Thomas Cranmer & Anne Boleyn: Sources
In researching this video, I had so much fun (yes, macabre, I know) reading through the British Library's archive of the letters flying around Henry VIII's court in May, 1536.
I've pulled out an excerpt from Cranmer's May 3rd letter to Henry, where he sticks his neck out for Anne, and at the same time creates distance between himself, her, and the English reformation. Like a turtle in its shell, his head only sticks out far enough to test the waters, ready for a quick retreat to safety should the tides turn.
It's pretty cool watching Cranmer's political maneuvering at work. He does his basic duty to Anne, and acknowledges their closeness, then flatters the king, says if the king believes her guilty than she must be, and then protects the reformation, reassuring Henry that the reformation and Anne are not tied together, and Henry can still love one without the other.
Thomas Cranmer's Letter to Henry VIII (May 3, 1536):
If the reports of the Queen be true, they are only to her dishonor, not yours. I am clean amazed, for I had never better opinion of woman; but I think your Highness would not have gone so far if she had not been culpable. I was most bound to her of all creatures living, and therefore beg that I may, with your Grace's favor, wish and pray that she may declare herself innocent. Yet if she be found guilty, I repute him not a faithful subject who would not wish her punished without mercy. "And as I loved her not a little for the love which I judged her to bear towards God and His Gospel, so if she be proved culpable there is not one that loveth God and His Gospel that ever will favor her, but must hate her above all other; and the more they favor the Gospel the more they will hate her, for then there was never creature in our time that so much slandered the Gospel; and God hath sent her this punishment for that she feignedly hath professed his Gospel in her mouth and not in heart and deed." And though she have so offended, yet God has shown His goodness towards your Grace and never offended you. "But your Grace, I am sure, knowledgeth that you have offended Him." I trust, therefore, you will bear no less zeal to the Gospel than you did before, as your favor to the Gospel was not led by affection to her.
Sources:
Alesius, Alexander. Letter, fol. 8r.
Bernard, G. W. "Anne Boleyn's Religion." The Historical Journal 36, no. 1 (1993): 1–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2639513.
Blandford, Richard Colin. "Hugh Latimer, the King's Reformer, 1530–1539." PhD diss., Melbourne College of Divinity, 2010. https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.34589884.
Cranmer, Thomas. Letter to Henry VIII, May 3, 1536. In Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. 10, edited by James Gairdner, 334. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1887. Available via British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol10.
Deselms, Alexandra Elise. "A 'Princely Lady': The Religion, Power and Identity of Anne Boleyn." Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado 3, no. 3 (2014), article 5. http://digscholarship.unco.edu/urj/vol3/iss3/5.
Ives, Eric. 1994.
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Thomas Cranmer: A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Michon, Cédric. "Henri VIII et Anne Boleyn, un séisme religieux." Revue des Deux Mondes, July–August 2017, 33–38. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44436380.
Image Sources:
Gerlach Flicke, Thomas Cranmer, 1545-46, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery.
