THE BOLEYNS
Every story needs a villain, and in Mantel’s trilogy the Boleyns gratify; history and popular fiction would seem to concur. They, like all the substantial families at court, prospered: they came from yeoman stock, thrived in small businesses, married well in successive generations, and served their king well. But they are not favoured: their success is seen as greed; their marriages into titles and estates is avaricious, their promotions at court only attributable to their promiscuous women. Of all the key players of the Tudor court who orbited the power-rich world created by Henry VIII, the Boleyns – although deftly drawn in Mantel’s works – are not necessarily as they appear.
The Boleyns came from modest beginnings in Norfolk, not born into wealth or privilege, but by the 15th century, they were among those who had achieved it. Thomas Boleyn’s great-grandfather Geoffrey Boleyn and his wife Alice were one of the great families of Salle, in Norfolk. Their son, also called Geoffrey, launched the family by making a family fortune from trade and commerce. It was this Geoffrey who introduced the Boleyns into the realm of nobility in around 1437 or 1438, marrying Anne Hoo, daughter of Lord Thomas Hoo, a socially superior family to the Boleyns, who offered the all-important connections for the family to advance. He reached the pinnacle of his career when he was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1458. It was Geoffrey who purchased the premier Boleyn estate of Blickling in Norfolk, which is where Geoffrey’s son, William, chose to raise his family. William married Margaret Butler, who hailed from Ireland, and whose family held the prestigious title of Earl of Ormond. Thus, their children, including Thomas Boleyn, born in 1477, were raised in a world of wealth and privilege. Thomas, as the eldest son, was well-educated, learned French and Latin and, like generations before him, married well. His wife Elizabeth was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey, one of the most distinguished and powerful families in the country.
Three generations of Boleyns had allied themselves with three powerful and influential families – the Hoos, the Butlers and the Howards. Thomas Boleyn served Henry VII alongside his father William and went on to become one of Henry VIII’s leading diplomats; his grandfather, Thomas Butler, was Lord Chamberlain to the first Tudor queen, Elizabeth of York, and then Katherine of Aragon, and his father-in-law, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, was a powerful and well-respected member of Henry’s inner circle. But it was Thomas Boleyn who, through his loyal and dedicated service to the crown, would continue to propel the family to greater fortunes.
Thomas Boleyn
In Wolf Hall, Sir Thomas Boleyn ‘is the coldest, smoothest man he [Cromwell] has ever seen’, but that was a requirement, for he was not only a courtier, but one of the most celebrated, respected and revered ambassadors of Henry’s reign, and one of the few to carry out over 15 separate missions. Thomas was a protégé of Cardinal Wolsey and was recommended by Richard Fox, Henry VII’s most loyal adviser, confidant and chief architect of his government. Fox and Wolsey handpicked Thomas for his first diplomatic mission in 1512, alongside the most experienced of Henry VII’s and Henry VIII’s diplomats, and Thomas stood out as a new face in the line-up set by Fox and Wolsey. It is a relationship often overlooked because of Wolsey’s subsequent downfall and the role of the ‘Boleyn faction’ in it. In Mantel’s series, Cromwell dislikes having to deal with any of the Boleyns, but historically Cromwell and Thomas Boleyn knew each other as early as 1525, when Boleyn was already a seasoned diplomat and Cromwell new to his post.
While records and correspondence from either Cromwell or Boleyn are scarce, we do know that in 1527, Thomas’ sister, Alice, required legal assistance for a matter and wrote to her brother for some recommendations. He immediately put her in touch with Cromwell, and she wrote to him on her brother’s recommendation, asking for assistance. Cromwell accepted, and wrote to Thomas in December, informing him that he had agreed to counsel and advise her. Years later, when Anne was queen and Cromwell high in favour, he received a letter from his first cousin, Nicholas Glossop, asking for assistance, and who, by his own admission, was lame, impotent, suffering from gout and blind in one eye. Cromwell quietly sent Glossop to Thomas Boleyn, who took good care of his relative. Glossop later praised Thomas as the man to whom he owed his life.
In Mantel’s trilogy, Cromwell shifts from a prominent supporter of the Boleyns to a dangerous adversary. In Wolf Hall, Cromwell is scathing of Thomas’ rise, but historically his trajectory at court began long before Anne, and cannot be explained simply as a result of a liaison between his daughter and the king. Thomas served in many high-pressure and demanding positions that no mediocre individual would be granted, no matter who currently occupied Henry’s bed. These positions included Comptroller of the Household, Treasurer of the Household and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, with the last position requiring considerable work and effort. Thomas Boleyn was also a patron of the renowned scholar Desiderius Erasmus, commissioning several important works including Praeparatio ad mortem, which focused on how to live one’s life in preparation for death. As the Protestant writer John Strype would write centuries later, ‘The world is beholden to this noble peer [Boleyn] for some of the labours that proceeded from the pen of that most learned man [Erasmus].’
Contrary to popular belief, Thomas and his wife did not continue their lives at court following the execution of their children but returned to the peace of Hever Castle. It was Cromwell who continually pressured and bullied Thomas into returning to court. Cromwell replaced Thomas as Lord Privy Seal and, just prior to being admitted to the prestigious order of the Garter in 1537, Cromwell requested that Thomas loan him his best garter badge, a request Thomas was forced to comply with. As a member, Thomas should have been present for Cromwell’s admission, but he is conspicuously absent; the letter he sent to Cromwell with the badge made it clear that Thomas did not voluntarily give his collar to Cromwell and he would not leave Hever for the ceremony. It is also worth noting that Cromwell was particularly harsh on Thomas when it came to payment of legal subsidies and rents, insisting that all of Thomas’ payments be paid strictly on time, though he never pressured any other nobles, including Norfolk, all of whom were in arrears. Thomas Boleyn and his brother-in-law, Thomas Howard, would henceforth have a fractious relationship. In July of 1537, Norfolk complained to Cromwell that Thomas’ minstrel had sung derogatory songs about him and he was certain that Thomas had approved of it. Cromwell urged Thomas to punish the minstrel, but it seems that Thomas ignored him. Historically, Thomas had little interest in the machinations of court, and would rather have been left alone in the comfort of Hever Castle, where he cared for his aging mother, but Henry and Cromwell had other ideas.
George Boleyn
George Boleyn is commonly seen as a handsome but useless ornament of the court. Promiscuous, wild, cruel and arrogant, Mantel’s version insults Cromwell, belittles his wife, Jane, and smirks behind his hand at Henry. But there is more to George historically. George’s career blossomed during Anne’s rise, but he struggled to be seen as a man of skill and determination, with every mark of favour attributed to his sister. He was used as an almost glorified messenger between England and France, never assigned to a proper diplomatic mission, though he was more than capable. He was close to his sister and ultimately became a central member of the colourful circle of courtiers that surrounded her. The pair were similar in temperament, sharing the same intellectual and aesthetic interests and developing a passion for the New Learning of Renaissance humanism, with George dedicating translations of devotional texts to his sister. Surprisingly, George was a man capable of deep spirituality.
George haunts Cromwell in The Mirror And The Light, as we flash back to Cromwell visiting George in the Tower, where for the first time George is not depicted as a buffoon, but an innocent man who understands why he is to be destroyed. Historically George was concerned for those to whom he owed money and those who depended on his patronage and it is only in the third instalment that Mantel inches towards a mor
e historical and realistic portrayal. Unfortunately for George, the false charges of incest and cruelty to his wife have found their way into fiction, and back again into history. We nevertheless are left with one poignant last offering from George Boleyn – a falcon in Beauchamp Tower, which George likely carved. It is not just his sister’s crest of the white falcon, it is his father’s falcon, the Butler Falcon, a sorrowful, melancholic, moving tribute to his family to whom he had been so dedicated.
Mary Boleyn
Mary Boleyn is a kind little blonde, who is said to have been passed all around the French court before coming home to this one.
(Wolf Hall)
Historically, Mary Boleyn is somewhat elusive in the sources, but in fiction she has a voice, and seems to be a popular narrator. In Mantel’s books she is sweet, lively, but calculating, enticing Cromwell into some degree of intimacy, which Cromwell later believes is because she is pregnant, though nothing comes of the rumour. There is no love lost between Mantel’s Mary and her siblings, with Anne often her tormentor in the series, but we have no real indication as to how close they were. Like her sister, Mary served Princess Mary Tudor at the French court, and it was rumoured that she was also mistress to the libertine French king, Francis I, though this has never been proven. Upon her return to the English court, she became Henry VIII’s mistress, and there is some uncertainty as to whether her two children, Henry and Catherine, had royal blood. Mary first married William Carey, who came from a well-connected family, in 1520. As a mark of respect to the Boleyn family, Henry allowed them to wed in the royal chapel at Greenwich palace, and there is evidence that Thomas Boleyn tried to mentor his son-in-law in the politics of court. Carey died of the sweating sickness in 1528, the same outbreak that decimated the country and Cromwell’s own household. In Wolf Hall, Mary Boleyn is quickly on the prowl for another husband, and surprisingly indiscreet in her conversations with Cromwell regarding her sister, Anne:
She is selling herself by the inch ... She wants a present in cash for every advance above her knee.
We have no evidence that Cromwell had any relationship with Mary whatsoever, just a letter written to Cromwell following her banishment from court for marrying the wrong man. In 1534, Mary secretly married William Stafford, a soldier with few prospects. For the sister of the Queen, it exposed the Boleyn family to ridicule. Writing to Cromwell, she begged for his assistance, though it is not clear that he lifted a finger in her defence. The Mary Boleyn of Wolf Hall would have had better luck, with Cromwell deciding to bring in Thomas Boleyn:
He will humiliate him – in his genial fashion – and make him give Mary an annuity.
Thomas would give Mary an annual pension of £100, as he did for his daughter-in-law, Jane. But prior to his death, Thomas had begun to reconcile with his only living daughter, and an indenture between the King and Mary and William Stafford shows that Mary would receive a number of her family’s estates. Thomas had clearly negotiated with Cromwell and the King before his death and left his younger brother James and his lawyer to ensure it was carried out – Thomas may have had a fractious relationship with his daughter but the evidence shows us that he would not have wanted her to go through the rest of her life destitute. Mary would only survive her parents by four years, but her children, Henry and Catherine, would go on to live successful lives at the court of their cousin, Elizabeth I.
THE CARDINAL’S MAN
Thomas Cromwell is now a little over 40 years old. He is a man of strong build, although not tall. Various expressions pass across his face, and only one is readable: a look of stifled amusement. His hair is dark, heavy and waving, and his small eyes, which are very sharp, light up in conversation, so the Spanish ambassador will tell us shortly. His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop’s palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He knows new poetry, and can recite it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and he spends it. He will take a bet on anything.
Cromwell had made an extremely favourable impression on Wolsey following his dismantling of various monasteries, and from 1524 we can place him in Wolsey’s household, being referred to as one of the Cardinal’s counsel – a highly sought-after position. But interestingly, Cromwell was not working in the public sector for the Cardinal, but rather he dealt with Wolsey’s private matters just as he had done for the Greys. When we first meet the adult Cromwell in Wolf Hall, he has just arrived from York following two weeks away on Wolsey’s business, and we are given a glimpse of his life in service to the Cardinal:
He’s been to his clerks at Gray’s Inn and borrowed a change of linen. He’s been east to the city, to hear what ships have come in and to check the whereabouts of an off-the-books consignment he is expecting.
Cromwell’s life would have been a whirlwind of errands, negotiations and transactions on behalf of his master, Wolsey, all of which Cromwell ran concurrently with his private legal work, commissioned from clients from the Cardinal’s network, who came to him with their problems. As the Cardinal’s man, Cromwell was also well placed to appraise the usefulness or otherwise of those who sought the Cardinal’s patronage; the extant letters are hopeful and flattering, addressed to the ‘right worshipful Mr. Cromwell’, begging the Cardinal’s favour. Wolsey relied heavily on Cromwell to manage his ambitious programme to amalgamate various crumbling and neglected monasteries and divert the proceeds to fund Wolsey’s college, as Mantel has Cromwell say, to convert property into gold. This task was far more complex than Wolsey had ever envisioned, and Cromwell’s masterful execution of the assignment is a testament to his organizational acumen.
Cromwell was hands on, supervising the surveyance of property and overseeing transfers and various settlements of the clergy and nuns who ran the monasteries, as well as dealing with travellers, the poor and the sick, and converting these properties into funds. Cromwell usually oversaw every stage personally and frequently came up against protest and obstruction; in these cases he was instructed by Wolsey to use money to make the problem go away.
His skill with property was as useful as his skill with languages; in Wolf Hall, Wolsey asks if he has any Spanish, as he feels that it might be more useful to have friends in the queen’s household. With the king’s growing misgivings about his first marriage to Katherine of Aragon, sometime between 1526 and 1527, Mantel’s Wolsey is talking about spies who might report back on what the queen said in unguarded moments thinking she would not be overheard or understood when she heard the news that the king wished to marry another woman.
As Wolsey notes, this is not Henry’s problem or Katherine’s problem – it is the Cardinal’s.
KATHERINE OF ARAGON
In Wolf Hall we are told Cromwell admires Katherine. Outwardly she wears the clothes of a queen, ‘gowns so bristling with gemstones that they look as if they are designed less for beauty than to withstand blows from a sword’; however, underneath ‘she wears the habit of a Franciscan nun’.
Katherine of Aragon had more royal blood than Henry and all his wives put together, a far superior royal education, and more royal dignity. Born during a military campaign, she was a woman whose military knowledge was equal to that of any prince of Europe. A woman who loved, lost, and never wavered in her determination that Henry could not dismantle her life on a whim. Perceptions of Henry’s first queen are often coloured by what became known as the king’s ‘great matter’, but there is more to Katherine than the divorce, she is more than an unhappy element in a love triangle.
Katherine was born into one of the most powerful families of Europe, the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, both monarchs in their own right, who founded an impressive dynastic power. She grew up in the sophisticated, unrivalled majesty of the Alhambra, the palace fortress complex in Granada, Spain, her parents ensuring she and her sisters received the same education as their brother, Juan.
Under her tutor Alessandro Geraldini, Katherine studied arithmetic, canon and civil law, classical literature, genealogy and heraldry, history, philosophy, religion, theology and languages such as Spanish, Latin, French and Greek. She was a highly desirable catch, just what the Tudors needed. The match raised some eyebrows, as the Spanish ambassador at the Tudor court, Rodrigo de Puebla, remarked: ‘Bearing in mind what happens every day to the kings of England, it is surprising that Ferdinand and Isabella should dare think of giving their daughter at all.’
Katherine had a legitimate and stronger claim to the English throne than King Henry VII. She was the great-great-grand-daughter of the second wife of John of Gaunt, Constance of Castile. In contrast, Henry VII was a descendant of Gaunt’s third marriage to Katherine Swynford, whose children were all illegitimate. The advantageous alliance of Katherine and Prince Arthur, who represented the union of the houses of Lancaster and York, now further validated the House of Tudor, gaining the acceptance of European monarchs and the Pope, and their claim to the English throne. The match was approved and they were married by proxy on 19 May 1499.
Wolf Hall Companion Page 6