Did Anne Boleyn have six fingers?
Almost certainly not. The claim originates in hostile propaganda written decades after her execution, and nothing in the contemporary record supports it — which makes it a useful case study in how physical deformity was used as political and religious attack.
Where the story comes from. Nicholas Sander, a Catholic polemicist writing in exile around 1585 — nearly fifty years after Anne's death in 1536 — described her as having a projecting tooth, a large wen under her chin, and a sixth finger on her right hand. Sander never met her and was writing a work intended to discredit the English Reformation by discrediting the woman who occasioned it.
Why deformity specifically. In the period, physical irregularity was widely interpreted as a sign of moral corruption or of witchcraft — accusations levelled at Anne during her trial. Attributing a sixth finger was not an observation; it was an argument.
What contemporaries actually recorded. Hostile observers, including the Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys — who detested her and wrote about her constantly — never mention any deformity. Descriptions of her focus on dark eyes, a long neck, an olive complexion and considerable charm and wit rather than conventional beauty. Someone that closely watched by that many enemies would not have gone unremarked.
The plausible kernel. A contemporary account mentions a small additional nail or a slight growth on one finger, which may have been elaborated. It is also possible the entire detail was invented.
What the examination of remains suggested. A Victorian exhumation at the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula reported nothing unusual about the hands, though such examinations were not rigorous by modern standards.
Why it persists. It is memorable, it appears in popular fiction and drama repeatedly, and it fits a durable narrative of Anne as a sinister figure — which is precisely the narrative Sander was constructing.
The broader pattern is worth noticing. Physical slander of politically inconvenient women recurs constantly across periods, and is frequently repeated later as though it were description.