George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat

by Ridgway, Claire

  26 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 908, "nestoit habile en cas de soy copuler avec femme et qu'il navoit ne vertu ne puissance ."

  27 "Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 5 Part 2: 1536-1538," 126–8.

  28 Ibid., 126–128.

  29 Ibid., 126–8.

  30 Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England During the Reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559, 39.

  31 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 350.

  32 "Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 5 Part 2: 1536-1538," 126–8.

  33 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, 447.

  34 "Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 5 Part 2: 1536-1538," 126–8.

  35 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 869.

  36 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, 459.

  37 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 902.

  38 State_Papers, King Henry VIII, Part III: Correspondence between the Governments of England and Ireland 1538-1546, 9–11.

  39 Ibid., 396. "We be pleased, at your humble sutes, to forgeve to the Archebishop of Dublin the £250, which he ought to the late Lorde Rocheford..."

  40 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, 460.

  22) Lady Rochford and the Fall of the Boleyns

  1 Cattley, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, 5:462, notes.

  2 Herbert, The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth., 384.

  3 Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn.

  4 n. Copy of Herbert containing Turner's notes, Oxford, Bodl. Fol 624.

  5 Guy, "The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir - Sunday Times Review."

  6 Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, 322.

  7 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 331.

  8 Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, 316.

  9 Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, 320.

  10 Bentley, Excerpta Historica Or, Illustrations of English History, 261–2, LP x. 1107.

  11 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, 446.

  12 Fox, "Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford - A Guest Post."

  13 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, Volume 2, 2:71–74.

  14 Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, 114.

  15 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, Volume 2, 2:24.

  16 Gruffudd, "Gruffudd's Chronicle."

  17 Ellis, Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, 2:67–8.

  18 Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, Daughter of King Henry the Eighth, Afterwards Queen Mary, 7, 13, 17, 25, 51, 64, 65, 82.

  23) Execution

  1 Halliwell-Phillipps, Letters of the Kings of England, 1:353.

  2 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 908.

  3 Bentley, Excerpta Historica Or, Illustrations of English History, 261–5. Details of the executions of the five men and their scaffold speeches can be found in Wriothesley's Chronicles, pp. 39-40; Bentley, Excerpta Historica, pp. 261-5; William Thomas' The Pilgrim, pp.116-17; Chronicle of Calais, pp.46-7, and in Constantine, in Archaeologia 23, pp. 64-6. Of them all, Excerpta Historica provides the most details and certainly the fullest version of George Boleyn's scaffold speech.

  4 St Clare Byrne, The Lisle Letters, 3:491.

  5 See Appendices for full poem.

  6 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 890.

  7 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, 461.

  8 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 896, LP, xiii. 1225, Kelly, Matrimonial Trials, pp. 250–9.

  9 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, 448, Anne Boleyn's scaffold speech can also be found in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, v. 134 and in Hall, Chronicle, p. 819.

  10 "Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 5 Part 2: 1536-1538," 137–8, LP x. 1069.

  24) Aftermath

  1 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 908.

  2 McEntegart, Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden, and the English Reformation, 103.

  3 Hall, Hall's Chronicle, 838.

  4 Schofield, The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell: Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant, 268.

  5 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 15: 1540," n. 823.

  6 Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England During the Reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559, 70–72, LP xii. 1060.

  7 Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, Daughter of King Henry the Eighth, Afterwards Queen Mary, 7, 13, 17, 25, 51, 64, 65, 82.

  8 George Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, vol. 2, Samuel Weller Singer, 1825, 71.

  9 Jennifer Ann Rowley-Williams, "Image and Reality: The Lives of Aristocratic Women in Early Tudor England" (University of Wales, Bangor, 1998), 298, 299. Rowley-Williams quotes from P.R.O. S.P. 1/104/82 and P.R.O. S.P. 1/167/163-163v.

  10 Alison Weir quotes this in her book The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn and refers to Original Letters Illustrative of English History, edited by Henry Ellis, but Ellis actually quotes Ottwell Johnson's account, not this fictional one (p128 of Volume II).

  11 Guy, "The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir - Sunday Times Review."

  12 Ellis, Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, 2:128.

  13 The figure of 72,000 comes from William Harrison's (1534-1593) "The Description of England" which was published as part of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles: "It appeareth by Cardan (who writeth it upon the report of the bishop of Lexovia), in the geniture of King Edward the Sixth, how Henry the Eighth, executing his laws very severely against such idle persons, I mean great thieves, petty thieves, and rogues, did hang up threescore and twelve thousand of them in his time."

  14 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, Volume 2, 2:20.

  Appendix A - George Boleyn's Poetry

  1 Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ: Being a Miscellaneous Collection of Original Papers, in Prose and Verse Written During the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, Elizabeth, and King James, 2:400–402.

  2 Walpole, Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland and Ireland,, 1:44–45.

  Appendix B - George Cavendish's Metrical Visions

  1 Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, Volume 2, 2:20–24.

  Appendix E - The Clonony Boleyn Girls and George

  Boleyn, Dean of Lichfield

  1 The Journal of The Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, Originally Founded as the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, I Part I:85–86.

  2 "Tomb of the Bullens - Cousins-German of Queen Elizabeth."

  3 Correspondence between Claire Ridgway and Alison, Lady Rosse.

  4 Burke, A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire, 2:484.

  5 Told to me by Paudie Kennelly after he had visited Clonony Castle and spoken to Rebecca Black, the owner.

  6 Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, 214.

  7 Lehmberg, "George Boleyn (d. 1603)."

  Illustrations

  Cover "George Boleyn writing a letter" by Rosen Marinov-Oummaia and Elverina Kotlarova.

  Figure 1 George Boleyn's cipher from a page in Readings from the Gospels and the Epistles (Les Epistres et Evangiles des cinquante et deux sepmaines de l'an). (c) The British Library Board, Harley MS 6561, f. iv.

  Figure 2 George Boleyn's inscription in the manuscript containing Les Lametations de Matheolus and Le Livre de Leesce. (c) The British Library Board, Royal MS 20 B.XXI, f.2.

  Figure 3 Letter from George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, to Henry VIII, reporting the arrival of the Admiral of France at Canterbury, 14 Nov 1534. (c) The British Library Board, Cotton Vespa
sian F XIII, f. 197.

  Figure 4 George Boleyn's dedication in the preface to Readings from the Gospels and the Epistles (Les Epistres et Evangiles des cinquante et deux sepmaines de l'an). (c) The British Library Board, Harley MS 6561, f. 2r.

  Figure 5 Engraving of Anne Boleyn by Henry Thomas Ryall (1811-67), after a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543).

  Figure 6 Engraving of Henry VIII from Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Volume II (1865).

  Figure 7 Engraving of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, from Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Volume II (1865).

  Figure 8 Engraving of Thomas Cromwell, from Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Volume II (1865).

  Figure 9 Engraving of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, from Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain, Volume II (1814, &c.), Edmund Lodge.

  Figure 10 Engraving of Francis I, King of France, by François Séraphin Delpech (1778-1825) and published by Furne & Cie (Paris) in 1837.

  Figure 11 The marriage of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, from Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Volume II (1865).

  Figure 12 Engraving of Hever Castle, sepia printed aquatint, published 1793.

  Figure 13 The arrest of Anne Boleyn, from Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Volume II (1865).

  Figure 14 The House of Lords in the reign of Henry VIII, from Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Volume II (1865).

  Figure 15 Tower of London, (c) Timothy Ridgway.

  Figure 16 Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London, (c) Timothy Ridgway.

  Figure 17 Tower Hill scaffold memorial, the place where George Boleyn was executed, (c) Timothy Ridgway.

  Figure 18 Dover Castle, iStock.

  Figure 19 Clonony Castle, Ireland, (c) Paudie Kennelly.

  Figure 20 Hawthorn tree and the tomb slab for the Clonony Boleyn girls at Clonony Castle, Ireland, (c) Paudie Kennelly.

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