During the reign of Anne Boleyn's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, a Catholic writer, Nicholas Sander, wrote a description of the long-dead Anne Boleyn, describing her as having a projecting tooth, a large "wen" (mole or goiter) under her chin and six fingers on her right hand.
She was described during her lifetime as not particularly beautiful, with a long neck and large eyes. Some evidence is that she had a small growth on her right hand near the nail, and that may have served as the basis of the rumor of her six-fingered hand.
This is another myth of women's history which is unlikely to be true. There is a lack of evidence during her lifetime. There is also an interest in discrediting Anne, for the author of the first appearance in print of the charge. A Catholic would have had reason to try to discredit the queen consort of Henry VIII for whom Henry broke with the Roman Catholic church in order to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
