07/07/2026
Did you know you can currently see Anne Boleyn’s extraordinary 1534 medal on display? Normally kept in conservation storage by the British Museum and only rarely exhibited, it is currently on public display in ‘Capturing a Queen’ at Hever Castle. It is the only uncontested contemporary likeness of Anne Boleyn to survive.
It’s also the image we have chosen to inspire the new memorial to Anne at St Peter’s Church, Hever. Why? Because this is the closest we can come to seeing Anne as she wished to be seen.
Created in 1534, the medal was almost certainly produced with royal authority, and very likely with Anne’s own approval. This wasn’t simply a portrait. It was a carefully crafted statement of queenship. 1534 was one of the defining years of Anne’s life. It saw the passing of the Acts of Succession and Supremacy, legislation that reshaped both the English monarchy and the Church. At the centre of these momentous events, Anne’s image projected legitimacy, authority and confidence.
Anne is shown wearing the jewels of an English queen, including the distinctive consort’s necklace worn by Henry VIII’s queens, together with richly jewelled habiliments on her headdress. Rather than the French hood so often associated with her, Anne wears English dress, while the jewelled tau cross at her neck reinforces the image of a pious and legitimate queen.
Although the medal has suffered damage over the centuries, sculptor Lucy Churchill painstakingly reconstructed Anne’s likeness from the surviving object. More recently, historian Roland Hui highlighted a remarkable Victorian sketch made before the medal was damaged, providing compelling confirmation of just how accurately Lucy had recovered details that have since been lost.
It is Lucy’s beautiful reconstruction that now forms the basis of the memorial at St Peter’s Church, allowing Anne to be remembered through the image she herself almost certainly authorised nearly five centuries ago.
If you would like to support our fundraising for the memorial to Anne Boleyn at St Peter’s Church, Hever, then do check out our website, here: https://anneboleynmemorial.co.uk/
Thank you!
