Hever Castle, Kent, South-East England, British Isles [Map]

Around 1501 Queen Anne Boleyn of England was born to Thomas Boleyn 1st Earl Wiltshire and Ormonde (age 24) and Elizabeth Howard Countess of Wiltshire and Ormonde (age 21) at either Blickling Hall, Norfolk [Map] or Hever Castle, Kent [Map].

The year of her birth somewhat uncertain - see Life of Cardinal Wolsey Note 6 - as is the order of the birth of her and her two siblings.

See An Account of the Life of Anne Boleyn Note c and Note e.

See also letter from her father to Cromwell in which he describes his three children being born in or before the death of his father in 1505.

There are few accounts of the description of Anne Boleyn:

Letter of Simon Grynæus to Martin Bucer, 1531: "she is young, good looking, of a rather dark complexion".

Sanuto Diaries: "Madam Anne is not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact has nothing but the English King's great appetite, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful"

Nicholas Sander's 'Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism': "Anne Boleyn was rather tall of stature, with black hair, and an oval face of a sallow complexion, as if troubled with jaundice. She had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on her right hand six fingers. There was a large wen [small cyst] under her chin, and therefore to hide its ugliness she wore a high dress covering her throat. In this she was followed by the ladies of the court, who also wore high dresses, having before been in the habit of leaving their necks and the upper portion of their persons uncovered. She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth, amusing in her ways, playing well on the lute, and was a good dancer. She was the model and the mirror of those who were at court, for she was always well dressed,"

Letters of Horace Walpole. 7th August 1572. This morning we have been to Penshurst [Map] - but, oh! how fallen!³⁴¹ The park seems to have never answered its character: at present it is forlorn; and instead of Sacharissa's³⁴² cipher carved on the beeches, I should sooner have expected to have found the milkwoman's score. Over the gate is an inscription, purporting the manor to have been a boon from Edward VI to Sir William Sydney. The apartments are the grandest I have seen in any of these old palaces, but furnished in tawdry modern taste. There are loads of portraits; but most of them seem christened by chance, like children at a foundling hospital. There is a portrait of Languet³⁴³, the friend of Sir Philip Sydney (age 17); and divers of himself and all his great kindred; particularly his sister-in-law, with a vast lute, and Sacharissa, charmingly handsome, But there are really four very great curiosities, I believe as old portraits as any extant in England: they are, Fitzallen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Humphry Stafford, the first Duke of Buckingham; T. Wentworth, and John Foxle; all four with the dates of their commissions as constables of Queenborough Castle, from whence I suppose they were brought. The last is actually receiving his investiture from Edward the Third, and Wentworth is in the dress of Richard the Third's time. They are really not very ill done.³⁴⁴ There are six more, only heads; and we have found since we came home that Penshurst belonged for a time to that Duke of Buckingham. There are some good tombs in the church, and a very Vandal one. called Sir Stephen of Penchester. When we had seen Penshurst, we borrowed saddles, and, bestriding the horses of our postchaise, set out for Hever [Map]³⁴⁵, to visit a tomb of Sir Thomas Bullen, Earl of Wiltshire, partly with a view to talk of it in Anna Bullen's walk at Strawberry Hill. But the measure of our woes was not full, we could not find our way and were forced to return; and again lost ourselves in coming from Penshurst, having been directed to what they call a better road than the execrable one we had gone.

Note 341. Evelyn, who visited Penshurst exactly a century before Walpole, gives the Following brief notice of the place:-"July 9, 1652. We went to see Penshurst, the Earl of Leicester's, famous once for its gardens and excellent fruit, and for the noble conversation which Was wont to meet there, celebrated by that illustrious person Sir Philip Sidney, who there composed divers of his pieces. It stands in a park, is finely watered, and was now full of company, on the marriage of my old fellow-collegiate, Mr. Robert Smith, who marries Lady Dorothy Sidney, widow of the Earl of Sunderland."-E.

Note 342. Lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of Philip, Earl of Leicester [Note. Mistake? She was sister of Philip Earl of Leicester]; of whom Waller was the unsuccessful suitor, and to whom he addressed those elegant effusions of poetical gallantry, in which she is celebrated under the name of Sacharissa. Walpole here alludes to the lines written at Penshurst-

"Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark

Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark

Of noble Sydney's birth; when such benign,

Such more than mortal-making stars did shine,

That there they cannot but for ever prove

The monument and pledge of humble love;

His humble love, whose hope shall ne'er rise higher,

Than for a pardon that he dares admire."-E.

Note 343. Hubert Tanguet, who quitted the service of the Elector of Saxony on account of his religion, and attached himself to the Prince of Orange. He died in 1581.-E.

Note 344. In Harris's History of Kent, he gives from Philpot a list of the constables of Queenborough Castle, p. 376; the last but one of whom, Sir Edward Hobby, is said to have collected all their portraits, of which number most probably were these ten.

Note 345. Hever Castle was built in the reign of Edward III, by William de Hevre, and subsequently became the property of the Boleyn family. In this castle Henry VIII passed the time of his courtship to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn; whose father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was Created Earl of wiltshire and Ormond, 1529 and 1538.-E.