St. Thomas More and Anne Boleyn's Coronation

On June 1, 1533, Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England, the last of Henry VIII's wives to be crowned. Edward Hall described the event:

On 1 June Queen Anne was brought from Westminster Hall to St Peter’s Abbey in procession, with all the monks of Westminster going in rich copes of gold, with thirteen mitred abbots; and after them all the king’s chapel in rich copes with four bishops and two mitred archbishops, and all the lords going in their parliament robes, and the crown borne before her by the duke of Suffolk, and her two sceptres by two earls, and she herself going under a rich canopy of cloth of gold, dressed in a kirtle of crimson velvet decorated with ermine, and a robe of purple velvet decorated with ermine over that, and a rich coronet with a cap of pearls and stones on her head; and the old duchess of Norfolk carrying her train in a robe of scarlet with a coronet of gold on her cap, and Lord Burgh, the queen’s Chamberlain, supporting the train in the middle.

After her followed ten ladies in robes of scarlet trimmed with ermine and round coronets of gold on their heads; and next after them all the queen’s maids in gowns of scarlet edged with white Baltic fur. And so she was brought to St Peter’s church at Westminster, and there set in her high royal seat, which was made on a high platform before the altar. And there she was anointed and crowned queen of England by the archbishop of Canterbury and the archbishop of York, and so sat, crowned, in her royal seat all through the mass, and she offered at the said mass. And when the mass was done they left, every man in his order, to Westminster Hall, she still going under the canopy, crowned, with two sceptres in her hands, my Lord Wiltshire her father, and Lord Talbot leading her, and so dined there; and there was made the most honourable feast that has been seen.

The great hall at Westminster was richly hung with rich cloth of Arras, and a table was set at the upper end of the hall, going up twelve steps, where the queen dined; and a rich cloth of estate hung over her head. There were also four other tables along the hall; and it was railed on every side, from the high dais in Westminster Hall to the platform in the church in the abbey.

And when she went to church to her coronation there was a striped blue cloth spread from the high dais of the king’s bench to the high altar of Westminster on which she went.

One guest was absent: Sir Thomas More, former Chancellor of England. He had been invited and Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and John Clerk, Bishop of Bath and Wales even sent him money to buy new clothing. He responded with a witty but perhaps mistimed joke, and warning, telling a story about an emperor and a virgin:

an emperor . . .  had ordained a law that whosoever committed a certain offense (which I now remember not) except it were a virgin, should suffer the pains of death, such a reverence had he for virginity. Now so it happened that the first committer of that offense was indeed a virgin, whereof the Emperor hearing was in no small perplexity, as he that by some example fain would have had that law to have been put in execution. Whereupon when his Council had sat long, solemnly debating this case, suddenly arose there up one of his Council, a good plain man, among them, and said, ‘Why make you so much ado, my lords, about so small a matter? Let her first be deflowered, and then after may she be devoured.’ And so though your lordships have in the matter of the matrimony hitherto kept yourselves pure virgins, yet take good heed, my lords, that you keep your virginity still. For some there be that by procuring your lordships first at the coronation to be present, and next to preach for the setting forth of it, and finally to write books to all the world in defence thereof, are desirous to deflower you; and when they have deflowered you, then will they not fail soon after to devour you. Now my lords, it lieth not in my power but that they may devour me; but God being my good lord, I will provide that they shall never deflower me. (From William Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More, his notes for the authorized biography by Nicholas Harpsfield.)

More was right to warn these three bishops; they accepted Henry VIII's Supremacy over the Church and even aided the monarch in his efforts to become the lay Vicar of Christ in England (thus they were "deflowered"). Clerk would die after travelling to the Duchy of Cleves to explain the annulment of the marriage between Henry and Anne of Cleves in 1540/1541. Tunstall would end up deprived of his bishopric during the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I and eventually die under house arrest; Gardiner would spend five years in the Tower of London during Edward VI's reign (thus they were "devoured").

Certainly Anne Boleyn would be devoured, reigning as Queen for fewer than three years.

Another Sermon, Another Reaction

I posted on Father William Peto's Easter Sunday sermon earlier this week, which eventually led to the arrest of the Observant Franciscans and the martyrdom of Blessed John Forest. Today, another sermon, on Passion Sunday, on April 2, 1536, may have played a role in the downfall of Queen Anne Boleyn. From the Anne Boleyn Files:

. . .  Anne Boleyn’s almoner, John Skip, preached a rather controversial sermon in front of the King. Skip’s theme was “Quis ex vobis arguet me de peccato?” or “Which of you can convict me of sin?”.

Skip spoke “defending the clergy from their defamers and from the immoderate zeal of men in holding up to public reprobation the faults of any single clergyman as if it were the fault of all.” He also used the example of the Old Testament story of King Ahasuerus “who was moved by a wicked minister to destroy the Jews” but Queen Esther stepped in with different advice and saved the Jews. In Skip’s sermon, Henry VIII was Ahasuerus, Anne Boleyn was Queen Esther and Thomas Cromwell, who had just introduced the Act of Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries into Parliament, was Haman, the “wicked minister”.

Anne Boleyn, who must have been behind this sermon, believed in reform and tackling abuse and corruption, but felt that reform should only be carried out where necessary and that the money from dissolved monasteries should be spent on poor relief and education, rather than going to the Crown. She did not agree with what was going on and the advice the King was receiving. The sermon was an attack on what had been debated in Parliament and it was a statement on Anne’s stance and her beliefs.

Alison Weir cited this sermon as one pretext for Thomas Cromwell to want to bring about Anne Boleyn's disgrace, arrest, trial, conviction, and execution in her book, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn. She was opposing his designs for the funds that would come from the Dissolution of the Monasteries in its early phases.  

More about John Skip or Skipp or Skyp, here. As Bishop of Hereford, he was selected by Henry VIII in 1539, so all must have been forgiven. The next Bishop of Hereford was assigned by Edward VI in 1553, John Harley. He was removed from office in 1554 by Mary I because he was married. Robert Parfew was the replacement approved by Mary I in 1554 and he died in 1557. Mary had nominated Thomas Reynolds in 1558 but Elizabeth I set him aside. He died in Marshalsea Prison, never having been consecrated, sometime in 1560.

Anne Boleyn's Songbook

Music, secular and religious, was an essential element at Henry VIII's Court--the king enjoyed music and dancing and evidently wrote music himself. He valued musical talent and dancing ability in his courtiers and ladies. Anne Boleyn shared Henry's musical taste, and Alamire, a British ensemble of consort singers, has recorded her favorite works:

Anne Boleyn is famously the the most notorious of Henry VIII’s six wives. She was brought up in France and for a time was under the guardianship of Margaret of Austria, who was patron some of the most famous composers in all of Europe. It is here where the young Anne developed her keen musical tastes, and when a collection of her favourite works began to be assembled into what is now known as the Anne Boleyn Songbook (Royal College of Music, MS 1070). The book probably remained in her possession until her execution in 1536, when she was wrongfully accused by Henry’s council of adultery with no less than five men (one being her brother, George). Another of the accused was Mark Smeaton, her music tutor and lutenist, who may have had a hand in including some of the love songs in the book.

Here Alamire explores motets and chansons by the greatest composers of the early 16th century, including Compere, Mouton, Brumel, and Josquin. Performances by Alamire are interspersed with French chansons and instrumental items for lute and harp from the songbook. Also included in the programme is a haunting setting of ‘O death rock me asleep’, the text of which is thought by some to have been written by Anne while awaiting her fate in the Tower of London.

Alamire posted a video promoting the project and the music critic of The Telegraph, Ivan Hewett, discusses the songbook's provenance--it seems to date before she became the Countess of Pembroke or Queen of England:

In 1536, Anne Boleyn, queen of England for only three years, is in the Tower of London awaiting execution on charges of adultery. She writes a letter to Henry VIII, protesting her innocence, and composes a doleful poem: “O Deathe rock me asleep / Bringe me to quiet rest / Let pass my weary guiltless ghost... For I must dye, there is no remedy.” Someone then turns those words into a song, which has survived for five centuries.

There’s no evidence the poem really is by Anne. But it’s touching to think we have a song by a queen lamenting her own demise, and it might even be true. Anne was an educated woman, well able to compose a poem, and she was musically literate too. The proof of that is a leather-bound volume on the shelves of the Royal College of Music, known as Anne Boleyn’s Songbook. It’s a fascinating collection of 42 compositions, which is one of the most important sources of French Renaissance music anywhere. Remarkably, it’s lain untouched for nearly 500 years. Now David Skinner, director of the choir Alamire, has picked out around 20 of the best pieces and recorded them. . . .

The most obvious clue to the book’s ownership is an inscription in tiny writing which states “Mistres ABolleyne nowe thus.” “Nowe thus” was the motto of the Boleyn family, and the word “mistress” is a sign that the book was put together before Anne became queen in 1533. This suggests that the Songbook is the musical equivalent of a commonplace book, which Anne started after she was sent to Europe in her early teens, to complete her education. After a year at the court of Margaret of Austria, who was a great patroness of composers, she spent many years at the French court. The book could well be a record of the music Anne encountered on her travels, and later in England.

This is the poem ascribed to Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London:

O death! rock me on sleep, 

Bring me on quiet rest; 

Yet pass my guiltless ghost 

Out of my careful breast: 

Toll on the passing bell, 

Ring out the doleful knell, 

Let the sound of my death tell, 

For I must die, 

There is no remedy, 

For now I die. 

My pains who can express? 

Alas! they are so strong, 

My dolor will not suffer strength 

My life for to prolong: 

Toll on the passing bell, etc. 

Alone, in prison strong, 

I wail my destiny, 

Woe worth this cruel hap that I 

Should taste this misery: 

Toll on the passing bell, etc. 

Farewell my pleasures past, 

Welcome my present pain; 

I feel my torments so increase 

That life cannot remain. 

Cease now the passing bell, 

Rung is my doleful knell, 

For the sound my death doth tell, 

Death doth draw nigh, 

Sound my end dolefully, 

For now I die.

The Queen and I: A Supremacy and Survival Interview

Beth von Staats, owner and administrator of the Queen Anne Boleyn Historical Writers blog and I got in contact because of one of her posts on the English Historical Fiction Writers, on Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent. we exchanged comments and then emails about the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation, and why Elizabeth Barton hasn't been included among those beatified or canonized. We discussed some other aspects of the English Reformation, and Beth offered to interview me for the QAB blog.

Here is that interview, which Beth illustrated with excellent portraits from the Tudor era to the nineteenth century. I enjoyed answering all of her questions, and was particularly happy to address this major issue about the reign of Mary I and the efforts of Reginald Cardinal Pole to re-establish the Catholic Church in England:

7. I was fascinated by your accounting of Mary Tudor’s and Archbishop Reginald Pole’s attempted counter-reformation. Can you share with readers and browsers why you believe they were unable to meet their goals in shifting England and Wales back to Roman Catholicism? 
I think it was a matter of time: they just did not have enough. They were successful in many of their endeavors. After I wrote S&S, Eamon Duffy published his Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor in which he details Pole’s catechetical, administrative, apologetic, and reform efforts. They were working, but when both Mary and Pole died the same day, the progress really ended. Elizabeth I was able to remove all the Catholic bishops Pole had appointed: only one of them would accept the new religious settlement passed by Parliament. The Convocation of Bishops had met and affirmed Catholic doctrine and therefore, this time, they did not swear the oaths of supremacy and uniformity. They were placed under house arrest, and the Marian exiles returned to replace them.

And, of course, I'm always thrilled to talk about Blessed John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement:

12. I was exceptionally fascinated with the resurgency of Roman Catholicism in England and Wales in the 19th and 20th centuries. Just how much of an influence and impact was John Henry Newman towards this aim?
He was a great influence and he is also the symbol of that resurgence since he was a convert to Catholicism from the Church of England. He became a Catholic just 16 years after Catholics had been emancipated and just five years before the restoration of Catholic hierarchy in England, with new bishops, dioceses, churches, convents, monasteries, schools, etc being started and built up. As he famously said, it was a Second Springtime for the Catholic Church in England. There was still prejudice and fear of Catholics in England, and he often helped explain Catholic Church teaching. He influenced other converts, including many in the 20th century.

13. What is the Oxford Movement? Why did it result in the divisions seen within the Anglican Communion today?

The Oxford Movement or the Tractarian Movement was an attempt to remind Englishmen that their Church was more than just a part of the State; Newman, Froude, Keble, Pusey and others wanted to convince Anglicans that the bishops of the Church of England had real authority, handed down from the Apostles, not just controlled by Parliament. It began when Parliament proposed to close down Church of Ireland dioceses. The Tractarians, as they became known (because they published the “Tracts for the Times” presenting their views) thought the Church should make those decisions. In some ways, the Oxford Movement reflected on divisions that had existed in the Church of England for a long time: High Church (like the Caroline divines, Laud, Andrewes, etc); Low Church (the Puritans), and Broad Church (the eighteenth century Latitudinarians). Once Newman and many of his followers left the Oxford Movement, it developed into a liturgical movement, emphasizing more sacramental views of the Book of Common Prayer, introducing candles, incense and vestments into services (again, reviving Laudian reforms)—Anglo-Catholicism (John Shelton Reed wrote Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism, a fascinating study of the era. I am not sure if the Oxford Movement contributed to the divisions we see today or if it was a manifestation of those divisions in the Victorian era, dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Read the rest here and browse around the blog, which has many great book reviews and will feature an interview with Jessie Childs in the near future, to discuss her new book, God's Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England.