue that we can only really be sure of Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn, and that Henry’s sexual antics never approached those of Francis I.

16. James Gairdner (editor), “Henry VIII: April 1533, 11–20,”
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
, Volume 6: 1533, British History Online,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=77546
.