Note 98 — Chapter III

Sanders, Hall, and those who follow them, assert without the least authority, that the marriage of Elizabeth’s parents took place in the preceding November. Chapuys was himself mistaken, in asserting that Cranmer had solemnised it. He was also wrong in ascribing the fact to Dr. Brown, Prior of the Austin Friars in London. A letter from Cranmer to N. Hawkins, in the following June, disclaims any part taken by himself in the marriage, which he says took place “about St. Paul’s Day” (Archæologia, p. 81). Stowe makes the following statement: “King Henry privilie married the Lady Anne Boleine on the five and twentieth day of January, being S. Paules Day. Mistress Anne Savage bore uppe Queene Anne’s traine, and was herself shortly after marryed to the lord Barkley; doctor Rowland Lee that marryed the King to Queene Anne was made Bishop of Chester, then Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield, and president of Wales” (Annals, p. 561). Harpsfield’s account (in The Pretended Divorce) is the same, with more detail, as is also Le Grand’s translation from a Latin MS. in his Histoire du Divorce (vol. ii., p. 110).