Just a quick post to alert you to the fact that historian Elizabeth Norton has just published an interesting article on her blog about the link between Anne Boleyn and St Thomas Becket – see Anne Boleyn and St Thomas Becket.
It is not something I have mentioned here on The Anne Boleyn Files, but I mentioned it in a recent webinar I did on Anne Boleyn and the Butlers over at The Anne Boleyn Fellowship:
“Thomas Boleyn [Anne Boleyn’s father] had obviously been close to his grandfather because Thomas Butler left him an important bequest – a white horn of ivory garnished at both ends with gold, covered with gold-barred white silk and with a gold terret ring so that it could be connected to a chain. Family legend had it that it had been in the family since the time of Theobald Walter, in the reign of Henry II, and that the famous martyr, Thomas à Becket had drunk from it. In his will, Thomas Butler gave instructions for it to be passed on to Sir Thomas Boleyn “to keep it for the use of his male issue.” The fact that Butler left it to Thomas Boleyn, rather than the son of his eldest daughter, Anne, shows that the two men must have been close.” (Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, III, London, 1775, p20-21)
It is an interesting link and it sounds like a beautiful object.
Do check out Elizabeth Norton’s blog for other excellent articles – http://elizabethnortonhistorian.blogspot.co.uk
