Was 'Semper eadem' really Anne Boleyn's motto?

Fact-checking history.

It is widely believed among Tudor scholars that the motto Semper Eadem, meaning “Always the same”, which Elizabeth I frequently used throughout her reign, was “inherited” from Anne Boleyn and adopted by Elizabeth as a tribute to her executed mother.[1] However, as this article is going to show, there is no evidence that the motto had links with Anne Boleyn. Rather, it was coined specifically for Elizabeth to align with her image as the steadfast and unchangeable sovereign.

The theory that Elizabeth I rarely spoke about her executed mother in public, first posited by Dr David Starkey, has been debunked by several scholars over the years. Elizabeth had not only defended Anne Boleyn’s good name but invoked Anne’s presence during her coronation in January 1559 and during her first Parliament that assembled the following month, restoring Anne to the dignity of queen.

Elizabeth’s relationship with Anne has been studied by such celebrated scholars as Mary Hill Cole, Carole Levin, Susan Doran, Helen Hackett, Anna Riehl Bertolet and Tracy Borman.[2] Mary Hill Cole wrote in her 2004 essay about Anne and Elizabeth:

“Elizabeth incorporated other symbols of her mother into her own panoply of royal references. She claimed Anne's motto, semper eadem ("always the same"), and made it her own throughout her reign (Cavanagh 21). In that mother-daughter context, the motto offered an expression of loyalty and constancy that placed Anne Boleyn in the symbolic center of her daughter's monarchy.” [3]

This view has been adopted by many scholars since. However, during my research of Anne Boleyn’s life, I have never seen a contemporary evidence, either written or visual, that links Anne with the Semper Eadem motto. Historians often cite one another in a circular manner, leading to instances where references to the motto Semper Eadem belonging to Anne are derived from secondary sources rather than being directly substantiated by primary evidence.

Here’s an example. To prove that Semper Eadem motto belonged to Anne Boleyn, Mary Hill Cole quotes Sheila Cavanagh's essay entitled "Princess Elizabeth and the Seymour Incident" in Dissing Elizabeth. Negative Representations of Gloriana (1998). Cavanagh on the other hand cites Marc Shell’s 1993 book Elizabeth's Glass With "The Glass of the Sinful Soul" (1544) by Elizabeth I, and "Epistle Dedicatory" & "Conclusion" (1548) by John Bale. In his book, Shell reproduced the same illustration that can be found in the 1897 edition of Marguerite of Navarre’s The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, published from Elizabeth’s 1544 translation of the original poem - the book was published and edited by Percy W. Ames.[4]

I was curious why Ames included the illustration of Anne’s falcon badge with the Semper Eadem motto, describing it as a motto adopted by Elizabeth. Ames reproduced Elizabeth’s translation of Marguerite of Navarre’s Mirror of the Sinful Soul, so the next step in my investigation was to see if Anne’s badge or Semper Eadem motto appears in Elizabeth’s original translation. Elizabeth’s book was a New Year’s gift for Katherine Parr in 1544. It was digitised in 2022 and can be found in the Bodleian Library as MS. Cherry 36. There is no falcon badge or the Semper Eadem motto inside, as indicated by Percy W. Ames’s 1897 publication.

To my best knowledge, the first reference to Semper Eadem as Anne Boleyn’s motto comes from the illustration in Percy W. Ames’s 1897 book. It was cited by Marc Shell (1993), then by Sheila Cavanagh (1998), Mary Hill Cole (2004) and so on until today.

I haven’t seen this type of visual evidence in primary sources, however. This leads me to conclude that Semper Eadem was never Anne Boleyn’s motto.

An illustration from Percy W. Ames’s 1897 book

Elizabeth I’s ‘Semper Eadem’

An example of Elizabeth I using her Semper Eadem motto in a poem by Georges de la Motthe to Elizabeth I, Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS. Fr.e.1

The best reasoning behind the Semper Eadem motto adopted by Elizabeth I comes from William Camden, the first biographer of the Queen, who wrote:

“The Protestants Religion being now by authority of Parliament established, Queene Elizabeth’s first and chiefest care was for the most constant defence thereof, against all the practises of all men amidst the enemies in that behalfe, neither indeed did she ever suffer the least innovation therein. Her second care was to hold an even course in her whole life, and all her actions; whereupon she tooke for her Motto, semper eadem, that is, always the same.”[7]

Camden associates Elizabeth's motto Semper Eadem with her commitment to constancy, emphasizing that she embraced it as a deliberate policy rather than as a tribute to Anne Boleyn.

In the absence of any written or visual evidence indicating that Anne Boleyn used the Semper Eadem motto, it must be regarded as an attribution based on later interpretations rather than historical fact. This highlights the importance of distinguishing between primary sources and subsequent layers of historical analysis.

Sources:

[1] Andrew Hiscock, 'The Many Labours of Mourning a Virgin Queenp' in Memory and Mortality in Renaissance England, eds. Grant Williams, Rory Loughnane, William E. Engel, p. 227.

[2] Mary Hill Cole, “Maternal memory: Elizabeth Tudor’s Anne Boleyn”, in Elizabeth I and the “Sovereign Arts”: Essays in Literature, History, and Culture, ed. Donald Stump, Linda Schenk, and Carole Levin, pp. 6-10, Helen Hackett, “Anne Boleyn’s Legacy to Elizabeth I: Neoclassicism and the Iconography of Protestant Queenship”, in Queens Matter in Early Modern Studies, Anna Riehl Bertolet (ed.), pp. 157-180, and Tracy Borman, Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History.

[3] Mary Hill Cole, "Maternal Memory: Elizabeth Tudor's Anne Boleyn", p. 48.

[4] Julia M. Walker, ed. Dissing Elizabeth. Negative Representations of Gloriana, p. 21.

[5] Marc Shell, Elizabeth's Glass With "The Glass of the Sinful Soul" (1544) by Elizabeth I, and "Epistle Dedicatory" & "Conclusion" (1548) by John Bale, p. 17.

[6] Percy W. Ames, ed. The Mirror of the Sinful Soul. A Prose Translation from the French of a Poem by Queen Margaret of Navarre, Made in 1544 by the Princess (Afterwards Queen) Elizabeth, Then Eleven Years of Age, p. 1.

[7] William Camden, Annales Or, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princesse Elizabeth, Late Queen of England, p. 20.