Queen Anne Boleyn

QUEEN ANNE BOLEYN: HER CORONATION
WHITSUNDAY, JUNE 1, 1533


. . . The Thursday next before the Feast of Pentecost, the King and the Queen being at Greenwich, all the Crafts of London thereunto well appointed, in several barges decked after the most gorgeous and sumptuous manner, with divers pageants thereunto belonging, repaired and waited all together upon the Mayor of London; and so, well furnished, came all unto Greenwich, where they tarried and waited for the Queen's coming to her barge; which so done, they brought her unto the Tower, trumpets, shawms, and other divers instruments playing and making great melody, which, as is reported, was as comely done as never was like in any time nigh to our remembrance. And so her Grace came to the Tower on Thursday at night, about five of the clock, where also was such a peal of guns as hath not been heard the like a great while before. And the same night, and Friday all day, the King and Queen tarried there; and on Friday at night the King's Grace made eighteen knights of the Bath, whose creation was not only so strange to hear of, as also their garments stranger to behold or look upon; which said knights, the next day, which was Saturday, rode before the Queen's Grace throughout the City of London towards Westminster Palace, over and besides the most part of the nobles of the realm, which like accompanied her Grace throughout the said city; she sitting in her hair [i.e. her hair flowing down], upon a horse litter, richly apparelled, and four knights of the Five Ports bearing a canopy over her head. And after her came four rich chariots, one of them empty, and three other furnished with divers ancient old ladies; and after them came a great train of other ladies and gentlewomen; which said progress, from the beginning to the ending, extended half a mile in length by estimation or thereabout. To whom also, as she came along the City, were shewn many costly pageants, with divers other encomiums spoken of children to her; wine also running at certain conduits plenteously. And so proceeding throughout the streets, passed further unto Westminster Hall, where was a certain banquet prepared for her, which done, she was conveyed out of the back side of the Palace into a barge, and so unto York Place, where the King's Grace was before her coming, for this you must ever presuppose that his Grace came always before her secretly in a barge as well from Greenwich to the Tower as from the Tower to York Place.
Now then on the Sunday was the Coronation, which also was of such a manner.
In the morning there assembled with me at Westminster Church the Bishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Winchester, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Bishop of Bath, and the Bishop of St. Asaph, the Abbot of Westminster with ten or eleven more Abbots, which all revestred ourselves in our pontificalibus, and, so furnished, with our Crosses and Croziers, proceeded out of the Abbey in a procession into Westminster Hall, where we received the Queen apparelled in a robe of purple velvet, and all the ladies and gentlewomen in robes and gowns of scarlet according to the manner used beforetime in such business; and so her Grace sustained of each side with two bishops, the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Winchester, came forth in procession unto the Church of Westminster, she in her hair, my Lord of Suffolk bearing before her the Crown, and two other Lords bearing also before her a sceptre and a white rod, and so entered up into the High Altar, where divers ceremonies used about her, I did set the Crown on her head, and then was sung Te Deum. And after that was sung a solemn Mass, all which while her Grace sat crowned upon a scaffold which was made between the High Altar and Choir in Westminster Church; which Mass and ceremonies done and finished, all the assembly of noblemen brought her into Westminster HaIl again, where was kept a great solemn feast all that day; the good order thereof were too long to write at this time to you.
But now, Sir, you may not imagine that this Coronation was before her marriage, for she was married much about St. Paul's Day last, as the condition thereof doth well appear by reason she is now somewhat big with child. Notwithstanding it hath been reported throughout a great part of the realm that I married her, which was plainly false, for I myself knew not thereof a fortnight after it was done. And many other things be reported of me, which be mere lies and tales.... '


From Cranmer's own account contained in a letter from him to Mr. Hawkyns, English Ambassador at the court of the Emperor, Charles V. (Spelling modernized.)