3
Sir Thomas Boleyn was one of the gallant knights who took part in the great tournament held in February 1511 at Westminster to honor the birth of Henry VIII’s first son, Henry, Prince of Wales, who had been born on New Year’s Day. But, to the great grief of his parents, the infant prince died only a week later, and Sir Thomas soon found himself one of the bearers at the funeral in Westminster Abbey.1 That is prime evidence that he was already prominent at court and close to Henry VIII. At a tournament on May 23, 1510, at Greenwich Palace, he had jousted against the King himself.2 By 1511, Sir Thomas was well established as one of Henry VIII’s favorite courtiers, and more lucrative offices were coming his way. He was appointed keeper of the royal park of Bestwood, Nottinghamshire, that year, and Sheriff of Kent for twelve months, then made joint Constable of Norwich Castle on February 15, 1512. He was again Sheriff of Kent from 1517 to 1518.3
Boleyn, being a great linguist, an invaluable asset in the world of Tudor diplomacy, was sent in May 1512, with Sir Richard Wingfield—who lived at Stone in Kent, not far from Hever—and John Young, on an embassy to the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, in Flanders. On April 5, 1513, Boleyn and Sir Edward Poynings concluded a treaty with Pope Julius II and Maximilian’s daughter, Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, at Malines near Brussels, when they joined forces with Henry VIII as the “Holy League” to make war against the French. Sir Thomas returned to England in June 1513.4 Later that summer, when Henry VIII invaded France, Boleyn led a company of a hundred men5 and took part in the siege of Thérouanne and the Battle of the Spurs, both English victories.
At the turn of the sixteenth century, Andreas Franciscus, a continental visitor to England, observed that Englishmen, “contrary to nature,” showed no love to their children, lavishing all their love on their wives. Thomas Boleyn seems to have lavished little love on either, but he was a cultivated man and he plainly cared about education, seeing it as the pathway to success. He was at the forefront of innovation in having at least one of his daughters tutored to a high standard. That was Anne, whom Lord Herbert states was so “singular” in “towardness” that her parents “took all possible care for her good education.” Because Anne later became Queen of England, we know quite a lot about her intellectual abilities and interests, and can infer from those something of her education, but of her sister Mary’s we know next to nothing, save that she was literate, read books and could write a competent letter. No one mentioned her singular towardness, and Ives’s reference to her “evident inferior potential” may be apposite. Nevertheless, Sir Thomas Boleyn afforded both his daughters a training that would befit them for court life and good marriages.6
There is a consensus of opinion among historians that Mary “was apparently less of an intellectual than the rest of her family.”7 It has even been claimed that she was “neglected from infancy by her parents,”8 although there is no evidence for this—indeed, rather the contrary. Just one historian suggests that “to judge from her later history, [Mary] may well have been intelligent and opportunistic.”9 But others disagree, asserting that Anne was “far more intelligent and far more applied” than Mary, as “the respective courses of [the sisters’] lives would amply demonstrate.”10 Anne “was clearly the brighter, and considered to be the more teachable,”11 while Mary had “only a trace of Anne’s great vitality, with less brains, and much less determination.”12 She was “neither accomplished nor witty.”13 “Anne appears to have outstripped Mary in her education, and she quickly became the focus of Thomas Boleyn’s ambition for his daughters.”14 Anne, it seems, was his favorite.15
All these assertions—going on purely circumstantial contemporary evidence—are probably percipient, yet it is barely conceivable that Mary, being the elder daughter, would not initially have been afforded an education similar to that which her younger sister received.16 And even if Thomas Boleyn gave up on that at some point, finding that Mary was a pretty girl but not as bright as her sister,17 her birth and her father’s position would have been sufficient to secure her a good marriage.
This was a time when medieval notions of education being a danger to the moral welfare of girls were being overturned. Sir Thomas More’s house in London was virtually a female academy: he afforded his clever daughters a fine classical education, no different from that arranged for his son. More’s success—showing that women could be both learned and virtuous—undoubtedly influenced Katherine of Aragon in planning the education of her daughter, the Princess Mary, born in 1516; she took the advice of the Spanish educationist Juan Luis Vives, who prescribed a vigorous curriculum. But that was years after Thomas Boleyn had afforded his daughters a rather advanced education for the period, which also placed emphasis on all the accepted branches of virtuous instruction, such as music, singing, and dancing,18 essential accomplishments for girls who were destined to be the ornaments of courts, as clearly their father intended. The composer Richard Davy was chaplain to Thomas Boleyn from 1506 to 1515, when some of his best church music was written, so the sisters had the benefit of growing up in a household in which music was integral and a sophisticated example was set.19 Mary (like her sister) may have grown up to be an accomplished musician,20 but this is only an assumption.21
The Boleyn daughters were taught to read and to write in a fine Italianate hand, as Anne’s letters prove; only two of Mary’s letters survive to show that her style was not as elegant as her sister’s, or as grammatical—a failing of which she was aware, for she referred to one being “scribbled with her ill hand,”22 although it does show her to have been articulate.23 It was not uncommon, however, for educated aristocrats, both men and women, to write and spell badly.24 Mary does reveal in that same letter that she read “old books” about kings and queens, presumably for pleasure, so no doubt she read others also.
All the Boleyn children were taught to speak fluent French. That was clearly very important to their father. As we will see, Anne initially struggled with that language, and only years of living abroad at the courts of Brussels and France made her proficient in it. Mary seems to have had a better aptitude for French, which shows she was not a dullard. There is no evidence to support the assertion that “both daughters occasionally accompanied their father on his missions abroad.”25 It was he who accompanied them when they went to foreign courts.
Mary and Anne would have received instruction in the traditional aristocratic pursuits of riding, hunting, and hawking, at which their father excelled, and instruction in the rituals and beliefs of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church—doctrines that the Boleyn family would one day challenge. Their lives at Hever Castle would have been conventional, ordered by religious and domestic routines, and the unchanging round of the seasons: Lady Day, March 25, the official beginning of the medieval year; Lent; Easter; May Day, when young girls rose early to bring in the May; Michaelmas, and the start of the farming year; Harvest-tide; Advent; Christmas and the Twelfth Night celebrations, and Candlemas. The cycle was punctuated by numerous holy and saints’ days. There would have been a chapel in the medieval castle, where the family chaplain would have celebrated Mass daily.
Hever Castle boasted a great hall, a symbol of the Boleyns’ wealth and status, where the family plate would have been displayed on a buffet, and the prevailing fashion dictated sparse furnishings consisting largely of hangings, chests, and side tables. But at this period, when personal privacy was beginning to be seen as more desirable than communal living, such halls were going out of fashion, and were used mainly for celebrations and entertaining, while family life was generally conducted, and meals taken, in the privacy of the parlor.
On wet days, instead of walking in the gardens, riding out on horseback, hunting or hawking, the sisters might take their exercise in the long gallery built by their father. Their parents would have slept in the Great Chamber, which also doubled as a reception room in Tudor times, and they themselves would have occupied lesser bedchambers. We have no way of knowing which chambers Mary and Anne occupied at Hever, but they would probably have had a fireplace, small diamond-paned windows, and wainscoted or painted walls. Their beds would have been solid wooden structures with a tester or canopy and expensive curtains and hangings of silk or damask. They would have had a chair or stool, a chest for clothes and linen, a cupboard to hold a basin and ewer, cosmetic jars, a mirror of burnished silver, and a chamber pot.
The family’s steward held sway in the estate office, where tenants came to pay rent or settle disputes, and accounts were kept, with the aid of a checkered counting table or cloth. This room was very much a male preserve, but Lady Boleyn, the mistress of the castle, would also have had her office, and from here she ruled her household, ordering the servants and overseeing the provisioning and feeding of the family and their large staff of servants. Traditionally, even great ladies had their still rooms, where they might distill sweet waters, or produce confits and conserves, or make medicines and poultices, using the herbs that grew in the gardens. In these tasks, Mary and Anne would have assisted their mother, for it was considered essential that girls of good birth were taught the skills that would enable them to run a great household. They would have learned that a lady should keep her servants busy not only by precept, but by example.
Breakfast in those days was served early, at six or seven o’clock, and consisted of meat or pottage (broth), bread and ale. Dinner—the main meal of the day—was usually eaten late in the morning. The Boleyns, with their rich estates, would have eaten well, if not lavishly, and been offered several courses, with many dishes at each; and they might well have followed the fashion to remain at table until two or three in the afternoon. Supper, a lighter repast, was at five or six o’clock. All the food was organic, and much of it would have been fresh and flavored with herbs and expensive spices. The parlor where the family ate would have been furnished with a long table, a chair for Sir Thomas Boleyn at its head, and stools and benches for his wife, his children, and his mother. The walls would have been paneled with wainscot, perhaps with painted friezes or scenes on the plaster above, and hung with tapestries, painted cloths, or pictures.
Rooms were heated by open fires or braziers, and lit by beeswax candles, which were often set in beams or wheel-shaped structures and hoisted into place by a pulley. Only the better-off could afford sufficient lighting to allow them to stay up in the evenings, when Mary and Anne and their brothers probably amused themselves by playing cards, dice, or games such as chess or tables (backgammon); or they might have passed their leisure time in reading, singing, making music, sewing, embroidering, writing poetry, or teasing each other with riddles, which was a popular pastime. Probably they danced too, practicing the latest steps against the time they might be summoned to court, which must have been the greatest desire of their childhood.
The clothes the sisters would have worn in their everyday life were modestly cut, of good quality and the same as those worn by their elders. These comprised a washable linen shift, worn next to the skin, a petticoat lined perhaps with fur, and a long, square-necked gown lined with richer fur; this had a train that they were taught to carry looped over one arm. The sleeves of the gown were either long and hanging, or tight with fur-lined cuffs. Unmarried girls customarily wore their hair long and loose, although they may occasionally have worn caps or hoods with long lappets hanging down over their shoulders. Their stockings were of black wool, and their shoes had double soles and broad toes.
As they grew older, the Boleyn sisters would have enjoyed certain freedoms. English women, noted a Dutch observer, Emanuel van Meteren, did not lead cloistered lives. They were well dressed and enjoyed showing off their finery when shopping, and going to market. They employed their time walking, riding, playing cards, visiting friends and keeping company, conversing with their “gossips” and neighbors, and making merry at childbirths, christenings, churchings, and funerals. In these pursuits, Mary and Anne would have been chaperoned by their mother or governess, for unmarried girls were kept “rigorously and strictly” to protect their virtue.
Above all, the Boleyn sisters would have been brought up to render unconditional obedience to their father and, later, to the husbands he would choose for them.26 They would have learned that women were subordinate creatures, infants in law and subject to the dominion of men.
Anne grew up to be a talented musician, an accomplished singer and dancer, a competent poet, a trendsetter in fashions, a skilled needlewoman, and a witty conversationalist. Mary is not recorded as having any of those gifts, although she probably had some ability in music and dancing, which was desirable at court and would, later, have been pleasing to Henry VIII. And when the tutors he had employed had done all they could, Sir Thomas Boleyn unashamedly used his official connections to secure “the extra advantage of a continental finish for his daughters.”27 Yet although Mary was the elder, it was the sparkling Anne who was found a position at court first.28
It is possible that Anne was chosen to go to the court of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, because she needed to complete her education, when Mary had already done so.29 But there was far more than education at stake, for the Archduchess’s court offered many opportunities and advantages for a young girl of good birth. Anne’s acute intellect is more likely to have been the reason why her father decided that she, rather than her elder sister, should benefit from being educated abroad:30while at Malines, he boasted to Margaret of Austria of the virtues and accomplishments of “la petite Boulain” (as he called his younger daughter in one of his letters31) and, as a result, the erudite Margaret offered Anne, then about twelve years old, a place in her household as one of her eighteen “filles d’honneur.” The name Boleyn appears on the list of her ladies.
Margaret’s court was regarded as one of the finest finishing schools in Europe.32 According to the Emperor Maximilian, it was usual for maids of honor to be aged about thirteen or fourteen;33 this was because they were expected to be able to attract advantageous marriages at court, advance the interests and ambitions of their family, and perform the decorative and social functions required of them. Competition for places was fierce, and parents and guardians were prepared to lay out substantial financial inducements in order to secure the honor of an appointment for their daughters. Moreover, there were more chances of success if a girl had the kind of attributes that would make her an ornament of the court; she had to know how to dress fashionably, dance, sing, entertain her royal mistress and important visitors with witty and amiable conversation, and understand how to conduct herself when in attendance in public and on state occasions. It was for this that Thomas Boleyn had provided his daughters with a sophisticated education, and clearly he did not balk at the considerable outlay required to provide them with suitable court attire. It could never be claimed, as Mary Luke does, that he sought places at court for them to rid himself of the expense of their upbringing.
In the nineteenth century there was “no doubt it is Mary, and not Anne Boleyn, who was fille d’honneur to Margaret of Austria and the subject of that lady’s letter to Sir Thomas Boleyn,”34 and several historians since have repeated the error,35 but the issue is settled by an undated letter, written in French by Anne to her father (and the first of hers to survive), that must belong to that period.
Sir [she wrote],
I understand by your letter that you desire that I shall be a worthy woman when I come into the court, and you inform me that the Queen will take the trouble to converse with me, which rejoices me much to think of talking with a person so wise and worthy. This will make me have greater desire to continue to speak French well, and also spell, especially because you have enjoined it on me, and with my own hand I inform you that I will observe it the best I can. Sir, 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, and Semmonet tells me the letter but waits so that I may do it myself.
Written at Veure by Your very humble and very
obedient daughter,
Anna de Boullan.36
For a long time it was thought that this letter was written at Hever Castle,37 but in 1981, Hugh Paget retranslated it, and discovered that it was in fact written from La Veure (or Terveuren), a royal palace and hunting park near Brussels, which Margaret of Austria favored as a summer retreat. We know the letter is authentic because it was preserved by Thomas or Anne Boleyn, and bequeathed by Anne’s chaplain, Matthew Parker, later Archbishop of Canterbury, to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.38 Thus there can be no doubt that it was Anne who was sent to the court of the Archduchess.
“Semonnet” was presumably a governess—possibly called Simonette—who instructed Anne, and perhaps the other filles d’honneur, in French, or “she” could conceivably have been a male tutor with that surname; there was a gentleman called Symonnet in the household of Margaret of Austria’s nephew, the future Charles V, in 1510.39 Certainly Margaret had assured Anne’s father that, by the time he saw his daughter again, she would be able to converse with him in French.40
It is likely that Anne was present at Lille when the Archduchess entertained Henry VIII there in October 1513, and she may even have been one of the “damsels” with whom the twenty-two-year-old King spent the night dancing.41 This may have been the first occasion on which she set eyes on Henry of England, unless she had seen him when her grandfather entertained him at New Hall in 1500.
It was highly unusual for a younger sister to be advanced before an elder one, and Anne’s appointment has been cited as proof that she “had to have been the elder”;42 yet it was even more unusual for a younger sister to be married first, and the fact that Mary did marry before a husband was found for Anne tends to demolish that argument. It has also been asserted that Anne was not married off before Mary because she was expected to make a good marriage in France,43 but by 1520 she had been there five years and no husband had materialized. Moreover, by the spring of that year, as soon as her sister had been wedded and bedded, her father was negotiating a marriage for her in England—which immeasurably strengthens the case for her being the younger sister.
Even so, it is strange to find Mary, who evidently spoke good French, being passed over as a fille d’honneur to Margaret of Austria. The reason was possibly that her father believed that Anne had what it took to succeed at court in greater measure than Mary. Yet Mary was clearly by no means deficient in that respect, for soon Sir Thomas would find her a place at court too. This leads one to wonder if there was some other reason for Anne being chosen first. Maybe Mary was unwell at the time, or her father had other plans for her, perhaps hoping to place her at the English court.
It may be that Mary Boleyn was jealous of her younger sister going before her into the world of courts, and we may imagine that, after Anne had left for the Low Countries in 1513, Mary perhaps felt resentful and not a little lonely. Yet there is no evidence that the sisters were close,44 or even friendly, so she may have welcomed some respite from being always in the shadow of Anne. Mary has also been seen as “a highly sexed young woman who had been desperate to escape from the boredom of her home at Hever Castle,”45 and as “sensual and precociously attractive”46 and therefore no doubt frustrated—but no one can say any of this for certain. Yet even if Mary was bored at Hever, she would not have to wait long for her own advancement. And if she did not have the same talents, charm, and ambition as Anne, she had clearly been afforded an education that would befit her for a career at court, for in a very short time, thanks to her father’s influence, she would make her own debut there.
While we cannot be sure what Mary looked like, as she grew toward womanhood the charms that were to inspire lust in two kings must have become evident. Modern writers describe her variously as “dark-haired,”47 “stately and golden-haired,”48 or “dimpled and red-cheeked, with lightish-brown hair and gray eyes” and a “rosy, soft, blue-eyed fairness”;49 but there is nothing to substantiate any of these confusing statements. All we know is that Thomas Boleyn’s chaplain, John Barlow, thought that Mary was by far the more beautiful of the Boleyn sisters. That is in direct contradiction to claims that she was “physically not very attractive”50 and “not a beauty.”51
Portraits of Mary’s son, Henry Carey, show a man with a long, thin face, a pointed chin, hooked nose, and heavy-lidded eyes. He does not favor his father, William Carey, although the resemblance to Elizabeth I and Anne Boleyn is striking. Possibly Mary herself had similar features, which were inherited from the Boleyns. But sadly, there is no authenticated portrait or likeness of her.52
In the summer of 1514, Mary Boleyn would no doubt have been delighted to receive a summons to court. The King’s sister, the beautiful eighteen-year-old Mary Tudor, was to be married to Louis XII, King of France, and had need of young girls of good birth who could speak French to attend on her.53 Mary Boleyn had not had the benefit of specialist coaching in French at the court of Brussels, yet she was selected, which argues that she had not had need of it, having inherited her father’s aptitude for languages. The Princess specifically asked for Anne Boleyn also, having heard, presumably from Sir Thomas, that she had made excellent progress in French. “To this request I could not, nor did I know how to refuse,” the proud father wrote to the Archduchess Margaret.54 There had been much jostling for places in Mary Tudor’s train, and the fact that he was successful in obtaining appointments for both his daughters is a measure of Sir Thomas Boleyn’s growing influence and standing at the English court.
This royal wedding was being organized at very short notice. Anne’s letter to her father had been written in that summer of 1514, when the Archduchess took her household for a summer visit to La Veure.55 By then, however, diplomatic relations between England and the Empire were deteriorating. Henry VIII had broken the longstanding betrothal of Margaret of Austria’s nephew, the Archduke Charles (the future Emperor Charles V), son of the Emperor Maximilian, to Mary Tudor, and had instead made an alliance with France and affianced an unwilling Mary to the ailing Louis XII, Maximilian’s rival. Soon, on August 14, Thomas Boleyn was writing from Greenwich tactfully to ask the Archduchess Margaret if she would permit his daughter to return to him with his emissaries, explaining that Princess Mary wanted his daughter as one of the attendants she would take with her to France.56 Thus the queen to whom Anne had referred in her letter from La Veure was Mary Tudor, who now boasted that royal style after having been married by proxy to the King of France.
There has been much confusion as to whether one or both of the Boleyn sisters went to France in 1514. Several writers have stated that it was Mary who accompanied Mary Tudor there,57 but the evidence has perplexed many historians. An “M. Boleyn” is listed among the group of privileged young ladies who were to form part of Mary Tudor’s train,58 and, for more than a century, there was much learned discussion as to whether the M stands for “Mary,” “Mistress,” or “Mademoiselle.” We know now that it referred to Mary, for in a recently discovered list of Queen Mary’s ladies who were paid for their service during the period between October and December 1514,59 the name “Marie Boulonne” is to be found. Anne Boleyn’s name, however, is missing.
It is clear, though, that both Boleyn girls went to France at some stage, although Anne is also missing from the list of the English attendants who traveled with Mary Tudor from England. Possibly she traveled direct from Brussels.60 Thomas Boleyn had written from Greenwich to the Archduchess requesting that she be returned to him. That was on August 14, the day after Mary Tudor had been married by proxy at Greenwich. Mary would not sail to France until October 2, while her wedding to King Louis would take place on October 9 at Abbeville; thus there would have been enough time for Anne to come home first and then travel to France with her new mistress, but clearly she did not. It may be correct to assume that the Archduchess, angered at the breaking of her nephew’s betrothal, made difficulties about Anne leaving, and delayed her departure,61 for the absence of her name from the list of payments made to Mary’s attendants between October and December 1514 indicates that she did not arrive in France until early in 1515.62Unfortunately, no records of similar payments survive for the following quarter.63
Whether her departure was obstructed or not, it may be that, in order to serve the Queen of France, Anne had to return home to be fitted for a new wardrobe—she was only in her early teens and probably still growing—and that it was this, and perhaps winter weather, that delayed her arrival at the French court.
Among the new Queen’s household of nearly 150 persons, Mary Boleyn was initially to be one of four “chamberers,” along with “Mistress Wotton, Alice Denny, and Anne Jerningham.”64 Chamberers served their mistress in the privacy of her chamber, or private suite, performing the menial tasks that were beneath the dignity of her ladies-in-waiting. All the same, they were personal servants who enjoyed a degree of intimacy with her.
It was probably in August 1514 that Mary Boleyn arrived at the court of Henry VIII, which was then in residence at Greenwich Palace, the beautiful riverside residence where the King had been born in 1491. The former palace of Placentia had been rebuilt around 1500, and was one of the chief and most magnificent residences of the Tudor dynasty. Ranged around three vast courtyards, it was of red brick with great bay windows, surrounded by exquisite gardens and orchards, and sumptuously decorated and appointed throughout.
In the splendid but daunting environment of the court, Mary was entrusted at once to the care of Jane, Lady Guildford, the “Lady of Honor”65 or “Mother of the Maids,” who had charge of all the Princess’s maids of honor and was appointed to look to their welfare and good conduct, and to instruct them in etiquette.66 Lady Guildford, widow of Sir Richard Guildford, the comptroller of Henry VII’s household, had formerly been the Princess’s governess, and a lady-in-waiting to her mother, Elizabeth of York, and her grandmother, Margaret Beaufort. She knew how things were done in courts, and was not only a longstanding confidante and mentor to her young mistress, but also ruled her maids and chamberers efficiently.
Mary Boleyn would soon meet her fellow attendants. Some she already knew, including her stepgrandmother, Agnes Tilney, Duchess of Norfolk, and her cousin, Anne Howard, Countess of Oxford. One of the maids of honor was Jane Popincourt, a Frenchwoman who is known to have been maid of honor to the King’s late mother, Elizabeth of York, in 1498, and to have transferred by 1500 to the service of his sister, Mary. It was no secret that Jane was the mistress of a French prince, Louis d’Orléans, Duc de Longueville, who was at that time a prisoner of the King, having been captured in battle in 1513. Since then, while waiting to be ransomed, Longueville had been comfortably lodged in the Tower of London, and was often invited to court, where he had negotiated the marriage of Mary Tudor to Louis XII—and successfully pursued Jane Popincourt. Together with the Princess’s former tutor, John Palsgrave, the illicit lovers were now helping Mary Tudor to perfect her French. Nothing that is recorded of Jane Popincourt supports the assertion that she was “an uncomplicated young woman, more interested in romances, fashion, and shopping,”67 and it has been calculated that she was then around thirty68—middle-aged by Tudor standards.
Louis XII had been sent for approval a list of those who had been selected to attend upon his bride and accompany her to France, but he struck off Jane Popincourt’s name after the English ambassador in Paris had warned him that she was leading an “evil life” as the mistress of the married Longueville, whose duchess would be attending the King’s wedding.69 Mary Tudor was upset at the prospect of being parted from her friend, but Louis was adamant, insisting that his only concern was for the moral welfare of his new queen. To quiet her protests, he sent her the famous Mirror of Naples, a huge diamond with a pendant pearl, valued at 60,000 crowns (about £5 million). Poor Jane was destined to lose not only her place in Princess Mary’s household, but also her lover, who was returning to France with the bridal train.
Recent writers have speculated70—or even stated as a fact71—that Jane Popincourt became Henry VIII’s mistress for a short time, and it has been suggested that the affair was “lighthearted” and “without deep passion on either side”;72 but there is no evidence to support any of this. In May 1516, after the death of King Louis, Jane was allowed to rejoin her lover in France, and on her departure from England, Henry VIII gave her £100 (£48,000).73 This substantial gift is the sole basis for the theory that he and Jane had amorous relations; but, contrary to what has been imagined, it was far more likely to have been bestowed in recognition of her sixteen years of good service to his mother, his sister, and his wife. In 1519, in comparison, Henry granted an annuity of £100 (£38,000) to Sir John Wiltshire in consideration of his services as Comptroller of Calais.74 In any case, Jane seems to have cherished feelings for Longueville, for they resumed their affair as soon as they were reunited in France. Moreover, by October 1514, Henry had begun his liaison with Elizabeth Blount.
Nevertheless, Mary Boleyn, an innocent young teenager first arriving at court, had had a chance to observe firsthand how Jane Popincourt’s adulterous relationship had brought her only disgrace and unhappiness. It was a lesson from which Mary might have benefited.
Contemporary observers were unanimously agreed that Princess Mary was very beautiful; one Venetian called her “a paradise.”75 She had a sweet nature to match, and was to prove a kindly and generous mistress. There is evidence that she cared for the welfare and interests of her servants all her life, even those who had left her service. “Mademoiselle Boleyn” was fortunate to have been placed in the service of such a lady.
Mary Boleyn was probably in attendance on Mary Tudor for her proxy wedding to Louis XII on August 13 at Greenwich Palace, and a witness to the lavish ceremony in the great banqueting hall, which had been hung with cloth of gold embroidered with the royal arms of England and France. The Duc de Longueville stood in for his master, and was kept waiting for three hours by the bride, who arrived in a purple and gold checkered gown that matched his own. After vows, rings, and kisses had been exchanged, the couple was escorted to a sumptuous chamber where a great bed had been prepared, and lay down together fully dressed, apart from each having one leg bared to the thigh. When their naked legs touched, the marriage was declared to have been consummated.
Thereafter, preparations for the wedding proceeded at a flurry, and Mary Boleyn would no doubt have helped when her mistress was fitted with the thirty new gowns that would make up her trousseau, and watched in awe as the jewels and furnishings bestowed by King Henry on his sister were delivered, admired, and packed.
In the last week of September the bridal train—numbering over a hundred persons, and reportedly the richest cavalcade ever seen—made its cumbersome way to Dover, escorted by the King himself, riding side by side with the Princess, and accompanied by the Queen and the entire court. Everyone, Mary Boleyn included, was wearing their best clothes.76 On the way, the vast train lodged at Otford, the great palace of the archbishops of Canterbury near Sevenoaks. High winds detained the royal party at Dover Castle until the sea calmed sufficiently for a crossing to be attempted, and then, on October 2, in the gloom before four o’clock in the morning, Mary’s attendants were awakened and summoned to the quayside at Dover, where the royal fleet awaited. There, Henry kissed his sister and commended her “to God and the fortunes of the sea, and the government of the King your husband.”77 Then Mary Boleyn’s maternal grandfather, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, escorted the Princess on board, her entourage following. Sir Thomas Boleyn was also of their number. In all, fourteen ships set sail that day for France.
In one of them, probably the vessel that conveyed Mary Tudor and her personal attendants, was Mary Boleyn. They endured a terrible voyage in gales and foul weather:78 the fleet was scattered, one vessel was lost with hundreds of lives, and it was four days before the Queen’s ship was grounded on a sandbank at Boulogne, with waves still crashing over the decks. In this tumult, a very seasick and bedraggled Mary Tudor was carried to the beach to be greeted by a reception committee of French dignitaries, who were extremely impressed by the size and splendor of her entourage. Mary Boleyn, like her fellow attendants, had to endure a perilous ride ashore by rowboat in a turbulent sea, and would no doubt have gotten very wet in the process.79
Once all the scattered ships had made land, the Princess and her train spent a short time recuperating in Boulogne, then set off for Etaples and Montreuil, the ladies riding on palfreys with scarlet saddle cloths, with their clothes and personal effects following behind in covered carts. They were feted on the way with tableaux and pageants, and as they approached Montreuil, they were formally welcomed by the young man who—unless Mary Tudor bore a son—was King Louis’s heir: his cousin, the Dauphin François, Count of Angoulême, come with an escort of royal dukes to escort the new queen to Abbeville, where a “surprise” meeting with King Louis, the eager bridegroom, was staged. “What can an old valetudinarian suffering from leprosy want with a handsome girl of eighteen?” asked Peter Martyr, an Italian observer. She would, he predicted, be the death of Louis. But even if the bride-to-be was dismayed at the sight of her future husband’s “decayed complexion,” the meeting went well.
Mary Boleyn was a little way behind her mistress when Queen Mary made her state entry into Abbeville, escorted by a magnificent procession of great lords and two thousand knights. Mary was probably one of the gentlewomen who rode on palfreys caparisoned in mulberry velvet fringed with white and pale blue silk, following in order of precedence behind the great ladies in carriages and the senior gentlewomen on palfreys trapped in cloth of gold and purple velvet. Throughout the day, Mary and her fellow attendants were kept busy assisting the Queen with the many changes of clothing that were required for the various ceremonies.
At Abbeville, Mary Tudor and her retinue attended a Mass of thanksgiving at the church of St. Vulfran before joining King Louis at a reception, which was followed by a great feast. Then Louis’s daughter, poor, lame, squinting Claude, the wife of Dauphin François, escorted the new queen and her party to the ancient Hôtel de Gruthuse, where they were accommodated in fine apartments overlooking a pretty garden. In the evening, young Mary Boleyn attended her first court ball, hosted by the Dauphin and Dauphine, where there was “dancing and music resounding to the skies.”80
The next day was October 9, the feast of St. Denis, France’s patron saint. Mary, like her mistress and the English lords in her train, was up more than an hour before the dawn broke to prepare for the wedding ceremony. It was a chilly morning, and many donned fur-lined robes of cloth of gold, velvet, damask, and silk. After the bridal procession had formed in the Queen’s apartments, Mary Boleyn took her place behind Mary Tudor with the twelve other women of the household, each being escorted by a gentleman as they followed their mistress across the gardens to the great hall of the Hôtel de Gruthuse, which was hung with gold. As the Queen entered, the trumpets sounded a fanfare, and then, resplendent in gold brocade and laden with jewels, she was married to the “antique and feeble” Louis XII by the Cardinal Bishop of Bayeux, who also celebrated the nuptial Mass.81 Afterward, Mary Boleyn would have joined the throng of courtiers feasting in the great hall, while the new queen entertained the royal ladies of France to a private dinner in her own lodgings.
Tradition has it that the wedding ceremony is depicted in a tapestry dating from c.1525 or earlier, now at Hever Castle, and that Mary and Anne Boleyn are among the female attendants portrayed, although there is no way of identifying them; the figure of a maid of honor in a red gown was once said to be Anne. But Anne was almost certainly not present at the wedding.
That evening, the King and Queen threw a nuptial ball at the Hôtel de Gruthuse, which heralded three days of feasting and celebrations. After his wedding night, Louis claimed to have “performed marvels” and to have “crossed the river” three times; one observer, the Seigneur de Fleuranges, could well believe it, as “he was most uncomfortable.” Dauphin François, whose long nose had been much put out of joint by this wedding that threatened his succession, had however set someone to spy on the royal couple in their marriage bed, and was mightily relieved to be told that “it was not possible for the King and Queen to beget children.”82
On the morning after the wedding,83 Mary’s grandfather, the Duke of Norfolk, visited the new Queen’s English attendants to discuss which of them should stay with her in France. But King Louis, not wishing his wife to be subject to unwanted foreign influence, preempted Norfolk’s decision, peremptorily dismissing Lady Guildford and most of Mary Tudor’s English servants, much to his bride’s distress. In the face of this, he allowed her to keep only her six youngest attendants as maids of honor: among the six was “Mademoiselle Boleyne.”84 That must have been Mary, then aged between thirteen and eighteen, as it was she, and not her sister, who received payment for her service during the months of October, November, and December 1514. Mary’s retention in the Queen’s household was, in the well-informed opinion of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who arrived on an embassy to France that autumn, thanks to the machinations of her grandfather, the Duke of Norfolk.85
Mary Tudor was most put out at the dismissal of most of her English attendants, and dismissive of the abilities of those, including Mary Boleyn, who were left to her, who—as she complained to her brother, Henry VIII—were immature and “such as never had experience or knowledge how to advertise or give me counsel in any time of need.”86 That time of need was to come sooner than she could have dreamed, but in the meantime she had to swallow her annoyance and attend to the demands of her husband, who was soon to fall ill with gout.
Mary Boleyn found herself staying on in France with the King’s cousin, Lady Elizabeth Grey, sister to the Marquess of Dorset; Florence Hastings, the young Dowager Lady Grey de Wilton; Anne, daughter of Sir Edward Jerningham; Lady Mary Fiennes, daughter of Thomas, Lord Dacre of Gilsland; and Lady Jane Bourchier, the daughter of John, Lord Berners. In a short while, probably sometime after Christmas, Anne Boleyn would join them, and—no doubt because of her youth—be allowed to stay. In place of Lady Guildford, an experienced French noblewoman was appointed Dame d’Honneur; this was Françoise de Maillé, Madame d’Aumont, who had formerly served the saintly Jeanne de France, the King’s repudiated first wife, and whose husband, Jean d’Aumont, was one of Louis’s most trusted seigneurs. From now on Madame d’Aumont was in charge of Mary Boleyn and the other maids of honor.
After a week spent at Abbeville and a short sojourn at Beauvais, Queen Mary was crowned at the great abbey of St. Denis, near Paris, on Sunday, November 5. The next day, she entered Paris in state, to the rapturous acclaim of the citizens. Every vantage point was decorated with lilies and roses, in defiance of the season, and all along the processional route there were lavish tableaux and pageants. Young Mary Boleyn would no doubt have marveled greatly at them, and at the sights of the city of Paris that she would have seen as she passed: the Church of the Holy Innocents, the Châtelet de Paris, the Palais Royal, the soaring cathedral of Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle, and, finally, the palace of the Conciergerie, to which they were escorted by torchlight in the evening.Here, there was another lavish ball.
The next day the Queen and her suite moved with the King to the vast Hôtel des Tournelles, which was set on twenty acres and could accommodate six thousand people with ease. Magnificently decorated and embellished, it boasted twenty chapels, twelve galleries, and beautiful grounds. To a young girl like Mary Boleyn, such a palace must have been awe-inspiring. Sadly, its splendors have long vanished, and only its subterranean wine cellars survive today.
A week later Mary was in attendance on the Queen at the great jousts organized by Dauphin François in honor of Mary Tudor’s coronation. In these contests, which took place in the Parc des Tournelles, the handsome Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, excelled, while the ailing Louis watched from a couch. Afterward there was a lavish state banquet, then all the English lords, including Mary’s grandfather of Norfolk, departed for England, and on November 27 the King and Queen moved to the fourteenth century chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye outside Paris; only the medieval Sainte Chapelle survives from the palace that Mary Boleyn knew, for it was rebuilt in 1539. Here the ailing Louis could rest, while his queen represented him at receptions and other functions in Paris.
December saw Mary Boleyn and her companions moving with the royal couple back to the Hôtel de Tournelles in Paris for Christmas. Because of the King’s poor health, however, the festivities had to be brought to a halt, which meant that Mary Boleyn’s taste of the lavish court life in France was to be brief.
That month, the lascivious Dauphin François began to show a blatant interest in Queen Mary, sparking gossip at court and earning him an angry reproof from his domineering and ambitious mother, Louise of Savoy. But King Louis was seemingly unbothered by the dishonorable behavior of his heir. On December 28 he wrote to Henry VIII that he was entirely satisfied with his beautiful young bride.
When Mary Boleyn’s sister Anne finally arrived at the court of France, it was to find her new mistress already widowed. King Louis, having supposedly worn himself out by the “marvels” he had performed in the marriage bed, had died in a fit of vomiting in the midst of a violent storm on January 1, 1515. Queen Mary, whose marriage to him had lasted just eighty-two days, is said to have fainted when the news was brought to her, and it may be that Mary Boleyn was among those of her women who ministered to her at this time, and tried to offer some comfort.
But Mary Tudor’s ordeal had only just begun. Clad in the traditional nunlike white mourning—the deuil blanc—of French royal widows, she was required by tradition to remain in seclusion in gloomy black-draped apartments in the Hôtel de Cluny, a small Gothic-Renaissance palace in the Rue des Mathurins St. Jacques on the banks of the Seine; it had once been the town house of the abbots of Cluny, and now houses the famous Musée de Cluny. Queen Mary had to remain there for the prescribed forty days of mourning, closely watched on the orders of Louise of Savoy, the mother of the new king, François I, until it was established that she was not expecting her late husband’s child. As she was permitted to be waited on by her English attendants, both the Boleyn sisters were probably with her at this gloomy time, confined to the richly appointed but dark chambre de la reine blanche, with the windows shrouded so that no daylight could penetrate, the walls and mourning bed hung with black, and only candles to light them day and night.
Possibly Anne was “delighted to see Mary again” after a year’s separation,87 yet the few pointers we have to the nature of the relationship between the sisters suggest a certain rivalry, and anyway their reunion was not in the happiest of circumstances, for they had to witness the Dowager Queen becoming distraught—as her increasingly frantic letters prove—not just because of her dismal surroundings, but as a result of King François’s unwelcome attentions. He began by calling upon her daily discreetly to ascertain whether she was pregnant—for upon this turned his likelihood of keeping the crown—but when she told him the happy news that he was the only possible King of France, he did not cease his visits. He became amorous, and even hinted that he wished to divorce his wife Claude and marry Mary—when in fact he was scheming to make a match for her that was advantageous to himself, before Henry VIII could bestow his sister’s hand on some prince who might be hostile to France. Soon, he dismissed Mary’s English attendants, who had no doubt witnessed his overtures and might write home of them, and replaced them with the unsympathetic Countess of Nevers and French maids of honor, whom he commanded to withdraw when he was with their mistress. Tales of his courtship—or attempts at seduction—were later wildly exaggerated by the French court historian, Brantôme,88 but what happened in reality was enough to drive the Dowager Queen to rash action.
Mary had not wanted to marry Louis. Before leaving England she had made her brother Henry VIII promise that she could choose her second husband, having already, it seems, discovered that she had feelings for Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. When Henry, knowing this, sent Suffolk to comfort the widowed Mary and escort her home, he warned him not to propose marriage, for, unmindful of his earlier promise, he had other plans for his sister.
By the time the English embassy, with Suffolk at its head, arrived in France, Mary Boleyn was back in attendance on the Dowager Queen. Once released from seclusion and able to receive visitors and order her household once more, Mary Tudor had defied King François, dismissed her French ladies, and ordered her English ones to rejoin her service.89 But now she was being cautious: the Boleyn sisters and their fellow attendants were asked to retire while their mistress gave audience to Suffolk alone.90
The young queen was in deep distress. Desperate to escape François’s importunings, and the French marriages he suggested she make for his own political—and personal—advantage, she warned Suffolk that if he did not marry her without delay, she would retire to a convent. When Suffolk pointed out the difficulties, he provoked a torrent of weeping and emotional blackmail that he was too smitten to withstand. In the end, with King François’s approval, he “married her heartily” in secret, with only ten witnesses present.91Since Brandon’s two diplomatic companions did not attend the secret wedding, it is quite likely that Mary and Anne Boleyn were among the witnesses to the ceremony, which took place sometime in February 1515, in the chapel of the Hôtel de Cluny.
Henry VIII showed himself outraged when informed of his sister’s impetuous marriage. Suffolk had not only broken his promise, but had committed a capital crime in marrying a princess of the blood royal without permission. The announcement of the marriage, coming so soon after the late king’s death, caused a scandal at the French court, and obliged Henry to agree to a second, public ceremony. It was only in return for a crippling fine, and protracted and groveling apologies, that the King finally forgave his sister for her ill-advised marriage to his friend.
One lesson that Mary Boleyn may have learned from this episode was that a woman could get her own way and marry the man she desired if she was sufficiently brave and determined to fight for what she wanted.92 It was exactly what Mary herself would do one day.