The Shoes of Anne Boleyn?

A follower recently emailed me this photograph of a pair of shoes which the owners were claiming belonged to Anne Boleyn. I was fascinated by the prospect and began to research them. Below are my findings:

The family story goes as such; Nicholas Bristowe, a favored courtier of King was riding with Henry and Anne in Hertfordshire. When the group passed Ayot St. Lawrence (a grand estate), Bristowe admired it asking the King if he knew to whom it belonged. The King replied saying it was his, but he wished to gift it to Bristowe and his family. When Bristowe tactfully asked what evidence he should produce to prove the gift, the king gave him the hat he wore upon his head and asked Queen Anne for her slippers telling the Lord to bring them to London and he would receive the title deed. Since that point the hat and slippers have been part of the Bristowe family estate.
        *Using the British Archives I found that Bristowe was not actually granted the land at Ayot St. Lawrence until 1543, a full six years after the execution of Anne Boleyn. In fact, the crown had not even been in possession of the land until 1540 making it impossible for King Henry to gift it during the lifetime of Anne.
        *Equally convincing was an appraisal completed on the shoes by antiques experts at Christie's Auction House in England. The clothing appraisers there determined that the style and construction of the shoes placed their date of construction at or around 1630, nearly a century too late to belong to Queen Anne Boleyn.

Despite the fact that these shoes surely did not belong to Anne Boleyn they are still a great example of historical fashion in Stuart England, and were undoubtedly stunning when they were produced.

Just for Laughs

Hope this makes your New Year's Eve a little brighter! :)

Confessions' Anniversary Give-Away!!!

Hello everyone!
The first anniversary of Confessions is coming up in exactly one month! To celebrate our first year of all things Anne I am hosting a give-away. All you need to do is comment with your email address on this post to enter. To recieve additional entries, refer a friend to follow the blog and list their name in a second comment. You will recieve 1 entry for every friend who becomes a follower.
The winner of our give-away will recieve a paperback copy of The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn. Thanks for an amazing first year! Happy following and good luck!!

Anne Boleyn's Book of Hours Podcast

Hello All,
There was such a positive response to the first Anne Boleyn podcast I posted that I hunted up another. The subject of this podcast is Anne Boleyn's Book of Hours and it is an interview with the curator of the British National Libraries, Scott McKendrick. A Book of Hours is a personal prayer devotional that was popular amongst high-born, religious minded nobles. They were popular from the thirteenth century until the Reformation and were so named because they contained the short prayers said to the Virgin Mary that were read during eight fixed hours during the day. Not only is Anne's copy beautiful, but it reveals a very personal look at the relationship between Anne and Henry as it contains their personal notes to each other written in the margins and on the inside covers. The book is currently housed at Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne. It is one of the few remaining posessions of Queen Anne as most were destroyed by her enemies following her execution. Click here for the audio.



Imagery of Anne's Book of Hours
Courtesy of the British Library Board



Read of the Week

This week I enjoyed Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. It was an interesting book, told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, very uncommon amongst novels about Anne Boleyn. Mantel humanizes familiar characters and makes them seem refreshed and alive. Her descriptions of King Henry's rages, conniving court politics and Jane Seymour's frigid and dull personality are so incredibly vivid that you can easily get lost in the story. Even while lost in the narrative, I found myself disagreeing with the author that Cromwell implicates many of Anne's alleged lovers in his quest for revenge for their role in and mocking of the fall of his former master Cardinal Wolsey, though the angle is interesting to consider. My one complaint with the book is the portrayal of Anne. She is painted as uncaringly ambitious and overly haughty. She was undoubtedly ambitious and haughty, but her more endearing characteristics were completely ignored. Although this portrayal could be intentional, Mantel might've been trying to help readers understand not only the mind-set of Cromwell, but also the Tudor theological idea that women were offensive to God due to original sin. Be aware that the author holds a very favorable, almost hero-like view of Cromwell which makes her seriously consider some of the adultery rumors that directly led to Anne's fall,  in spite of the fact that most historians now agree she was innocent.  Despite this, the book is incredibly well researched and written. Absent from it are the overt creative liberties taken by some historical novelists. Pick it up today, you won't be disappointed.