The motto most commonly associated with Anne Boleyn is the one she adopted for her Coronation in 1533: The Moost Happi or La Plus Heureuse. Anne’s Coronation was likely the happiest and most exciting moment of her life, and by choosing this motto, she declared to the world that she was – and aspired to remain – the happiest and luckiest queen. However, knowing what followed, with Anne’s execution almost three years later, there is an undeniable poignancy attached to this phrase.

My personal favourite motto attributed to Anne is Ainsi sera groigne qui groigne, meaning Let them grumble; that is how it is going to be. Anne adopted this motto in 1530, likely in response to the growing unrest surrounding her rise in status as Henry VIII’s prospective queen. Historian Eric Ives suggests that Anne may have drawn inspiration for the phrase from Margaret of Austria, whose court she had spent time in as a young girl.¹

While Anne eventually replaced this motto with the more regal The Moost Happi, I favourite Ainsi sera groigne qui groigne due to the fact that it offers a glimpse into her personality. Its bold defiance and cheeky tone reflects Anne’s wit and determination. This attitude is further emphasised in the visual representation of the motto: a white falcon, symbolising Anne, pecking at a pomegranate, a well-known emblem of Katherine of Aragon. The falcon perches on a tree stump from which red and white roses grow – perhaps a symbolic promise of fertility and the birth of a long-awaited son for Henry VIII.

[Image of Elizabeth Boleyn’s Embroidery]²

There is also some debate surrounding whether Semper Eadem (meaning Always the same) was ever one of Anne’s mottos. However, I could not find any primary evidence to support this attribution. Instead, the idea seems to have originated from secondary sources. The earliest reference to Semper Eadem being linked to Anne appears in a front-page illustration in The Mirror of the Sinful Soul.³ Sylvia Barbara Soberton further clarifies this in her work, noting that “the first reference to Semper Eadem as Anne Boleyn’s motto comes from the illustration in Percy W. Ame’s book. It was cited by Marc Shell (1993), then by Sheila Cavanagh (1998), Mary Hill Cole (2004) and so on until today.”⁴ Over time, this association has gained traction despite a lack of contemporary evidence. It is likely a simple mix-up, especially as Semper Eadem was famously used by Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth I.

[Image of The Mirror of the Sinful Soul]⁵

1. Ives, Eric William. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: “The Most Happy,” Blackwell, Malden, Mass, 2006, p. 142. ↩︎
2. “Elizabeth Boleyn’s Embroidery c.1530.” Sulky Best, https://www.sukybest.com/elizabeth-boleyns-embroidery-c-1530/ ↩︎
3. Ames, Percy W. The Mirror of the Sinful Soul: A Prose Translation from the French of a Poem by Queen Margaret of Navarre, Asher and Co, 1897. ↩︎
4. Soberton, Sylvia Barbara. “Was ‘Semper Eadem’ Really Anne Boleyn’s Motto?” Tudor Notes with Sylvia Barbara Soberton, 4 Dec. 2024, https://thetudors.substack.com/p/was-semper-eadem-really-anne-boleyns?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1U1Go_FwnXaJ82-INHsH7VzH35I6ic8r8PnpfgIo90hMZAr9BzMLmzujs_aem_m4DT_XMmLwUnLP1nZy1eOQ ↩︎
5. Ames, Percy W. The Mirror of the Sinful Soul: A Prose Translation from the French of a Poem by Queen Margaret of Navarre, Asher and Co, 1897. ↩︎