The Other Tudors (15 page)

Early in that same year, Henry is believed to have fallen in love with Mary, the eldest daughter of Thomas Boleyn. Mary was born in c.1499, George in c.1504 and Anne in c.1507, although there is considerable debate about the dates and the order of the births of the daughters. Given the number of children who failed to survive infancy, it was not considered that important to record the dates of the births of children, especially those of daughters.

Thanks to her father’s friendship with Henry VIII, and her mother’s family connections and previous post as one of the ladies to both Elizabeth of York and Catherine of Aragon, Mary soon gained her place at Court as a lady-in-waiting to Catherine. Mary Boleyn had been one of the ladies who accompanied Henry’s sister, Mary, to France when she married Louis XII in August 1514. When the party arrived, Louis sent many of Princess Mary’s English ladies back to England, although Mary Boleyn was one of those who stayed behind. After the wedding Louis sent still more of the older, more opinionated ladies back to England, but again ‘Madmoyselle Boleyne’ stayed with Mary. The Princess said of the young ladies who remained that they were, ‘such as never had experience nor knowledge how to advertise or give me counsel in any time of need.’
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Had Mary Boleyn been born around 1499, as is believed, she would have been in her mid-teens when she joined the French Court. One reason for her staying, when so many senior ladies were repatriated, may have been her lack of experience in guiding the Queen, but it may also be due to the fact that the heir to the throne, the dauphin Francis, wanted her to become his mistress. Over 20 years after the event, when he was king, Francis wrote that Mary Boleyn was ‘
per una grandissima ribalda et infame sopre tutte
’ (‘a very great slut with a most infamous reputation’).
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It is comments like this that have led to the suggestion that Mary was a wanton, with a string of lovers. There is, however, no evidence other than the malicious and spiteful remarks of a probable rejected lover, Francis I, who has seen the object of his affection take up with someone he envied and disliked, Henry VIII.

Francis also lashed out at another lady who had repulsed his advances. The young Mary Tudor had married Louis XII, his predecessor, and when he died Francis had tried to seduce her, only to be repulsed. Some years later Francis scribbled graffiti on a portrait of Mary, ‘
plus sale que royne
’ (‘more dirty than queenly’).

Some credence has been given to the idea that Mary Boleyn was the mistress of the dauphin, given the lax morals of Francis I’s court. Sieur de Brantôme wrote that: ‘Rarely did any maid or wife leave that court chaste.’
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However, the comment by Francis I is the only evidence for Mary Boleyn’s supposedly loose behaviour, so it is more likely that she remained chaste and Francis remained a frustrated would-be lover.

Another supposed piece of evidence supporting Mary Boleyn’s lax behaviour comes from Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s
Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth
, published in 1649. He quotes William Rastall, a judge and author of a life of Sir Thomas More, saying that a youthful Henry VIII had had an affair with Elizabeth Boleyn while her husband was in France as part of an embassy, and that Anne was the King’s daughter. It is just conceivable that this might be true if Anne was born in 1507, as Henry would have been about 15 years old when she was conceived. Rastall also claimed that when Anne was 15, she had some kind of illicit relationship with a household servant, and was sent to France in disgrace. Here, according to Rastall, it was Anne rather than Mary, who ‘behaved herself so licentious, that she was vulgarly called the Hackney of England [a hackney was a horse hired out and ridden by anyone who could afford the hire charge], till being adopted to that King’s [Francis’s] familiarity, she was termed his Mule.’
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Since these comments are obviously not applicable to Anne, who was only a child under her father’s care during her time in France, it has been assumed that they must apply to Mary when, in truth, they were written to discredit Anne and are largely based on vulgar invention, aimed simply at damaging her reputation.

If Mary had had a reputation for loose behaviour, she would never have been permitted to go to France with Princess Mary in the first place. Certainly there is no evidence to suggest that she was sexually active or had any other lovers. If she had behaved in a disgraceful manner whilst in France, there seems to have been no retribution on her return to England as she retained her place at Court.

In April 1515, Mary Boleyn returned to England with Mary Tudor and her new husband, Charles Brandon. The Boleyn daughter who stayed in France was Anne. By 1520, Henry and Mary Boleyn were lovers. Since, besides being king, Henry was a handsome young man, and Mary was a lovely young woman, this may have been a genuine love affair. Again, if Mary had been truly promiscuous, particularly with Francis I, it is extremely unlikely that Henry would have had anything to do with her. Although Henry had an affair with Jane Popincourt after she had been the mistress of Longueville, it was only a light-hearted romance of short duration, and Henry liked Longueville. He would not have taken a mistress who had once been intimate with Francis I whom he disliked intensely.

Once the affair was in physical progress (or about to take that final step), Mary was married to William Carey of Aldenham, Hertfordshire, one of the gentlemen in the household of Cardinal Wolsey. Henry would never again make the mistake of risking a pregnancy in an unmarried lady. For a second time, when a mistress needed a ‘diplomatic’ husband, Wolsey could be relied upon to produce a well born young man from his household. Carey was directly descended from King Edward III; his mother, Margaret Spencer, was a cousin of Margaret Beaufort’s. The wedding took place on 4 February 1520; Henry VIII was one of the guests and, according to the King’s Book of Payments, made a wedding gift of 6s 8d, a modest sum.

Bessie Blount had her son in 1519. Mary Boleyn was married in February 1520 to William Carey and the affair probably began shortly after. By 1523 Mary was Henry’s acknowledged mistress as in that year he named one of his ships the
Mary Boleyn
. Mary finally became pregnant in June 1525. Carey received royal grants in 1522, 1523, 1524 and 1525, which seems to indicate the duration of the affair.
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If Henry’s passion was running true to form, once Mary became pregnant (either by Henry or her husband), the King’s interest would cease.

Anne Boleyn’s first recorded appearance at Court was with her sister in a masque held in March 1522 in honour of an Imperial delegation to arrange the marriage between Charles V and Princess Mary. There was a Château Vert (a wood and plaster life-size model of a Castle painted green and decorated with leaves and flowers) defended by eight ladies representing the female virtues, each accompanied by a boy chorister of the Chapel Royal as a female vice, and attacked by eight men as the male virtues: the ladies wore white satin with the name of their character embroidered in yellow satin 24 times on the dress, a caul (hair net) of Venetian gold with a Milan bonnet (cap). The ‘Vices’ were dressed as Indian women, and the missiles were dates, oranges, fruits and sweetmeats.

The Virtue of ‘Beauty’ was danced by Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk; ‘Honour’ was the Countess of Devonshire; Mary Boleyn was ‘Kindness’, her sister Anne was ‘Perseverance’ and their sisterin-law, Jane Parker, was ‘Constancy’. The other ladies were ‘Bounty’, ‘Mercy’ and ‘Pity’. Mary’s ‘Vice’ was ‘Unkindness’ and her ‘Male Virtue’ was ‘Attendance’. Anne’s were ‘Jealousy’ and ‘Youth’. Eventually, the ardour of the men overcame the disdain of the ladies, and they were led out of their green-painted ‘castle’ to dance.
⁷

It is a strange irony that the King’s mistress, Mary, played the role of ‘Kindness’, while her sister Anne seemed to look to her future courtship in the role of ‘Perseverance’. Jane Parker, who would become their sister-in-law, embodied ‘Constancy’ only in her constant appearances in the tragedies that followed the Boleyns, contributing by her testimony to the deaths of her husband, George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn and their cousin Catherine Howard.

Both Mary Boleyn’s children were born after her marriage, and there is no serious contemporary suggestion that either was the child of the King. There is some dispute as to whether Catherine or Henry was born first, one in 1524, while the affair was in progress, and the other in 1526, after the affair is supposed to have ended. Baby Henry was said by some to bear a resemblance to Henry VIII (like the King’s other male bastards), but portraits of the period make it difficult for modern researchers to be sure of any resemblance. The male fashion in the first half of the 16th century was for heavy facial hair.

However, there were obviously rumours about Henry Carey’s parentage. John Hale, a Cambridge fellow and vicar of Isleworth, was executed for treason in May 1535 (with the Blessed Richard Reynolds and four Carthusian monks). Amongst the evidence against him was a statement that: ‘John Hale, vicar of Iselworth, said that a Brigettine of Sion [a monk from Sion abbey] once showed him “young master Carey”, saying he was Henry’s bastard.’
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Henry Carey received an education suitable to his rank as the son of William Carey and Mary Boleyn. Nicholas Bourbon became a tutor to the sons of nobles, including Thomas (son of Sir Nicholas Harvey), Henry Norris’s son and Henry Carey. Bourbon wrote the
Nargarum
(literally, a book of stuff and nonsense); printed in 1538, it is dedicated to the kings, Francis I and Henry VIII. He wrote in Latin:

It is often said that Thomas Boleyn owed his dramatic career rise to first one, then the other of his daughters becoming the King’s mistress. Thomas Boleyn, however, was already an up-andcoming politician before 1520. In 1511 he was Governor of Norwich Castle; in 1512 he was Ambassador to the Low Countries. By 1514 he was Ambassador to France, and in 1516, Ambassador to the Imperial Court. In 1518 he was back in France, and in 1521 he was with Wolsey at the Congress of Calais. In 1525 he became a baron and in 1529 he was made Lord Privy Seal. Part of his rise may have been due to his daughters; part may have been because of his friendship with the King; most was certainly due to his own talents.

The affair between Henry and Mary Boleyn ended some time in 1525. It was not until 1528 that Mary’s sister, Anne, is mentioned as having taken the King’s fancy. He did not abandon one sister for the other.

In 1525 Catherine of Aragon was now 40 and unlikely to have any more children. In July, Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, wrote from the Imperial Court that he had advised Charles V that Henry had given up hope having another child with Catherine, ‘seeing the Queen’s Grace hath long been without children.’
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It may have been this final realisation that made Henry start to consider divorce. Mary Boleyn was out of the picture, married to William Carey. Henry was now looking less for sexual gratification, and more for another queen and mother of the future Prince of Wales.

On 4 May 1527, a masque was held to celebrate England’s peace with France and Princess Mary’s betrothal to a French prince. The King and Queen were there, as was Margaret of Scotland, Henry’s widowed elder sister. Princess Mary was dressed in her finest, and Spinelli, the Venetian Ambassador, wrote, ‘her beauty produced such an effect … that all other sights … were forgotten and they gave themselves up solely to the contemplation of so fair an angel.’
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Just two weeks after the betrothal of Mary to the French prince, a church court was assembled to discuss the King’s divorce.

Mary Boleyn might no longer be the King’s mistress, but her husband remained a member of his immediate circle. William Carey shared the King’s appreciation of art, assembling his own collection. He introduced Dutch artist, Lucas van Horenbolte, to the English Court around 1525. One of Horenbolte’s first commissions was to produce a portrait of the King; he painted the first true English miniature of Henry (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England) and is known to have created similar portraits of both Catherine of Aragon and Catherine Parr (also possibly Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, although the provenance for these pictures is less certain). His sister, Susannah, and father, Gerard, joined him in England: Susannah was an illustrator of manuscripts, but Lucas is listed in court records as a ‘pictor maker’, a formal court painter. On his arrival in England, Hans Holbein was a student of Horenbolte for a while; it was from Horenbolte that he developed some of his skill at miniature portrait painting.

William Carey was a gentleman of the privy chamber and one of Henry’s close attendants, and Anne Boleyn was at some pains to acknowledge his support. Carey was at Greenwich when the plague broke out. The King quickly moved the healthy elements of his Court to Waltham, and sent Anne Boleyn to Hever Castle, where she and her brother George both fell ill, but subsequently recovered. William Carey also fell sick, as did two of Henry’s close friends, Sir William Compton and Sir Edward Poyntz. All three died.

A penniless widow with two children, Mary Boleyn fell on hard times. Her father refused to help her, and Mary was reduced to asking Anne to intercede on her behalf. Henry wrote to Anne:

Thomas Boleyn, once the King had spoken on the matter, arranged for a small annuity to be paid to his eldest daughter and her family. Henry VIII awarded the wardship of Henry Carey to Anne Boleyn, presumably so that she could protect her sister’s son who might also, just possibly, be his own. There was no great estate that could be dipped into for a substantial revenue, and no inheritance for which to arrange a suitable marriage; the guardian of little Henry could only look after his interests.