We examined, also, partially before dinner and partially after, a new matter, that the Lady Anne of Cleves should be delivered of a fair boy, and whose should it be but the King's Majesty's [Henry VIII], and gotten when she was at Hampton Court; which is a most abominable slander, and for this time, and the case in ure, as we think, most necessary to be met with all.
On the beginning of the Privy Council's investigation into a rumour that Anne of Cleves had given birth to a son fathered by Henry VIII. This occured in November 1541, at the same time as the investigation into Katheryn Howard, which this letter also discusses.
Excerpt from a letter to Sir Anthony Browne and Sir Ralph Sadler, written by the Privy Council — Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Cantebury; Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor; Robert Radclyffe, 1st Earl of Sussex; Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford; Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk; William Fitzwilliam, 1st Earl of Southampton; and Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Secretary of State (in whose handwriting this letter is written).
State papers published under the authority of His Majesty's Commission. Volume I. King Henry the Eighth. Parts I. and II., published 1830.
