Did you know that Anne Boleyn wasn’t fond of monkeys?
Monkeys were popular pets in royal circles. Henry VIII was given a marmoset by William Kendal in 1534, Catherine of Aragon had a pet monkey and is pictured with it in a miniature painted by Lucas Horenbout in around 1525/1526, a Holbein painting of Prince Edward, the future Edward VI, from around 1541-2 depicts him holding a pet monkey, and Princess Margaret Tudor is depicted with a monkey in the portrait by Daniel Mytens.
However, Anne Boleyn really didn’t like monkeys. When Honor, Lady Lisle, sent a marmoset as a gift to Anne in 1535, John Husee reported back to Lady Lisle:
“And as touching your monkey, of a truth, madam, the Queen loveth no such beasts not can scant abide the sight of them.”
However, Anne loved her little dog, Purkoy. The dog originally belonged to Lady Lisle, who had given him as a New Year’s gift to Sir Francis Bryan in January 1534 to gain Bryan’s favour. However, Bryan passed the dog on to his cousin the queen, when she took a liking to him, reporting to Lord Lisle that Purkoy was “so well liked by the Queen that it remained not above an hour in my hands but that her Grace took it from me.”
Notes and Sources
- ed. St. Clare Byrne, Muriel (1981) The Lisle Letters, Volume 2, University of Chicago Press, pp.531-532, letter 421, John Husee to Lady Lisle, 21 June 1535.
- Ibid., p.30, letter 114, Sir Francis Bryan to Lord Lisle.
I’m really not surprised Anne was not fond of monkeys, the marmoset type are quite hideous and what with the screeching noises and jumping about all over the place, no doubt leaving little accidents behind, and this has often made me wonder why they became popular as pets in the first place, how could they be toilet trained? And imagine the havoc they must have wrecked when they became over fond of the queens necklace and decided to pull it off her neck? Or ripping the beautiful outfits with their claws? Imagine having one’s velvet Kirtle slashed and having ones head dress dented when the little rascal decided to sit on it, Yet strangely Queen Katherine loved her monkey, so did many others and they were fashionable throughout high society, but they are destructive animals, Edward V1 must have found his monkey amusing being but a boy, and they must have seemed exotic to the English court, Anne was a dog lover and owned several, little Purkoy who became her kind of lap dog, was a cherished gift and was a small possibly terrier type breed and sadly the little dog lost his life one day which devastated her, she had another dog called Urian but little Purkoy used to accompany her everywhere, Anne does not appear to have been fond of cats either but most people are either dog or cat people, Henry V111 owned a cat and so did Cardinal Wolsley who is commemorated in a statue.