Valentine’s hop through history

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I really wanted to write something very special and very new for this event, but life had other plans for me.

So – I thought I would share Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poem that inspired my first novel, Dear Heart, How Like You This?, and my favourite love letter written by Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn.

If you would like to go into the draw for a kindle edition of Dear Heart, How Like You This?, please share with us your favourite love poem. Want a second chance to go into the draw? Just follow me here! Winner announced February 22nd!

By Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder:

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
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And now for Henry VIII:

MY MISTRESS & FRIEND, my heart and I surrender ourselves into your hands, beseeching you to hold us commended to your favour, and that by absence your affection to us may not be lessened: for it were a great pity to increase our pain, of which absence produces enough and more than I could ever have thought could be felt, reminding us of a point in astronomy which is this: the longer the days are, the more distant is the sun, and nevertheless the hotter; so is it with our love, for by absence we are kept a distance from one another, and yet it retains its fervour, at least on my side; I hope the like on yours, assuring you that on my part the pain of absence is already too great for me; and when I think of the increase of that which I am forced to suffer, it would be almost intolerable, but for the firm hope I have of your unchangeable affection for me: and to remind you of this sometimes, and seeing that I cannot be personally present with you, I now send you the nearest thing I can to that, namely, my picture set in a bracelet, with the whole of the device, which you already know, wishing myself in their place, if it should please you.

This is from the hand of your loyal servant and friend,

H.R.

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For other great give-aways, please also visit these Hop Participants

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Darcyholic Diversions (Barbara Tiller Cole)

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Lauren Gilbert

Regina Jeffers

Ginger Myrick

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Fall in love with history (Grace Elliot)

Nancy Bilyeau

E.M. Powell

Georgie Lee

The Riddle of Writing (Deborah Swift)

Outtakes from a Historical Novelist (Kim Rendfeld)

The heart of romance (Sherry Gloag)

A day in the life of patootie (Lori Crane)

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Dunhaven Place (Heidi Ashworth)

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