Bridget Wingfield – the woman whose dying words condemned Anne Boleyn

Bridget Wingfield – the woman whose dying words condemned Anne Boleyn

There is a letter in the British Archives written by Anne Boleyn to a female friend.
This friend was Lady Bridget Wingfield.

This letter was produced at Anne Boleyn’s trial, and a single phrase was taken as proof of Anne’s adultery, incest and conspiracy against the king.

“And therefore, I pray you leave your indiscreet
trouble, both for displeasing of God and also for
displeasing of me…”

To our modern eyes, this phrase is hardly conclusive evidence, but Anne’s enemies needed little to convince them of the queen’s guilt.

Lady Wingfield reportedly made a deathbed confession about her former friend Anne Boleyn.
Suspiciously, no record survives as to what that confession may have been – or if it even existed.

Lady Wingfield died at least two years before Anne’s trial, so she could not defend herself – or refute the interpretation the prosecution placed on the Queen’s written words.

So who was the woman whose dying words condemned Anne Boleyn to the exEcutioner’s blade?

Lady Wingfield was born Bridget Wiltshire, sometime in the late 1490s.
Her father Sir John Wiltshire was Lord of Stone Castle, a manor close to the Boleyn family’s estate at Hever.

Bridget’s first position at court was as lady-in-waiting to Katharine of Aragon.

In 1520 Bridget was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold, the sumptuous meeting of Henry VIII and the French King, held near Calais.

Bridget’s husband Sir Richard Wingfield, was the Lord Deputy.

Bridget married Sir Richard Wingfield, in 1513.

He was the widower of Catherine Woodville, the younger sister of Edward IV’s queen consort Elizabeth Woodville.
Bridget bore him ten children in twelve years.

Sir Richard died in 1525, and Bridget then married Sir Nicholas Hervey, by whom she had another six children.

Sir Nicholas was ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was the nephew of Katharine of Aragon.

Sir Nicholas was an ally of the Boleyns, and after Katharine of Aragon’s demise, Bridget became lady-of-the-bedchamber to Anne Boleyn.

Judging by Anne’s letter, she and Bridget became close friends.

Sir Nicholas died in 1532, and later that year in October, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII stopped to visit Bridget’s home on their way to Calais.

Henry and Anne stayed with Bridget again on their return trip in November.
However, there seems to have been an unpleasant altercation between the two women.

It was only a couple of months after the death of Bridget’s husband, yet Bridget had already married Sir Robert Tyrwhitt.

Unfortunately Anne heartily disapproved of her friend’s new husband, and Bridget left court as a result.

Bridget died sometime in 1534, after giving birth to twins named Joan and Arthur – but not before Anne had attempted a reconciliation through her infamous letter.

Anne’s letter to Bridget was written after 1525 when Anne’s father still held the title Viscount Rochford, hence Anne’s signature.

“I pray you as you love me, to give credence to my
servant this bearer, touching your removing and any
thing else that he shall tell you on my behalf.
For I will desire you to do nothing but that shall be
for your wealth.

Madam, though at all time I have not showed the
love that I bear you as much as it was in deed, yet
now I trust that you shall well prove that I loved you
a great deal more than I fair for.

Assuredly, next mine own mother I know no woman
alive that I love better, and at length, with God’s
grace, you shall prove that it is unfeigned.

I trust you do know me for such a one that I will
write nothing to comfort you in your trouble but I will
abide by it as long as I live.

Therefore I pray you leave your indiscreet trouble,
both for displeasing of God and also for displeasing
of me, that doth love you so entirely.

Tusting in God that you will thus do, I make an end.

With the ill hand of Your own assured friend during
my life,
Anne Rochford.”

There has been much speculation as to what it was that Anne objected to in Bridget’s last husband.

It’s possible that Anne felt Bridget had remarried too soon, or that her friend had been ‘intimate’ with Sir Robert whilst Sir Nicholas was still alive.

Robert Tyrwhitt was not a fan of Anne, and was known to be close to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
Charles Brandon’s wife Mary – Henry VIII’s younger sister – also loathed the Boleyns.

We only know that Bridget’s “indiscrete trouble” was upsetting to Anne, and she saw it as sinful – but she wanted Bridget to know she still cared for her.

Whatever the reason for Bridget and Anne falling out, nothing more is heard of Bridget after January 1534, when she was among those sent a royal gift to celebrate New Year.

Two years later, during Anne Boleyn’s trial, testimony was given that Bridget had given a confession about Anne Boleyn whilst on her deathbed.

What that testimony was we do not know, because the records of Anne’s trial have vanished.

Anne’s letter to Bridget ended up in Cromwell’s papers – of course.

There has been much debate over what Bridget could have confessed …
Possibly she saw of Anne and Henry’s sexual intimacy during their stay in her home on the visit to Calais.

On the return trip, Anne and Henry were likely already married, so they may have shared a bed beneath Bridget’s roof.

If Bridget was not aware of the secret marriage, she may have thought Anne was fornicating with an adulterer.

What is most likely, that it was simply a spat between two women, that got blown out of all proportion.

Then when Thomas Cromwell and his spies were looking for anything to pile on in their charges against Anne, this letter ‘fell’ into his hands.

Today, Bridget’s relatives are still close to the crown.

Bridget is King Charles 16 x great aunt and the late Lady Diana Spencer’s 14 x great aunt!

🏵 Anne Boleyn.