The Last Letter of Anne Boleyn

Did she really write it?

There are, however, several anomalies within the letter that suggest it might not be entirely genuine. The first is the handwriting – as both James Gairdner and Agnes Strickland pointed out back in the 19th century, it is simply not neat enough to be Anne Boleyn’s. From a very early age, Anne’s style was defined by delicate, dainty strokes of the pen – compared to most of her contemporaries, she had extraordinarily neat and even handwriting, for which any historian studying her should be eternally grateful. Believe me.

Secondly, she refers to herself as “Anne Bulen.” When she used her maiden name, it was always as “Boleyn” or the Gallicised “de Boulaine.” The Boleyns had not used the earlier Anglo-Saxon variant of their surname, “Bullen,” for quite some time before Anne’s birth and for her to inexplicably revert to it here seems highly improbable. Moreover, since 1533, she had always signed herself as “Anne the Queen” and as the coming weeks would show, she was very keen to continue doing just that - any attempts to undermine her royal position within the Tower, she fought like a tigress protecting its cub.

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