The example,
below, is the handwriting of Anne Boleyn in 1514. I consider it to be
the most valid physical evidence available to argue that Anne Boleyn was
older than some scholars claim.
Most of Anne's biographies
lean toward a birth year of either 1501 or 1507. Some speculate that she might
have been born as early as 1499.
If Anne had been born
in 1507, she would have been seven years old at the time she wrote this
letter (See
Anne Boleyn's
Birth Year). She did not have the advantage of
lined notebook paper, yet her
handwriting is small and consistent, and her lines are remarkably evenly
spaced. This is not an ability enjoyed by most, if any, seven year olds.
See if you agree:
This
sample (in French, her SECOND language) contains sentences that are
lengthy and complex, words that are long, and handwriting that is
confident and smooth. If she were copying the longer words, the
handwriting would show hesitancy. Instead, the errors she makes (see
where she corrects words above the line - these corrections are not
at all clumsy) appear to be from speed or afterthought rather than
inexperience in writing.
While
some people argue that children in the 1500s received more training
than modern children, and therefore could achieve more advanced
results at an earlier age, studies of modern parents who
aggressively train their children, even from infancy (including some
who begin audio stimulation in the womb), reveal that such children
do not demonstrate advanced capabilities by the third grade.
Below is an
example of the handwriting of a seven-year-old child in English, his
FIRST language. Compare the
sentence structure (you can ascertain, without knowing French, that the
flow of thought in Anne's letter is more mature just by sentence length
alone), the word choices, the inconsistent sizing and spacing, and manner in which he forms
each letter:
My
conclusion based on this comparison is that Anne Boleyn was an
adolescent at the time she wrote that letter in 1514, and therefore was
born between 1499 and 1502.
Anne
Boleyn's handwriting example was scanned from "The Rise and Fall of Anne
Boleyn" by Retha Warnicke.
