Anne Boleyn’s wiles altered world history. She led King Henry VIII to leave the Catholic church, and gave birth to the formidable Queen Elizabeth I—but not before she arrived in the French courts of Henry VIII’s sister Queen Mary and her successor, Queen Claude. A chair that Boleyn may have used during this critical but little-understood era in her life has just resurfaced, recently going on view at an exhibition at Hever Castle through January.

Paul Fitzsimmons of Devon-based Marhamchurch Antiques snapped up this intricately carved wooden seat from an online American auction in 2022, for an undisclosed sum. “I knew it was something special,” said Fitzsimmons, who also sniffed out a wooden bird formerly belonging to Boleyn five years ago, in press materials. “The craftsmanship and symbolism immediately suggested a connection to the French Renaissance court.”

Fitzsimmons recruited Philadelphia-based author and historian Sandra Vasoli to help lead academic inquiry into his newfound seat. The oak object’s shape and ornamentation, particularly its linenfold carving, helped experts trace the piece back to the Loire Valley, that epicenter of Renaissance France, circa 1510 to 1520. That’s precisely when Boleyn would have been there.

A closeup view of the chair’s carvings. Photo courtesy of Marhamchurch Antiques

Meanwhile, the walnut seat’s bas-relief carvings caught Vasoli’s eye. There, two dolphins—symbolizing the French throne’s heir apparent—hoist a classic Tudor rose. Above it, two Late Gothic-Renaissance putti brandish a shield emblazoned with the initials AB. A cordelière emblematic of Queen Claude’s court snakes through these letters, altogether pointing to Boleyn.

“What makes this chair so compelling is the remarkable convergence of evidence embedded in its carvings,” Vasoli said in a statement. She thinks the chair celebrates England and France’s 1518 Treaty of Eternal Peace.

The Hever “Rose” Portrait, dated 1583. Photo: © Hever Castle.

But, France was not Boleyn’s first stop. About a year before her arrival, Boleyn’s father, a diplomat, sent her to live and study at the court of Margaret of Austria, governor of the Hapsburg Netherlands. Boleyn’s spirit impressed Margaret, even though she was just a preteen—or younger.

In 1514, at her father’s arrangement, Boleyn went straight from present-day Brussels to France, where she served as a maid of honor to the 18-year-old Mary Tudor, who briefly became Queen of France after her marriage to the 52-year-old King Louis XII, months before his death. Then, Boleyn became lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude. In France, she learned how to dance, dress, enjoy courtly love, and more. By the time she debuted at the court of King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, Boleyn had fashioned herself into a catch.

Her beauty, however, still sparks speculation. Henry VIII allegedly had every portrait of her destroyed after her death. Some survivors have been altered to combat claims she was a witch or legitimize Elizabeth I’s right to the throne. Nevertheless, Kate McCaffrey, who co-curated the current exhibition expanding Boleyn’s legacy, has noted it was “charisma, wit, and intelligence” that made Boleyn hot—not her face or body. The arrival of Boleyn’s suspected seat at Hever Castle further diverts attention from her looks. Research into the chair remains ongoing.