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| 29 | <td valign="top" width="70%" height="610" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
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| 30 | <p align="center"><b><FONT size=+1>Letter from Anne Boleyn to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey<br>
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| 31 | </FONT></b><font size="+1"><b>1529</b></font></p>
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| 32 | <p><FONT size=-1><b>Background<br></b>The tone of this letter differs remarkably from the
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| 33 | preceding letter. The disastrous and humiliating legatine hearings at
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| 34 | Blackfriars in May 1529 had finally convinced Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn that
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| 35 | Wolsey could not secure the annulment. Anne now believed, and with good
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| 36 | reason, that the Cardinal had never intended for her to be queen of England
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| 37 | and had hoped the endless delays of the annulment would cool Henry's passion
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| 38 | for her. She was angry, and now more receptive to the anti-Wolsey
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| 39 | machinations of her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, and other other noblemen who
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| 40 | resented Wolsey's influence with the king. Anne now became their willing
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| 41 | partner in destruction; they had their way and in October of 1529,
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| 42 | the Cardinal fell spectacularly from grace.</FONT> </p>
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| 43 | <p><FONT size=-1>Upon
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| 44 | Wolsey's fall, his position was filled by his far less ostentatious and more
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| 45 | cunning protégé, Thomas Cromwell. He learned the lessons of Wolsey's
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| 46 | life well, and his initial support of Anne Boleyn was tempered by a realistic
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| 47 | understanding of Henry VIII's temperament.</FONT> </p>
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| 48 | <hr>
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| 49 | <p>My lord, <BR>Though you are a man of great understanding, you
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| 50 | cannot avoid being censured by every body for having drawn on yourself the
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| 51 | hatred of a king who had raised you to the highest degree to which the
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| 52 | greatest ambition of a man seeking his fortune can aspire. I cannot
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| 53 | comprehend, and the king still less, how your reverent lordship, after
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| 54 | having allured us by so many fine promises about divorce, can have repented
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| 55 | of your purpose, and how you could have done what you have, in order to
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| 56 | hinder the consummation of it. What, then, is your mode of
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| 57 | proceeding? You quarreled with the queen to favor me at the time when
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| 58 | I was less advanced in the king's good graces; and after having therein
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| 59 | given me the strongest marks of your affection, your lordship abandons my
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| 60 | interests to embrace those of the queen. I acknowledge that I have put
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| 61 | much confidence in your professions and promises, in which I find myself
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| 62 | deceived. But, for the future, I shall rely on nothing by the
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| 63 | protection of Heaven and the love of my dear king, which alone will be able
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| 64 | to set right again those plans which you have broken and spoiled, and to
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| 65 | place me in that happy station which God wills, the king so much wishes, and
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| 66 | which will be entirely to the advantage of the kingdom. The wrong you
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| 67 | have done me has caused me much sorrow; but I feel infinitely more in seeing
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| 68 | myself betrayed by a man who pretended to enter into my interests only to
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| 69 | discover the secrets of my heart. I acknowledge that, believing you
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| 70 | sincere, I have been too precipitate in my confidence; it is this which has
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| 71 | induced, and still induces me, to keep more moderation in avenging myself,
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| 72 | not being able to forget that I have been Your servant, <BR>Anne
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| 73 | Boleyn.</p>
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| 74 | <p> </p>
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| 75 |
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| 76 | <BLOCKQUOTE>
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| 77 | <P>
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| 78 | <HR width="100%">
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| 79 | </BLOCKQUOTE>
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| 80 | <p align="center"><FONT size=-1><A
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| 81 | href="letters.html">to Letters of the Six Wives
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| 82 | of Henry VIII</A></FONT></p>
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| 83 | <p align="center"><FONT size=-1><A href="primary.html">to
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| 84 | Primary Sources</A></FONT><BR><FONT size=-1><A
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| 85 | href="http://englishhistory.net/tudor.html">to Tudor England</A></FONT><BR><FONT size=-1>
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| 86 | <a href="monarchs/boleyn.html">to Anne
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| 87 | Boleyn website</a>
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| 88 | <a href="citizens/wolsey.html"><br>to Cardinal
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| 89 | Thomas Wolsey website</a></FONT></p>
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| 90 | </td>
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