Who stole Henry VIII's love letters to Anne Boleyn?

In 1529, English authorities stopped Cardinal Campeggio in Dover on his way out of England. Although he refused to have his bags searched, the locks were broken on his coffers. Unfortunately, the king’s men failed to find what they were looking for. (1) Were authorities looking for the love letters from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn? These 17 love letters mysteriously resurface in the 17th century in the Vatican collection. Who stole them and how they came to Rome is a mystery that has puzzled historians for years.(2)

Suspect #1: Pope Clement VII
At first blush, Cardinal Campeggio or a papal spy for Pope Clement VII seems the obvious suspect. But what would the Pope have gained by stealing the letters? Clement never desired evidence for or against Henry. Clement’s strategy was to keep stalling Henry in the hopes that either the matter would resolve itself (Henry would tire of Anne) or someone else would have to deal with the matter (Clement would be too dead to care.) Even the French Ambassador, the Bishop of Tarbe, voiced his frustration at Clement’s repeated stall tactics in a letter to King Francis I. Tarbe writes that Clement “has told me more than three times in secret, he would be glad if the marriage was already made, either by a dispensation of the English legate or otherwise, provided it was not by his authority” (3) Caught in the middle of Charles V and Henry, Clement's strongest weapon was procrastination. The letters would have done little to serve his cause.

Suspect #2: Charles V
Charles V probably had the biggest motive to steal the letters. He was bitterly opposed to the idea of his aunt being kicked to the curb and her daughter Mary being declared a bastard. The court gossip and Spanish Ambassador, Chapuys wrote to Charles at least once a week with tales of Henry and Anne's palace romps. Chapuys held nothing back in his communications with Charles and several of his letters would have been damaging if they had been intercepted. Yet, nowhere does he mention stealing the letters.


And even if Chapuys had stolen them, Charles V would have never shipped the originals off to the Vatican. He trusted Clement about as much as we trust a CEO with some bailout cash. If he had the letters, he would have made copies of them and sent those to Clement.

Suspect #3: Freelance Spy
The biggest motivation behind stealing the letters was not religion, but money. Whoever stole them probably was trying to make a quick buck. Maybe they were even sold directly to the Vatican. Perhaps they were even stolen from Hever castle years after Anne was dead and buried. It would not be the first time that love letters resurfaced years after they were written. Either way, the Pope (either Clement or subsequent Popes) had no use for them. But we…. have tons of use for them. As discussed in last post, the love letters not only give us clues into one of the most infamous torrid love affair in history, but also give us a peak into Henry’s motives behind his divorce.

Who do you think stole the letters?

Stay tuned for next post when the individual letters will be analyzed.


Notes:
(1)Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 4, 25 Oct. 1529
(2)The theories presented here can be found in: Ridley, Jasper, The Love Letters of Henry VIII. pp 17-18
(3)Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 4, 27 March. 1530

Sources and Further Reading:
Ridley, Jasper. The Love Letters of Henry VIII, University Printing House, Oxford, 1988
Starkey, David. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2004.
Ives, Eric. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Weir, Alison. The Six wives of Henry VIII, New York, NY: Grove Press, 2000.
Fraser, Antoinia. The Six wives of Henry VIII, New York, NY: Vintage, 1993

The Love Letters of Henry VIII: Part 1

Background:
In the spring of 1527, Henry VIII began questioning the validity of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Always the theologian, the king turned to Leviticus as proof of his unnatural union. Scripture conveniently stated that anyone who married his brother’s wife would have no children. Bingo. Henry had done just that by marrying Catherine, his brother Arthur's widow and now he desperately needed an heir. So Henry sent his minions running off to Rome to seek a divorce from Catherine in what had become the King’s ‘Great Matter.’ Yet somewhere between guilt and the desire for a do-over, Henry met the enigmatic Anne Boleyn and decided to make her his queen.

Why Snoop?
The 17 love letters from Henry to Anne span two very different time periods in their courtship. They begin with the heady first days of infatuation to the tender promises of two betrothed lovers. Unfortunately, the letters are undated leaving historians to grapple with the most important question of all – when did their affair begin? This question leads to a far weightier question: Did Henry seek a divorce from Catherine of Aragon to ease his conscience and secure an heir? Or was Henry’s burning desire to extricate himself from his marriage influenced by the burning desire in his nether regions?

If we assign an earlier date to the letters, Anne becomes the catalyst that ended Henry’s marriage and the impetus behind the whole English Reformation – surely a heavy cross to bear. If we assign a later date to the letters than Henry’s motive to divorce Catherine lies in his own troubled conscience and his even more troublesome need for an heir to protect the future of England. Antonia Fraser, Eric Ives, and Alison Weir believe Henry first noticed Anne at Shrovetide in 1526 and the love letters soon followed. Starkey believes the affair could have started as early as 1525. Who is right? And even if the affair did begin in 1525, how much did Anne influence Henry to begin divorce proceeding? I will be exploring all theories in the next posts.

How we got the letters
The love letters resurfaced in the 17th century in the Vatican Archives probably stolen from Anne’s residence at Hever Castle. The letters do contain several clues as to when they were written, but how they are numbered does not. When they first came to the Vatican, some disgruntled archivist took the thin velum and transferred them to Parchment and numbered them in either random order or the order in which they were found. Throughout the next week’s posts, I will be referencing the letters by their numbers, but keep in mind that this is not the order in which they were written.

Where are Anne's letters?
The letters are also very one-sided because none of Anne's letters to Henry have survived. Most likely, Henry destroyed her letters, along with her portraits, when he ceased to need mementos of their affair. Henry could have also destroyed the letters as soon as they were read because the rules of courtly love deemed it indiscreet to save love letters. (It was especially tacky if the love letters were not from your wife.) But considering that Henry hated to write letters, we are lucky to have any relics of his love affair with the mysterious Brunet.

Stay tuned for next post on who stole the letters.

Art Note: Picture of Henry VIII's writing desk from the Victoria and Albert Museum