I downloaded Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries by Marcus Bourne Huish from Project Gutenberg. It’s a very old book on needlework and although the writing is a bit stilted compared with books like that nowadays it’s still worth taking a look at it if you’re intersted in the history of needlework. You can download it here.

I also downloaded The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Ann Boleyn, which you can read here.

I think there are 18 letters written by Henry and only one from her and that is just because he had written a reply on a letter which she had sent to him. If you’re at all interested in that period of history you should have a look at them. They are a very quick read indeed and it’s a bit like eavesdropping. He can’t ever have expected his letters to be read by all and sundry hundreds of years later.

It’s easy to forget that Anne Boleyn strung Henry along for years, determined to marry him and not be just another passing whim for him, as her sister had been. She was certainly no dimwit but obviously stupidly believed that she would always be able to manipulate him. She ought to have realised that as his wife she was going to have to be like Caesar’s wife and be above suspicion, and she should have knocked all her silly flirtatiousness on the head, then she might have kept her own! She gave him great ammunition but I doubt if she was ever actually guilty of adultery, she surely wouldn’t have been that daft.

I doubt if it ever occurred to Anne that she was really putting her life in danger, it’s not as if he had previously chopped a wife’s head off, in fact he had gone out of his way to get rid of his first wife Catherine legally, when he could have had her done to death any number of ways and not have had the finger of blame pointed at himself.

He’s always thought of as being a monster but I think that as kings go – he could have been a lot worse. Not that I would have wanted to be married to him mind you!