History, Allegedly

The Library › Reel III · The Pomegranate Society

Did Anne Boleyn have six fingers?

There is no good evidence. The six-finger story first circulated in 1585, in a book by Nicholas Sander, a Catholic exile hostile to the Reformation who never met her and wanted to blacken the name of Elizabeth I’s mother. George Wyatt, writing decades later, mentioned at most a small malformation on one fingertip. No ambassador who described her ever mentioned an extra finger.

The receipts

  1. Tudor Myths: Anne Boleyn, Selly Manor Museum
  2. Question from Leigh: Anne Boleyn’s sixth finger, Tudor History (Lara Eakins)

The comedy version

The untold story of Henry VIII’s six wives, and the secret society he never knew he’d started.

Play The Pomegranate Society ☞

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