WHERE WAS ANNE BOLEYN BURIED?
It is said in Miss Strickland's Queens of England (iv. 203.), that there is a tradition at Salle in Norfolk that the remains of Anne Boleyn were removed from the Tower, and interred at midnight, with the rites of Christian burial, in Salle Church, and that a plain black stone without any inscription is supposed to indicate the place where she was buried. An account of Salle Church, with the inscriptions on the Boleyn monuments, is given in the 4th volume of Blomefield's Norfolk (folio ed.), p. 421., but no allusion is made to any such tradition; and other parts of the same work, where the Boleyns (including the Queen) are referred to, are equally silent on the subject. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in his History of King Henry VIII., does not state how or where she was buried. Hollingshed, Stow, and Speed say, that her body, with the head, was buried in the choir of the chapel in the Tower; and Sandford, that she was buried in the chapel of St. Peter in the Tower.
Burnet (vol. i. p. 318.), who is followed by Henry, Hume, and Lingard, says that her body was thrown into a common chest of elm-tree that was made to put arrows in, and was buried in the chapel within the Tower, before twelve o'clock. Sharon Turner, in his History of the Reign of King Henry VIII., vol. ii p. 464., cites the following passage from Crispin's account of Anne Boleyn's execution, written fourteen days after her death, viz.:
"Her ladies immediately took up her head and the body. They seemed to be without souls, they were so languid and extremely weak; but fearing that their mistress might be handled unworthily by inhuman men, they forced themselves to do this duty; and though almost dead, at last carried off her dead body wrapt in a white covering."
In a letter in the Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1815, signed "J. C.," it is said—
"But the headless remains of the departed Queen were said to be deposited in an arrow-chest, and buried in the Tower Chapel, before the High Altar. Where that stood, the most sagacious antiquary, after a lapse of less than three hundred years, cannot now determine; nor is the circumstance, though related by eminent writers, clearly ascertained. In a cellar the body of a person of short stature, without a head, not many years since was found, and supposed to be the reliques of poor Anna; but soon after re-interred in the same place, and covered with earth."
I am informed that the stone in Salle Church was some time since raised, but that no remains were to be found underneath it. Has the tradition referred to by Miss Strickland been noticed by any other writer? and upon what authority does Burnet say that her remains were placed in an arrow-chest? I may add that Miss S. states that a similar tradition is assigned to a black stone in the church at Thornden on the Hill: but Morant, in his History of Essex, does not notice it.
J. H. P.