George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat

by Ridgway, Claire

  It has been suggested that George and Jane had a child, also named George, who became Dean of Lichfield and who died childless in 1603. It is more likely, however, that the Dean was simply a cousin of the Boleyns. There is no extant record of George fathering a child by Jane. If there had been children from their union, it would be very strange for the birth to have taken place without being commented on; George was close to his sister, and any child of his would have been Anne's niece or nephew (and later the King's also). Jane Boleyn's begging letter to Cromwell following George's death also makes no mention of any child for whom she had financial responsibility. Such a child would surely have been mentioned in her letter if it had existed. Appendix E discusses the legend that George had an illegitimate son.

  It appears, therefore, that George and Jane Boleyn were childless, or that Jane suffered from miscarriages or stillbirths. As we have seen with Henry VIII's matrimonial problems, childlessness was considered the fault of the woman, and there is no indication that George Boleyn was any more enlightened than any other man of the age. The lack of a son was insufficient reason for the King to obtain an annulment, let alone George and Jane Boleyn, and obviously the marriage could not be nullified on the grounds of non-consummation. It has always been assumed that the marriage was an unhappy one, partly due to George's reputation as a womaniser, but mainly because Jane later gave evidence in May 1536 that implicated George, stating that Anne had told her the King was impotent. Jane provided this statement in the sure knowledge that it would be of assistance to the prosecution (although she could not have foreseen the brutal consequences). The natural conclusion to be drawn is that either Jane then passed this information to George, who was subsequently accused of spreading the rumour, or alternatively, that Henry's supposed impotency provided the motive for Anne taking lovers, specifically her brother. Either way, to suggest that Anne and George openly discussed the King's sexuality was enough to damn the siblings in his eyes, irrespective of the eventual incest charge, and Jane must have been aware of that. But rather than this being a deliberate attack on her husband and sister-in-law, her evidence was more likely a simple matter of telling the truth and of self-preservation.

  George and Jane would certainly have spent a great deal of their married life apart. Being royal cupbearer during the early years of their marriage meant that George was present at every state occasion to serve the King. George was also regularly sent on diplomatic missions abroad, and when in England he was kept busy in Parliament and as a trusted courtier and confidante to the King. In addition to this, he would regularly have been in Dover from June 1534 onwards as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. As we have seen, he was the King's constant companion during periods of relaxation, and so it is difficult to assess just how much time George and Jane Boleyn spent together during their 11-year marriage. Although George's name regularly appears in the state papers, correspondence and foreign reports, extant records are virtually silent with regards to his wife. George was the Queen's brother, and his every move was scrutinised, particularly by enemies with the very intention of demonising him. Had marital problems been in the public arena, there can be little doubt that the imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, would have commented on them. It was common knowledge that Thomas Wyatt was desperately unhappy in his marriage, yet nothing was said of George and Jane.

  The married couple certainly enjoyed a life of wealth and comfort. An entry in the Privy Purse Expenses on 17 April 1531 states, "Paid to Richard Breme for the rent of a house in Greenwich wherein my Lord of Rochford lythe for two years behind and unpaid at Easter last past".11 From this, it can be seen that for at least two years, George and his wife had rented a house away from court, and that the Crown had met the unpaid rent of £20, i.e. £10 a year. It is possible that this property had been rented by George since 1526 when he had first received the additional income of £20 per year, and that he had maintained the rent until 1529. The arrears could have accrued due to an oversight or because by then the Rochfords were living beyond their means. The property at Greenwich was in addition to the rooms that had been specifically appointed to them at court. The fact that the King paid the rent arrears shows his affection for George, but the very existence of arrears is an indication that George was not managing his finances.

  Both George and Jane Boleyn were proud, ambitious people who would have wished to have been seen to be achieving an enviable lifestyle, even if they could not actually afford it. In addition to this, George was a poet and an intellect, and such people do not necessarily make the best accountants. As we have seen, he certainly gambled heavily with the King, and although he regularly won huge amounts of money, the probability is that he lost equally huge sums. Certainly the debts he had at the time of his death were large enough to cause him great concern for those to whom he owed money. Nonetheless, George merrily spent £50 on a cup of gold, and squandered a fortune on clothes, hawks, horses and other symbols of wealth and status. A later inventory of his wife's assets shows a large amount of expensive jewellery, at least some of which was presumably bought for her by her husband during their marriage. It is difficult to see how his income could cover such extravagance - and perhaps the simple answer is that it could not.

  Keeping up with the King did have its advantages, however, and throughout the late 1520s, George's royal favour continued. In addition to becoming royal cupbearer in January 1526, he was appointed Esquire to the Body on 26 September 1528, for which he received an annuity of 50 marks payable "by the chief butler of England out of the issue of the prizes of wine", and a salary of £65 6s 8d per annum.12 This position required attendance upon the King's person, and it exemplifies the extent of royal favour shown to George at that time. That same year he also became the first Master of the Privy Pack, later known as Master of the Buckhounds, thereby heading the list of Masters. This appointment was held purely at the King's pleasure and was a position George held until his death. It was a highly preferential appointment, as hunting with dogs was a pursuit particularly dear to the King's heart. George no doubt undertook this employment gladly. He was regularly provided with large sums of money to enable him to purchase meat to feed the animals, and needless to say, his expenses relating to the performance of his duties were met in their entirety.

  Grants continued to be made to George Boleyn throughout his short life. In addition to the grant he received jointly with his father of manors previously owned by the executed Duke of Buckingham, George and his father also jointly received a grant with respect to the honour of Rayleigh in July 1531, together with other benefits relating to this property and the manors of Thunderley, Estwodesbury and Lonedon.13 The Boleyns were not unique in this; the state papers clearly show the generosity with which Henry treated his favourites. Grants were made each month to a variety of favoured courtiers. Henry Norris and Francis Bryan feature heavily, and the Privy Purse Expenses show that the King paid for the musician Mark Smeaton to be clothed with "shert" and "hosen".14 Compared to Norris and men like William Brereton, George's income was relatively small for such a prominent courtier - hence the question-mark over how he could afford his enviable lifestyle. At the date of his death, the only land he held in his sole name rather than jointly with his father was Grimston, which had been granted to him in 1524. All other properties in which he had an interest were of reversionary title, and would have naturally been returned to the Crown on his death.

  George Boleyn mainly benefited from the offices and positions of trust and responsibility to which he was appointed and his wife's social position increased vicariously. She revolved in circles that would never have been open to her without the advantage of her marriage to a highly successful courtier. In addition to this, through that marriage, she was about to become sister-in-law to the King of England. Whether she was happy with this last honour is debatable.

  Jane Boleyn's court career blossomed following her husband's execution. She was prepared to continue in her role of lady-in-waiting to Henry's next wife, J
ane Seymour, and she seems to have had a good relationship with the Princess Mary. Her ability to separate herself emotionally from her husband's death, and more importantly from the circumstances of her husband's death, may suggest that by 1536 the couple were not particularly close; or it could simply be Jane's survival instinct. Just as Thomas Boleyn climbed his way back into the King's favour after the executions of his children, Jane knew she had to dust herself off and move on.

  Jane's family were staunch Catholics, and supporters of Catherine of Aragon and the Princess Mary. There were many staunch Catholics in the country, and at court, who had been appalled at the religious changes being wrought on the country due to the King's infatuation with Anne Boleyn. Jane would have been doubly mortified due to her own husband's heavy involvement in the changes sweeping the country. She may have forgiven him for any infidelities; she may have forgiven him for his long absences; perhaps, however, she found his commitment to religious reform too much and it soured the marriage. However, there is no irrefutable evidence to confirm that it was the troubled marriage of fiction. George and Jane were not twenty-first century sentimentalists; they were people of their time.

  9 - Sweating Sickness

  In 1528, as the Boleyn family fortunes flourished, an epidemic of the disease known as "sweating sickness" or "the English Sweat" swept through the country. The first outbreak of the disease was in 1485, when it killed several thousand people. Further outbreaks occurred in 1507, 1517 and 1528. The last major incidence was in 1551; the disease disappeared completely in England after 1578. Its primary cause remains unknown, but it was obviously contracted by contact with an infected person, and it was extremely virulent. It spread quickly around the country, to the horror of the King, who had an obsessive fear of sickness and death. The symptoms included redness of the face and body, headaches, thirst, stomach and joint pains, vomiting, breathlessness and severe sweating. It could kill within four or five hours of the first symptoms showing, but sufferers who survived to 24 hours usually made a full recovery.1 The 1528 outbreak was particularly severe, first showing itself at the end of May and sweeping throughout Europe, killing many thousands of people.

  London was especially badly hit, probably due to the sheer number of people living in such close proximity. In a letter dated 30 June 1528, Jean du Bellay, the French ambassador, wrote of 40,000 people in London being infected by the disease and 2000 of them dying.2 The London Charterhouse was badly affected, and the Archbishop of Canterbury's household lost 18 servants to the disease in just four hours.3 One of Anne Boleyn's maids fell ill, resulting in Anne's return to Hever Castle with her father in June. In the meantime, George remained with the court. As royal cupbearer, George travelled with the King and Queen Catherine to Waltham Abbey, where he was taken dangerously ill shortly after arrival. There was no effective remedy for the condition, save to wrap the afflicted person in blankets and hope for the best.

  In a letter to Anne, Henry VIII wrote, "For when we were at Walton, two ushers, two valets de chambre, and your brother, master-treasurer [William Fitzwilliam] fell ill, but are now quite well."4 It appears from this that neither Anne nor her parents were aware of George's condition while he was fighting for his life, but were only informed once he was out of danger. In the same letter, before advising Anne of her brother's illness and subsequent recovery, Henry asks after Anne's health: "The uneasiness my doubts about your health gave me, disturbed and alarmed me exceedingly…but now, since you have as yet felt nothing, I hope, and am assured that it will spare you, as I hope it is doing with us". We only know of George's illness from the content of Henry's love letters written to Anne. Unfortunately none of the letters are dated. It is clear, however, that Anne was taken ill shortly after receiving confirmation of George's recovery, because a further letter from Henry states, "There came to me suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have arrived."5 Anne and Thomas Boleyn had also been taken ill while at Hever, and in an age in which a high percentage of afflicted people died, Anne and her father were lucky to recover. The siblings and their father had caught the disease at more or less the same time. It is remarkable that brother, sister and father all contracted the disease at virtually the same time in two different places, and that all three survived.6 Both of the letters referred to would have been written in June, when the disease was at its height. Upon his own recovery, George would have immediately been faced with the news that his father and sister were seriously ill. When fit enough to travel, he would have wanted to be at home with them. Whether he was fit enough to do so, and whether he was released from his duties to enable him to return to Hever, is not known. A later letter of Henry's asks after Anne's health and asks her for news.7 More often than not it was George who was the messenger for Henry's letters to his sister, but it is not known whether George was at Hever at the time that this was written, or whether he was still with the court.

  The immediate Boleyn family survived the outbreak of sweating sickness, but George's brother-in-law, Mary Boleyn's husband William Carey, was not so lucky. William's death put great financial pressure on Mary and her two children, and it was her sister Anne who provided her with much-needed financial support. Anne initially wrote to Henry requesting he help her sister. Although none of Anne's letters to Henry survive, we know she wrote to him thanks to a letter of his dating from the end of June or beginning of July 1528. In it, he advises her that he will write to her father: "It cannot to stand with his honour, but that he must needs take her, his natural daughter, now in her extreme necessity." The onus is put squarely on Thomas Boleyn.8

  The fact that the King had to write to Thomas Boleyn to shame him into helping Mary suggests that the elder Boleyns had distanced themselves from their eldest daughter. Despite the King's letter, Thomas Boleyn obviously did little to assist Mary, since Henry VIII later granted Anne the wardship of Mary's son Henry. This was a role that Anne took very seriously, ensuring that Henry had the best possible education, for which she paid personally. Anne also ensured that her sister received an annual pension of £100.9 The fact that Henry offered no direct financial support to his former mistress is an indication firstly of his indifference towards those who no longer contributed to his pleasure, and secondly of his refusal to accept parental responsibility for either of Mary's children. As for Henry Carey becoming Anne's ward, it was not unusual in the sixteenth century for impoverished or bereaved families to have one or more of their children made wards of wealthier friends or relatives. In April 1533, George Boleyn (by then Lord Rochford) was granted the wardship of Edmund Sheffield, son of Sir Robert Sheffield who had been knighted by Henry VII after his performance at the Battle of Stoke Field (fighting the rebel John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln). When Sir Robert died in 1531, his son Edmund was only ten years old. To be given the wardship of a child by the King was a great honour, and confirmation of royal favour, and George would have benefited by controlling Edmund's property until the child came of age, giving George and his wife extra income during that period.

  The circumstances surrounding the sweating sickness of 1528 exemplify the difficulty we have in establishing a picture of George's marriage. We know about Anne, George and their father, but the documentation we have is completely silent with regards to Jane Boleyn. Was she with George and the royal party at Waltham, serving the Queen, or was she elsewhere? There is no way of knowing her movements. The reason for this is obvious. In a world in which men dominated, Jane was of no importance. She was not central to court politics like her in-laws. She is very much a shadowy figure in the background, and this has probably helped perpetuate the myth of her as a devious woman spying on those around her. As we shall see later, like her husband she was no wide-eyed innocent, but the view of her as purely vindictive and evil is surely wildly exaggerated.

  Many people died during the sickness of 1528, including the courtier William Compton, one of Henry's favourites. The impact of the disease, and Henry's realisation that he had come close to losing Anne, c
onfirmed the King's feelings. Anne, for her part, never wavered in her determination to be anything less than queen consort. She would have been fully aware of the callous disregard the King demonstrated towards his thrown-off mistresses, including her own sister. She was determined not to go down that path, and in this her brother supported her. Did Anne Boleyn eventually give in to Henry and agree to marry him because she genuinely fell in love with him, or did she agree to marry him to further the course of religious reform? It is impossible to tell. The underlying belief that religious reform was fundamentally right was strong in both George and Anne, and they would have recognised Anne's relationship with Henry as an opportunity to support it. By 1528 the die had been cast, and Anne was destined to be Henry's queen. His sister's relationship with the King would advance George's career and the cause of Reform, but at a huge cost.