According to a letter we have intercepted from Sir William Kingston to Thomas Cromwell, Queen Anne Boleyn has today received a visit from her good friend, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who has been appointed as her confessor at this time. We do not know what the Queen and Archbishop spoke about, but the Queen did tell Kingston at dinner that night that she was “in hope of life” and that she may be going to a nunnery1.
Before readers get excited about this dramatic turn of events and the possibility of the Queen being saved, we should point out that there are no rumours of a pardon or a “deal” at court and Lady Alison Weir, a Tudor court expert, wonders if Archbishop Cranmer was offering the Queen a deal to get her to confess to an impediment to her marriage to the King2. Perhaps he had been instructed to do this so that the marriage could more easily be annulled and so that Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, can be bastardised. We just don’t now what’s going on but the Queen’s words must be based on some kind of promise being made to her, surely.
Notes and Sources
- LP x.890, Letter from Kingston to Cromwell, 16th May 1536
- The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir, p234
