Of the personal appearance of Queen Anne Boleyn Mr. Brewer thus pleasantly discourses:—“The blood of the Ormonds ran in her veins. From her Irish descent she inherited—
‘The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes.’
And, like the Irish Isolt of the great poet, Anne Boleyn was remarkable for the exquisite turn of her neck and her glossy throat. She was a little, lively, sparkling brunette, with fascinating eyes and long black hair, which, contrary to the sombre fashion of those days, she wore coquettishly floating loosely down her back, interlaced with jewels. The beauty of her eyes and hair struck all beholders alike—grave ecclesiastics and spruce young sprigs of nobility. ‘Sitting in her hair on a litter’ is the feature at her coronation which seems to have made the deepest impression upon Archbishop Cranmer. ‘On Sunday morning (1st September, 1532), solemnly and in public, Madame Anne being then at Windsor, con li capilli sparsi, completely covered with the most costly jewels, was created by the king Countess of Pembroke.’ George Wyatt, grandson of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, one of her admirers, describes her, in the fantastic language of the sixteenth century, as having ‘a beauty not so whitely as clear and fresh above all that we may esteem, which appeared much more excellent by her favour passing sweet and cheerful. There was found, indeed, upon the side of her nail upon one of her fingers some little show of a nail, which yet was so small, by the report of some that have seen her, as the work-master seemed to leave it an occasion of greater grace to her hand, which, with the tip of one of her fingers, might be and was usually by her hidden, without any least blemish to it.’”
The Earl of Wiltshire (Sir Thomas Boleyn), father of the ill-fated queen, died in 1538—two years after witnessing the beheading of his only son, Viscount Rochfort, and of his daughter, Queen Anne Boleyn; and on his death the family of Boleyn, in the main line, became extinct.
After the death of the Earl, Henry, with the rapacity that kept pace with his profligacy, claimed and seized the castle of Hever in right of his murdered wife, and subsequently settled it upon one of his later wives. He also purchased adjoining lands from others of the Boleyn family, and thus enlarged the estate. The castle and manor of Hever, and other adjoining lands, were settled upon Anne of Cleves, after her divorce, for life, or so long as she should remain in the kingdom, at the yearly rent of £93 13s. 3½d. She made Hever her general place of residence, and died there according to some writers, but at Chelsea according to others, in 1557. In “the same year the Hever estates were sold by commissioners, authorised by the Crown, to Sir Edward Waldegrave, lord chamberlain to the household of Queen Mary, who, on the accession of Elizabeth, was divested of all his employments, and committed to the Tower, where he died in 1561.” The estates afterwards passed through the family of Humphreys to that of Medley.
Hever Castle, from the East.
In 1745 Hever Castle was purchased by Timothy Waldo, of London, and of Clapham, in Surrey. The family of Waldo is said to derive itself, according to Hasted, from Thomas Waldo, of Lyons, in the kingdom of France, and was among the first who publicly renounced the doctrines of the Church of Rome, “one of the descendants of whom, in the reign of Elizabeth, in order to escape the persecutions of the Duke d’Alva, came over, it is said, and settled in England.” In 1575 Peter Waldo resided at Mitcham. His eldest son, Lawrence—according to Mr. Morris Jones, who has made much laudable research into the history of the family—had issue, by his wife Elizabeth, no fewer than fifteen children. Of these the twelfth child, Daniel Waldo, is the one pertaining to our present inquiry. He was a citizen and clothworker of London, and was fined as alderman and sheriff in 1661. He married Anne Claxton, by whom he had issue nine children. Of these the eldest son, Daniel Waldo, some of whose property was burnt down in the great fire of London in 1666, married twice, and from him are descended the Waldos of Harrow. Edward, the second son, became the purchaser, after the fire, of the sites of the “Black Bull,” the “Cardinal’s Hat,” and the “Black Boy,” in Cheapside, on which he erected a “great messuage,” where he dwelt; and in which, when it was taken down in 1861, was some fine oak carving, now at Gungrog.
