Henry viii and anne boleyn, The letters, penned by the King in 1527 when he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, reveal him to be besotted with the woman who would eventually become his second wife.
The private correspondence is among tens of thousands of Tudor documents which will be made available on the internet this week.
The documents, which are known as the State Papers and which were collected by the all-powerful Secretaries of State, provide a unique insight into key historical events such as the Reformation, the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the execution of Anne Boleyn.
In one letter to Anne Boleyn, dated 1527, Henry VIII writes: “I beg to know expressly your intention touching the love between us. Necessity compels me to obtain this answer, having been more than a year wounded by the dart of love, and not yet sure whether I shall fail or find a place in your affection.”
The love-struck King later writes: “Although my mistress, you have not been pleased to remember your promise when I was last with you, too let me hear news of you, and have an answer to my last, I thought it the part of a true servant to inquire after his mistresse’s health.
"I also send by the bearer a buck killed by me last night, hoping when you eat of it you will think of the hunter. Written by the hand of your servant.”
The Secretaries of State corresponded with fellow nobles, bishops and foreign heads of state, as well as their own spies both at home and abroad.
Their documentation, which had previously only been available in archives, provides a vivid account of life in one of the most chaotic and bloody periods of English history.
The State Papers Online database will be launched on Tuesday as part of a unique project between the National Archives in Kew and the IT specialist Gale/Cengage Learning.
Amanda Bevan, principal records specialist at the National Archives, said: "All human life is in these documents and we expect the online service to be very popular.
"It will transform the way people research the period because they will no longer have to visit the archive where the material was held. They can access it at the touch of a button.
"It is amazing how many people here and overseas are interested in Tudor and Elizabethan England. This period saw the expansion of Empire, and the history of countries like America and those former colonies which were part of the British Empire is bound up with this period."
Visitors to the site, which goes live on Tuesday 18 November, can draw up material by typing any word into its search engine. Key royal documents include those relating to the funeral of Henry VII and the succession of Henry VIII, love letters from Henry VIII, and the Dispensation by Archbishop Cranmer which allowed Henry VIII to marry Jane Seymour, who became his third wife.
The papers also include an account of an allegation by Sir Thomas Gebons, a priest, that Sir Rauf Wendon called Anne Boleyn a whore and a harlot on St George Day 1533.
A letter from the Earl of Derby to Henry VIII, dated August 10, 1533, refers to "the arrest of a lewd and naughty priest inhabiting these parts who has spoken slanderous words about your Highness and the Queen's grace".
Sir John Haworth says he heard Sir Jams Harrison, the priest concerned, say that Queen Katharine should be Queen, "and as for Nan Bullen [a popular nickname for Anne Boleyn] who the Devil made her Queen?"
Henry VIII's reputation as a ladies' man seems to have been established early on. The archive contains an undated letter described by a nineteenth century historian as "from one Eleanor Trey, a married woman to a person unnamed, but seemingly Prince Henry, who she acknowledges to love much better than her husband".
The archive also contains two "short ballettes" which Sir Thomas More wrote in 1534 while a prisoner in the Tower of London, entitled Lewys, the Lost Lover and Davey, the Dyceer.
The King's near-absolute power over his subjects, including those of noble birth, is illustrated in a letter from Lord Paget, dated November 1552, in which the peer bid permission to be admitted to the King's presence so he could kiss his feet and avoid a potentially crippling fine of £8,000.
The letters also pay testament to the power of the Church before and after the Reformation. Richard Hun, at Fulham was accused of heresy on December 2, 1514, after it was alleged that he spoke against paying tithes, defamed the clergy, defended heretical opinions of Joan Baker and possessed prohibited books such as the Apocalypse, Epistles and Gospels in English.
Many of the problems faced by the inhabitants of Tudor England, which included crime, domestic violence and rising taxation, would appear familiar today.
In 1527, R.O. Ferdinando Rodericus described how on "9 November last as he was coming from a goldsmith's he was lured by a maid into the house of Francis Borowe, a milliner in Abchurch Lane next door to the said goldsmith's, where he was assaulted, wounded and covered with tar and filth by the said Francis and others and robbed of his cap and money. Lay at the point of death for 30 days after."
There is also a complaint from Richard Dane that he was being "dangerously beaten" by fellow domestic servant Edward Bowker, and instructions to John Dummeryght to stop beating and threatening his wife.
There are dozens of documents covering the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. There is an examination of Pedro de Valdez who was taken captive in the conflict, a series of Latin verses written to celebrate the English victory, and reports on the activities of a "Dutchman who has gone into England as a spy, who lacks a finger on his left hand".
State Papers Online, which is launched on Tuesday, contains thousands of original documents as well as summaries and translations known as calendars which were compiled in the nineteenth century.
At the moment only the papers for the period 1509 to 1603 are available. But by 2010 the site will be expanded to cover the years leading up to 1714.
The site contains many of the original documents together with the calendars which were translations and summaries completed in the nineteenth century.
Some of the documents including the love letters are only available in the form of calendars.
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