The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fatales Who Changed English History (10 page)

There is no evidence to suggest that Elizabeth had her own court position during the reign of Henry VII, something which would, in any event, have been unlikely following the death of Queen Elizabeth of York in 1503. The presence of small memorials to two of Elizabeth’s minor children, Henry and Thomas, at Hever and Penshurst respectively suggests that the family were most likely resident in Kent. There is little evidence of Elizabeth’s personal relationship with her husband. The fact that she bore at least five children in the early years of her marriage suggests that they were close. Although Thomas was also close to his mother, Margaret Butler, there is no evidence that Elizabeth was overshadowed by the older woman. In a royal pardon granted in 1520–21, for example, concerning the Boleyn manor of Fretwell in Oxfordshire, Elizabeth was named as a party along with her husband and mother-in-law, suggesting that she had an equal standing.
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Most of Elizabeth’s early married life was taken up with childbearing: her husband later commented in a letter that, after their marriage, his wife brought him a child every year up until at least his father’s death in 1505 – something which must have been rather expensive for a young man who had not yet attained his inheritance and may hint at why Thomas was so keen to pursue a court career.
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The names of five of Elizabeth’s children are known: Mary, Anne, George, Thomas and Henry. It is possible that there may have been others, particularly as the two children who are known to have died young, Thomas and Henry, bore the names of their father and the king and may well each have been the oldest son during their brief lives. It is therefore no surprise that both received some form of commemoration following their deaths in the form of small brass crosses in Penshurst church and Hever church. These memorials, in spite of one recent author’s assertion that the younger Thomas Boleyn lived until adulthood, are clearly memorials to children.
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They are the only records of the two boys’ brief lives. It is not at all impossible that further children, in particular young daughters, may have escaped any commemoration or notice in contemporary sources. Elizabeth’s daughter, Anne, for example, left no record in surviving contemporary documents until she was approaching her teenage years.

There is some uncertainty about the dates and order of the births of Elizabeth’s three surviving children: Mary, Anne and George. A contemporary of the siblings, George Cavendish, later claimed of George that ‘years thrice nine my life had passed away’ when he became a member of the king’s Privy Council in 1529, suggesting a date of birth of 1502.
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Anne’s date of birth is usually claimed as either 1507 or earlier, perhaps 1501. The Elizabethan historian William Camden, in his history of Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, claimed that Anne had been born in 1507, a date which was also given in the early seventeenth-century
Life of Jane Dormer
, an account of the life of an attendant of Anne’s stepdaughter, Mary I. However, it is clear that the author of the
Life of Jane Dormer
was familiar with Camden’s work and the authority for Anne’s birth being in 1507 must therefore rest with Camden alone. If Camden is correct with this birth date then Anne would have been only six years old when she first left home to serve Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands. While princesses were, on occasion, sent abroad at young ages, this was unheard of for lower members of society and twelve was the commonly accepted earliest age for which a girl could take up service in another noble household. An earlier birth date of 1501 therefore seems more plausible for Anne, particularly due to the fact that a letter survives from Anne to her father from her time in Brussels in which she declared that ‘I beg you to excuse me if my letter is badly written, for I assure you that the orthography is from my own understanding alone, while the others were only written by my hand’.
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While the letter is written in the eccentric French of a beginner, it is certainly not the work of a six-year-old. This is also supported by the fact that Anne would later bemoan her lost youth to Henry VIII while she waited to become his bride, and the fact that she was considered to be rapidly ageing and losing her looks during her time as queen: something more likely in a woman approaching her late thirties than a woman still in her twenties, regardless of the stresses of her position. Although Anne Boleyn’s birth date is by no means universally agreed upon, 1501 is very likely, making her the senior of her only surviving brother.

The seniority of the two Boleyn sisters has been highly debated. It was Anne who was sent to Brussels in 1513, while Mary remained at home, something which would suggest that Anne was the elder. However, Mary was sent to France the following year and it is possible that Thomas Boleyn merely decided to send his more promising daughter to Brussels. It was Mary who married first, in 1520, suggesting seniority, although it is not impossible that a younger daughter could have married first, especially as it was then only Mary who was resident in England. Better evidence of Mary’s seniority is provided in a letter written by her grandson, Lord Hunsdon, in which he claimed the earldom of Ormond. In order to substantiate his claim, he set out his position to Elizabeth I, who was, of course, the heir to the other daughter, pointing out that Thomas Boleyn’s heir was ‘his eldest daughter Mary’ and that even if the attainder over the younger daughter, Anne Boleyn, was overlooked, it could be considered ‘whether my Grandmother being the eldest daughter ought not to have the whole dignity as in the earldom of Chester’. To confuse matters further, a monument to Hunsdon’s daughter later referred to Mary Boleyn as the second daughter, although it does appear that Hunsdon, who was, after all, seeking to claim a title in preference to the queen herself, did his research thoroughly. It is most likely that Mary was the eldest surviving child of Thomas and Elizabeth, with a date of birth of around 1499.

Blickling is the most likely birthplace of all of Elizabeth’s children. Given her near-constant pregnancies, Elizabeth must have been an accessible presence in her children’s early childhoods, spending much of her time at home with them at Blickling either awaiting the birth of a child or recovering from the birth. Elizabeth was responsible for teaching her daughters traditional feminine accomplishments such as singing, music, dancing and needlework, although the evidence suggests that Anne was not an enthusiastic seamstress, later sending Henry VIII’s shirts to be embroidered by paid needlewomen once she had succeeded in wresting the duty of making his shirts from Catherine of Aragon. Elizabeth may have taught her children their letters, although, since both George and Anne are known to have been highly educated, tutors must have been employed. George is believed to have studied at Oxford University and was also renowned as a poet by contemporaries, although no examples of his work survive. Following the move to Hever in 1505 and the end of her childbearing years, Elizabeth spent more time at court, culminating in her appointment to the queen’s household in 1509. However, her absence from royal records for much of the time does suggest that she was not at court particularly regularly, ensuring that she remained available to her children.

There is clear evidence from later in her children’s lives that Elizabeth was close to them. Following the arrests of her two children, Anne and George, in 1536, there were rumours that Elizabeth and her husband had joined them in the Tower, suggesting close links.
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The fact that Lady Lisle’s agent found Elizabeth at court in April 1536 and considered her worth cultivating due to her connection with her daughter is also significant. Earlier, in February 1533, within a few weeks of Anne Boleyn’s marriage to the king the Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, was reporting that the king had been married in secret in the presence only of Anne’s parents, brother, two of her friends and one of his priests.
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Whether Elizabeth was indeed present at her daughter’s secret wedding is not known, but the fact that she was believed to have been there speaks volumes for her close relationship with her daughter. Elizabeth was also prominent at Anne’s coronation later in 1533 when she rode in the first chariot with her stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, in procession after the queen.
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Further, rather surprising evidence of Elizabeth’s closeness with her younger daughter can be seen in the records of the interrogation of Elizabeth Barton, the nun of Kent, who famously prophesied the king’s doom if he married Anne Boleyn.
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According to Barton, the king offered to make her an abbess if she would desist with her prophecies, which were given widespread credence in England. At the same time, apparently, ‘my lord of Wiltshire [Thomas Boleyn] sent to the Emperor, how the queen [Anne Boleyn] would have had her to remain in the court, and my lady, her mother, did desire her to wait upon her daughter’. Clearly Elizabeth was able to wield some influence over her daughter Anne and was often present with her at court. The roots of this closeness probably lie in Anne’s early childhood.

In spite of her domestic duties, Elizabeth also had responsibilities at court during the reign of Henry VIII. She was very much a presence there in the early years of the reign.

There was at least one Lady Boleyn present at court from early in the reign of Henry VIII. The identity of this lady or ladies is disputed, with three sisters-in-law – Elizabeth Howard Boleyn, Elizabeth Wood Boleyn and Anne Tempest Boleyn – all potential candidates.

Elizabeth Howard Boleyn’s high birth made her perfectly suited to take up a position in the household of Queen Catherine of Aragon in 1509, which lasted until the mid-1520s.
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There is however some confusion over whether Elizabeth ever held any official position in the queen’s household. One recent biographer of Elizabeth’s daughter, Mary Boleyn, has suggested that there is no evidence that Elizabeth was a lady-in-waiting to the queen and that, instead, she has been confused with her sister-in-law, Anne Tempest Boleyn.
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That writer claims that there is no evidence for Elizabeth’s presence at court before the reference to her as in attendance on the queen at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, the grand meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I of France held at Calais. This is, however, a rather circular argument since there is evidence of at least one Lady Boleyn at court during the early years of the reign; it is simply that if a writer chooses to identify these sources as solely referring to Anne Tempest Boleyn then it would obviously appear that there is no evidence of Elizabeth Howard Boleyn in the queen’s household. There is no doubt that there was at least one other Lady Boleyn active at court during Henry VIII’s reign: after Anne Boleyn’s fall she was placed under observation by an aunt named Lady Boleyn, and the same Lady Boleyn, or another, was also named in connection with the discovery of the covert relationship between the king’s niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, and Elizabeth’s half-brother, Lord Thomas Howard, which came to light in the summer of 1536.
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The Lady (or Ladies) Boleyn from 1536 are obviously not Elizabeth Howard as she would, by that stage, always have been referred to as the Countess of Wiltshire. In addition to this, sources for Catherine of Aragon’s household early in the reign are fairly incomplete, something which hinders an identification of Elizabeth Howard Boleyn’s activities.

There are two possible alternative candidates for references to Lady Boleyn at court. The first is Elizabeth Wood, the wife of Thomas Boleyn’s younger brother, Sir James Boleyn. Elizabeth Wood was one of the four daughters of John Wood and his wife, Margaret, of East Barsham in Norfolk.
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The Wood family had occupied the manor since the reign of Henry VI in the mid-fifteenth century with the arrival of John Wood of Briston. This John died in 1470, leaving his brother Robert as heir, who was, in his turn, succeeded by Elizabeth’s father, John. John Wood died in 1496, leaving a son, Roger, who was then a minor, as his heir. Roger was not confirmed in his inheritance until 6 November 1513, something that would have occurred when he was aged around twenty-one, suggesting a date of birth of late 1492. Roger’s sister, Anne, was of childbearing age in 1512, which suggests that she would have been born around the same time. In addition to this, his mother, Margaret, took a second husband, Sir Henry Fermor, and bore him at least one child, something which supports the view that her children were young at the time of her first husband’s death. Elizabeth Wood was therefore probably born in the late 1480s or early 1490s.

Elizabeth was one of four sisters, with a sister, Alice, marrying a Michael Mackerel, a tradesman of London before 1518. A further sister, Dorothy, had married a gentleman, William Whayte, by the same date. Following her marriage to James Boleyn, Elizabeth settled with her husband at Blickling. In 1512 her sister, Anne, who was the wife of Thomas Astley, another Norfolk gentleman, visited her at Blickling, sadly dying during the visit. Given that the sisters were close enough to receive visits from each other, this must have been a traumatic experience for Elizabeth. Anne Astley’s funeral brass from Blickling church shows her holding her infant twins and wearing a dress with the open lacing characteristic of pregnancy.
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This strongly suggests that she arrived at the visit pregnant and, perhaps unaware that she was expecting twins, went into labour prematurely and unexpectedly. Given that she was depicted as pregnant with memorials to her two children, it appears that all three died at Blickling during the birth, something which must have deeply affected her sister who, in all likelihood, would have attended the birth. The evidence of Anne Wood’s grave at Blickling makes it clear that Elizabeth had married James by 1512 at the latest, although the couple had no surviving children of their own.

She is almost certainly not the Lady Boleyn present at court early in Henry VIII’s reign due to the fact that her husband was not then knighted, making her ‘Mistress Boleyn’ rather than ‘Lady Boleyn’.
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Surviving records of James suggest that he was largely based in Norfolk during the early years of the reign, with his presence regularly recorded on commission of the peace and array for the county. While Thomas Boleyn was also often present on the same commissions and he is known to have been regularly absent from the county on royal business, he was at least a major landowner there, something which James was not, suggesting that his inclusion was due more to personal presence. It is usually assumed that James was not knighted until 1520, although this is in fact not the case.
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James had not been knighted by 27 November 1515 when a document refers to him still in Norfolk as simply James Boleyn.
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By December of the following year he had both been knighted and established himself in the royal household as one of the knights of the Body, a role that did require some personal attendance on the king.
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His court presence increased with the position of his niece, Anne Boleyn, as queen, with ‘Sir James Boleyn’ recorded as owing her £50 at the time of her death.
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