On this day in history, 23rd August 1535, following their visit to Nicholas Poyntz’s home, Acton Court, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII visited the Walsh family at Little Sodbury Manor in the village of Little Sodbury, South Gloucestershire.
As Nasim Tadghighi explained in her article on Acton Court – see Acton Court, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn – The Royal Progress of 1535, Anne and Henry’s royal progress of 1535 was not just a holiday or a break from London, it was an opportunity to promote the Reformation and visit the households of people seen as “pro-Reform”.
So, who were the owners of Little Sodbury Manor?
Well, as David Starkey explained, in the talk Nasim attended, the Walsh family were reformers and had even once hired William Tyndale, a leading figure in the Reformation, a Bible translator and the author of “The Obedience of a Christen Man”, as a tutor for their children. If you remember, “The Obedience of a Christen Man” was the book which Anne Boleyn shared with Henry VIII because it said that rulers were accountable to God, not the Pope, and this argument encouraged Henry’s belief that he could be head of the Church in England.
I wonder what Henry and Anne Boleyn discussed with the Walshs, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall and get an insight into their beliefs at that time.
Also on this day in history…
- 1548 – Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, arrives at the Siege of Haddington, in Scotland
- 1553 – Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, is made Lord Chancellor by Mary I
- 1568 – Death of Thomas Wharton, 1st Baron Wharton, who was rewarded with a barony after his victory at the Battle of Solway Moss in 1542
