Lives of the Queens of England
Lives of the Queens of England is in Victorian Books.
Victorian Books, Lives of the Queens of England Volume 4
Lives of the Queens of England Volume 4 Page 212
There is, however, some reason to doubt whether the mangled remains of this hapless queen repose in the place generally pointed out in St Peter's church, of the Tower, as the spot where she was interred. It is true, that her warm and almost palpitating form was there conveyed in no better coffin than an old elm-chest that had been used for keeping arrows1, and there, in less than half-an-hour after the executioner had performed his part, thrust into a grave that had been prepared for her by the side of her murdered brother. And there she was interred, without other obsequies than the whispered prayers and choking sobs of those true-hearted ladies who had attended her on the scaffold, and were the sole mourners who followed her to the grave. It is to be lamented that history has only presented one name out of this gentle sisterhood, that of Mary Wyatt, when all were worthy to have been inscribed in golden characters in every page sacred to female tenderness and charity.
Note 1. Sir John Spelman's Notes Id Burnet.
In Anne Boleyn's native county, Norfolk, a curious tradition has been handed down from father to son, for upwards of three centuries, which affirms that her remains were secretly removed from the Tower church under cover of darkness, and privately conveyed to Salle church [Map], the ancient burial-place of the Boleyns1,' and there' interred at midnight, with the holy rites that were denied to her by her royal husband at her first unhallowed funeral. A plain black marble slab, without any inscription, is still shown in Salle church as a monumental memorial of this queen, and is generally supposed, by all classes of persons, in that neighborhood, to cover her remains. ‘The mysterious sentence with which Wyatt closes his eloquent memorial of the death of this unfortunate queen affords a singular confirmation of the local tradition of her removal and reinterment:—“God,” says he, “provided for her corpse sacred burial, even in a place as it were consecrate to innocence2.” This expression would lead us to infer that Wyatt was in the secret, if not one of the parties who assisted in the exhumation of Anne Boleyn’s remains, if the romantic tradition we have repeated be indeed based on facts. After all, there is nothing to violate probability in the tale, romantic though it be. King Henry, on the day of his queen’s execution, tarried no longer in the vicinity of his metropolis than till the report of the signal gun, booming faintly through the forest glade, reached his ear, and announced the joyful tidings that he had been made a widower. He then rode off at fiery speed to his bridal orgies at Wolf hall. With him went the confidential myrmidons of his council, caring little, in their haste to offer their homage to the queen of the morrow, whether the mangled form of the queen of yesterday was securely guarded in the dishonored grave into which it had been thrust with indecent haste that noon. There was neither singing nor saying for her, —no chapelle ardente, nor midnight requiem, as for other queens; and, in the absence of these solemnities, it was easy for her father, for Wyatt, or even for his sister, to bribe the porter and sextons of the church to connive at the removal of the royal victim’s remains. That old elm chest could excite no suspicion when carried through the dark narrow streets and the Aldgate portal of the city to the eastern road: it probably passed as a coffer of stores for the country, no one imagining that such a receptacle enclosed the earthly relics of their crowned and anointed queen.
Note 1. The stately tower of Salle church is supposed to be the tallest in Norfolk, and it is certainly one of the most magnificent in the east of England. The profound solitude of the neighbourhood where this majestic fane rises in lonely grandeur, remote from the haunts of village life, must have been favourable for the stolen obsequies of the distinguished queen, if the tradition were founded on fact. Her father was the lord of the soil, and all his Norfolk ancestry were buried in that church. It is situated between Norwich and Reepham, on a gentle eminence.
Note 2. Singer’s edition of Cavendish’s Wolsey, vol. ii. p. 215.
It is remarkable that in the ancient church of Horndonon-the-Hill, in Essex, a nameless black marble monument is also pointed out by village antiquaries as the veritable monument of this queen1. The existence of w similar tradition of the kind in two different counties, but in both instances in the neighborhood of sir Thomas Boleyn’s estates, can only be accounted for on the supposition that rumors of the murdered queen’s removal from the Tower chapel were at one time in circulation among the tenants and dependents of her paternal house, and were by them orally transmitted to their descendants as matter of fact. Historical traditions are, however, seldom devoid of some kind of foundation; and whatever be their discrepancies, they frequently afford a shadowy evidence of real but unrecorded events, which, if steadily investigated, would lend a clue whereby things of great interest might be traced out. A great epic poet? of our own times has finely said:—
“Tradition. Oh, tradition! thou of the seraph tongue,
The ark that links two ages, the ancient and the young.”
Note 1. I am indebted to my amiable and highly-gifted friend, lady Petre, for this information, and also for the following description of the monument, which is within a narrow window-seat: The black marble or touchstone that covers it rises about a foot between the seat and the window, and is of a rough description: it has rather the appearance of a shrine that has been broken open. It may have contained her head or her heart, for it is too short to contain a body, and indeed seems to be of more ancient date than the sixteenth century. The oldest people in the neighborhood all declare that they have heard the tradition in their youth, from a previous generation of aged persons, who all affirmed it to be Anne Boleyn’s monument. Horndon-on-the-Hill is about a mile from Thorndon hall, the splendid mansion of lord Petre, and sixteen miles from Newhall, once the seat of sir Thomas Boleyn, and afterwards a favorite country palace of Henry 8th, who tried to change its name to Beaulieu; but the force of custom was too strong even for the royal will in that neighborhood, and Beaulieu is forgotten in the original name.