Today, I have some fascinating facts to share about the Boleyn family, a family close to my heart. These tidbits might surprise you and give you a deeper insight into their intriguing history.
Did you know that Anne Boleyn’s father inherited a unique family heirloom? Or that her mother was praised by a famous poet? There are also some mysteries about Mary Boleyn’s later years. Anne herself might have met a legendary figure during her time in France, and her brother George was celebrated for his talents. Jane Boleyn played a significant role in the lives of others, and Elizabeth I honoured her mother in some special ways…
Transcript:
I thought for a bit of fun this week I’d share some interesting facts about the Boleyn family, a family, as you know, who are close to my heart…
Did you know that Anne Boleyn’s father Thomas Boleyn inherited a special item from his maternal grandfather, Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormonde, the Ormonde ancestral horn, which was a gold tipped ivory horn with a gold-decorated white silk ribbon to support it. Historian Julia Fox explains that this horn was passed from father to son “to the honour of the same blood” through the generations. Thomas had inherited as his grandfather had only daughters, but then because George was executed in 1536, Thomas had to pass it on to his maternal cousin, George St Leger.
Did you know that Anne Boleyn’s mother Elizabeth Boleyn née Howard was praised before her marriage by poet John Skelton?. In a poem, “The Garland of Laurel”, which was addressed to various Howard women, he wrote in his verse to Elizabeth:
To be your remembrancer, madam, I am bound,
Like to Aryna, maidenly of port,
Of virtue and conning the well and perfect ground;
Whom dame Nature, as well I may report,
Hath freshly embeautied with many a goodly sort
Of womanly features, whose flourishing tender age
Is lusty to look on, pleasant, demure, and sage.
Good Creisseid, fairer than Polexene
For to envive Pandarus’ appetite;
Troilus, I trow, if that he had you seen,
In you he would have set his whole delight:
Of all your beauty I suffice not to write;
But, as I said, your flourishing tender age
Is lusty to look on, pleasant, demure, and sage.
Did you know that Mary Boleyn turned up at court in September 1534 visibly pregnant, following her secret marriage to William Stafford, but that we have no idea what happened to that baby? Although there are odd claims on some ancestry-type websites, the only children mentioned in the records are Catherine Carey, born in around 1524, and Henry Carey, born in 1526. We can only assume that Mary had a stillbirth or the baby died in early infancy.
Did you know that Anne Boleyn may well have met Leonardo da Vinci during her time in France? He resided at the Château Clos de Lucé in Amboise in the Loire family of France from 1516-1519, a stone’s throw from the Château d’Amboise where Queen Claude, who, was of course served by Anne Boleyn from 1515 to 1521, spent a lot of her time. Anne Boleyn must have at least seen da Vinci, mustn’t she?
Did you know that George Boleyn was a renowned poet. Cardinal Wolsey’s gentleman usher, George Cavendish, praised his skills and in 1575, Richard Smith listed him alongside poets such as Chaucer, Gower, Surrey, Gascoigne and Wyatt. Unfortunately, nothing attributed to him has survived, although Sir John Harington, later in the 16th century, believed that a poem called “The Lover complaineth the Unkindness of his Love” was written by George.
Did you know that Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, and her husband George Boleyn were granted the wardship of Edmund Sheffield, son of Sir Robert Sheffield, in 1533, and that Jane acted as a patron to scholar William Foster who was studying at King’s College, Cambridge?
Did you know that Elizabeth I, far from distancing herself from her mother, Anne Boleyn, made use of her mother’s falcon device? It appeared on virginals made in 1571 owned by Elizabeth, along with Elizabeth’s royal coat of arms, as well as on a fine linen damask napkin which also featured portraits of Elizabeth, an inscription Quene Elizabeth, a Tudor rose, and the words God save the Quene. Portraits of Anne were also painted during her reign and biographies or treatises praising her.
So there are a few Boleyn facts for you!
If you’re hungry to know more about the Boleyn family, I’m doing an 8-day online event in November on them. I’ll be covering:
- Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn, an ambitious and talented courtier and his noble lady
- Anne Boleyn, From a King’s Obsession to a Queen’s Downfall
- Mary Boleyn, The King’s Mistress and Her Legacy
- George Boleyn, Poet, Courtier, Diplomat, and the Price of Serving a King
- Jane Boleyn, The Controversial Life of Lady Rochford
- Elizabeth I, The Boleyn Queen
- The Legacy of the Boleyns and Our Enduring Fascination with This 16th Century Family
There’ll be 7 talks and eight zoom video Q&A sessions with me, so plenty of opportunity to talk Tudor to me and with other like-minded people, plus zoom chats leading up to the events. These events are always fun and we always go down some interesting rabbit holes with the questions people ask. I love every single minute of them and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the Boleyns.
If you’d like to join me, go to claireridgway.com and you’ll see a link to the event on the home page there. If you register before 31st July, it’s $65, a saving of $15.
I do hope you’ll consider joining us. I’m already counting the days to it!
Lady Elizabeth Boleyn was undoubtedly attractive for Skelton to have compared her to Cressida, the great love of Troilus, am surprised he never compared her to Helen herself?Maybe he could not stretch that far but his words are amusing to modern eyes, ‘ lusty to look upon’, really it sounds like he was describing her as sexy, but he was a very fine poet and how wonderful to be the subject of such a one’s praises, one wishes we had a portrait of the mother of Englands most debated queen consort in English history, was she dark like her famous daughter did she possess those legendary eyes which the enchanting Anne so beguiled a king with, and many others to? Or was she fair as her other daughter Mary was said to be, she married into an exciting family an ambitious family and one that was up and coming, she brought with her incredible assets to, her blue blood her ancient lineage, it was a match both families were pleased with, I have heard of the heirloom that only the Boleyn men were bestowed with, and how tragic for Thomas Boleyn that he could not pass it on to his son, the amazing talented and witty poet George, he was attainted and died a traitors death, therefore the prized relic went to another male relative, all these wonderful facts which basic history does not tell you, the more we read about the Boleyn’s the more we uncover, sadly with George we have no work of his that survived, unless we believe a poem that one historian thinks could have been written in his fine hand, awaiting death he was said to composed a sad sonnet about his lute but that theory has not much credibility, he was very talented nonetheless for him to be compared alongside Wyatt and Chaucer- the great medieval poet, amongst many others, regarding Mary the tragic siblings other sister, she was pregnant when she showed up at court declaring her recent marriage to a minor nobleman, furious at her temerity for marrying without their consent, the king and queen banished her and so of she went with her husband to the country, one supposes! What happened to the babe? Sad that this child was the product of a genuine love match and yet did not survive, not born out of an arranged match, I believe due to the stress Mary possibly miscarried or maybe was born dead, she must have been so upset at her family’s rage, knowing Anne’s temper she must have deeply upset her, especially when she herself so desperately needed to be pregnant again, Mary’s child is not recorded so death must have occurred, but Mary lived with her husband Stafford quietly and she had her two elder children as well, her son Henry was being tutored at court by Nicholas Bourbon thanks to the queen, who he was a ward of, I did not know about Jane the much debated sister in law and George having the ward ship of Edmund Sheffield a son of the Sheffield family, or that Jane was the patron of a Cambridge scholar most interesting, with Elizabeth 1st, we know she loved and revered the woman who gave her life, she did not have to utter her name for us to know that, Elizabeth kept Anne’s famous falcon emblem as her own and her mothers coat of arms were displayed with hers, on her tomb in Westminster the Boleyn arms are entwined with Elizabeth and the one piece of jewellery she never took of, till her dying day, is the tiny exquisite ring which opens as a locket, showing her own image with Anne Boleyn’s, she was very much aware that Henry V111’s daughter she might be, but Boleyn blood also flowed in her veins and this she was not only proud of, but must have been honoured by it to.
Interesting also to contemplate that Anne may have met the great master himself- Leonardo da Vinci, he was at the French court when Anne was there as lady in waiting to Queen Claude so their paths may well have crossed, Anne with her keen brain would have found it exciting to discuss topics with this universal genius, not only was Da Vinci an artist, but a mathematician engineer and it is said he may well have dabbled in photography, certainly his ideas were well ahead of his time, he drew models of flying machines, and his anatomical drawings show the baby in the womb and his three dimensional figure of the male model is famous and used worldwide in textbooks, he was born out of wedlock, the son of a florentine notary and a peasant woman called Catalina near Tuscany, educated by his fathers family it was said he was never treated as anything other than a legitimate member of the house, so we can assume that his father Piero de Vinci loved his mistress very much, his most famous works are of course the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, we have not much of his personal life to go on, but some attest he could have been gay, he was never romantically linked to any woman, and has been described as rather reserved in nature, but he loved colour, and dressed in robes of bright shades, but what did he look like? We have his self portrait drafted in his old age, and another sketch by another known artist, in both drawings he has a long lean face with an aquiline nose and long hair that fell round his shoulders, he seems to sum up perfectly the image of the archetypal artist, he died in 1519 in the arms of the French king, revered to the end,his tomb sadly lost during the revolution, if only he had sketched a likeness of our Anne we know it would be an accurate one, I know this post has been more about Da Vinci than Anne Boleyn but one wonders had they indeed met, what they would have thought of each other? I’m sure Anne with her keen fertile brain would have been a great admirer of Da Vinci and I am equally sure he would have been entranced by her for her elegance and grace, would they have discussed theology Anne’s passion ? Hard to say, he was Italian so would have thought of Catholic as the true faith, but there is some evidence that he was an atheist, that he dismissed the notion of a higher divinity, in his youth he did not care for maths much but when older developed a taste for the higher branches of mathematics, he may well have pondered on the subject of theology, in his advancing years he suffered from rheumatism so he could not use his paint nor draw as much, his death at the age of sixty seven was a deep loss in the Renaissance world, and there has never been one to compare to him since, blessed were those indeed who knew this unique man, and for all we know, Anne Boleyn may have been one herself!