Of late Sarah has found herself more and more drawn to the least famous of the Boleyn siblings and has dedicated much time to reading and researching Mary’s life.

In this guest article Sarah outlines what we do know about Mary and also looks at some of the great mysteries that surround her life.

I hope you enjoy the article!

Mary Boleyn: Fact vs Fiction by Sarah Bryson

It has been proposed that this portrait by Lucas Horenbout, once thought to be Anne Boleyn, is in fact the true face of Mary Boleyn.

If you are interested in Tudor history you have probably heard of Anne Boleyn. She was the second wife of King Henry VIII and Queen Consort of England. Much has been written about the life of Anne Boleyn from debate over the date of her birth, her role in the English Reformation, to the tragic details of her fall and execution. Yet Anne Boleyn had an older sister, Mary. Mary Boleyn was the sister of one of the most famous Queens of England and yet so little has been detailed and recorded about her life. She lead quite a fascinating life, at one point even defying the social norms and the wishes of her father, and her sister the Queen and following her heart to marry for love. In this short piece I will outline some of the facts that are known about Mary’s life and some of the great mysteries that surround her.

Read the full article here.

The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau

To celebrate the UK release of the historical thriller ‘The Crown‘ by Nancy Bilyeau, I am delighted to share with you a guest article that Nancy has written about George Boleyn.

I am currently reading The Crown and enjoying every moment of it! I was hooked from the very first line,

“When a burning is announced, the taverns of Smithfield order extra barrels of ale, but when the person to be executed is a woman and one of noble birth, the ale comes by the cartload.”

I relish returning home in the evenings and losing myself in the pages of this truly engrossing story. Here is a little taste…

George Boleyn
By Nancy Bilyeau

On May 15, 1536, took place one of the most sensational trials of the 16^th century. George Boleyn, the brother of Queen Anne, answered charges of high treason—that he had committed incest with his sister and conspired at the king’s death.

Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, had directly before been found guilty of treason. A jury declared that she had committed adultery with her brother and four other men. The Lord Mayor of London said, “I could not observe anything in the proceedings against her, but that they were resolved to make an occasion to get rid of her at any price.”

It would seem impossible that any other verdict than guilty could be reached for George Boleyn. Yet after hearing the evidence, Viscount Rochford defended himself “so well that several of those present wagered ten to one that he would be acquitted, especially as no witnesses were produced against him,” said a contemporary.

Read the full article here.

The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn & Other Correspondence & Documents Concerning the King

To celebrate Valentine’s Day at On the Tudor Trail, I am giving away a copy of The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn & Other Correspondence & Documents Concerning the King and His Wives.

Entry is only open to our newsletter subscribers (if you are not one already, sign up on our homepage) and residents of all countries!

To enter, simply leave a comment on any one of our posts or pages between now and February 14. The more comments you leave, the more entries you will receive – it’s as easy as that!

Don’t forget to leave your name and a contact email.

Be sure to email all your friends and family about this competition regardless of where they live- all welcome!

Our Valentine’s Day competition is opened until 10pm on the 14th February 2012 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time) and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter.

Good luck!

Catherine of Aragon

On January 29 1536, Catherine of Aragon was buried at Peterborough Abbey (later cathedral). She had requested to be buried at a monastery belonging to the Franciscan Observant Friars but this request was turned down as the ‘friars’ convents no longer existed’ (Tremlett, p. 426).

Catherine’s funeral service was for a dowager princess and not a queen, for this reason Eustace Chapuys chose not to attend. Henry did not attend either, instead remaining at Greenwich and refused to allow Mary to attend her mother’s funeral.

Details of the funeral are given in Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic. The procession left for Peterborough in the following order,

“First, 16 priests or clergymen in surplices went on horseback, without saying a word, having a gilded laten cross borne before them; after them several gentlemen, of whom there were only two of the house, “et le demeurant estoient tous emprouvez,” and after them followed the maître d’hotel and chamberlain, with their rods of office in their hands; and, to keep them in order, went by their sides 9 or 10 heralds, with mourning hoods and wearing their coats of arms; after them followed 50 servants of the aforesaid gentlemen, bearing torches and “bâtons allumés,” which lasted but a short time, and in the middle of them was drawn a waggon, upon which the body was drawn by six horses all covered with black cloth to the ground. The said waggon was covered with black velvet, in the midst of which was a great silver cross; and within, as one looked upon the corpse, was stretched a cloth of gold frieze with a cross of crimson velvet, and before and behind the said waggon stood two gentlemen ushers with mourning hoods looking into the waggon, round which the said four banners were carried by four heralds and the standards with the representations by four gentlemen. Then followed seven ladies, as chief mourners, upon hackneys, that of the first being harnessed with black velvet and the others with black cloth. After which ladies followed the waggon of the Queen’s gentlemen; and after them, on hackneys, came nine ladies, wives of knights. Then followed the waggon of the Queen’s chambermaids; then her maids to the number of 36, and in their wake followed certain servants on horseback.”

Peterborough Cathedral

Catherine’s body was received at Peterborough abbey by

“the bishops of Lincoln, Ely, and Rochester, the abbot of the place, and the abbots of Ramsey, Crolain (Crowland), Tournan (Thorney), Walden and Thaem (Tame), who, wearing their mitres and hoods, accompanied it in procession till it was placed under the chapelle ardente which was prepared for it there, upon eight pillars of beautiful fashion and roundness, upon which were placed about 1,000 candles, both little and middle-sized, and round about the said chapel 18 banners waved..” (Letters & Papers)

Solemn vigils were said that day and on the next day three masses by three bishops: the first by the bishop of Rochester, the second by the bishop of Ely and the third by the bishop of Lincoln.

Portrait by Hans Eworth of either Lady Eleanor Brandon or her daughter, Lady Margaret.

Lady Eleanor Brandon, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, acted as chief mourner. After the mass, Catherine’s body was buried ‘in a grave at the lowest step of the high altar, over which they put a simple black cloth.’ (Letters & Papers)

And so ended the funeral of Catherine of Aragon, who as far as her supporters were concerned, had been England’s true Queen for 27 years.

On the very same day, the woman who now held the title of Queen of England, Anne Boleyn, miscarried. Read more about this significant event here.

After the turmoil Catherine faced in life, it seems that still trouble followed her in death. In 1643 Oliver Cromwell’s troops ransacked the cathedral, despoiling Catherine’s tomb, but in the 19^th century an appeal was made to Englishwomen who were also named Catherine (or Katharine etc.) and raised enough money to put a new stone on Catherine’s tomb (Tremlett, p. 426).

Today you can visit the Abbey and see Catherine’s final resting place. A wooden plaque on her tomb remembers her as: ‘A queen cherished by the English people for her loyalty, piety, courage and compassion’.

Tomb of Catherine of Aragon at Peterborough Cathedral

Each year Peterborough Cathedral commemorates the life of Catherine of Aragon by hosting a festival and service. Find out more information here.

Read in more detail about Catherine’s death in my article here.

References

Miniature Whistle Pendant - possibly a gift from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn

By family tradition, Henry VIII’s first gift to Anne Boleyn was a gold and enamel ‘pendant in the form of a pistol, chased with scrolling foliage’ (Starkey, 1991, p. 115).

A snake is entwined around the barrel and it contains ‘a set of tooth and ear picks, with spear, scythe and spatula shaped blades’ (Starkey, 2003, p.11).

The whistles were designed like pieces of jewellery and used to summon servants and hounds (Starkey, 2003, p.11). In this portrait of Nicholas Bacon we see him wearing one shaped like a dragon.

Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1579.

These devices were sewn onto the King’s masque costumes in large quantities. In September 1510, Robert Amadas was paid £266 for ‘wreaths, hearts and roses of fine gold’; of which many were ‘lost off the King’s back’, stolen or ‘given away at his pleasure.’ (Starkey, 1991, p. 115)

A separate tradition has Anne Boleyn giving this pendant to a Captain Gwyn, officer of the guard, who supposedly escorted her to the scaffold on the morning of her execution. She is said to have given this to him in acknowledgement of his ‘respectful conduct’ and told him that it had been the King’s first gift to her and ‘that a serpent formed part of the device, and a serpent the giver had proved to her.’ (Weir, p. 265)

According to Weir, Agnes Strickland discovered that the Gwyn family still owned the trinket in the 1840s, however Weir doubts the authenticity of the tale.

Professor Ives in The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn echoes these sentiments,

‘There is no contemporary record of Anne giving gifts on the scaffold, which must cast doubt on the pendant supposedly given to a Captain Gwyn’ (p. 407).

Apart from there being no contemporary record, one must seriously question whether Anne would have so publicly criticised the King knowing that this would seriously jeopardise the safety of those that would be left behind – most importantly, her two year old daughter Elizabeth.

Furthermore, it was simply not in keeping with Tudor scaffold etiquette. When considering how Anne could have gone to her death without protesting her innocence, instead acquiescing in such injustice, Ives points out,

‘Convention demanded it; religion demanded it, and it would be Elizabeth who would suffer from the luxury of defying the king and his supposed justice.’ (p. 358).

Anne Boleyn’s scaffold speech makes the pendant tale all the more unlikely,

Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, according to the law, for by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I come here only to die, and thus to yield myself humbly to the will of the King, my lord. And if, in my life, I did ever offend the King’s Grace, surely with my death I do now atone. I come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that whereof I am accused, as I know full well that aught I say in my defence doth not appertain to you. I pray and beseech you all, good friends, to pray for the life of the King, my sovereign lord and yours, who is one of the best princes on the face of the earth, who has always treated me so well that better could not be, whereof I submit to death with good will, humbly asking pardon of all the world. If any person will meddle with my cause, I require them to judge the best. Thus I take my leave of the world, and of you, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. Oh Lord, have mercy on me! To God I commend my soul.

The pendant is now housed in the British Galleries in room 58E of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Anne Boleyn, attributed to John Hoskins

On the 29 January 1536, Anne Boleyn miscarried.

The details appear in Chapuys’ dispatch to Charles V dated February 10:

‘On the day of the interment the Concubine had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3½ months, at which the King has shown great distress. The said concubine wished to lay the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, saying he frightened her by bringing the news of the fall the King had six days before. But it is well known that is not the cause, for it was told her in a way that she should not be alarmed or attach much importance to it. Some think it was owing to her own incapacity to bear children, others to a fear that the King would treat her like the late Queen, especially considering the treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel, to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents. The Princess’s gouvernante, her daughters, and a niece, have been in great sorrow for the said abortion, and have been continually questioning a lady who is very intimate with the Princess whether the said Princess did not know the said news of the abortion, and that she might know that, but they would not for the world that she knew the rest, meaning that there was some fear the King might take another wife. The Princess is well. She changed her lodging on Saturday last, and was better accompanied on her removal and provided with what was necessary to her than she had been before. She had an opportunity of distributing alms on the way, because her father had placed about 100,000 crowns at her disposal. It is rumoured that the King, as Cromwell sent to inform me immediately after the Queen’s death, means to increase her train and exalt her position. I hope it may be so, and that no scorpion lurks under the honey. I think the King only waited to summon the said Princess to swear to the statutes in expectation that the concubine would have had a male child, of which they both felt assured. I know not what he will do now. I have suggested to the Princess to consider if it be not expedient, when she is pressed to take the oath, if she be reduced to extremity, to offer that if the King her father have a son she will condescend to his will, and that she might at once begin throwing out some such hint to her gouvernante. I will inform you of her reply.’

Continue reading here.

The French miniatures of 1526 and a painter from the French court in England in 1522 – work in progress

By Glenn Richardson

The 1526 gifts

King Francis I by Jean Clouet c.1530

As cordial relations between England and France revived after the war of 1523-25, so did the cultural competition between Francis I and Henry VIII.[i] In late November 1526 two decorated gold devices, something like large lockets containing the portraits of Francis I and his two eldest sons were brought to England by the secretary of the king’s sister Marguerite, duchesse d’Alençon. The decorative design of one of the lockets featured the capital ‘F’ of Francis and a stylised representation of England and France liked across the Channel. The other locket featured pictures of Francis’s two elder sons then being held hostage in Spain for their father’s performance of obligations under the treaty of Madrid, by which he had gained his freedom after a year as the emperor’s prisoner following his defeat at the battle of Pavia in February 1525.

The gifts were thus clearly part of French efforts to secure English help against Charles V and especially in getting the two boys home. Gasparo Spinelli, the secretary to the Venetian ambassador then in England, noted that the lockets and their contents caused a great stir in the English court. Spinelli’s report that the gift had been brought by Marguerite d’Alençon’s secretary has led to the supposition, now maintained for some time as fact, that the gifts were also commissioned by her. However, there is some circumstantial evidence which suggests that they might actually have been personal gifts from Francis I himself.[ii]

On October 28 1526 the French ambassador in England, Charles du Solier, seigneur de Morette, one of the Francis I’s longest serving gentilhommes de la chambre, wrote to Anne de Montmorency the Grand Maître of France:

Sir, you know that some time ago the king wrote
that he wanted to send with me a present [that is
to say the three portraits ]which he intended to give
to the king his good brother/ You also
know that I have not been able to bring it because
at the time of my leaving it was not ready.[iii]

He went on to ask that the gift be sent now so that it could be given before his embassy concluded. He and Montmorency clearly regarded the gift as Francis’s and it was probably de Solier, not the secretary, who actually presented the gift to Henry.  On November 8 he again wrote to Montmorency asking for the gift to be sent so that it could be presented after which he could return to France.[iv] Spinelli’s letter is dated 2 December suggesting that the presentation happened quite shortly beforehand and de Solier left England.

The second piece of evidence and in one way the most compelling that the 1526 portraits gifts were indeed sent from Francis I, not his sister, is Henry VIII’s reaction to them. The gifts’ ingenuity reflected the expertise at the French court and the personal style of the king. Doubtless the precise origin of the gift is of secondary importance in the history of the English miniature, but it was not so for Henry. According to the pattern of strict reciprocity between himself and Francis established during the previous decade, he responded in kind. As is well known, in 1527 he sent to Francis miniatures of himself and Princess Mary which were probably done by the Horenboute; a family of Flemish artists working at the English court. These were the first miniatures produced in England and were presented in June 1527.

John Clerk, the English envoy at the French court reported that on seeing Henry’s picture, the king removed his bonnet (a gesture of respect which he frequently accorded Henry’s letters as well, and in itself a form of gift) and said ‘Je prie Dieu que il luy donne bonne vie et longue.’ Clerk reported that in addition to the portraits, the king liked the ‘devices’ in which they were presented. The design of these lockets has not received any comment to date by art historians, but a letter which Anne de Montmorency wrote to Wolsey on 3 December 1527 on behalf of the king’s mother, Louise de Savoie, who was apparently then suffering from gout and could not write herself, gives the clue. It refers to Louise’s delight at seeing:

The beautiful and noble present of the heart
of gold in which is painted the likeness and image
of the king of England, which Madam loves no
less heartily than does the king her son, to whom
it was wonderfully agreeable.[v]

Louise of Savoy

The intimate language of reference here, with Louise de Savoie apparently giving a mother’s doting attention to the portrait of her son’s best friend seems odd at this distance but, seen in context, it was clearly part of the effort on both sides to create an ideal of familial cooperation between the two regimes. Such language, which is more usually observed in the context of marriage treaties, is striking here and is another aspect of the rituals of gift-exchange between the two courts.

Bellin in England?

Fours year earlier there was perhaps another ‘gift’ sent by Francis to Henry, not a painting but a painter. In February 1522 William Fitzwilliam, the English ambassador at the French court, wrote to Wolsey that Anne de Montmorency was arranging to send ‘a painter and guilder speedily’ to England.[vi] In April he reported that he had recently sat to a French artist who was about to go to England and who was highly regarded and ‘reckoned as coming next unto the king’s painter that is sick and who they fear will never recover.’[vii] Unfortunately there is no subsequent reference enabling a positive identification of this artist, or to prove, as seems likely, that he was also the guilder to whom Fitzwilliam referred in February. However, one suggestion may be offered.

The French household payment rolls show that in 1521 Francis I’s top four artists were Jean Pérréal, Jean Bourdichon, Niccolò Bellin da Modena and Jean Clouet.[viii] Pérréal was certainly the king’s most eminent painter but was nearly always referred to in the payment rolls and elsewhere as ‘the Paris painter’ rather than ‘the king’s painter’. The second artist on the 1521, Jean Bourdichon, was called simply ‘painter’. From 1522 Bourdichon disappears from the payment rolls and he is presumed to have died during that year.[ix] It seems reasonable therefore to conclude that it was Bourdichon whom Fitzwilliam identified as the ailing painter in 1521.

The artist ‘next’ to him on the payment rolls at least was therefore either Niccolò Bellin or Jean Clouet. Of the two, Bellin is the more likely candidate. More significant than his position next to Bourdichon on the 1521 payment roll, is the fact that Bellin, unlike Clouet, was indeed a guilder as well as painter. He later worked for Francis I under the direction of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau and for Henry VIII at Nonusch and Whitehall.[x] Curiously Bellin also disappears from the household records after 1522.[xi]

There are no records of Henry VIII’s payments between 1522 and 1528 so there is no way of telling whether he paid Bellin for any work at this time. The artist is known to have come to England in 1537, but the date of his disappearance from the French household records, together with Fitzwilliam’s ambiguous letter, allows a hypothesis that Niccolò Bellin may have first come to England as early as the latter part of 1521 or sometime in 1522. If he did come then it was probably only for a short time. It seems that by the mid 1520s he was in Mantua working under Giulio Romano and he was back in France, with Primaticcio, in 1532.[xii]

Chapel Royal St. Peter Ad Vincula

1535 – John Fisher Bishop of Rochester

Executed on Tower Hill 22 June 1535

John Fisher by Hans Holbein the Younger

1535 – Sir Thomas More

Executed on Tower Hill 6 July 1535

Thomas More

1536 – George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford

Executed on Tower Hill 17 May 1536

1536 – Queen Anne Boleyn

Executed on Tower Green May 19 1536

Queen Anne Boleyn

1540 – Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex

Executed on Tower Hill 28 July 1540

Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger

1541 – Margaret of Clarence, Countess of Salisbury

Executed on Tower Green 27 May 1541

Portrait of an unknown woman traditionally thought to be Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury

1542 – Queen Katharine Howard

Executed on Tower Green 13 February 1542

Portrait miniature by Hans Holbein the younger.

1542 – Jane Boleyn Vicountess Rochford (not included on the plaque)

Executed on Tower Green 13 February 1542

1549 – Thomas Lord Seymour of Sudeley

Executed on 20 March 1549

1552 (Actual plaque states 1551) – Edward Seymour Duke of Somerset

Executed on Tower Hill 22 January 1552

Edward Seymour Duke of Somerset

1552 – Sir Ralph Vane

Hanged on Tower Hill 26 February 1552

1552 – Sir Thomas Arundel

Executed on Tower Hill 26 February 1552

1553 – John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland

Executed on Tower Hill 22 August 1553

John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland

1554 – Lord Guildford Dudley

Executed on Tower Hill 12 February 1554

1554 – Lady Jane Grey

Executed on Tower Green 12 February 1554

Lady Jane Grey, engraving published 1620

1554 – Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk

Executed on Tower Hill 28 February 1554

1572 – Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk

Executed on Tower Hill 2 June 1572

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk

1592 – Sir John Perrott

Died whilst in custody in the Tower on 3 November 1592

Sir John Perrott

1595 – Phillip, Earl of Arundel (In 1624 his body was moved to the Fitzalan Chapel located on the western grounds of Arundel Castle. His tomb was moved to the Catholic Arundel Cathedral in 1971 and remains a site of pilgrimage.)

Arundel spent ten years incarcerated in the Tower of London while charges of high treason were investigated but never proved. He died of dysentery on 19 October 1595 and was immediately acclaimed as a Catholic Martyr.

Phillip, Earl of Arundel

1601 – Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

Executed on Tower Green 25 February 1601

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex by Isaac Oliver, c. 1597

Tower of London Monument

In the Tower of London a monument marks the site of the scaffold (now understood to be a short distance away from the actual scaffold site) where seven famous prisoners were privately executed. On the 19th May 1536, Anne was the first woman to suffer death by beheading for treason. She was followed by four other women: Margaret Pole the Countess of Salisbury (1541), Katherine Howard (1542), Jane- Viscountess Rochford (1542) and Lady Jane Grey (1554).

The two men were William Hastings (1483) and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1601).

Tower Monument

The poem written on the monument reads:

Gentle visitor pause awhile, where you stand death cut away the light of many days. Here jewelled names were broken from the vivid thread of life, may they rest in peace while we walk the generations around their strife and courage under these restless skies.

Katherine Parr's tomb, Chapel of St. Mary at Sudeley

I have just added a new resource to the website called ‘Tudor Tombs and Burials’. In this section I have documented the final resting place of the Tudor monarchs, Henry VIII’s wives and other notable Tudor personalities.

I have included photos of the tombs where permissible and welcome any photos that you might have in your collection, along with suggestions for additional entries.

As well as being fascinated by visiting locations where the Tudors went about their daily business, I am intrigued by the thought of standing close to where their physical remains are interred. There is something very special about this proximity.

I hope you find this resource useful and interesting!

Click here for Tudor Tombs and Burials.

Henry VIII's writing desk, c.1525 V&A Museum

This exquisite writing box was made c. 1525 almost certainly in the court workshops of Henry VIII.

It is lined with leather and painted with the heraldic badges of Henry and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. It is also decorated with the royal coat of arms.

The box, or writing desk as it is sometimes referred to, is now housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Click here to read a detailed description of this Tudor treasure.

Although the history of the box is uncertain, it is thought that the box could have been a royal gift. It might even have been a gift for Henry VIII or Catherine of Aragon.

This box is a rare example of the luxurious furnishings of the Tudor royal palace.  See the intricate design and details of the box in this fascinating video presented by the V & A Museum.

(Click here to view the video)

If only more of these treasures had survived.