Anne Boleyn and Reform

Abstract

In 1530 or 1531 Thomas Alwaye, an otherwise obscure evangelical prosecuted by Wolsey and the bishops for buying English new testaments and other prohibited books, petitioned Anne Boleyn for intervention in his affairs in the following extraordinary terms:When extreme need began to compel me, right honourable lady, to make me friends by whose means I might be released out of my miserable thraldom, I could not find one in all this realm in whom I had any hope or looked for any comfort until your gracious ladyship came unto my remembrance. But anon I remembered how many deeds of pity your goodness had done within these few years, and that without respect of any persons, as well to strangers and aliens as to many of this land, as well to poor as to rich: whereof some looking for no redemption were by your gracious means not only freely delivered out of costly and very long imprisoning, but also by your charity largely rewarded and all thing restored to the uttermost, so that every man may perceive that your gracious and Christian mind is everywhere ready to help, succour and comfort them that be afflicted, troubled and vexed, and that not only in word and tongue, but even after the saying of St John.