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Claire | February 14, 2013
As it’s Valentine’s Day today, I just wanted to share with you some facts about courtship in Tudor times. David Cressy, in his excellent book Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England, writes of how “courtship was no mere game or idle dalliance” and that its goal […]
Claire | February 14, 2012
Romance may not be something you associate with King Henry VIII – tyranny: yes, romance: no – but Henry could be very romantic at times. How do I know? Well, I’ve read the love letters that he sent to Anne Boleyn and they are beautiful. Here are some lovey dovey extracts from the King of […]
Claire | February 7, 2012
The shrovetide joust of 1526 was the first indication of Henry VIII’s courtly pursuit of Anne Boleyn. According to the chronicler Edward Hall, it was on this day that Henry VIII rode out in cloth of gold and silver “richely embraudered, with a mannes harte in a presse, with flames about it, and in letters […]
Claire | December 7, 2010
As I said in my post “Henry VIII Falls in Love with Anne Boleyn”, Eric Ives gives a very useful chronology of Anne and Henry’s relationship, from Shrovetide 1526 to August 1527 when it was decided that Henry should ask the Pope for a dispensation to allow him to marry Anne when he had already […]
Claire | November 23, 2010
As I stated in my article “The Early Life of Anne Boleyn Part Six – The Château Vert Pageant“, contrary to the scene in “The Tudors”, it is unlikely that Anne and Henry’s eyes met across a crowded room at the 1522 Shrovetide Pageant. It is possible that he did not even notice Anne, who […]
Claire | August 4, 2009
This post is part one of another series of three blogs that I’m going to do on the personality of Anne Boleyn. If you remember, a few weeks ago I did a series of three posts exploring Anne Boleyn The Witch, Anne Boleyn The Great Whore and Anne Boleyn The Martyr, well now I’ve been […]
