The Anne Boleyn Collection II: Anne Boleyn & the Boleyn Family (31 page)

"Today the countess of Wiltshire asked me when I heard from your Ladyship, and thanked you heartily for the hosen. She is sore diseased with the cough, which grieves her sore."
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This may have just been a simple cough, but it could also have been something more serious, something which led to Elizabeth's death in April 1538. On 7th April 1538, Warley wrote to Lady Lisle reporting Elizabeth's death:

"My lady of Wiltshire died on Wednesday last beside Baynard's castle."
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And two days later, John Hussee wrote to Lady Lisle of Elizabeth's funeral:

"My lady Wiltshire was buried at Lamehithe [Lambeth] on the 7th... She was conveyed from a house beside Baynard's Castle by barge to Lambeth with torches burning and four baneys (banners?) set out of all quarters of the barge, which was covered with black and a white cross."
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Sir John Russell, Lord Comptroller, was the chief male mourner and Elizabeth's half-sister, Katherine Howard, Lady Daubenay, was the chief female mourner.

Elizabeth's Resting Place

In May 2013, I visited Elizabeth Boleyn's resting place. St Mary's Church, Lambeth, is no longer a place of worship; it is now the Garden Museum. This is a bit of a disappointment for Tudor history fans because the Howard Chapel, where Elizabeth and other Howard family members were laid to rest, is now a café. However, we have to thank our lucky stars; if the Garden Museum had not been set up in 1977 to preserve the tomb of famous botanist and gardener John Tradescant (ca.1570 – 1638 ), the church would have been demolished. OK, so the Howard Chapel has a counter and tables, and people sit there eating salads and drinking coffee, but the tombs have been preserved under the wooden floor. The museum has not messed with the structure of the building and no tombs have been desecrated; that had already happened during the rebuilding work in Victorian times.

It is frustrating that we can't see Elizabeth's tomb but she is there, somewhere under that floor.

Some people wonder if Elizabeth's burial at Lambeth, rather than at Hever, is evidence of a breakdown in her marriage after the execution of her son and daughter, but I feel that this is reading far too much into it. Elizabeth was a Howard woman and it appears to have been traditional for Howard women to be buried at Lambeth in the Howard Chapel. Norfolk House, where Catherine Howard spent part of her upbringing and the London home of the Howard family, was just down the road, and Elizabeth died in London. Just what she was doing at the home of the Abbot of Reading is a mystery, but perhaps she was taken ill nearby and then died there. Her husband had been at court since January 1538, so it appears that she had accompanied him to London.
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Whatever the truth of the matter, there is no evidence that Elizabeth and Thomas Boleyn had marital problems.

The History of St Mary's Church, Lambeth

We know from the Domesday Book that there has been a church on the site since before the Norman Conquest, but the oldest part of St Mary's as we know it today is the tower, which was built ca. 1378. In the 18th century, the only part of the medieval church still standing was the tower, but the church had been rebuilt from Henry VII's reign on. The Howard Chapel was built around 1522. Unfortunately, the main structure of the church was pulled down in 1851 and the church was restored, or rather rebuilt, opening again in February 1852.

One brass that still survives at Lambeth is that of Lady Katherine Howard, who died in 1535 and who "is depicted wearing pedimental head-dress and a long mantle which bears the arms of Howard with the Flodden augmentation. At her feet is a squirrel holding a nut."
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John Aubrey recorded the inscription which accompanied her brass:

"Here lyeth Katherine Howard,one of the Sisters and Heires of John Broughton, Esq, Son and Heire of John Broughton, Esq,and late Wife of the Lord Willm. Howard,one of the Sonnes of the Right High and Mighty Prince Lord Thomas, late Duke of Norfolke, High Treasurer and Earl Marshal of England; which Lord William and Lady Catherine left Issue between them,lawfully begotten, Agnes Howard, the only Daughter and Heir; which said Lady Catherine deceased the xxiii. Day of Aprill Anno Dni. MCCCCCxxxv. Whose Soule Jesu pardon."
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Lambeth

If you're in London visiting Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, do take the time to walk across the bridge over the Thames to Lambeth. The Garden Museum is right next door to Lambeth Palace, which is a good photo opportunity, and it is free to visit the café. Also, just down the road from the museum is the Novotel London Waterloo Hotel, which stands on the former site of Norfolk House at 113 Lambeth Road. Norfolk House was once the London home of the Dukes of Norfolk, Elizabeth's family, coming into their possession when Elizabeth FitzAlan, wife of Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, inherited it from her brother, Thomas FitzAlan. Agnes Tilney, wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, resided at Norfolk House where she brought up a household of ladies, including her step-granddaughter Catherine Howard. It was at Norfolk House, and at the Dowager Duchess' other home, Chesworth House near Horsham, that Catherine was said to have had relationships with her music tutor Henry Manox and with Francis Dereham. The Dowager Duchess lost Norfolk House when she was imprisoned after the fall of Catherine Howard in 1541, but in 1543 it was granted to her stepson, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who used it as his London residence until he was imprisoned in December 1546. When he was released by Mary I in 1553, he eventually regained possession of Norfolk House. After Norfolk's death in 1554 his grandson, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, sold the house to Richard Garthe and John Dyster. The house then went through a number of owners, including Margaret Parker (wife of Archbishop Matthew Parker) and her sons, Matthew and John, Archbishop Whitgift, Sir George Paule and John Dawson who bought it in 1618. In a 1951 survey of London, I found the following information on Norfolk House and what it consisted of in the early 17th century:

"Sir George Paule bought the house from Whitgift's son in 1608 and lived there until his death in 1635. From the details contained in this sale some idea can be gained of the size of Norfolk House and the disposition of the buildings. There was a great gate from 'the King's highway leading from Lambeth Town to St. George's Fields' (i.e. Lambeth Road) leading into a paved yard. On the west was the Duke's chapel which, by 1590, had been partitioned to make a hall, buttery and parlour, and a number of small rooms; on the east were the kitchen offices with 'a greate chamber' on the first floor, a gallery, oratory and several closets and the hall opening on to the garden on the south. The total width of the garden was 125 feet, and it is a reasonable assumption that the street frontage was approximately the same."
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1. Figure 40
   - St. Marys Church, Lambeth Resting place of Elizabeth Boleyn
   

I had trouble finding out what happened to Norfolk House after 1618 so I contacted Marilyn Roberts, an historian working on a book about the Howards and Norfolk House.
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Marilyn explained that in 1680, potter James Barston set up a business producing tin-glazed earthenware, now called "Lambeth Delftware", on the site of Norfolk House and that the site eventually became the Doulton factory in Lambeth. It was in the late 17th century that Old Paradise Street (formerly Paradise Street and then Paradise Row) was formed, and it was at this time that the house was split from its gardens. The 1951 survey gives the following information about Old Paradise Street:

"This street was formed in the late 17th century on land which had formerly belonged to Norfolk House. Nos. 2–18 formed part of the endowment left by Archbishop Tenison to the school for girls founded by him in High Street. In the 18th century they were let by the school trustees on long lease to Richard Summersell, who held the offices of bailiff of the manors of Kennington, Vauxhall, Lambeth and Walworth, surveyor of the Parish Roads and surveyor of Thrale's Brewery. His daughter, Elizabeth Pillfold, widow of Alexander Pillfold, surrendered the lease when land was required to enlarge the burial ground."
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Marilyn explained that from the late 17th century, "The house itself was being altered and chopped about to suit new purposes and disappeared and decayed by stages rather than being pulled down in its entirety, as far as I can tell, and was demolished by the 1780's, apart from part of an outside wall that had been incorporated into a building on the Norfolk Row side." She also mentioned the site being used as a distillery at one point; I found a mention in the 1951 survey of Hodges' Distillery, a gin distillery. It appears that the distillery stood on the site in the early to mid 19th century. After that, an Ordnance Survey Map of 1872 shows a candle factory being on the site and Marilyn explained to me that this factory "so badly and deeply contaminated the former site of Norfolk House that the archaeologists' findings in the 1980s, prior to the Novotel being built, were very sparse and disappointing." How sad that Norfolk House is now lost to us.

Notes and Sources

1 Warnicke, "Anne Boleyn's Childhood and Adolescence."

2 "Status Details for Hundred," para. The Hundred is a division of the Ancient County, also known as a Leet (East Anglia), a Ward (Cumberland, Durham and Northumberland), and Wapentake (Counties of York). It held administrative and judical functions, although the level of administrative responsibilities held by each of these units differed. Its origins are unclear, but possibly derive from the geographical area containing a hundred "families" or households. By the late 16th Century hundreds were comprised of parishes (formerly Medieval Vills).

3 Dean, "Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat (1477-1539)," 48.

4 "Oyer and Terminer," sec. a commission authorizing a British judge to hear and determine a criminal case at the assizes. Middle English, part translation of Anglo–French oyer et terminer, literally, to hear and determine.

5 Dean, "Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat (1477-1539)," 101.

6 Dowling, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII, 145.

7 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 10.

8 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1: 1509-1514," n. 698.

9 "Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 4: Part 2," n. 1048.

10 Ibid., n. 1077.

11 "Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 4: Part 1, Henry VIII, 1529-1530," n. 255.

12 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 353.

13 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 13 Part 1 - January-July 1538," n. 1419.

14 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 14 Part 1: January-July 1539," n. 511.

15 Weir, Mary Boleyn: The Great and Infamous Whore, 12.

16 Ibid., 29.

17 Ibid., 30–33.

18 Ibid., 33.

19 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 154.

20 "Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 4: Part 2," n. 934.

21 Bernard, The King's Reformation, 152.

22 Harpsfield, A Treatise on the Pretended Divorce Between Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon, 236.

23 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 12 Part 2: June-December 1537," n. 952.

24 Bernard, The King's Reformation, 211.

25 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6 - 1533," n. 923.

26 Wilkinson, Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII's Mistress, 134.

27 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 8," n. 862.

28 Ibid., n. 565.

29 Ibid., n. 567.

30 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 47.

31 Sander, Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, 23–25.

32 Lewis, The Trial of Mary Queen of Scots: A Brief History with Documents, 120.

33 Wormald, Mary, Queen of Scots: Pride, Passion and a Kingdom Lost, 13.

34 Bailey and Hill, Richard, The Life and Death of the Renowned John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Who Was Beheaded on Tower Hill, the 22nd of June 1535, 62–63.

35 Weir, Mary Boleyn: The Great and Infamous Whore, 34.