Mary Boleyn

Mary Boleyn
Mary Boleyn.jpg
Born Mary Boleyn
c. 1499
Died July 19, 1543
Spouse(s) Sir William Carey (1520-1528, his death)
William Stafford (1534-1543, her death)

Mary Boleyn (c. 1499/1500–July 19 1543) was a member of the Boleyn family, which enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of Henry VIII. Mary was the sister of Queen Anne Boleyn; some historians claim that she was the younger sister, but her children believed Mary was the elder sister, as do most historians today.

Mary was one of the mistresses of King Henry VIII of England and also, allegedly, of his rival, King Francis I of France[1]. She married twice.

Contents

Early life

Mary was born at Blickling Hall, Norfolk and grew up at the Boleyn residence, Hever Castle, Kent.[2] She was the daughter of a wealthy diplomat, Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard. There is no concrete evidence of her exact date of birth, but it was sometime between 1499 and 1508. Most now favour an earlier date of about 1499.[3] There is firm documentary evidence to suggest that she was also the eldest of the three Boleyn children who survived infancy.[4] The evidence suggests that the surviving Boleyns believed Mary to have been the eldest child; in 1597, her grandson, Lord Hunsdon, claimed the title of “earl of Ormonde” on the grounds that he was the Boleyns’ legitimate heir. According to the strict rules of aristocratic inheritance, if Anne had been the elder sister, the title would have belonged to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth—since a title descended through the eldest female line in the absence of a surviving male line. Logic, however, indicates that since Elizabeth had no children, the title would revert to Mary's line, since she did have children. Therefore Mary's grandson would not make an indirect assertion that his grandmother was the eldest, but rather the opposite.

It was once believed that it was Mary who began her education abroad and spent time as a companion to Archduchess Margaret of Austria; but it is now clear that it was her younger sister, Anne. Mary was kept in England for most of her childhood.

It was not until 1514, when she was between the ages of twelve and fifteen, that she was sent abroad. Her father secured her a place as maid-of-honour to the King’s sister, Princess Mary Tudor, who was going to Paris to marry King Louis XII of France. After a few weeks, many of the Queen's English maids were ordered to leave but Mary Boleyn was permitted to remain, probably because of her father's position as the new English ambassador. Even when Mary Tudor left France after her husband’s death on January 1, 1515, Mary Boleyn remained at the court of Louis' succesor, Francis I of France and his queen Claude of France.

Royal affair in France

Mary was joined in Paris by her father, Sir Thomas, and also her sister, Anne, who had been studying in the Netherlands for the last year. Mary supposedly embarked on several affairs, perhaps including one with King Francis I himself. Some historians believe that the reports of her sexual escapades are greatly exaggerated.[5]

She returned to England in 1519. [6] where she was given the position of maid-of-honour to the Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon.

Royal mistress

Soon after her return, Mary was married to Sir William Carey, a wealthy and well-connected courtier, on February 4, 1520, and Henry VIII was a guest at the couple's wedding ceremony. At some point, Henry VIII and Mary began an affair, although the timing is unclear. The affair was never publicised, and Mary never enjoyed the kind of fame, wealth and power that acknowledged mistresses in France and other countries sometimes had.[7] The affair is believed to have ended prior to the birth of Mary's child, Henry Carey, in March 1526.[8]

During the affair or sometime after, it was rumoured that one or both of Mary's children were fathered by the king. One witness noted that Mary's son, Henry Carey, bore a resemblance to Henry VIII. John Hale, vicar of Isleworth, some ten years after the child was born, remarked that he had met a 'young Master Carey,' who was the king's bastard. No other contemporary evidence exists to support the argument that Henry was the king’s biological son.

Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had previously been married to Henry's elder brother Arthur, but Arthur had died only a few months later, when he was only 15 years and a few months. Henry later used that fact as the justification for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine, on the grounds that her marriage to Arthur (assuming it was consummated) created an affinity between Henry and Catherine. When Mary Boleyn became Henry's mistress, a similar affinity existed between Henry and Anne. According to church law, because Mary had been Henry's mistress, the subsequent marriage of Henry to Mary's sister was just as illegal as that of Henry to Catherine of Aragon. As Henry was a man who was educated in theology, it is unlikely that he was unaware of this impediment.

Sister’s rise to power

Mary Boleyn's sister, Anne, returned to England in January 1522, achieving considerable popularity at the royal court. The sisters were not particularly close and Anne moved in different social circles.

Although Mary was alleged to have been more attractive than her sister, Anne seems to have been more ambitious and intelligent. When the king took an interest in her, she refused to become his mistress, being shrewd enough not to give in to his sexual advances for fear he would lose interest.[9] By the middle of 1527, Henry was determined to marry her. This gave him further incentive to seek to the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

A year later, when Mary's husband died during an outbreak of sweating sickness, Henry granted Anne Boleyn the wardship of her nephew, Henry Carey. Mary's husband had left her with considerable debts, and Anne arranged for Henry to be educated at a respectable Cistercian monastery. Anne interceded to secure Mary a small annual pension of £100.[10]

Second marriage

In 1532, when Anne accompanied Henry to Calais on a state visit to France, Mary was one of her companions. Anne was crowned Queen on June 1, 1533 and gave birth to her first daughter (later to become Queen Elizabeth I) on 7 September. In 1534, Mary secretly married a soldier William Stafford. Because Stafford was a commoner with a small income, most historians believe their union to have been a love match. When the marriage was discovered, Anne was furious, and the Boleyn family disowned her for marrying beneath her station; the couple were banished from the royal court.

Mary's financial circumstances became so desperate that she was reduced to begging the king’s adviser Thomas Cromwell to speak to Henry and Anne on her behalf. Henry, however, was indifferent to her plight; so, Mary asked Cromwell to speak to her father, her uncle, and her brother, but to no avail. It was Anne who relented, sending Mary a magnificent golden cup and some money, but still refusing to receive her at court. This partial reconciliation was the closest the two sisters came, since it is not thought that they met after Mary's court exile.

Mary's life between 1534 and her sister's execution on May 19 1536 is difficult to trace. There is no record of her visiting her parents, nor did she visit her sister Anne or her brother George Boleyn when the latter was imprisoned in the Tower of London. There is also no evidence that she sent correspondence. Like their uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, she may have thought it wise to avoid association with her now-disgraced relatives.

Mary and her husband remained outcasts, living in retirement at Rochford in Essex. After Anne’s execution, their mother retired from the royal court, dying in seclusion just two years later; her father, Thomas, died the following year. After the deaths of her parents, Mary inherited some property in Essex. She seems to have lived out the rest of her days in anonymity and relative comfort with her second husband. She died in her early forties, on July 19, 1543.

Children

Her marriage to Sir William Carey (1495 – June 22 1528) resulted in the birth of two children (However there were rumours that King Henry VIII was the biological father):

Her marriage to William Stafford (d. May 5, 1556) resulted in the birth of a son, Edward, who is thought to have been born in 1535 and to have died in 1545. There may also have been a daughter, named Anne.

Descendants

Mary Boleyn is a distant ancestor of many notables including Winston Churchill, P G Wodehouse,[11][12] Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Diana, Princess of Wales, Sarah, Duchess of York, and Charles Darwin.

Depictions in fiction

Mary appeared in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days, and was played by Valerie Gearon.

A fictionalised form of her character also features prominently in the novels The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell, I, Elizabeth by Rosalind Miles, The Rose of Hever by Maureen Peters, The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy, Mistress Anne by Norah Lofts, The Concubine by Norah Lofts, Anne Boleyn by Evelyn Anthony, Dear Heart, How Like You This? by Wendy J. Dunn, Brief Gaudy Hour by Margaret Campbell Barnes, and Young Royals: Doomed Queen Anne by Carolyn Meyer.

Mary has been the central character in three novels based on her life; Court Cadenza (later published under the title The Tudor Sisters) by British author Aileen Armitage, Karen Harper's The Last Boleyn and The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Gregory later nominated Mary as her personal heroine in an interview to the BBC History Magazine. Her novel was a bestseller and spawned five other books in the same series. However, it was controversial, especially with historians who found the work imprecise in regards to historical events and individual characteristics.

The Other Boleyn Girl was made into a BBC television drama in January 2003, starring Natascha McElhone as Mary. A Hollywood version of the book was released in February 2008, with Scarlett Johansson as Mary.

Perdita Weeks portrayed Mary in the Showtime original drama series The Tudors.

Styles

Mary Boleyn became Lady Carey upon her marriage to Sir William Carey in 1520. She then became The Hon. Mary Carey when her father became Viscount Rochford in 1525; and Lady Mary Carey when her father was further promoted to the title of Earl of Wiltshire.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, X, no.450.
  2. ↑ Letters of Matthew Parker, p.15.
  3. ↑ Ives, pp. 15–17.
  4. ↑ Ives, p. 17; Fraser, p. 119; Denny, p. 27. All three scholars argue that Mary was the eldest of the three Boleyn children.
  5. ↑ Denny, p. 38
  6. ↑ Bruce, p. 13
  7. ↑ Weir, pp. 133 – 134
  8. ↑ See Letters & Papers viii.567 and Ives, pp. 16 - 17.
  9. ↑ Weir, p. 160
  10. ↑ Lindsey, p. 73
  11. ↑ Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition
  12. ↑ thePeerage.com - Person Page 3638

References