One of the most shocking events of the reign of King Henry VIII saw his second wife Anne
Boleyn heading towards Tower Green inside the walls of the Tower of London for her execution.
It was with the swing of the executioner’s sword that Anne Boleyn’s life came to an
end, but this brutal act also ended the influence, power and success of her family the Boleyn’s
at court.
But Anne wasn’t the only Boleyn girl who had slept with the notorious Tudor Monarch,
and she was actually the second Boleyn girl to have taken to the King’s bed eventually
following the resolution of the King’s Great Matter.
Mary Boleyn today is considered the King’s mistress, and it’s known that she did have
a long affair with the King, but this was a time where it was acceptable for the King
to have a number of mistresses whilst being married.
But she wasn’t treated very fairly during her time at court.
But what is the story of the abuse of Mary Boleyn?
Mary Boleyn was born around 1499 it’s believed, and she was probably the oldest of the three
surviving Boleyn children.
Later her descendants would claim to be heirs to the Boleyn lands and fortunes.
And with this would try to gather wealth.
But during Mary’s early life she was educated at Hever Castle at the family’s stately
home and she was schooled alongside her brother George and sister Anne.
She was given a good education for young ladies of her status, and it was believed and hoped
by her father and uncle that Mary would either go on to marry a prominent member of the peerage
in England, or a high ranking noble.
When Mary became the Kings mistress it’s likely that this would have greatly pleased
her father and uncle who wanted more power and influence in the eyes of Henry VIII.
Whilst at Hever she was taught grammar, history, reading and other skills as well as the ettiequte
of court and dancing and also music.
She was taught falconry and also hunting showing her status, but she was later sent abroad
in 1514 to the French royal court, where her father managed to get her a place as a maid
of honour to the English King’s sister Princess Mary who was going to Paris to marry King
Louis XII of France.
Many of the English maids were sent away a few weeks after their arrival, but Mary was
allowed to remain and this is probably as her father became the new English ambassador
to France, but even when Queen Mary left the country after she became a widow, Mary Boleyn
remained at the French royal court.
Her sister Anne also arrived in Paris, and it’s believed at this time that Mary may
have been romantically involved with the French King Francis himself.
Its believed that she had an affair with the French King, and he referred to her as ‘His
English Mare,’ and as ‘A very great whore, the most infamous of all,’ and this possibly
alludes to previous activities at court, and of course this was a very scolding account
of Mary Boleyn.
It was later said regarding Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII that, ‘Francis said also that
they are committing more follies than ever in England, and are saying and printing all
the ill they can against the Church that ‘that woman’ pretend to have miscarried a son,
not being really with child, and to keep up the deceit, would allow no one to attend on
her but her sisters whom the French King knew here in France, a great prostitute and infamous
above all.’
With this it adds further weight that Mary Boleyn did sleep with the King, and he referred
to her as infamous and other rather slanderous terms.
She was considered a very beautiful women at court, but then she left France and returned
to England, and she then married William Carey who was a well off courtier, and it’s believed
he was well liked by Henry VIII.
Henry VIII himself attended the wedding ceremony and he gave the couple a cash gift, and this
took place inside of the Chapel Royal at Greenwich.
However following this, it’s then known that Mary Boleyn became the King’s mistress.
It’s likely that the King liked what he saw in Mary, and possibly comments about her
reputation may have spread, however these could have been incorrect and scandalous.
She had been subject to great rumours of promiscuity before, but now she was taking to the King
of England’s bed, something which was sought by a number of women, but something that cast
her into a position of power and intimacy with the King.
But quickly after she married, she began to have a number of liaisons with Henry VIII,
and she was regularly summoned to the King’s bedchamber during his marriage to Catherine
of Aragon.
Catherine had been beginning to frustrate the King with a lack of male heir, and he
was known during his first marriage for taking a number of mistresses.
Some historian’s do consider though that during her liaisons with the King, Mary actually
fell pregnant with one of the Kings children, and that Henry VIII was the father of one
of her children, and if not both of them.
Her first born child was a son who she named Henry, and some considered that the King did
father the son, and that the child was named after him, but if this was true then it would
have made the boy an illegitimate heir to the throne.
It’s known that Henry VIII did try to place his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy into a
place of power, but he died at an early age but some consider he could have been the heir
to the throne.
Some also considered that her daughter Catherine could have been also an illegitimate daughter
of Henry VIII, and she later became a Lady to the Bedchamber of Queen Elizabeth I, who
with this assumption and rumour would have made Catherine and Elizabeth paternal half
sisters if this was true.
Both of the children had the surname Carey, but it’’s not considered that Henry VIII
involved himself in these two.
But both the dates of these children being born coincide with times where Mary Boleyn
was a royal mistress, and would have slept with the King.
But what is rather disgusting about Mary Boleyn’s affairs with the King, is that there were
men who sought to gain power and influence from this, and almost encouraged her to sleep
with the King more often, almost pimping her out the Henry VIII.
Her father gained a lot of power through the King’s liaisons with Mary, as did her uncle
who eventually became one of the King’s most senior advisors and closest friends.
Her father through Mary’s relationship gained more ranks at court, and he eventually became
a prestigious Knight of the Garter and also the Treasurer of the Household, the man in
charge of the royal court’s spending.
But there was one Boleyn member who did not benefit from Mary sleeping with the King and
that was her sister Anne.
When Mary was pregnant with her second child and was confined to bed before she gave birth,
The King cast her aside and became very bored with her.
He saw her pregnancy as limited, and he could not continue with their relationship during
this, and because of this he dumped her to the side, and threw Mary away, and began to
look for other ladies at court, and one captured his eye, the other Boleyn Girl Anne.
But Anne considered her sister Mary’s affair with Henry as a mistake, and she refused to
take to the King’s bed and possible have a child that had no claim to the throne, and
she played hard to get and refused to sleep with the King until he divorced Catherine
of Aragon, and made her Queen.
Henry ultimately did this and broke from the Pope and Rome and Anne later became the Queen
of England.
Anne achieved what Mary could not, and Mary was described as more attractive, but Anne
was certainly more ambitious and cunning.
Mary’s husband later died of sweating sickness, and Anne did help Mary to receive a pension
which would look after her, however when Mary married again she was treated terribly by
her sister Anne.
Mary later met and married an Essex landowner’s son named William Stafford, however he was
a soldier, and he was also a second son and was considered a man of much lower status
than Mary Boleyn.
With this, Mary married for love and she married for her heart, but this was deemed not good
enough for the Queen’s sister in the 16th century.
It was not good enough for her to marry a man who she truly loved, and with this Anne
Boleyn was furious, and the whole of the Boleyn family shockingly disowned Mary.
They had truly gone power mad and it went to their heads, and Mary Boleyn was banished
from court and would not return.
This greatly made Mary suffer, and she became in financial ruin because of this.
She begged Thomas Cromwell to speak to the King about this, and she said that ‘she
could have chosen someone of more noble birth, but she would never have loved him as much
as she did William Stafford, and she claimed he was honest.
She said, ‘"I had rather beg my bread with him than to be the greatest queen in Christendom.
And I believe verily ... he would not forsake me to be a king".
Henry didn’t really care about her and this despite her time as a royal mistress, and
she asked Cromwell to appeal to her father, uncle and brother but these too could not
care.
Anne later took some pity on her, and sent her some money but refused to allow her to
return to court.
The pair did not meet again after her exile, as Anne Boleyn was executed on the 19th May
1536.
Following Anne’s death there are no records of what happened to Mary, and there are no
records that state she visited her parents, but on the 19th July 1543 in desolation she
died in her early 40s.
Mary Boleyn was a woman who became the royal mistress to one of England’s most notorious
and brutal monarchs.
She was labelled throughout her life as a harlot, but she was a pawn in the games of
men who tried to gain influence, especially her father and her uncle.
She died in obscurity following her banishment from court, and also her sister’s brutal
execution inside the walls of the Tower of London.
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