Good morning everyone,

I've been on holiday this week! It's been great. I've spent the whole week sitting outside in a camping chair reading Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy and it's been quite idyllic. If you've considered doing something like this but worried it would not be fun, know that it's been extremely fun for me and I think you would enjoy it too.

Of course the immediate practical consequences of this for you is that really the only thing I've been thinking about for a week is the Tudor court, so I hope that's something that you can enjoy with me this morning.

Let's start with the Devonshire Manuscript, a book of poems collected, gossiped about in the margins, and in part written by the women of Anne Boleyn's court:

[Margaret Douglas] appears to have transcribed 16 of them and annotated at least 50 of the pages, with comments such as "and this" or "learn but to sing it". The other main transcriber appears to be Mary Shelton, whose name appears in an acrostic verse. Occasionally Margaret and Mary differ on their view of the worthiness of poems – Margaret writes on one "forget this" and Mary replies "it is worthy".

https://tudortimes.co.uk/people/the-devonshire-manuscript

One of the reasons why I like history as much as I do is that it lets me read other people's diaries and private letters and put a veneer of respectability over that curiosity. OR SO I THOUGHT until I read Anne Boleyn's letter to Cardinal Wolsey and it makes me feel actively on edge about my safety:

I acknowledge that I have put much confidence in your professions and promises, in which I find myself deceived. But, for the future, I shall rely on nothing by the protection of Heaven and the love of my dear king, which alone will be able to set right again those plans which you have broken and spoiled, and to place me in that happy station which God wills, the king so much wishes, and which will be entirely to the advantage of the kingdom. The wrong you have done me has caused me much sorrow; but I feel infinitely more in seeing myself betrayed by a man who pretended to enter into my interests only to discover the secrets of my heart.

https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/anne-boleyn/anne-boleyns-surviving-letters/

Up next is the theory that the reason why everyone was mooning after Anne Boleyn was that she was actually extremely funny. Hilary Mantel does not specifically draw this theme out in her books but it checks out to me. You can't put words together, as above, for nastiness without being about to put them together for laughs as well:

They are all absolutely desperate to sleep with her. They are behaving like the most appalling show-offs, competing with each other to get her to look at their dumb faces, and they are beginning to resent her. They come away from a meeting with her feeling just sick with love, just nauseated by it, and they are trying to work out why. Is it because she is so pretty? No, she is actually quite pinched and has an unnaturally long neck. Is it because she is so kind? Absolutely not. Well-dressed? No one cares about that. Good at the piano? Please. Sewing? Lol. Can make up boring poems in French? Stop it. Funny? Cue the screeching of brakes.

https://www.thehairpin.com/2016/08/the-anne-boleyn-theory-of-funny-women/

Have a nice weekend, cool kids,

A xx.