Good Morning To You, My Gentle Friends,

As a Groom of the Chamber, Sir Anthony Denny attended the Reception of Anne of Cleves at Court, and shortly thereafter, the King confided to him his disappointment in the new Queen. Denny was sent abroad several times to pay money to English soldiers or Ambassadors, and served with one hundred forty or one hundred eighty men in the expedition which resulted in the capture of Boulogne in 1544, receivng a Knighthood for his services. According to Ascham's eulogy, delivered as public orator at Cambridge, Denny's whole time was occupied by religion, learning and afffairs of state; as to the last, his part under Henry VIII was probably limited to private discussion with the King. Foxe named him with Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer and the Royal Physician, William Butts, as a supporter of Protestantism who influenced the King. It was to Denny and the Royal Physician, William Butts, that Richard Morrice wrote in 1544 {defendign the case of Master Richard Turner, preacher, against the papists", and to Denny that Thomas Cranmer in 1546 sent the "letters of reformation" of religion for the King's signature.

Sir Anthony Denny was present at Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine Parr on July 12, 1543, in the Queen's Closet at Hampton Court, which was presided over by Bishop Stephen Gardiner. In the last two years of the King's life, he was one of the three men who regularly witnessed the signing of bills and documents with the King's stamp, himself preferring many of the bills at the instance of suitors. A witness and an executor of Henry VIII's Will, Sir Anthony Denny received a legacy of three hundre pounds, which was not paid until 1550, after his own death.

Lady Denny was one of the female Courtiers that Wriothesley, Gardiner, et al wre trying to implicate in their interrogations and torune of Anne Askew. Obviously, both Sir Anthony Denny and Lady Denny were deeply intwined with the Reformed religion.

In Diarmaid MacCullough's book, "Thomas Cranmer", it is related how it was Sir Anthony Denny who was sent in secret by Henry to warn Thomas Cranmer and summon him to Henry's presence so Henry could warn him about the Privy Councillors' plan to present heresy charges on Thomas Cranmer and give him the King's ring for protection ( this was when Henry was playing both sides of the coin: he granted permission for the Council to proceed against Thomas Cranmer, then warned Thomas Cranmer of the danger and gave him the ring to save himself; Sir Anthony Denny was also apparently the one who informed the King of his impending death on his death bed. The last service that he performed for Henry VIII is thus described by Foxe:

"( The King's ) physicians . . . nto daring to discourage him with death for fear of the Act passed before in Parliament that none should speak anything of the King's death . . . moved them that were about the King to put him in remembrance of his mortal state and fatal infirmityp which when the rest were in dread to do Master Denny . . . boldly coming to the King told him what case he was in, to man's judgment not lifekely to live, and therefore exhorted him to prepare himself to death . . ."

Sir Anthony Denny was described by the Imperial Ambassador in 1547 as the most trusted of all of the Gentlemen of the Chamber. He rode with the Queen's brother-in-law, Sir William Herbert, in the carriage with henry VIII's body at his funeral, and teh two men were the pall-bearers at Edward VI's Coronation; they were also deponents with Sir William Paget as to the late King's intended awards of land and honours. Sir Anthony Denny's court connexion and his standing in Hertfordshire ensured his election as first Knight of the Shire for his county in 1547. On February 12, 1549, he was one of those appointed by the Commons to try a petition brought by private bill against Sir Nicholas Hare. He atended Privy Council meetings regularly in 1547 and 1548. He served in Northampton's expedition against Ket and the Norfolk rebels in August of 1549, among his companions on this occasion being his fellow-knight for Hertfordshire and his successor, Sir Ralph Rowlett and Sir Henry Parker respectively, as well as his brother-in-law, Sir John Gates.

Princess Elizabeth spent much of her early life at Cheshunt or at Hatfield, where Sir Anthony Denny was Keeper. Kate Ashley, Sir Denny's wife's sister, was Governess to Princess Elizabeth. After the death of Henry VIII, Princess Elizabeth went to live with Queen Dowager Catherine, but left her household after an incident with the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour, who was now Catherine's husband. Just what occurred will never be known for sure, but rumours at the time suggested that Catherine had caught them kissing or perhaps even in bed together. Catherine was pregnant at the time of the incident, and Elizabeth was sent from May to october of 1548 to Cheshunt, the house of Sir Anthony Denny. Elizabeth Jenkins, in her book "Elizaeth The Great", tells how sir Anthony Denny broke the news of the Lord Admiral's, Thomas Seymour, arrest. Sir Anthony Denny was the one to arrest Thomas Parry and Kate Ashley after interviewing Princess Eoizabeth at Hatfield.

Sir Anthony Denny died on September 10, 1559, and was probably buried at Cheshunt. A codicil states that his Will, made four years earlier, was read over to him "lying sick but of good mind and memory" on September 07th. His death was probably from natural causes, for none of the verse epitaphs contains any reference to wounds such as mught have been received in the fighting around Norwich a month earlier. Almost half of the Will, drawn up on August 03, 1545, consists of a homily on religion and education. The widow was to take care in bringing uup the children, who were all minors at the time, the eldest son Henry being nearly ten years old at his father's death, and to see them well educated, so that "the commonwealth may find them profitable members and not burdens as idle drones be to the hives". Marriages planned by Sir Anthony Denny for two of his children, and mentioned in the Will to a daughter of Thomas, Baron Audley, and a son of Sir Richard Rich did not take place. Each of Sir Anthony Denny's sons was to have twenty pounds and each daughter twenty marks, annually during their minoorityp the daughters were also to receive legacies of six hundred marks each. The lands were disposed of in a testament made on September 07, 1549; apart from some left to the widow for life, most were entailed on his legitimate sons. The other son, William Denny, received a twenty pound annuity. Edward VI was to have a "token or device" worth fifty pounds, "some such thing apt for a learned King". Lady Denny and Richard Morrison were named as Executors and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Rich and William Paulet, Baron St. John, Supervisors.

Sir Anthony Denny's sister married William Walsingham and was the mother of Elizabeth's minister, Sir Francis Walsingham, while Sir Anthony Denny was himself a friend of her tutor, Roger Ascham, and of her first Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker.