On 26th April 1536, just a few days before her arrest, Queen Anne Boleyn met with her chaplain, Matthew Parker. It was a meeting he would remember vividly for ever because she made him promise her something, something concerning her daughter, Elizabeth…
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I do believe Anne had a feeling that something was about to happen to her, she and the king were estranged he had never forgiven her losing his son in January, his great passion had turned to indifference and he was paying court to Jane Seymour, although outwardly he appeared to be championing her I feel in his heart he had turned against her, they quite possibly did not even share the same bed anymore and Anne must have noticed the sessions he spent with his council, it must have been a dreadful time of uncertainty and so she sought out her chaplain, pity we have no idea what was said between them, but frightened of maybe losing both husband and child, she entreated him like a lioness guarding her cub, to take spiritual care of Elizabeth in the years to come, we can assume it was Elizabeth’s religious guidance Anne was asking and maybe to tell her when she was older of her mothers deep piety and moral being, as Anne I believe thought that the king would divorce her and marry Jane Seymour and the worse, she would not see her daughter as much if ever, and she would be banished to a nunnery, little did she know to what extant Henry was prepared to go to blot her existence from the face of the earth, this conversation said in secret Mathew Parker kept close to his heart for the tragic queens words moved him deeply, his love and loyalty to his mistress never wavered and so he served her daughter and became reluctantly Elizabeth’s archbishop, even older then and infirm he still took up the office remembering the pleading look in the dead queens eyes many years before, Parker was one of a group of Cambridge scholars which included amongst them, Roger Ascham who became Elizabeth’s tutor and Lady Jane Greys, these young men were all intelligent and of the reformist learning people Anne surrounded herself with, her chaplain she commended unto him the care of her precious daughter proof of the reverence she held him in, under Elizabeth’s reign he must have spoken of her mother to her and I believe she felt the same loyalty and goodness in him that Anne Boleyn had felt.