Boleyn family

The 2001 novel was historical fiction.

So this is Philippa Gregory imagining a world in which Anne Boleyn, Mary Boleyn, George Boleyn, all the other Boleyns, they exist and they make their journey through court.

As you say, in a sort of Bridgerton-esque fashion.

Yeah.

So she has sort of become the preeminent, you know, historical fiction...

And they all stay as fictional as the last?

The problem is that the records surrounding the wives of Henry VIII and certainly the Boleyns are very scant.

And of course, as I said in the intro there, after the deaths of each of these wives, there's a reason for their life and times to be kind of revised.

The King was also angered by rumours that the family of Anne Boleyn the woman the king wanted to marry, masterminded the poisoning plot.

According to Neil Tong, author of The Terrible Tudors, the conflict between the Boleyns and Fisher was well known.

The family reportedly issued personal threats against the bishop.

Mr. Tong said, John Fisher was virtually told by the Boleyn family, don't come to Parliament because something nasty would happen to him.

If they'd been from a royal family, then they would have had their births recorded.

The Boleyns were important.

but in the grand scheme of things, they were quite a modest, moderate family, and it just wasn't considered important to write down the birthplaces and dates of these two girls.

Mary Boleyn

In around 1513, the adolescent Anne was sent to Europe.

Her father had secured her a place at the court of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria.

It was a coup for Anne and the Boleyns.

The court was regarded as the foremost finishing school for young ladies in Europe.

I mean, Thomas Cromwell, of course, his son is able to marry her sister, Elizabeth, which both sides are very happy with that marriage, very clearly, because it brings the two families together.

And a lot of people, I can't imagine the Boleyns being thrilled if Mary Boleyn had married Gregory Cromwell, for example.

It does demonstrate the alignment between the families.

She patronises a lot of these men.

She helps out Francis Bryan, she helps out Nicholas Carew on occasion, particularly her brothers as well.

Henry isn't actually that generous to Edward Seymour.

So although the Boleyns got an earldom and then Anne's brother was Viscount Rochford, the Seymours only get a Viscountcy.

So Jane's father is dead by the time she becomes queen, although he's often said to have still been alive.

I chatted with her and this transformed her life.

The story of the Boleyns transformed her life.

So I came across that book.

My sister lent it to me I can't remember knowing anything about them really before that moment, but there was something that happened after I read that, and it's just that it sparked this curiosity.

There's so many things to like, I think, about Geneviève Bourgeaud.

And we see that side of Anne.

We start seeing a little bit of a more complex Anne coming into popular culture, but there's still a sort of, a lack of substance, I think, in the Anne Boleyns we've seen.

You know, when you spend a lot of time in the archives with her, as I have, you cannot get away from the fact that this is an incredibly courageous woman, but this is a woman who is deeply embedded in her society and who is a passionate reformer.

He wasn't especially important enough.

Like, the Boleyns' whole deal was, like, every person, every generation, every sibling marries, like, a slightly more rich, important person, and she just married this, like, hot farmer guy.

But then eventually she became pregnant, and so she, there was no hiding it.

Like, her previous husband was long dead, so she had to reveal that she had married William Stafford, and this was such a scandal that she was, in fact, banished from royal court.

He'd been writing with these people and hearing spies say stuff about these people, but he'd never actually seen Anne Boleyn in person until this moment.

And when he arrived, because of course he accepted this invitation 'cause he's not gonna miss a party, and there's, like, Boleyn family values, like, there out to greet him.

Like, the Boleyns and other lords were, were there like, "Oh my God, Eustace Chapuys, welcome." Like, they knew how pres- important he was, how persuasive he was, and they knew that he was there.

Um, and he has allegiance to Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor.

Um, and I know you're looking into sort of messy family feuds, of which there are many in history.

Um, and yeah, so I'm talking about the Boleyns and the Butlers today, and the feud that probably brought Anne back to England, um, certainly at that, the point in 1522 when she comes back, it's, it's really to fix this, I would say Montague and Capulet, but it's kind of like Capulet versus Capulet.

They, it's the Butlers turning on each other.

Um-

And it, it's her father's family, specifically her father's mother's family, um, and this quite complex relationship.

They're, technically they are members of the Irish aristocracy, but it, it really shapes huge chunks of her early life, um, how her marriage is, how her s- her parents' marriage happened.

Uh, and then I think also, excuse me, um, it, it, it explains the Boleyns in a way that is almost completely different.

Um, and I'm not really someone I think who, you know, I think gets windy, and lonely, and a bit boring on a soapbox.

Her dad was, kept getting more and more prestigious positions.

The Boleyns, like, they were still kinda new money, but they were making their way around court, which is kind of a good time for them to be, to be doing all this because Henry VIII was, he saw himself as a Renaissance man, and he, he was more open to giving people jobs who didn't have, like, a thousand years of family heritage already.

So the Boleyns were, were up there with some others.

So Anne Boleyn came back to England.

And between when I recorded part one and now, which is part two, I did find out yet another assumption that a lot of historians have, has not actually been proven, which is was she a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon? Some people say yes.

Like, these two just fell for each other.

But there's this class divide, right? And you still have this in England, I have been told, that just, like, either you're from one of these ancient families or you're not.

So even though the Boleyns were, like, on the rise, they had so many influential positions, they had lots of money, they had nice outfits, they're not on the same level as Percy Jackson's family.