Quotes

Here are some famous quotes about Queen Anne Boleyn…

The very ink of history is written with fluid prejudice

— Mark Twain

No English Queen has made more impact on the history of the nation than Anne Boleyn, and few have been so persistently maligned.

— Joanna Denny “Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England’s Tragic Queen”

Though God cannot alter the past, historians can.

— Samuel Butler

I have never had better opinions of woman than I had of her.

— Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anne Boleyn’s pastor and Boleyn family friend.

For her behaviour, manners, attire and tongue she excelled them all.

— Lancelot de Carles

Her excellent grace and behaviour

— George Cavendish, usher to Cardinal Wolsey, when explaining why Anne stood out from the rest of women at court.

She (Anne) knew perfectly how to sing and dance…to play the lute and other instruments.

— Lancelot de Carles

Imbued with as many outward good qualities in playing on instruments, singing, and such other courtly graces, as few women were of her time.

— William Thomas

Very beautiful.

— Francesco Sanuto, Venetian Diplomat

I find her so bright and pleasant for her young age that I am more beholden to you for sending her to me than you are to me.

He’s marrying the perfect wife for him [Jane Seymour], and he’s learned that he doesn’t need an Anne Boleyn – another partner in crime to help him take over the world. He just needs a wonderful, supportive wife to take care of him when he comes home from a hard day beheading people.

— Jonathan Rhys Meyers

I will not give them up to a person who is the scandal of Christendom and a disgrace to you.

— Catherine of Aragon, talking about Henry’s request for her to pass the jewels he gave her on to Anne Boleyn.

The King’s Grace is ruled by one common stewed wh*re, Anne Boleyn, who makes all the spirituality to be beggared, and the temporality also.

— Abbot of Whitby 1530

Your Majesty must root out the Lady and her adherents…. This accursed Anne has her foot in the stirrup, and will do the Queen and the Princess all the harm she can. She has boasted that she will make the Princess her lady-in-waiting, or marry her to some varlet.

— Eustace Chapuys (Imperial Ambassador), writing to Emperor Charles V in 1533

If it be true that is openly reported of the Queen’s Grace… I am in such perplexity that my mind is clean amazed; for I never had better opinion in woman than I had in her; which maketh me to think that she should not be culpable… Next to Your Grace, I was most bound to her of all creatures living… I wish and pray for her that she may declare herself inculpable and innocent… I loved her not a little for the love which I judged her to bear towards God and His Gospel.

— Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s comments about Anne when writing to Henry VIII after her arrest.

It was not a coalition of factions that brought down Anne but Henry’s disaffection caused by her miscarriage of a defective child, the one act, besides adultery, that would certainly destroy his trust in her.

— Retha M Warnicke

She who has been the Queen of England on earth will today become a Queen in Heaven.

— Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, on hearing of Anne Boleyn’s execution.