Two worrying and strange events have come to our notice here at The Anne Boleyn Files. According to our sources at court and in the Queen’s household Queen Anne Boleyn has made an appointment to see her chaplain of two years, 32 year old Matthew Parker, and Thomas Cromwell has locked himself away with Dr Richard Sampson, Dean of the Chapel Royal.
Sir Tim Ridgway, our trusty court reporter, has heard that Queen Anne Boleyn is going to ask Parker* to watch over her daughter, the two year old Princess Elizabeth, in case anything should happen to her. This is worrying news when we consider the gossip around court that Henry VIII is very taken with a certain Lady Seymour. Is the Queen expecting to be set aside like her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon, or is she simply asking Parker to care for her daughter’s spiritual welfare as an adviser? We just don’t know, but Parker is close to both the King and Queen and has links with well-known Cambridge men and reformers like Hugh Latimer. He is a good choice as a spiritual adviser for Princess Elizabeth.
As for Cromwell locking himself away with Dr Sampson, who knows what is going on? What we do know is that Dr Sampson is known to be an expert on canon law**.
We will of course update you if we hear anything else about these two strange meetings. We always have our finger on the pulse and we have a network of trusted informants so you’ll hear it first at The Anne Boleyn Files!
*According to The Correspondence of Matthew Parker, Anne Boleyn charged him with the care of Elizabeth “not six days before her apprehension” and Eric Ives comments “That charge, and the debt he felt he owed to Anne, stayed with him for the rest of his life.”
**Chapuys wrote on the 29th April 1536 that ” Dr. Sampson, dean of the chapel, has been for the last four days continually with Cromwell.”
Sources
- The Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D., Archbishop of Canterbury : comprising letters written by and to him, from A.D. 1535, to his death, A.D. 1575, edited for the Parker Society by John Bruce, and Thomas Thomason Perowne, p58
- LP x. 753, Chapuys to Granvelle, 29 April 1536
- The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives, p267 and p321
