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The introduction to the history in defence of Anne Boleyn
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2009
Extract
MS 18 consists of 16 foolscap folios, closely written on both sides in George Wyatt's hand. It forms the preface to, and the first fragment of, his magnum opus in defence of Anne Boleyn; of which MS 7 is an earlier, and much briefer, draft. The project was a grandiose one, apparently involving a total refutation of papal claims to authority in England, in a manner similar to that of MS 19. George's approach is far more detailed, however, and if it had been completed his work must have been far longer. This fragment of the main work comes to an end at the year 640, and how much of the remainder was ever written is problematical. The document published here comprises the preface only; four complete folios and a portion of the fifth. Had the work ever been put into its final form, this would no doubt have been addressed ‘to the Christian reader’, and the general view of history which it expresses is conventional and unremarkable. Fifty years before, John Proctor, following classical and other precedents, had written in the dedication to his Historie of Wyates rebellion:
It hath been allowed … for a necessary policy in all ages … that the flagitious enterprises of the wicked … as also the wise and vertuous policies of the good … should by writing be committed to eternal memory. Partly that they of that age in whose time such things happened might by the oft reading conceive a certain gladness in considering with themselves, and beholding as it were in a glass, from what calamity and extreme ruin, by what policy and wisdom, their native countries were delivered … partly for a doctrine and monition serving both for the present and for future time. But chiefly and principally that the traitors themselves … may always have before their eyes the miserable end that happeneth as just reward to all such caytives ….
- Type
- Part I: Select Writings of George Wyatt
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1968
References
page 19 note 1 MS 32 (iv), which is part of a history of the reformation in England and Bohemia, involving a lengthy discussion of the Hussite wars of the fifteenth century, may be a part of the same project. Richard Wyatt describes it as ‘a sequal, seemingly, to no. 18’. MS 21, on the divorce, may also be so classified.
page 19 note 2 Reprinted in Pollard, A. F., Tudor Tracts, 201.Google Scholar
page 20 note 1 Haller, William, Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation (London, 1963).Google Scholar
page 20 note 2 f. 2r.
page 20 note 3 A similar project was also mentioned by Foxe in the 1570 edition of the Acts and Monuments, where he wrote (II, 1233) ‘… because more is also promised to be declared of her [Anne Boleyn's] vertuous liffe (the Lord so permitting) by other who then were about her; I will cease in thys matter further to procede.’ This could scarcely refer to anyone who outlived the century, and those to whom George Wyatt refers may therefore have been the literary heirs of the contemporaries mentioned by Foxe.
page 21 note 1 MS 7, f.1. This presumably refers to Whitgift.
page 21 note 2 It is tempting to recollect that Richard Hooker became the incumbent of Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, in 1595. This was the parish in which Lady Jane Wyatt had been born, and was near enough to Boxley for Hooker and George Wyatt to be regarded as neighbours. Both George's description, and the mention of the Archbishop (who was Hooker's patron) are consistent with such an identification, as also is the fact that many of Hooker's papers were destroyed on his death in 1600. On the other hand, there is not a shred of positive evidence that Hooker was ever involved in such a project.
page 21 note 3 Residence or habitation.
page 22 note 1 Part of the line obliterated.
page 22 note 2 Sic; perhaps meaning the condition naturally attendant upon her status as Queen.
page 23 note 1 According to Foxe (ed. 1570, II, 1234) Anne's principal slanderers were Reginald Pole and Paulus Iovius. By the time George Wyatt wrote, Sanders' work had also appeared, and he may possibly have seen manuscript copies of Harpesfield's treatise (written in 1556) and William Forrest's ‘history of Grisild the second’ (1558). Roper's ‘Life of Sir Thomas More’ and Cavendish's ‘Life of Wolsey’ also circulated in manuscript, and it is probable that George had seen the latter, since MS 15 is an extract.
page 23 note 2 Petulancies; insolencies or wantonness. OED.
page 24 note 1 I.e. the death of Elizabeth, and the accession of James, which removed the necessity to protect the protestant succession by defending the honour of Elizabeth's mother.
page 24 note 2 See p. 11.
page 24 note 3 George's portrayal of Anne Boleyn as a champion of protestantism closely approximates to that of Foxe.
page 25 note 1 Furnishings.
page 26 note 1 Trowel.
page 27 note 1 1486(?)–1555; Lord Russell of Cheneys (March 1539); Lord Privy Seal, 1542; Earl of Bedford, January 1550.
page 27 note 2 January 1527.
page 27 note 3 Excuse.
page 28 note 1 This is a mistake. John Russell's son, Francis, became 2nd Earl of Bedford on his death in 1555. Edward Russell, the 3rd Earl, was the grandson of Francis and succeeded in 1585. He held the title until 1627, and could not, therefore, have been referred to as the ‘late Earl’ by George. Also, he was the great-grandson, not the son, of John.
page 28 note 2 Possibly Edward Wyatt, a suppositious son of Sir Thomas the elder, who died in 1590.
page 28 note 3 A reproduction of this maze is drawn on the back of a portrait of Sir Thomas in the possession of the Earl of Romney.
page 28 note 4 A skein or ball. OED.
page 28 note 5 Psalm cxxiv, 6.
page 28 note 6 Plutarch, Theseus, XIX.
page 30 note 1 The history of the church in Britain commences in the next paragraph, without any break in the text.