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II William Latymer's Chronickille of Anne Bulleyne

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2009

Maria Dowling
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Extract

Acknowledgements 25

Abbreviations 26

Introduction

The text 27

The author 27

Latymer's purpose in writing the ‘Cronickille’ 29

Latymer's veracity 33

Other early biographies and notices of Anne Boleyn 37

The value of Latymer's account 43

Editorial Procedure 45

Text 46

I am grateful to the Keeper of Western Manuscripts, the Bodleian Library, Oxford for permission to publish the text offered here, Bodleian MS Don. C. 42, fos 21–33. I wish to thank Mr J.A.S. Green, the County Archivist of Berkshire, for information about Trumble MS and the staff of the following institutions for their assistance and cooperation: the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, Dr Williams's Library, Institute of Historical Research and Public Record Office, London; and the Bibliotheque Albert I, Brussels. Professor E.W. Ives has given valuable advice and constructive criticism, and Mr L.R. Gardiner offered much useful discussion of the nature of Tudor biography. I would like to thank Ms Catharine Davies and Ms Joy Shakespeare both for references and for suggestions. Thanks are due to Mr Stephen Baskerville, Miss Joan Henderson and Ms Susan Wabuda for enthusiastic discussion and kind encouragement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Camden Fourth Series , Volume 39: Camden Miscellany XXX , July 1990 , pp. 23 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1990

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References

page 27 note 1. For notices of Latymer and his treatise, Butterworth, Charles C., The English Primers (Philadelphia, 1953), 54–5Google Scholar; Knowles, David, The Religious Orders in England 3 vols., Cambridge, 1948, 1955, 1959), iii, 215–7Google Scholar; Chester, Allan G., Hugh Latimer, Apostle to the English (Philadelphia, 1954), iiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levine, Mortimer, ‘The place of women in Tudor government,’ in Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G.R. Elton from his American Eriends ed. Guth, Delloyd J. and McKenna, John W. (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar; Slavin, Arthur, ‘Bishop Bonner and the Devil's Art’Google Scholar, in the same collection. Slavin does not mention Latymer's connection with Anne Boleyn. Ives, E.W., Anne Boleyn (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar makes extensive use of the ‘cronickille’.

page 27 note 2. Yor example, Holinshed and Foxe, both quoted in Ives, Anne Boleyn, 63.Google Scholar

page 29 note 3. General summaries of Latymer's career are in Athenae Cant., 481Google Scholar and Alumni Cant., iii, 50Google Scholar; see also Slavin, , ‘Bishop Bonner‘, 18–20Google Scholar. The documents connecting Latymer with Anne Boleyn are PRO, SP1/102, fo.125, confession of Tristram Revell, SP1/103, fos 262–3, Mayor and Jurates of Sandwich to Henry VIII, 8 May 1536; calendared in L & P, x, nos 371, 827. Revell's book is The summe of christianitie gatherjd out almoste of al placis of scripture, by that noble and famouse clerke, Francis Lambert Avynyon (Redman? London, 1536). Latymer's will is PRO, Prob. 11/66/27, fos 214–15. Additional notices of him are calendared in L & P, x, no.226 (28), xi (2), no.411 (39), xvi, no.333, xvii, no.73, xviii (1), no.101, xix (1), no.82, xx (1) no.2; and in CSP Dom., Addenda, 471, 512, 525, 534, 539, 546, 554, 555Google Scholar. There are also miscellaneous papers in PRO, SP46/117, fos 99–114.

page 30 note 4. Ellis, , Original Letters, 1 ser., ii, 42–5Google Scholar, earl of Derby and Sir Henry Farringdon Henry VIII, 10 Aug. 1533 (L & P, vi, no.964).

page 30 note 5. Wyatt, , Anne Boleigne, 7.Google Scholar

page 31 note 6. Quoted in The Life of King Henry VIII by William Shakespeare ed. Ridley, M.R. (London and New York, 1962), viii.Google Scholar

page 31 note 7. Ellis, , Original Letters, I ser., ii, 27–8Google Scholar, Fitzwilliam to Cromwell; Span. Cal., v (1), no.40, Chapuys to Charles V.

page 32 note 8. Ives, , Anne Boleyn 309–10Google Scholar. For Anne's dealings with Syon, see note 30 to the text, below.

page 32 note 9. Forrest, William, History of Grisild the Second ed. Macray, W.D. (Roxburghe Club, 1875), 3.Google Scholar

page 33 note 10. ‘Cronickille’, fos 22, 23, 24, 24v, 26, 26v, 30v, 32, 32v, 33.

page 34 note 11. PRO, SP1/76, fo.195 (L & P, vi, no.613), Baynton to Rochford, 9 June 1533, Greenwich.

page 34 note 12. Foxe, , A & M, iv, 657–8Google Scholar; Ives, , Anne Boleyn, 163nGoogle Scholar; Strype, John, Ecclesiastical Memorials (2 vols., 1820–1840),i, 171–3Google Scholar; Nichols, J. G., Narratives ofthe Days ofthe Reformation (Camden Soc, 1859), 52–7Google Scholar; Wyatt, , Anne Boleigne, 16–17.Google Scholar

page 35 note 13. Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami ed. , P.S. and Allen, H.M., Garrod, H.W. (11 vols., Oxford, 1906–1947)Google Scholar, no.2315 to Sadoleto, May 1530. The works for Thomas Boleyn are Enarratio triplex in Psalmum XXII (Basle, 1530)Google Scholar, De praeparatione ad mortem (Basle, 1534)Google Scholar; and Dilucida et pia Explanatio Symboli quodapostolorum dicitur (Basle, 1533)Google Scholar, trans. as The Playne and godly exposition of the commune crede (1534).Google Scholar

page 35 note 14. Cf. Thomas Wyatt, Collected Poems ed. Daalder, Joost (Oxford, 1975), 7, 90, 113–41Google Scholar

page 36 note 15. Chronicle of Calais, quoted in Bapst, Edmond, Deux Gentilshommes-Poetes de la Cour de Henry VIII (Paris, 1891), 27Google Scholar. Cf. the almost identical account in Bibliotheque Nationale, Fonds Dupuy 373, fo iii quoted ibid., 137.

page 36 note 16. Parker, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, no.3. For Anne's chaplains see note 12 to the text, for patronage of education, notes 24–26.

page 37 note 17. Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation ed. Hastings Robinson (Parker Soc, Cambridge, 1846), 33ffGoogle Scholar. For Butts, the patronage system and its relation to the Reformation, Dowling, Maria, ‘Anne Boleyn and Reform,’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History vol. 35 (1) (01 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Baynton, see note 7 to the text.

page 38 note 18. Bibliothèque Albert I, MS 19378, ‘Traictie pour feue dame Anne de Boulant, Jadis Royne Dengleterre,’ fos 3, 5–5v. First published as Epistre contenant le proces criminel faict a lencontre de la Royne Anne Boullant (Lyons, 1545)Google Scholar; reprinted in Lettres de Henri VIII a Anne Boleyn ed. Crapelet, G.-A. (Paris, 1835).Google Scholar

page 38 note 19. PRO, SP70/7, fos 1–11, Alesius to Elizabeth, 1 Sept. 1559 (CSP For., no.1303).

page 39 note 20. ‘circa miseram mulierem Annam quandam cognomento Bolleynam (quam Bellonam, hoc est deam belli, non abs re nuncupare poterimus, gravissimi namque illius max subsecuti ecclesiastici belli ipsa principium fuit et causa)’. Chauncy, Maurice, The Passion and Martyrdom of the Holy English Carthusian Fathers ed. G.W.S. Curtis (1935), 48, 49.Google Scholar

page 40 note 21. Catholic views of Anne are in Harpsfield, Nicholas, Treatise on the Pretended Divorce between Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon ed. Nicholas Pocock (Camden Soc, 1878)Google Scholar; Sander, Nicolas, Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism ed. and trans. David Lewis (1877)Google Scholar; Clifford, Henry, Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria ed. Joseph Stevenson (1887).Google Scholar

page 40 note 22. Trumble MS 5. I am grateful to Mr J.A.S. Green, County Archivist of Berkshire, for information about this manuscript, and to Ms Joanna Mattingley and Dr Thomas Cogswell for drawing my attention to it.

page 40 note 23. Span. Cal., v (2), 120, Chapuys to Granvelle, 18 May 1536.Google Scholar

page 41 note 24. Wyatt, , Anne Boleigne, 16.Google Scholar

page 41 note 25. Original Letters (Parker Soc), 203–4; Gracyouse Menewe (pseud.), A confutation of that popishe and anlichristian doctrine (1555?). I am grateful to Ms Joy Shakespeare for both these references.

page 42 note 26. Aylmer, An Harborowe, sigs, B iiv, F iv, B v, l iii.

page 43 note 27. Bridges, , Supremacie 852–3Google Scholar. I am grateful for this reference to Dr Peter Lake. Sander describes the tribulations of Katherine of Aragon as a sacrifice: ‘Can any one be astonished that so saintly a woman was to be tried in a greater fire of tribulation, so that the fragrance of her goodness might be the more scattered over the Christian world?’ Anglican Schism, 8Google Scholar. Cf. Clifford, , Jane Dormer, 74.Google Scholar

page 47 note 1. Anne Boleyn was created marquess (nor marchioness) of Pembroke on 1 Sept. 1532; L & P v, nos. 1274, 1370 (1), (2), (3).

page 47 note 2. Anne was crowned on Sunday 1 June 1533; L & P, vi, nos. 563, 601. Accounts of the lavish ceremony which greeted her on her journey from the Tower to Westminster are in Edward Hall, Chronicle (1809), 798–803Google Scholar; Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer ed. Cox, J.E. (Parker Soc., Cambridge, 1846), 244–7Google Scholar. The Imperial ambassador Chapuys, on the other hand, was scornful about the cold reception Anne received and mentioned the popular indignation at her coronation; L & P, vi, no. 653, Span. Cat., iv (2), no. 1081; cf. L & P vi, no. 585. In Sept. Chapuys reported that Elizabeth's christening ‘has been like her mother's coronation, very cold and dis agreeable both to the court and to the city’; L & P vi, no. 1125, Span. Cal., iv (2), no. 1127. Obviously Chapuys was a partisan of queen Katherine, but even accounts favourable to Anne make no mention of demonstrations of pleasure or loyalty. Cf. Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, ed. Rawdon Brown et al (9 vols., 1864–1897), iv, 418–9.Google Scholar

page 47 note 3. Anne's speech here echoes both the old testament queen Esther (Esther 2:1–4, 17) and the Magnificat of the Virgin (Luke 1: 46–55). Cf. the suppositious letter from Anne to Henry VIII, printed in Burnet, Gilbert, History of the Reformation of the Church of England, ed. Pocock, Nicholas (7 vols., Oxford, 1865, iv, 291.Google Scholar

page 48 note 4. The manuscript has been altered here by the author or his clerk and stands in the original thus: ‘so I might in all godlynes goodnes of duely administre the same.’ This is one of the rare passages where Anne speaks as a consort rather than a reigning prince.

page 49 note 5. Though strictly forbidden, brawling did take place at Henry VII's court. The penalty was loss of a hand. Cf. Smith, Lacey Baldwin, Henry VIII: the Mask of Royalty (1973), 280.Google Scholar

page 49 note 6. Biographies of Baynton, James Boleyn and Borough are in The House of Commons, 1509–1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff (1982)Google Scholar. ‘The lorde Borough’ was Thomas, third baron Burgh or Borough of Gainsborough.

page 51 note 7. The manuscript here has been greatly altered, and the original reads thus: ‘wherein you that be assigned to be their pastors in religion: shall profytt very moche yf you yelde your lyves correspondent and agreable to your doctryne/syncere preaching and

that your pure conversation, may allure them, to godlyncs. and that they maye deme you by the example of your lyves. preaching and to be

the very fountayns from whence the vertuous the very fountayns from whence the vertuous of thefodlynes streames do flowe.

page 52 note 8. In the manuscript ‘dismissed’ has been crossed out and ‘devisid’ substituted. The former makes more sense grammatically, but Latymer may have meant that the almoners were appointed by Anne at this moment.

page 52 note 9. Cf. Wyatt, George, Anne Boleigne, 18Google Scholar: ‘She had procured to her chaplins, men of great learninge and of no les honest conversinge, whom she with hers heard much, and privatly she heard them willingly and gladly to admonish her, and them herself exhorted and encouraged so to do.’ All Anne's more famous chaplains were Cambridge men; Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Shaxton, Matthew Parker, John Skip, William Belts and William Latymer himself.

page 52 note 10. There is no record of either of the Jaskynes being in Anne's service, but her household is badly documented. The court was at Woodstock between 30 Aug. and 23 Sept. 1533 (L & P, vii, nos. 1099, 1128, 1168, 1180) and passed through it in July 1535 (L & P, viii, no. 989).

page 54 note 11. For Forrest's description of queen Katherine's similar activities, Grisild the Second, 46.

page 54 note 12. There is no other record of Mr Ive and his wife. Hugh Latimer's benefice was West Kington, in the king's gift. He was instituted rector on 14 Jan. 1531; Alumni Cant., i, 49. Here he was a neighbour of Baynton, and the two corresponded on religious matters; Latimer, Sermons and Remains, 322–51.Google Scholar

page 55 note 13. Aquila and Priscilla, a married couple, were companions of St Paul; Acts 18.

page 55 note 14. Henry VIII was on progress from Windsor to Bristol in Aug. and Sept. 1535, and stayed at Bromham-Baynton; L & P, viii, no. 989, ix, no. 186. Ives places this incident in late Aug. 1535 (Anne Boleyn, 327Google Scholar), but it may have occurred earlier; Latimer became bishop of Worcester in 1535, and Jane Seymour was in favour during this progress.

page 55 note 15. Zechariah 13:9; I Peter 1:7.

page 55 note 16. Anne's goodness to ‘strangers and alyannes’ is mentioned in a petition to her by Thomas Alwaye, who was convicted of religious offences; BL, Sloane MS 1207. (Not calendared in L & P).

page 56 note 17. For Dr Butts see above, pp. 36–7. ‘Borbonius’ was the French poet Nicolas Bourbon of Vandœuvre. For confirmation of Latymer's statement, and Anne's employment of him at court, Bourbon, Nugae (Lyons, 1538).

page 56 note 18. Sturmius planned to leave Paris after the affair of the placards of Oct. 1534, but was sheltered by Guillaume du Bellay and stayed until Dec. 1536. Charles Schmidt, La Vie el les Travaux de Jean Sturm (Strasbourg, 1855), 8–17, 32Google Scholar. Thus he had not ‘recovered Germanye’ before Anne's death, but possibly she sent him an invitation in 1534 which he declined.

page 56 note 19. This man is probably the ‘Bekensall a scolar of Parys’ who received £4 13s 4d from the king's privy purse in Feb. 1530. Privy Purse Expences of Henry VIII ed. Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1827), 23Google Scholar. John Bekynsaw studied at Paris with Thomas Wynter, Wolsey's bastard son. In June 1537 he announced his return to England ‘by cause of uncertenty off my lyvyng and desperyre off any mo fryndes’; PRO, SP1/121, fos 58–9 (L & P, xii (2), no. 39). Cf. Dowling, Maria, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (1986), 153. 159–.Google Scholar

page 57 note 20. There is no evidence of payments made by Anne to the universities, though she did support poor scholars there such as William Barker or Bercher; The Nobility of Women by William Bercher ed. R. Warwick Bond (Roxburghe Club, 1904), 33, 87Google Scholar. For Forrest's praise of Katherine, Grisild the Second, 48.Google Scholar

page 57 note 21. A letter from Cambridge university thanks Anne for persuading the king to remit and pardon their payment of first fruits and tenths; BL, Cotton MS Faust. C III fo. 456.

page 57 note 22. Luke 20:9–16. The manuscript is slightly damaged here and reads: ‘luce vicessimo capite’. No sermon by Hugh Latimer on this text is extant, but he did preach before the king frequently. Cf. L & P, vii, nos. 29, 30, 32, 228.

page 58 note 23. Anne's denunciation of the religious echoes Matthew 23:13.

page 59 note 24. Mortimer Levine, commenting on this passage, questions ‘whether or not the stipends and exhibitions were invented by Latimer to suggest something he wanted Elizabeth to do’; ‘The place of women in Tudor government’, in Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G.R. Elton from his American Friends ed. Guth, Delloyd J. and McKenna, John W. (Cambridge, 1982), 122Google Scholar. In fact Anne assisted the studies of John Eldmer, monk of St Mary's, York; Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies ed. M.A.E. Wood (2 vols., 1846), ii, 191Google Scholar (L & P, viii, no. 710).

page 59 note 25. For Anne's promotion of evangelicals in the church, Strype, John, Life and Actsof Matthew Parker (2 vols., Oxford, 1821), i, 15–18Google Scholar (Parker); Wood, , Letters of Ladies, ii, 188Google Scholar (Dr Edward Crome); BL, Cotton MS Cleop. E IV fo. 107 (William Barlow).

page 59 note 26. For Alesius' comments on the bishops Anne favoured, see above pp. 38–9. Cranmer was placed in Thomas Boleyn's household by the king in 1529, and possibly Anne's mediation did procure him the see of Canterbury; Foxe, , A & M, vii, 6Google Scholar. For Latimer's early career, ibid., 454; Gilpin, William, Lives of Hugh Latimer and Bernard Gilpin (1780), 32–5Google Scholar. For Shaxton's, Foxe, A & M, iv, 650Google Scholar; Venn, John, Biographical History of Gonville and Cams College, volume 1 (Cambridge, 1897), 17, 19Google Scholar. When Shaxton and Latimer became bishops Anne lent them the money to pay their first fruits and tenths, debts which were outstanding at her death; Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer, 368–9Google Scholar; Chester, Allan G., Hugh Latimer, Apostle to the English (Philadelphia, 1954), 104, 230CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. L & P, ix, nos. 203, 252, 272–3, x, no. 1257 (ix), xi, no. 117. Thomas Goodrich, another Cambridge man, had been one of the divines consulted by convocation about the divorce. He became bishop of Ely on 19 April 1534. John Skip, Anne's chaplain, was frequently with her in the Tower. However, he did not become bishop of Hereford until 7 Nov. 1539.

page 60 note 27. In the manuscript ‘his’ was the original word here but ‘her’ has been written above it.

page 60 note 28. Plato, , Republic, v, 473.Google Scholar

page 61 note 29. Here Latymer confuses events; the blood of Hailes was not destroyed until 1538, when its authenticity was investigated by Hugh Latimer and others; Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer, 406–8Google Scholar; cf. ibid., 357–66. However the court was at Winchcombe in July and Aug. 1535. L & P, viii, nos. 1058, 1111, 1158, ix, nos. 4, 349, 488, x, no. 693. Perhaps Anne did institute some sort of inquiry which was remembered later. Indeed, Ives demonstrates both that a visit to Hailes by Henry and Anne was planned, and that she may have had the relic removed temporarily. Anne Boleyn, 308–9.Google Scholar

page 61 note 30. This story is meant to discredit both Syon and its former patron, Katherine of Aragon. For her visits to the house, Vivis Opera Omnia ed. Gregorius Majansius (8 vols., Valencia, 1782–1790), vii, 208–11Google Scholar. For Syon's resistance to the divorce and royal supremacy, Aungier, C.J., History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery (1840)Google Scholar, passim. For the nuns' devotional books in English, The Myrroure of oure Lady (1530), and Richard Whitford, A doyly exercyse and experyence of dethe. See also Ives, Anne Boleyn, 309–10Google Scholar. The comment about Anne being married is ironic in view of Syon's loyalty to Katherine; either Latimer implies that they had accepted the Boleyn marriage, or the nuns themselves were being sardonic.

page 62 note 31. ‘of her sidd’ means her household; thus the debaters were Borough and Baynton.

page 62 note 32. This correspondence is no longer extant.

page 62 note 33. For prayer books allegedly given by Anne to her maids, Wyatt, Anne Boleigne, 18; BL, Stowe MS 956; Archaeologia, xliv (i), 259ffGoogle Scholar. Cp. Ives, Anne Boleyn, 315–16. Mary (not Margaret or Madge) Shelton was probably the daughter of Princess Mary's governess who allegedly had an affair with Henry VIII in Feb. 1535; L & P, viii, no. 263. This would give a moral point to Latymer's story. Mary Shelton made several entries in the Devonshire Manuscript, a notable court poetry album, and was friendly with the poet earl of Surrey. I am grateful to Dr Helen Baron, who is working on the Devonshire MS, for information on this point.

page 63 note 34. A French treatise on letter-writing dedicated to Anne by one Loys de Brun at new year 1530 praises her love of scripture and other salutary works in French and mentions her reading the Pauline epistles during Lent. BL, Royal MS 20 B XVII. Other French books owned by Anne are BL, Harl. MS 6561 and Royal MS 16 E XIII. See also Ives, Anne Boleyn, 289–92, 317, 318.Google Scholar

page 63 note 35. For Anne's importation of scripture in French, BL, Add. MS 43, 827a, narrative of Rose Hickman; Ives, Anne Boleyn, 293–4.Google Scholar

page 63 note 36. Katherine of Aragon prepared her daughter Mary for rule by humanist education, and it seems probable that Anne would want to imitate her. Certainly she committed Elizabeth to Parker's care shortly before her arrest. Parker, Correspondence, no. 46. For an account of Elizabeth's studies, which were very similar to Mary's, Roger Ascham, Whole Works ed. Giles (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1864–1865)Google Scholar, epistle no. 99.

page 64 note 37. For a humanist view of the reciprocal duties of masters and servants, Gilbertus Cognatus, Of the Office of Servauntes trans. Thomas Challoner (1534).

page 64 note 38. Atropos and her sisters were the Greek Fates or Moirae. Cf. Forrest, , Grisild the Second, 125Google Scholar. Latymer's passage here is also reminiscent of II Timothy 4 and Hebrews 12:1.