This will be part of the British Library’s 500th anniversary exhibition that I previously blogged about.

From the BBC:

Concealed in the Vatican for almost five centuries, a love letter from King Henry VIII to his second wife Anne Boleyn is to go on display at the British Library in London.

Probably written in January 1528, it shows a softer side to the infamously bloodthirsty royal as he pursues her.

He assures Anne that “henceforth my heart will be dedicated to you alone,” and apologises profusely for ever suggesting she could be a mere mistress.
…

It reads: “The demonstrations of your affection are such, and the beautiful words of your letter are so cordially phrased, that they really oblige me to honour, love, and serve you for ever….

“For my part, I will out-do you, if this be possible, rather than reciprocate, in loyalty of heart and my desire to please you.

“Beseeching you also that if I have in any way offended you, you will give me the same absolution for which you ask, assuring you that henceforth my heart will be dedicated to you alone, and wishing greatly that my body was so too.”

The letter is signed like a love-sick schoolboy, “H seeks A.B, No Other Rex,” alongside his beloved’s initials in a heart.

Full article (with small picture of the letter)

Here is Kathy’s report on the seminar with Alison Weir last week. BIG thanks for the write-up Kathy!

This was a very long and very interesting day. The venue at the Smithsonian, a very large auditorium, was completely sold out. I had gotten there early with a friend, so we had fairly good seats for the morning lecture on Elizabeth I. I have never seen anybody read a speech for two hours without pausing for at least a drink of water, but Alison Weir did that and made it interesting. She concentrated mainly on what she thought were the main forces that shaped Elizabeth’s character from her birth on up until she was declared queen. As there was an afternoon session and there was a programmed time for lunch, we had a brief question period after this. The main interest here I thought was that she expressed her opinion that Elizabeth was actually a virgin and died one, but this wasn’t brought about by the death of her mother (which she could scarcely have been aware of at the time) but because of the death of Katherine Howard and of Katherine Paar, love/childbirth coming to be equated with death. She also expressed the opinion on the death of Amy Robsart (Leceister’s wife) that if it wasn’t a natural death due to breast cancer that Cecil had a part in it because his actions at this time were very much out of character and that he could have had her killed to rein in Leicester’s power.

My friend and I decided to hike over to the National Gallery of Art for lunch, which was probably a mistake, as the lunches were nothing special and we got back to the auditorium too late to get the good seats we’d had that morning. But the lecture on Katherine Swynford, I thought, was riveting. I enjoyed it very much, though I have to say that in neither lecture did I learn anything that I hadn’t known before.

As there was more time, we had a longer question session in the afternoon and I asked bearded lady’s question which I phrased as, “As a writer of history aimed at popular audiences, have you ever had any criticism from academic historians?” She laughed and said she had had that problem intially back in the ’90’s when she was just starting out. But that had changed in recent years as academic historians were seeing the light and were beginning to publish more popular history. But she always expects at least one negative academic review of every book she published. It doesn’t seem to bother her. She also told a funny anecdote of a program she had been on back in the ’90’s with an academic historian who had criticized her work a great deal. They met in the “green room” beforehand with a very frosty handshake and he said, “I suppose you get a great deal of money for you books?” She protested that that wasn’t why she wrote and he never said another word to her!

A few questions later, somebody else brought up the topic again and asked if she thought David Starkey was getting criticisms from the academic community as well. She said yes, and that at one event she was at not too long ago, a university historian was on the program as well and somebody brought up Starkey’s name. “Oh, him,” the man said, “he used to be a historian!”

The other questions that I remember most was one on which portrayals of various Tudors she liked the best. She likes Glenda Jackson best as Elizabeth and Keith Michell as Henry VIII. She didn’t like The Other Boleyn Girl at all or the Cate Blanchette movies. She has seen The Tudors and thought it was good drama and had some excellent acting, but that was about all that commended it. And she has yet to see an actress in there that was wearing a period-appropriate costume. Also there is/was a series on television in England starring Ray Winstone as Henry. She was acting as an advisor to the show, but said they ignored everything she said, so she asked to have her name taken off the credits. (Has this been on in the US? I haven’t seen it.)

Also, somebody asked about whether she thought there was something wrong with Henry VIII, that his wives had so many stillborn children or miscarriages. She doesn’t think there is any evidence of it, that the Tudors were just not a very prolific race. She also pointed out that Katherine of Aragon’s mother, Isabella of Castile had lost something like ten out of fifteen children, so if there was a problem with Henry and Katherine, it was as likely to be her problem as his.

At the booksigning aftward, I kept to my plan of getting many books (I had to buy half a dozen for various friends of mine), being last in line and trying to convince her to write a book about Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor. It turns out she had already done a proposal for a novel on them, but it had been rejected by her publishers. That was some time ago and she does believe there is more interest in them since The Tudors, so she just might put a non-fiction proposal out there. She seems to have lots of ideas for things she would like to write, but it all depends on what her publishers want at the time, so I think I need to start lobbying with the publishers. She just turned over her latest book, one on Anne Boleyn (nonfiction I think, though she didn’t specifically say so) and has six other books in the works!

Overall, I found her to be a very interesting person who genuinely loves meeting her readers and loves to talk about all of English history.

From The Mail Online:

Henry VIII is perhaps best known for his six wives and founding the Church of England.

But a leading academic has revealed that the bloated Tudor monarch has another claim to fame: inventing the stairlift.

David Starkey, well known for his TV documentaries on historical royals, discovered that Henry VIII used a bespoke ‘stairthrone’ during research.

Described in royal records as ‘a chair…that goeth up and down’, the stairlift is thought to have been operational at Whitehall Palace in London where it would have hauled the King up a 20ft staircase.

Full article

I wish I could have seen that in action…

From The Times Online:

Early in Henry VIII

From Forbes.com:

A collector of old books turns his fixation on the Tudors into a big exhibit celebrating England’s most colorful ruler.

Henry VIII is best known for lopping off heads, marrying six times and expanding his gut. But his legacy, insists antiquarian-book collector and Tudor enthusiast Arthur Schwarz, runs much deeper. An accomplished theologian and sportsman, Henry wrote poetry and music and displayed a keen interest in astronomy and maps. Perhaps most important in Schwarz’s view, Henry VIII broke from Rome and established the Church of England, laying the ground for an expansion of British power.

Full article

Be sure to check out the slide show and video

Exhibition Link

Kathy offered over at the Q&A blog to pass on any questions to Alison Weir (if the change arises) at the Feb. 7 workshop at the Smithsonian. Please submit any questions you have over there in that thread. Thanks for offering Kathy!

From The Scotsman:

Deep in an archive, more than two dozen letters written by Mary, Queen of Scots, lie largely unseen for centuries.

Many are written in a secret code as Mary fought to preserve and protect the Catholic faith in Scotland after the 1560 Reformation which saw the country break with Rome.

But soon the letters, which in recent years have only been seen by a select group of historians, will be available to view on-line.

Visitors to the Scottish Catholic Archives website will be able to examine the letters, which also contain details of Mary’s power struggle with her Protestant cousin, Queen Elizabeth, who was on the throne in England. The struggle eventually led to Mary’s execution in 1587.

Full article

Scottish Catholic Archives website

(Thanks to Linda for the reminder of this article… it fell through the cracks during the computer migration!)