Was Thomas Wyatt Anne Boleyn's cousin?

Question

I read on Wikipedia that Thomas Wyatt was Anne Boleyn's cousin. Is this true? I thought he was in love with her...wouldn't that be a little creepy if they were cousins?

Answer 1

No he wasn't her cousin. As you say they were lovers and I think this just proves the innacuracy of some of Wikipedias articles and unreliable contributors.

Answer 2

hello

In the 1530s, Thomas Wyatt  wrote poetry in the Devonshire MS declaring his love for a woman; the first letter on each line spelt out SHELTUN. A reply is written underneath it, signed by Mary Shelton, rejecting him.

Mary, Anne Boleyn's first cousin, had been the mistress of Henry VIII between February and August 1535.

And this is where the confusion arose ... he loved two cousins ... not being in any way related to them

Answer 3

"The relationship between Anne Boleyn and Thomas Wyatt, Tudor poet, is still fiercely debated. There is a strong tradition, both from Catholic sources and from George Wyatt, Thomas' grandson, that Wyatt was one of Anne's admirers; her enemies and detractors have often alleged an affair between the two, and Wyatt was one of those arrested in May 1536. He was, however, never charged and soon released. The earliest version of the recusant tradition seems to date from Mary I's reign, when Nicholas Harpsfield alleged an affair between the two of which Wyatt informed the king when he intended to marry Anne. (Harpsfield claims that Wyatt was told by Henry not to mention the matter to anyone; a rather atypical reaction, given his reaction to Katheryn Howard's premarital promiscuity!) The Wyatt tradition, however, is firm that Anne never responded to the poet's affection improperly."

Answer 4

He was just her lover, look:

Around 1520, he married Lord Cobham's daughter Elizabeth Brooke.  She bore him a son, Thomas Wyatt Jr., in 1521.  He became popular at court, and carried out several foreign missions for King Henry VIII, and also served various offices at home.

Around 1525, Wyatt separated from his wife, charging her with adultery; it is also the year from which his interest in Anne Boleyn probably dates. He accompanied Sir Thomas Cheney on a diplomatic mission to France in 1526 and Sir John Russell to Venice and the papal court in Rome in 1527. He was made High Marshal of Calais (1528-1530) and Commissioner of the Peace of Essex in 1532. Also in 1532, Wyatt accompanied King Henry and Anne Boleyn, who was by then the King's mistress, on their visit to Calais. Anne Boleyn married the King in January 1533, and Wyatt served in her coronation in June.

Wyatt was knighted in 1535, but in 1536 he was imprisoned in the Tower for quarreling with the Duke of Suffolk, and possibly also because he was suspected of being one of Anne Boleyn's lovers. During this imprisonment Wyatt witnessed the execution of Anne Boleyn on May 19, 1536 from the Bell Tower, and wrote V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides Circumdederunt me inimici mei.  He was released later that year.