William Carey (courtier)

William Carey

William Carey, attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger. From a private Irish collection.
Born c. 1500
Died 22 June 1528 (aged 28)
Spouse Mary Boleyn (m.1520-1528)
Children Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
Catherine Carey, Lady Knollys
Parents Thomas Carey
Margaret Eleanor Spencer

Sir William Carey, of Aldenham, in Hertfordshire (c.1500–22 June 1528) was a courtier and favourite of King Henry VIII of England. He served the king as a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and Esquire of the Body to the King. His wife, Mary Boleyn, is known to history as a mistress of King Henry VIII and the sister of Henry's second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn.

Contents

Biography

William Carey was the second son of Sir Thomas Carey (1479–1536), of Chilton Foliat in Wiltshire, and his wife, Margaret Spencer, daughter of Sir Robert Spencer and Eleanor Beaufort.

On 4 February 1520,[1] he was married to Mary Boleyn, the eldest daughter (since she was married first, and elder daughters were traditionally married first) of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard. They resided at Aldenham in Hertfordshire.

Shortly after their marriage, Mary became the mistress of King Henry VIII. The Boleyns received grants of land, and Carey himself profited from his wife's unfaithfulness, being granted manors and estates by the King while it was in progress.[2] Carey was also a noted art collector and he introduced the famed Dutch artist, Lucas Horenbout, to the Kingdom of England in the mid-1520s. Perhaps one of the reasons the athletic King Henry VIII favoured Carey was the fact that Carey appears to have been fond of activities such as riding, hunting and jousting. Carey distinguished himself in jousting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.

Anne Boleyn, Mary's sister, caught Henry's eye a year after his affair with Mary ended. Henry proposed marriage to her in 1527. William Carey did not live to enjoy his sister-in-law's prosperity, since he died of the sweating sickness the following year. Brian Tuke, Henry's secretary at the time of Carey's death wrote this to Lord Legat the day after his death: "Now is word common that M. Cary, which before I came lay in the chamber where I lie, and with whom at my first coming I met here in this place, saying that he had been with his wife at Plashey, and would not be seen within, because he would ride again and hunt, is dead of the sweat. Our Lord have mercy on his soul; and hold his hand over us." He died greatly in debt, and his wife was reduced to pawning her jewellery before Anne Boleyn arranged a pension for her.

Children of William Carey and Mary Boleyn

William Carey and Mary Boleyn were the parents of two children:

However, it has been suggested that Catherine Carey and Henry Carey may have been Henry VIII's children.

Paternity of the Carey children

It has long been rumored that one or both of Mary Boleyn's children were fathered by Henry VIII. Some writers, such as Alison Weir, question whether Henry Carey (Mary's son) was fathered by the King.[1] While others such as, Dr. G.W. Bernard (author of The King's Reformation) and Joanna Denny (author of Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen and Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy) argue that he may have been.

Many have noticed that Catherine Carey and her daughter Lettice both bear a close resemblance to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. If Catherine was indeed born in June 1524, then this would point to her being fathered by Henry VIII since Mary Boleyn's affair with him appears to have begun around 1522 and ended in the early summer of 1525, which also makes Henry Carey to have been conceived just before the end of the affair, not to mention he received the name Henry. One witness did note that Mary's son bore a resemblance to Henry VIII, but the witness in question was John Hales, vicar of Isleworth, who some ten years after the child was born remarked that he had met a 'young Master Carey,' who some monks believed was the king's son. There is no other contemporary evidence that Henry Carey was the king’s biological son and a close reading of the Letters and Papers (a collection of surviving documents from the period) clearly pinpoint Henry's birth in March 1526 - although the affair is believed to have ended by the time Henry Carey was born.[3][4]

Ancestry

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b Weir. Henry VIII: The King and His Court. p. 216. 
  2. ^ Plowden. Tudor Women: Queens and Commoners. p. 205. 
  3. ^ Public Record Office. Letters & Papers. vol. viii, p.567. 
  4. ^ Ives. Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. pp. 16–17. 

Sources

Primary

Secondary

  • French, George Russell (1853). The Royal Descent of Nelson and Wellington from Edward I, King of England, with tables of pedigree and genealogical memoirs. London. p. 28. 
  • Ives, E. W. (2004). The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-23479-9. 
  • Kimber, Edward (1771). The Baronetage of England: containing a genealogical and historical account of all the English Baronets now existing, with their descents, marriages, and memorable actions both in war and peace. London: G. Woodfall. p. 221. 
  • Plowden, Alison (1998-09-25) [1979]. Tudor Women: Queens and Commoners (Rev. ed. ed.). London: Sutton. ISBN 0-750-92880-8. 
  • Warnicke, Retha Marvine (1989). The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 0-521-37000-0. 
  • Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. London: Bodley Head. ISBN 0-370-31396-8. 
  • Weir, Alison (2001). Henry VIII: The King and His Court. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-43659-8.