December 9: Anne Boleyn's Book of Hours
Thank you so much to Kate McCaffrey, assistant curator at Hever Castle, for sharing this photo with us today from one of Anne Boleyn’s Book of Hours.
Kate did some ground-breaking research on the books held in Hever’s collection, discovering previously erased inscriptions from people who owned one of the books after Anne.
Here is one of the inscriptions that Kate found under ultraviolet light along with a transcription.
The wording says:
my nown good nes
Joyna requere to pray for
y(our) awnt that w(ith) thys here
Elizabeth Shirley
Sadly, the signature was cropped in a later rebinding.
You can find out more about Elizabeth Shirley, and her links with Anne Boleyn, in an article Kate wrote for us back in May – see Kate's article HERE
