Notes

INTRODUCTION

1.There are several versions of George's scaffold speech, but I have chosen to use The Chronicle of Calais in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII to the Year 1540, edited by John Gough Nichols (London: J. B. Nichols & Son, 1846), 46.

2.Hall, Edward. Henry VIII. Vol II. (London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1904), 268–269

3.The main argument regarding George's sexuality stems from Retha Warnicke's The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII, 214–16.

4.J. S. Brewer Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 1509–1547 (London: 1888), IV, Introduction (hereafter cited as L&P).

5.P. W. Sergeant, The Life of Anne Boleyn (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1923), 75; Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: ‘The Most Happy’ (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 6.

6.Paul Friedmann, Anne Boleyn: A Chapter of English History, 1527–1536 (London: Macmillan, 1884), 155.

7.David Loades, The Boleyns: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Family (Stroud: Amberley, 2011), 8.

8.William H. Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat, 1477–1539’ (PhD thesis, West Virginia, 1987), 3.

CHAPTER ONE MEN OF MARK

1.As noted by Elizabeth Norton, in The Lives of Tudor Women (London: Head of Zeus, 2017), 86.

2.Walter Langley Edward Parsons, ‘Some Notes on the Boleyn Family,’ Norfolk Archaeology 25 (1935): 386–407; Francis Blomefield and Charles Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, Containing a description of the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets, with the foundations of monasteries, churches, chapels, chantries, and other religious buildings … likewise, an historical account of the castles, seats, and manors, their present and ancient owners, Vol. VI (London: William Miller, 1805).

3.Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 386.

4.For example, another John may have succeeded John Boulen, from whom it is believed our Thomas is descended, but some records identify a Nicholas Boleyn. Blomefield and Parkin, in their work on Norfolk families, contributed to the confusion, adding two more Thomases and Johns as successors. As William Dean noted in his thesis, these men could be siblings rather than children, and the discrepancies as to the number of generations (and who inherited from whom) continued until 1370. See Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 386; William H. Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat, 1477–1539’ (PhD thesis, University of West Virginia, 1987), 1–2.

5.Ibid.

6.Sylvanus Urban, ‘The Family of Boleyn,’ The Gentleman's Magazine 32, N.S. (August 1849): 155.

7.For general discussion of Eustasius, or Eustace, see The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Richard Gameson (London: Boydell and Brewer, 1997), 2–8.

8.Ibid.

9.John S. Ott, ‘Reviewed Work: Heather J. Tanner, Families, Friends and Allies: Boulogne and Politics in Northern France and England, c. 879–1160,’ Speculum Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 2006): 613–15.

10.Peter Cross, The Origins of English Gentry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 12.

11.Ibid.

12.John S. Ott, ‘Reviewed Work: Families, Friends and Allies,’ 613–15.

13.Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 386.

14.Parsons, ‘Some Notes on the Boleyn Family,’ 387.

15.Ibid., 389–90.

16.Ibid.

17.Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 388.

18.Parsons, ‘Some Notes on the Boleyn Family,’ 390–1.

19.Theresa Coletti, Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 31.

20.Eamon Duffy, Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012), 84.

21.Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society and Contributors, Norfolk Archaeology (1935): 391. See also Walter Langley Edward Parsons, Salle: The Story of a Norfolk Parish: Its Church, Manors & People (London: Jarrold & Sons, 1937), 117–78.

22.Ibid.

23.A. B. Emden, ed. Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 (hereafter cited as BRUC) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 70–5.

24.Michiel Decaluwe, Thomas M. Izbicki and Gerald Christianson, A Companion to the Council of Basel (Brill, 2016), 93.

25.BRUC, 70, 74–5. In 1439, Thomas obtained a Papal dispensation to hold an additional benefice which had been deemed incompatible, and this success emboldened him to apply three more times for similar benefices, all which were awarded.

26.Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward IV, II, 409.

27.Other companies included Grocers, Fishmongers, Brewers, Ironmongers, Cutlers and Bakers, to name a few. See Robert Seymour, ‘Twelve Principal Companies of the City of London,’ Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, Vol. II (London: J. Read, 1735).

28.The Medieval Account Books of the Mercers of London, ed. Lisa Jefferson, Vols. I and II, item 1435 (London: Routledge, 2016).

29.Calendar of Letter-Books preserved among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall. Letter-Book K: Temp. Henry VI, ed. Reginald Robinson Sharpe (London: John Edward Francis, 1911), Fol. 158b.

30.See Geoffrey's will, which is printed in Daniel Gurney, Esquire, Supplement to the Record of the House of Gournay (London: Thew & Son, 1858), 831–40.

31.C. H. Cooper, Memorials of Cambridge, Vol. I (Cambridge, 1860), 298.

32.Anthony Richard Wagner, English Genealogy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 157.

33.Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 77.

34.Calendar of the Fine Rolls, 130. Parsons, ‘Some Notes on the Boleyn Family,’ 395.

35.Reginald Robinson Sharpe, ed. Calendar of Letter-Books preserved among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall. Letter-Book K: Temp. Henry VI. (London: John Edward Francis, 1911), 392.

36.Dale Hoak, Tudor Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 35. Also, F. J. Furnivall, ‘Early English Meals and Manners,’ Early English Text Society 32 (1868): 70–2.

37.Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry VI. AD 1452–1461 (November, 1457), Vol. 6 (London: HMSO, 1910), 444.

38.C.C.R., VI, 410.

39.Gordon Home, Medieval London (New York: George H. Doran, 1927), 216.

40.Acts of the Mercer's Company 1461 (London: Lyell and Watney, 1936), 54.

41.HMC, Report on The Manuscripts of the Marquess of Lothian: preserved at Blickling Hall Norfolk (London: HMSO, 1905), 29–30.

42.Ibid.

43.Ibid.

44.Cross, The Origins of English Gentry, 2.

45.Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, Vol. I, 299–300.

46.John Stow, A survey of London, ed. 1603, reprinted (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1940) 246–7.

47.Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, Vol. I, 299–300.

48.Ibid.

49.Ibid., 299–300.

50.Ibid., 322. William is described in his father's will as ‘within age’ in 1463, which would have been 15 years old. Additionally, a bequest from his father of money and jewels, exactly like that left to his brother Thomas and under the same terms, was to be his upon marriage or attaining the age of 25, which William acknowledged in 1473, suggesting he was that age.

51.Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 34.

52.See George E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage. London: St. Catherine Press, 1940. X, 126–7, Joseph Foster, Collectanea Genealogica (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 43.

53.See Elizabeth Griffin, ‘The Boleyns and Blickling, 1450–1560,’ Norfolk Archeology, XLV (2009): 453–68.

54.L&P, XIII, i, 937. ‘Directly he knew of their offence, sent them to Islee, saying they should never enter his house again except at Islee’s intercession.’

55.The Posthumous Works of Sir Henry Spelman, Kt. Relating to the Laws and Antiquities of England. Published from the Original Manuscript. ‘Bolannorum aliquando sedes, e quibus orti funt Thomas Bolen, comes Wiltsheriae, et Anna Bolen uxor Regis Henrici VIII., optimae principis Divae Elizabethae mater, natalitium hic sortita.’ (London: D. Brown, W. Mears, F. Clay, and Fletcher Gyles), 151.

56.William Campbell, ed., Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, Vol. II (London: John Cambell: 1873), 135.

57.Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 34.

CHAPTER TWO FORTUNE RULETH OUR HELME

1.Blomefield and Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the Country of Norfolk, 34.

2.Letters of the Kings of England, now first collected from Royal archives, and other authentic sources, private as well as public, ed. James Orchard Halliwell, Vol. I. (London: Henry Colburn, 1848), 171.

3.S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (Yale: Yale University Press, 1999), 75–8.

4.Ibid.

5.Letters of the Kings of England, 71.

6.As discussed in Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier’, 18–19; Campbell, Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, Vol. II, 135.

7.James Gairdner, ed. Paston Letters, A.D. 1422–1509 (London: Chatto & Windus, 2015), I, 312.

8.Calendar of Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Records Office, Henry VII, I (London: HMSO, 1907), 357.5.

9.Polydore Vergil, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, 1485–1537, ed. Denys Hay (London: Royal Historical Society, 1950), 52.

10.Ibid.

11.Ibid.

12.James Gairdner, Letters & Papers, Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII (London: HMSO, 1861), I:410. 402–3.

13.Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 476.

14.Ibid., 478.

15.Vergil, Anglica Historica, 94.

16.Ibid.

17.L&P, IV, Section 5.

18.Calendar of the Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1427–1516 (London: HMSO, 1927), VI: 74–5.

19.David Mathew, The Courtiers of Henry VIII (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970), 32.

20.L&P, XI, 17.

21.Samuel Bentley, ‘The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII,’ in Excerpta Historica (London, 1889), 158. C.C.R Henry VII, II, 54, 63.

22.Calendar of Fine Rolls, XXII, 324.

23.Ibid.

24.Lawrence Stone, ‘Ages of Admission to Education Institutions in Tudor and Stuart England: A Comment,’ History of Education 6 (1977): 9.

25.Carey wrote to Lord Burghley: ‘My late father, on the authority of heralds and lawyers, ever assured me that a title to the earldom of Ormond was to desend to me, which, if he had lived until this Parliament, he meant to challenge, unless Her Majesty had bestowed some greater honour upon him. His claim to the title was, that Sir Thomas Boleyn was created Viscount Rocheford and Earl of Ormond, to him and his heirs general, and Earl of Wiltshire, to him and his heirs male; by his death without issue male the earldom of Wiltshire was extinguished; but the earldom of Ormond he, surviving his other children before that time attainted, left to his eldest daughter Mary, who had issue, Henry, and Henry had issue, myself.’ Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Elizabeth, 1595–97, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1869), 135.

26.See W. H. Dixon, ‘Anne Boleyn,’ Gentleman's Magazine, New series, XVI (1876): 296.

27.Henry Clifford, Life of Jane Dormer (London, 1887), 80.

28.Retha Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 7.

29.Hugh Paget, ‘The Youth of Anne Boleyn,’ Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research LIV (1981): 162–70.

30.Paget, ‘The Youth of Anne Boleyn’, 164–5.

31.Ibid.

32.See Steven Gunn, Henry VII's New Men and the Making of Tudor England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). In Gunn's words, these men brought with them a galaxy of talents.

33.Ibid.

34.John Leland, Antiquarii de rebvs britannicis collectanea, Vol. 5 (London: Impensis Gvl. & J. Richardson, 1770), 356–67.

35.Ibid., 358.

36.Ibid., 360–1.

37.Steven Gunn and Linda Monckton, Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: Life, Death & Commemoration (London: Boydell Press, 2009), 64–70.

38.Ibid.

39.Ibid.

40.See Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen (London: Faber and Faber, 2010), 101–12.

41.Hall's Chronicle, 355.

42.HMC, The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland preserved at Belvoir Castle, IV, 12 (London, 1888), 17.

43.Ibid., 18.

44.John Leland, Antiquarii de rebvs britannicis collectanea, IV, 265–71.

45.Ibid.

46.Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, Vol. II, 465. It was reported that, from 1519 onwards, Margaret was unable to take care of herself or her affairs, and so Thomas moved his mother down to Hever, where he could care for her for the rest of her life.

47.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry VI, Vol. II (London: HMSO, 1907), 445.

48.Richard E. Brock provides a valuable summary in his doctoral thesis, ‘The Courtier in Early Tudor Society, Illustrated from Select Examples’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 1963), 31.

49.David Starkey, ‘Representation through Intimacy: A Study in the Symbolism of Monarchy and Court Office in Early Modern England,’ in Symbols and Sentiments: Cross Cultural Studies in Symbolism, ed. Ioan Lewis (London, New York and San Fransisco: Academic Press, 1977), 202–7.

50.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry VII, II, 445.

51.See Samuel Pegge, Curialia: Or An Historical Account of Some Branches of the Royal Household (London: B. White, 1791), 22.

52.There were three categories of Yeoman, all with different duties: Yeoman of the Guard, Crown and Chamber. For a general discussion of their duties, see Anita Rosamund Hewerdine, ‘The Yeomen of the King's Guard 1485–1547’ (PhD Thesis, University of London, 1998), 19–24, and her book, The Yeomen of the Guard and the Early Tudors: The Formation of a Royal Bodyguard (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012). See also Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study of Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 245.

53.L&P, I, 81.

CHAPTER THREE A COURTIER TO HIS FINGERTIPS

1.David Starkey, ‘The Court: Castiglione's Ideal and Tudor Reality; Being a Discussion of Sir Thomas Wyatt's Satire Addressed to Sir Francis Bryan,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 235; Susan Brigden, ‘“The Shadow That You Know”: Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir Francis Bryan at Court and in Embassy,’ HJ 39 (1996): 1–31.

2.As Sarah Cockram notes, Castiglione was himself a courtier who had an impressive career trajectory, and his book can be viewed in a multitude of different genres, as a courtesy book, an elegant dialogue, a philosophical treatise, and so on. Sarah Cockram, ‘The Author–Actor in Castiglione's “Il Cortegiano”: “lo esser travestito porta secouna certa liberta e licenzia”’ in The Tradition of the Actor–author in Italian Theatre, ed. Donatella Fischer (New York: Legenda, 2013), 11–13. Most Renaissance advice books followed the ‘mirror-for-princes’ genre established in the Middle Ages. For discussion, see Quentin Skinner, The Foundation of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 1, ‘The Renaissance’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 123–7.

3.This book cannot confirm with any certainty that Thomas owned a copy or read the work, especially as it was not translated into French or English until 1537 and 1561 respectively, but we do know that Thomas Cromwell owned a copy of the book, and there was certainly interest, evidenced by Bishop Bonner's letter to Cromwell in 1530, asking to loan ‘the book called Cortegiano in Ytalian’. See Henry Ellis, Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, Vol. II (London: Richard Bentley, 1848), 177–8. Peter Burke, The Fortunes of a Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano (Malden, MA: Polity, 1995), 61–6.

4.Jon Robinson, Court Politics, Culture and Literature in Scotland and England, 1500–1540 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), 84–6.

5.Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. George Bull (London: Penguin Books, 1967), I:67. See Frank Lovett, ‘The Path of the Courtier: Castiglione, Machiavelli, and the Loss of Republican Liberty,’ The Review of Politics 74 (2012): 593.

6.Cockram, ‘The Author–Actor in Castiglione's ‘Il Cortegiano,’ 10–11.

7.Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), xi.

8.Woodhouse, J. R., ‘Honourable dissimulation: Some Italian Advice for the Renaissance Diplomat,’ Proceedings of the British Academy 84 (1994): 28.

9.L&P, I, 81.

10.Ibid.

11.Ibid.

12.George John Younghusband, The Tower of London (London: George H. Doran, 1925), 213.

13.The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478, ed. Alec Reginald Myers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), 133.

14.Ibid.

15.F. G. Tomlins, ed. A History of England: combining the various histories by Rapin, Henry, Hume, Smollett, and Belsham: corrected by reference to Turner, Lingard, Mackintosh, Hallam, Brodie, Godwin, and other sources, Vol. 1 (London: Kendrick, 1841), 716.

16.Francis Lancelott, The queens of England and their times: From Matilda, queen of William the Conqueror, to Adelaide, queen of William the Fourth, Volume I (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1859), 334.

17.Edward Hall, The Lives of the Kings, The Triumph of King Henry VIII, with an introduction by Charles Whibley, Vol. 1 (London: T.C & E.C. Jack, 1904), 4.

18.John Skelton, ed. Reverene Alexandr Dyce, ‘A Lawde and prayse made for our souereigne Lord the Kyng,’ in The Poetical Works of John Skelton: with notes, and some account of the author and his writings (London: Thomas Ross, 1843), IX.

19.George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 11.

20.Thomas More, ‘On the coronation day of Henry VIII,’ in The Complete Works of Thomas More, Vol. III, ed. C. H. Miller et al. (New Haven: 1984), 104–5.

21.As Martin Allen notes, Henry VIII's reign marked an almost immediate change in policy towards the exchanges, which were to be leased at a lower fixed farm of 30 pounds, six shillings, and eight pence. Martin Allen, Mints and Money in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 234.

22.Lorne Cameron George Greig, ‘Court Politics and Government in England, 1509–1515’ (PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 1996), 27–9.

23.Ibid.

24.See Clayton J. Drees, Bishop Richard Fox of Winchester: Architect of the Tudor Age (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014).

25.Greig, ‘Court Politics and Government in England,’ 3. As Grieg noted, ‘William Compton rose from humble beginnings to become one of the king's closest confidants, recognised by many as the man to befriend.’

26.C.P.R,. Henry VII, 122; Letters of the Kings of England, now first collected from Royal archives, and other authentic sources, private as well as public, Vol. I, James Orchard Halliwell, ed. (London: Henry Colburn, 1848), 171.

27.L&P II, 1490.

28.Ibid.

29.For the list of opponents, see L&P, I, Appendix 9.

30.‘Whereas it has ever been the custom in this realm for gentlemen to pass the summer season in ‘disportes,’ as in hunting and hawking and other pastimes; and because all such sports be not ready in May and June, to eschew idleness, the ground of all vice, and give honorable and healthy exercise, ‘two gentlemen, associating to them two other gentlemen to be their aids’ beseech the King's licence to furnish certain feats of arms, as follows: – A green tree shall be set up in the ‘lawnd’ of Greenwich park on 22 May, bearing a white shield on which those who accept this challenge may subscribe their names. On Thursday, the 23 May, and every Thursday and Monday until 20 June, the said two gentlemen and their aids will on foot meet all comers ‘at the feat called the barriers’ with casting spear (headed with ‘the morne’) and target and with bastard sword (point and edge rebated) from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m.’ L&P, I, 467.

31.Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 519.

32.Ellis, Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, Vol. II (London: Richard Bentley, 1848), Vol. I, 2nd series, 185.

33.See Garrett Mattingly's vivid description in Catherine of Aragon (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1941), 142.

34.L&P, I, 707.

35.L&P, I, 546, 604; Polydore Vergil, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, 1485–1537, ed. Denys Hay (London: Royal Historical Society, 1950), 3–4.

36.L&P, I, 734. We learn of Compton's political approbation from the French ambassador who in 1511 reports that he enjoyed more ‘credit’ with the King than anyone else: ‘Wrote in his last [letter] about one Conton's credit with the King of England. Is advised that a pension of 400cr. or 500cr. would be well bestowed upon Conton. Is sure Robert would pay it himself if he knew how much the man can do for the maintenance of the amity. It should be done as soon as possible and the letters sent to the writer, as was done in the case of the Great Treasurer and the Great Master [Thomas Howard, Lord Treasurer and Charles Somerset]. Some who have the King's pension here are very old and the pensions will cease when they die.’

37.L&P, I, 1960. Fox wrote to Wolsey: ‘Brother master Almoner [Wolsey], Yesternight, in my bed and in sleep after ten of the clock, I received your letters, with the letter to the King of Scots, a minute for a warrant for the deliverance of Steward out of the Tower, and the instructions for Thomas Spynell, the which, with a letter directed to Mr. Compton to get them signed of the King's grace.’

38.Greig, ‘Court Politics and Government in England,’ 2.

39.L&P, IV, 4442. In Compton's will, he states: ‘Bequeaths to the King his little chest of ivory with gilt lock, and a chest bourde under the same, and a pair of tables upon it,’ with all the jewels and treasure enclosed, now in his wife's custody; also ‘certain specialties to the sum of 1,000 marks, which I have of Sir Thos. Bullen, knight, for money lent to him.’ Original found in PROB: Will Registers, National Archives, 11/23, fol. 2l9 r.

40.Ibid.

41.On 18 October 1518, Compton bought a moiety of the nearby manor of Long Compton from Thomas for £400, which raised Thomas from a man simply in debt to Compton, to an equal, a principal, someone with whom Compton conducted business.

42.L&P, I, 604.

43.See Peter Gwyn, The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (New York: Random House, 2011), 2.

44.Vergil, Anglica Historia, 196.

45.See George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 11–13; L&P, I, 568.

46.David M. Head, The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune: The Life of Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 28–9.

47.Ibid.

48.Ibid.

49.Vergil, Anglica Historia, 162–5.

50.The commission states that the men are ‘To treat with the Pope, Maximilian (both as Emperor elect and tutor of the Prince of Spain), the Duchess of Savoy and the King of Aragon (in his own name and that of the Queen of Castile), a league for defence of Holy Church, recovery of its Patrimony and defence of the Pope.’ L&P, I, 1524.

51.In conversation with Barry Collett, whose monograph study, The Fox and the Tudor Lions, is forthcoming. Also noted in Eric Ives, ‘Henry VIII: The Political Perspective.’ In The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy, and Piety, ed. Diarmaid MacCulloch (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 24. Further discussion can be found in Nadine Lewycky, ‘Serving God and King: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's Patronage Networks and Early Tudor Government, 1514–1529, With Special Reference to the Archdiocese of York’ (PhD thesis, University of York, 2008).

CHAPTER FOUR FORTUNE, INFORTUNE

1.L&P, I, 156.

2.See Geoffrey Elton, England Under the Tudors (London: Routledge, 1991), 71–8; Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2008), 161; J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 26; Polydore Vergil, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, 1485–1537, ed. Denys Hay (London: Royal Historical Society, 1950), 161.

3.Elton, England Under the Tudors, 76–8.

4.Betty Behrens, ‘The Office of the English Resident Ambassador: Its Evolution as Illustrated by the Career of Sir Thomas Spinelly, 1509–22,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 16 (1933): 167.

5.Martin Allen, Mints and Money in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 234.

6.L&P, I, 1213.

7.Ibid.

8.Ibid.

9.BL Cotton MS, Galba B III, 27.

10.Ibid.

11.Ibid.

12.Cotton MS, Galba B III, fol. 33. L&P, I, 1279.

13.Maximilian, et al. Correspondance de l'empereur Maximilien Ier et de Marguerite d'Autriche de 1507 à 1519, publiée après les manuscrits originaux par Le Glay (Paris: Renouard, 1839. Reprinted by New York: Johnson, 1966), 14.

14.L&P, I, 1258.

15.Ibid.

16.Cotton MS, Galba, fol. 33. L&P, I, 1279. ‘Thereupon we desired Thomas Spynell [Spinelly] to learn whether we might speak with my Lady [Margaret] that night; and meanwhile I, Sir Thomas Boleyn, copied the obligation.’

17.Maximillian, Parm Le Glay, Correspondance de l’empereur Maximilien, 19.

18.L&P, I, 1338.

19.L&P, I, 1322.

20.L&P, I, 1338.

21.Ibid.

22.Ibid.

23.Cotton MS, Galba B III, fol 44.

24.Ibid.

25.Ibid.

26.Ibid.

27.Ibid.

28.Maximilian, Parm Le Glay, Correspondance de l'empereur Maximilien, ‘Laquelle desirons que recevez benignement dudit seigneur d'Aremberch, et que après, vous faictes refaire ledit coffin qui est couvert de cuyre pardessus, ou lieu dudit cuyre, d'argent dore, et puis le tour faire presenter a nosyre frère, Le roy d'Angleterre,’ 410.

29.L&P, I, 1436.

30.Ibid.

31.Cotton MS, Galba B III, fol. 49. L&P, I, 1430.

32.Ibid.

33.Ibid.

34.Cotton MS, Galba B III, fol. 53. L&P, I, 3500.

35.Additionally, Thomas was irritated by Spinelly's decision to send two brothers from the town of Serizee (Cerezay) to England, but Spinelly reasoned that Thomas was with Margaret in Antwerp at the time. Regardless, Thomas valued communication, and he also had a sense that the embassy may have lost some of its cohesion and effective identity, which had always been one of Fox's main foci when it came to foreign embassies.

36.Cotton MS, Galba B III, fol. 96.

37.Thomas Rymer, Foedera, Conventiones, Literae, Et Cujuscunque Generis Acta Publica, Inter Reges Angliae, Et Alios quosvis Imperatores, Reges, Pontifices, Principes, vel Communitates, Ab Ineunte Saeculo Duodecimo, viz. ab Anno 1101, ad nostra usque Tempora, Habita aut Tractata; Ex Autographis, infra Secretiores Archivorum Regiorum Thesaurarias, per multa Saecula reconditis, fideliter Exscripta, XIII, ‘Appunctuamenta cum Leone Papa, pro Defensione Ecclesiae’ (London: A. & J. Churchill, 1727), 354–8.

38.Ibid., 432.

39.Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas Brian Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2003), 388.

40.Hugh Paget, ‘The Youth of Anne Boleyn,’ Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research LIV (1981):162–70.

41.L&P, I, 2053.

42.See David M. Loades, The Boleyns: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Family (Stroud: Amberley, 2011), 26.

43.The Chronicle of Calais in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII to the Year 1540, ed., John Gough Nicols (London: J. B. Nichols & Son, 1846), 12. ‘The last day of June kynge Henry landyd at Caleys; with hym landed the bysshope of Wynchestar lord prevye seale.’

44.Louis had no intention of relinquishing his claims to Italy, but a war with England equally undesirable. For general discussion, see Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 37–40; C. S. L. Davies, “Tournai and the English Crown, 1513–1519,” HJ 41, no. 1 (1998): 1–26. 44.

45.L&P, I, 3146.

46.Paget, ‘The Youth of Anne Boleyn,’ 167.

47.See Cotton MS, Vitelli, C, XI, fol. 155.; L&P, I, 3357.

48.Ibid.

49.L&P, II, Revel Accounts, 1501.

50.Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 580. Also see Neil Samman, ‘The Henrician Court During Cardinal Wolsey's Ascendancy c. 1514–1529’ (PhD thesis, University of Wales, 1988), 168.

51.See L&P, II, Revel Accounts, 1501. Also cited in Samman, ‘The Henrician Court During Cardinal Wolsey's Ascendancy,’ 147.

52.L&P, II, Revel Accounts, 1501.

53.L&P, X, 450.

CHAPTER FIVE THE PICKLOCK OF PRINCES

1.L&P, I, 1221.

2.L&P, II, 207. Between 1509 and 1532, Thomas would be appointed Commissioner over a hundred times for various counties.

3.It was, according to Butler ‘mine ancestors at first time they were called to honour, and hath since continually remained in the same blood; for which cause my lord and father commanded me upon his blessing, that I should do my devoir to cause it to continue still in my blood.’ Will of Thomas, Earl of Ormond, The National Archives, Kew, PROB 11/18/184.

4.Archaeologica: or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, III (London, 1775), 20–21.

5.Will of Thomas, Earl of Ormond, The National Archives, Kew, PROB 11/18/184.

6.L&P, I, 5784.

7.Ibid.

8.L&P, II, 1277. Also found in Calendar of State Papers relating to Ireland of the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, 1509–1573, I (London, 1860), 2.

9.A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Record Office. London: HMSO,1890 VI, 4700.

10.Calendar of Ormond Deeds IV, ed. Edmund Curtis (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1937), 111, 116.

11.Ibid.

12.King's Book of Payments, 1516, L&P, II, p. 1470.

13.L&P, II, 3756.

14.L&P, II, 1573.

15.L&P, II, King's Book of Payments, 1473.

16.George Goodwin, Fatal Rivalry, Flodden 1513: Henry VIII, James IV and the Battle for Renaissance Britain (London: Hatchette, 2013).

17.Cited in G. W. Bernard, ‘The Rise of Sir William Compton, Early Tudor Courtier,’ The English Historical Review 96, no. 381 (1981), 762. He had held a moiety of this manor between about 1514 and 3 May 1516. Also see Northamptonshire County Record Office, Typescript Catalogue of the Muniments of the Compton Family preserved at Castle Ashby, ed. I. H. Jeayes, 461–2, 464–6.

18.L&P, II, 4409.

19.Ibid.

20.Ibid.

21.See J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 71–4; Cal. Ven., II, 1085, 1088.

22.Cal. Ven., II, 1088.

23.The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More, ed. George M. Logan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 75.

24.David Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (London: Vintage, 2002), 76.

25.L&P, II, 4469.

26.Cotton MS, Caligula. D, VII, fol. 85.

27.L&P, II, 4674.

28.Ibid.

29.John Stevens Cabot Abbott, The Empire of Austria: Its Rise and Present Power (New York: Mason, 1859), 103.

30.Martyn Rady, The Emperor Charles V (New York: Routledge, 2014), 14; Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 97–105.

31.Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, Volume III, The Sixteenth Century to the Reign of Julius III to Pius V (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1984), 192.

32.The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 157.

33.A. F. Pollard argued that ‘The Papal Tiara hovered in Wolsey's eyes over his own uplifted brow,’ but D. S. Chambers makes a convincing case that Wolsey's ambitions were lukewarm at best. See A. F. Pollard, Wolsey (London: Longmans, Green, 1929), 25; D. S. Chambers, ‘Cardinal Wolsey and the Papal Tiara,’ Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 28 (1965): 20–30. Also discussed in Luke MacMahon, ‘The Ambassadors of Henry VIII: The Personnel of English Diplomacy, c.1500–c.1550.’ (PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1999), 5.

34.For example, Cotton Caligula, D, VII, Fol. 105, 108, 112; L&P, III, 223.

35.Cotton Caligula, D, VII, Fol. 88, L&P, III, 70.

36.Thomas also informed Wolsey that his reports were being carried by his servant to Calais which cost nine or ten crowns – an exorbitant amount – Wolsey immediately arranged for Boleyn's reports to be sent through trusted couriers via Calais.

37.Cotton MS, Caligula, D, VII, 106.

38.Ibid.

39.Ibid.

40.L&P, III, 92.

41.Cotton MS, Caligula, D, VII, 96.

42.L&P, III, 222.

43.L&P, III, 111.

44.Cotton Caligula, D, VII, 96–8; L&P, III, 122. ‘Yesterday in the morning I resceived owt of England…a pacquett of letters wherin was a letter from the king's highnesse to the king here with a copy of the same, a letter from your grace to the king here, a qwere of instrucions signed with the king's hand concemyng in the begynnyng the deliverance of the king's letter with recommendacions … And a letter from your grace to me concemyng most the thorder to be takyn for the marchants spoyled in the sea in September and October last year.’

45.Cotton MS, Caligula D VII, Fol. 102.

46.L&P, III, 111.

47.Cotton MS, Caligula, D, VII, 121.

48.Ibid.

49.Ibid.

50.It clearly alarmed Thomas, who did not want to breach protocol or cause offence, and his letter to Wolsey shows that he was concerned enough at this surprise request for money to enquire if what he had given had been honourable.

51.L&P, III, 223. Thomas wrote: “Four years ago, when I first sued to the King in this matter, said that he wished to serve the King in the court all his life, if on Lovell's leaving the office of treasurer he [the king] would appoint him to that place or to the controllership, and that if he would grant me that he would never sue for any higher place. The King then faithfully promised that when Lovell should quit his office Ponynges should be treasurer and Boleyn controller; and at Boleyn's last departing from him, he bade him undoubtedly trust thereto.” It nevertheless remains unclear from this letter which position Henry promised, and when.

52.Ibid.

53.Ibid.

54.L&P, III, 447.

55.Cotton MS, Caligula, D, VII, fol. 140.

56.L&P, III, 514 “I told my Lady that I have here afore time known when the King's Grace hath worn his long beard, that the Queen hath daily made him great instance, and desired him to put it off for her sake.”

57.Cotton MS, Caligula, D, VII, 95.

58.Ibid., D, VII. 182. ‘The time of the meeting shal be the hottest season of all the year,. Whan folks drynk most, and thinketh that amongs such a multitude of pepull some drunken personne might cause invovicneces.’ This letter is incorrectly labelled as Wingfield to Henry in Henry Ellis Original Letters, but in the Caligula MS the writing is clearly Thomas', as is the signature, ‘beseching the Holy Trinite long to Preserve your Highnesse’. Wingfield usually ended with ‘Beseching the Holy Goset to have your Grace in hys most blessed kepyng’.

59.L&P, III, 666.

60.L&P, III, Introduction.

61.Cal. Ven., II, 1235.

62.L&P, III, 629.

63.So styled by Elizabeth Benger, author of Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, Queen of Henry VIII (Philadelphia: Parry and Macmillan, 1854), 50.

CHAPTER SIX BETWIXT TWO PRINCES

1.L&P, III, introduction. Chapter 6.

2.Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 604.

3.L&P, III, 728.

4.Ibid.

5.The prevailing practice of the day (at least as far as the Imperial Empire was concerned) was that a sovereign should meet the Holy Roman Emperor in the latter's realm, as an inferior prince to a superior one.

6.J. G. Russell, The Field of Cloth of Gold: Men and Manners in 1520 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 48–9.

7.Ibid., 48–9.

8.Rymer, XIII, 711.

9.The Chronicle of Calais, in the Reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. To the Year 1540. Ed. from Mss. in the British Museum. Edited by John Gough Nichols (London: J. B. Nichols and Son, 1846), 22.

10.L&P, III, 869. ‘La description et ordre du camp, festins et joustes’.

11.L&P, III, 702; Rymer, XIII, 710.

12.Hall, Hall's Chronicle, 606–8.

13.Ibid.

14.Cal. Ven., III, 60.

15.Ibid.

16.Ibid., L&P, III, 869.

17.L&P, III, 1011.

18.Cotton MS Caligula D, VIII, 149. ‘On my return I will talk with you how to bring about the marriage between his son and Sir Thomas Boleyn's daughter, which will be a good pretext for delaying to send his son over.’

19.‘It is generally believed that the violent manner in which the Cardinal governs England will produce great inconvenience in that country.’ Charles himself was reported to have remarked: ‘A butcher's dog has killed the finest Buck in England.’ Thomas Boleyn's younger brother, Edward, was among seven men who later questioned two supporters of the Duke before sending them to trial. Cal.Span, II, 336.

20.Such a move caused considerable tension, and when Charles was asked about the state of his relationship with Francis, he quipped “My cousin Francis and I are in perfect accord: he wants Milan and so do I.”

21.J. D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 310.

22.L&P, III, preface section 2.

23.L&P, III, 1458.

24.William Robertson, The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V with a View of the Progress of Society: From the Subversion of the Roman Empire, to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century (New York: Harper Brothers, 1838), 151.

25.L&P, III, 1508.

26.Ibid.

27.Ibid., 1555.

28.For general discussion, see J. G. Russell, “The Search for Universal Peace: The Conferences at Calais and Bruges in 1521,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research XLIV (1971): 93. Boleyn and Docwra were entertained as special envoys, lodged separately from the normal English ambassador, and their pay was better.

29.L&P, III, 1694.

30.Ibid., 1705, 1706, 1715.

31.Ibid., 1724.

32.L&P., III, ii, 2446.

33.Ibid. See the deposition of Perpoynte Devauntter in L&P, III, 2446.

34.As noted by J. J. Scarisbrick in Henry VIII (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 95.

35.Cal. Span., II, 430. Also see Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 95.

36.State Papers, Henry VIII, VI. 108.

37.Cotton MS, Vespasian C. II. 28.

38.Ibid., III, 2591.

39.Cotton MS, Vespasian C. II. 28.

40.Ibid., 36.

41.Ibid.

42.Ibid.

43.Western Manuscripts, BL, f. 217–34. ‘The negotiations of Cardinal Wolsey: transcripts of correspondence, etc., mostly between Cardinal Wolsey and various ambassadors, with short introductory comments; 1522–1525.’ Copy. Seventeenth century.

44.Harleian MS. 295. f. 133. Also see discussion in Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2008), 150; Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat, 93.

45.L&P, III, 2878. ‘Quod si mihi evenisset paulo benevolentior collega, multo facilius transegissem; cujus tamen mores ita fero constanter ut simultati locus alicui non pateat. Neque tam illibenter sentiret me affore ita rerum omnium inopem, ut nihil non egerem ope sua: neque res alia mihi obtingeret ingrate.’

46.L&P, IV, 960.

47.Haus Hoff und Staat Archiv, England, Berichte, Karton 3, f 2.

48.L&P, III, 3386.

49.State Papers, VI, 167.

50.L&P, IV, 1939.

51.See Josephine Wilkinson, Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII's Favourite Mistress (Stroud: Amberley, 2009).

52.L&P, IV, 83. Note that it is first spelled as Boloyne, and then Boleyn, which is not significant as spellings of the name constantly varied.

53.L&P, III, 3256. ‘The King will perceive by the letters of Fitzwilliam that from the contrarious weather he has not been able to keep his enterprise against Boulogne, and, as the victuals expire on the 28th, he wishes to know whether he shall lay up his ships at Portsmouth or not. Wolsey thinks the Vice-admiral has done as much as he could, and according to the King's pleasure, signified to him by Sir Edward Guyldford, has sent him word to despatch one ship of 400 tons, and another of 200, to join Sir Anthony Poynes westward, to intercept Albany.’

54.L&P, IV, 83.

55.L&P, IV, 5013.

56.L&P, IV. ‘List of prizes taken by Captain Coo since leaving the Thames on 22 Jan to the present date of his discharge from the King's wages. A ship of 50 tons, laden with salt, taken in the Tradde, sold for 70l. 2 ships, laden with Danske rye, taken from the gallies of Dieppe and Homflete, 140l. The Mary of Homflete, 90 tons, with ordnance, delivered to Thos. Clere for the King's service. The Galley of Dieppe, 50 tons, 40 men, taken in the Narrow Seas. The Yennett Purwyn, taken in the North Parts, with 16 pieces of ordnance, delivered by the Admiral's commandment to the mayor of Hull. The Michael of Depe, the Mary of Boloyn, the Griffin of Depe, a ship of Rouen, laden with Newfoundland fish, fisher boats, crays, &c. Total 1213l. 16s. 8d.83.’

57.L&P, IV, 136.

CHAPTER SEVEN THE BALANCE OF POWER

1.Thomas Martin, The history of the town of Thetford, in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, from the earliest accounts to the present time (London: J. Nichols & Son, 1779), Appendix VIII, 38–41.

2.Ibid.

3.Marie Axton, James P. Carley, David Starkey, et al., Triumphs of English: Henry Parker, Lord Morley, Translator to the Tudor Court (London: British Library, 2000), 165.

4.Retha Warnicke provides an interesting insight into the Parkers' relationship with Katherine of Aragon. See Retha Warnicke ‘ The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Reassessment’ Historical Journal, 70, (1985): 1–15.

5.L&P, VI, 1213.

6.See Steven Gunn, The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 6.

7.Kenneth Pickthorn, Early Tudor Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 67.

8.L&P, IV, 1234. ‘I have received your gracious token by the hands of Sir Thos. Boleyn, treasurer of your household, who tells me that you will come here if it be to the advancement of your affairs. Nothing would be better for the speedy execution of your causes than your presence, where I could from time to time consult you. Wherefore, if it shall please your Grace to take the pain to come to this my poor house, the same shall not only be to the setting forth of your said causes, but also to my singular rejoicing, consolation, and comfort. And as welcome shall your Grace be as heart can think.’

9.L&P, IV, 1319. As noted in Dean, Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat, 98.

10.Ibid., IV, 1243, 1260, 1266, 1318.

11.Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 699.

12.Ibid., 699. The Duke of Norfolk, who was in charge of collections in his own county, reported that that the citizens there offered undervalued plate. As well as an intrinsic value, plate often had a cultural significance for the middle and upper classes – often used as gifts, personalized, or engraved in some way as a remembrance or for some other purpose. He suggested that the plate could be melted down to make sub-standard coin to be fobbed-off in France.

13.See L&P, IV, Appendix 9. The account is from 1525, and offer details of his household expenses for November and December of that year. It would appear that a certain “Sir Harry” was in charge keeping abreast of expenses, but he also wrote several entries himself.

14.L&P, IV, 1550.

15.Ibid.

16.L&P, IV, 1431.

17.Ibid.

18.Ibid.

19.Cal. Span., III, i, 111.

20.Ibid.

21.Ibid.

22.Ibid.

23.Ibid.

24.L&P, IV, 1628.

25.Ibid.

26.L&P, IV, 1633.

27.Ibid.

28.The original from Vienna can be found on plate 16.

29.See Peter Gwyn, The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (New York: Random House, 2011), 365–7.

30.Ibid.

31.Ibid.

32.David Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (London: Random House, 2004), 319.

33.Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 368–70.

34.L&P, IV, 1939.

35.Ibid.

36.Ibid., IV, 3105.

37.Ibid.

38.Ibid.

39.Ibid., IV, 3124.

40.In fact the only reference we have to Lisle is in a commission to France in October: ‘to Arthur Plantaginet, viscount Lysle, John Taylour, LL.D., archdeacon of Buckingham, vice-chancellor, Sir Nic. Carewe, master of the stable, Sir Ant. Browne, and Sir Thos. Wriothesley, Garter king-at-arms, to signify to Francis I. his election into the Order of the Garter, to place the collar on his neck, to present him with the mantle, garter, and statutes, and to take his oath according to the said statutes. If he does not wish to take the oath, his simple word will be sufficient.’ L&P, IV, 3508.

41.L&P, IV, 3185, 3194.

42.Ibid., IV 3171.

43.Cotton MS, Caligula, D. X. 47. ‘We suppy[d] … and passed three or four hours in dancing [until] midnight and past, at which time the da[ncing was] finished. My lord of Rocheford took his leave [of the] King and of my Lady, and so we departed f[or that] night to our lodging.’

44.Ibid.

45.Ibid.

CHAPTER EIGHT DECLARE, I DARE NOT

1.Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 630–1.

2.Ibid.

3.Ibid., 707–8.

4.Cal. Ven., IV, 366.

5.David M. Loades, The Boleyns: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Family (Stroud: Amberley, 2011), 267.

6.L&P, IV, Introduction.

7.Loades, The Boleyns: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Family, 87.

8.See James Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance, and Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 48; Luigi Guicciardini, The Sack of Rome, trans. and ed. James H. McGregor (New York: Italica Press, 1993), 10–14.

9.Cal. Span., III, ii. 113.

10.State Papers, I, 278.

11.George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 29–34. Cavendish claimed that Henry already had a personal interest in Anne at this point, forcing Wolsey to part the couple, but this is highly debatable.

12.Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, 34.

13.As noted in Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 65.

14.For example, see Samman, ‘The Henrician Court During Cardinal Wolsey's Ascendancy, 180; Steve Gunn, ‘Wolsey's foreign policy and the domestic crisis of 1527–1528,’ eds. Steve Gunn and P. Lindley, Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 149–77; Eric Ives, ‘The Fall of Wolsey,’ in Gunn and Lindley, eds., Cardinal Wolsey, 286–315.

15.HHStA, England Berichte, Karton 4, fol 224, No. 18. Also in Cal. Span., III, ii, 69.

16.Ibid.

17.See Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat, 111. Eric Ives, Faction in Tudor England (London: Historical Association, 1979); Robert Shephard, ‘Review: Court Factions in Early Modern England,’ Journal of Modern History 64 (1992): 721–45; David Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation: The Rise of the Privy Chamber, 1485–1547.’ In The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London: Longman, 1987), 108.

18.L&P, IV, 3360.

19.Cal. Span., III, ii, 224.

20.L&P, IV, 4106.

21.Ibid., 3937.

22.Ibid. Curiously, Thomas' mother, Margaret, did not sign her full name, only marking M.B. It is said that Margaret later suffered from dementia, and certainly Thomas' care for her down in Hever suggests that she required care. As she was certainly literate, judging from her earlier letters to her son, this use of initials may well point to a mental decline.

23.L&P, IV, 3950.

24.J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth, Vol. 3 (London: Longman, Green, and Co, 1866), 521, 525.

25.Exactly when Cromwell joined Wolsey's services is the subject of much dispute. See M. Everett, ‘Qualities of a Royal Minister: Studies in the Rise of Thomas Cromwell, c. 1520–1534’ (PhD thesis, University of Southampton, 2012), 43.

26.Cromwell wrote to Thomas that he was to ‘be of co unsayll’ to his sister in a dispute with Elizabeth Fyneux, wife of the deceased Sir John Fyneux, a former chief justice of King's Bench. Cromwell gave his opinion of the matter, advising that Thomas' sister was ‘vtterlye without Remedye by course of the common lawe.’ Interestingly, he advised Thomas to speak to Wolsey and convince him to ‘to graunt a wryt of Injunctyon,’ directed to Elizabeth Fyneux, the respondant, commanding her to prevent the execution of her writs, and to ensure that no ‘wryttes of liberata goo out of the sayd courte vntyll Chauncerye [vntyll] suche time [as] the hole matyer tochyng the premysses may dulye and accordyng to conscyence be harde and examyned.’ L&P IV, 3741.

27.Ibid., IV, 4188.

28.Ibid., 4189, 4190.

29.Ibid., 4167.

30.Ibid.

31.Wolsey owned numerous fisheries at Norham, hence the extravagant seafood orders.

32.David Knowles, ‘The Matter of Wilton,’ Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 31 (1958): 92–6.

33.L&P, IV, 448.

34.As Dr Bell, Wolsey's commissioner, wrote to Anne: ‘I would not for all the world clog your conscience nor mine to make her ruler of a house which is of so ungodly demeanour; nor, I trust, you would not that, neither for brother (Carey) nor sister, I should so distain mine honour or conscience. And, as touching the prioress (Isabella Jordan), or dame Elinor's eldest sister, though there is not any evident case proved against them, and that the Prioress is so old, that of many years she could not be as she was named; yet, notwithstanding, to do you pleasure, I have done that neither of them shall have it; but … some other good and well disposed woman.’ L&P, IV, Section 8.

35.See Samman, ‘The Henrician Court,’ 271; Starkey Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, 334–5; L&P, IV, Introduction, ccclxxxvi.

36.Starkey, Six Wives, 334–5; Friedmann, Anne Boleyn.

37.Samman, ‘The Henrician Court,’ 270.

38.Cotton MS Vespasian f. 13.

39.As Brewer notes: ‘Never before had Wolsey stood so high in the favour of his master. He had triumphed over every obstacle. He had propitiated the Pope, and won over his consent to the divorce.’ L&P, IV, Introduction.

40.Thomas Osborne, ed. The Harleian Miscellany, Or, A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, as Well in Manuscript as in Print, Found in the Late Earl of Oxford's Library: Interspersed with Historical, Political, and Critical Notes: With a Table of the Contents, and an Alphabetical Index, Vol. III letter XI, 56.

41.Brewer notes that although translations often use the word ‘deceive’ the original says ‘dyslave’. L&P, IV, 4410.

42.L&P, IV, 4993. The post came into effect in February 1529, see L&P, IV, 5248.

43.Cal. Span. III, ii, 621.

44.L&P, IV, 5774. Wolsey wrote frequently to Rome on Henry's behalf, and many of his letters can be found in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

45.Ambassador du Bellay, 118, L&P, IV, 5210.

46.Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen (London: Faber and Faber, 2010), 309.

47.L&P, IV, 5774.

48.Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, 118.

50.Ibid.

51.State Papers, I. 55, 25–6. Gardiner wrote to Wolsey after visiting Boleyn, ‘I have spoken with my Lord of Rocheforde and shewed unto him howe your Grace offerith to wryte your letters to such as wer your offcers in Durham, to cause them to make payment here, with al diligence, of the haulf yeres rent due at Our Ladyes Day last past; for the which he most hertely thankith your Grace and sayth he shal requite it with like kindness.’

CHAPTER NINE TREASONOUS WATERS

1.Robert Knecht, The Valois: Kings of France 1328–1589 (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), 142–3.

2.Cotton MS, Caligula, D. XI. 15.

3.L&P, IV, 5877.

4.See Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 758–9.

5.Ibid.

6.Ibid.

7.State Papers, I. 342.

8.Ibid.

9.Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 122.

10.Ibid.

11.L&P, IV, 5918.

12.John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. George Townsend (London: R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1841), 541.

13.I understand, though I do not know for certain, that they are consulting the theologians of the University of Paris about the case. L&P, IV, 5636.

14.L&P, IV, 5862.

15.John Strype (ed.), Memorials of Thomas Cranmer. 2 Vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1840), 4.

16.Du Bellay reported that ‘On the return of Suffolk, Wolsey complained to the King that the Duke had put him out of favor with Francis by some of his conversations. On which the King asked Suffolk if it was true. The Duke said he had not spoken of it. Wolsey further said it was I that had informed him. So that, whenever the Duke could meet me, after long protests, and after confessing that he had had some conversation with Francis about Wolsey, but he had made sure that if Francis had sent word of it I would not have repeated it, he pressed me so hard for an answer that I knew not what to say, except that I had never spoken of it, – which, in truth, I never did.’ L&P, IV, 5862.

17.George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 238.

18.Du Bellay, Correspondance, 105.

19.Cal. Span., IV, i, 6073.

20.Chapuys does make mention of being introduced to a gentleman named Poller, or something to that effect, which some historians have assumed was George Boleyn, but Chapuys had already written about George, calling him Boulan, and when they first met, in early 1530, Chapuys refers to him Rochford, Boleyn's son, it is unlikely this was George.

21.L&P, IV, 6147. ‘The unlearned Spaniard, Dr. Petre Garray, who has circulated a bill, drawn up by Beda, notwithstanding the admonition of the Great Master, against our opinion, and circumvented some of the Doctors. They have, however, recanted, and we are sure of the congregation of the faculty … We would rather have their help now than when they have their desires, for by this means our enemies have undermined many, but if my Lord speed our desires we shall be able to bring them round, and even if the King (Francis) deny our requests, we trust to prevent further signatures against our opinions.’

22.Ibid., 6253. Henry VIII to Boleyn: ‘[Unclear]…has shown us your letters to himself, in which you appear particularly desirous that we should write to the dean and heads of the faculty of theology at Paris. We send you accordingly our letter to them, with a copy, so that if you and our kinsman think it will promote our cause, you may deliver them; but you must take the greatest care to be sure of the good will of the majority beforehand, lest you give an advantage to our enemies.’

23.H. F. M. Prescott, Mary Tudor (London: Hatchette, 2012), ii.

24.Cal. Span., IV, 132.

25.Cal. Span., IV, 160.

26.Ibid.

27.Peter Gwyn, The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (New York: Random House, 2011), 594.

28.HHStA England Berichte, Karton 4, c. 226, 23.

29.Ibid.

30.L&P, IV, 6114. ‘Yf the desspleasure of my lady Anne be [some]what asswagyd, as I pray God the same may be, then yt shuld [be devised t]hat by sume convenyent meane she be further laboryd, [for th]ys ys the only helpe and remedy. All possyble means [must be used for] atteynyng of hyr favor.’

31.Stanford E. Lehmberg, The Reformation Parliament: 1529–1536 (Cambridge: University Press, 1970), 3. Relatively little is known about parliamentary procedure during the early Tudor period because there were so few records kept: there was no journal of proceedings, and only a handful of letters directly concerning the Parliament survive, making it is difficult to draw any conclusions of the Boleyn's actions or involvement in Parliamentary discussions or debates.

32.Ibid., 75.

33.Hall, Hall's Chronicle, clxxxiii.

34.Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The Life and Reigne of Henry the Eighth (London: E.G, 1649), 266–71. 7. L&P, IV, 6075.

35.Hall, Hall's Chronicle, 767–8.

36.G. W. Bernard, ‘The Fall of Wolsey Reconsidered.’ The Journal of British Studies 35, no. 3 (1996): 277–310, 96.

37.Du Bellay, Correspondance, 112. ‘Le duc de Norfoch est faict chief de ce Conseil et en son absence celluy de Suffoch, et par dessuz tout mademoiselle Anne.’

38.Cavendish, Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, 288.

39.Cal. Span., IV, I, 232.

40.See L&P, IV, 6324.

41.Ibid., 5983. Du Bellay writes: ‘[Boleyn] allowed everything to be said, and then came and suggested the complete opposite, defending his position without budging, as though he wanted to show to me that he was not pleased that anyone should have failed to pay court to the Lady [Anne], and also to make me accept that what it pleased the lady to allow them, and that is gospel truth. And because of this he wanted with words and deeds to beat down their opinions before my eyes.’ Remy Scheurer, Correspondance du cardinal Jean du Bellay Volume 1; Volumes 1529–1535 I, 41.

42.Remy Scheurer, Correspondance du cardinal Jean du Bellay Volume 1; Volumes 1529–1535 I, 41.

43.L&P, IV, 6085.

44.HHStA, England Bericht, Karton 4, Fasc. 227, 50.

45.His maternal grandfather was the seventh earl of Ormond and his great uncle had been Earl of Wiltshire prior to achieving the Ormond peerage.

46.For general discussion of its medieval function, see Thomas Frederick Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England, 1 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1937), 282–313.

47.While the origins and functions of the Privy Council and of the royal seals have received scholarly attention, research remains to be undertaken of the office of Lord Privy Seal. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state, and the calibre of those appointed suggest that it was a role of distinction. It would be most enlightening for a study comparing the effectiveness of incumbents from Henry VII's reign through to Elizabeth I (that is from Fox's position in 1487–1516, through to Boleyn 1530–36, Cromwell 1536–40, William Fitzwilliam 1540–42, John Russell 1542–55, William Paget 1555–58, Nicholas Bacon 1558–71 and finally William Cecil 1571–72) to name the most significant of the early modern period, which would indicate how the position evolved, the extent of its power, and whether the incumbent limited or increased its importance. Many of the incumbents were functioning bishops: Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, held the position from 1523 to 1530, one of the longer tenures under Henry, about which historians are silent for its lack of innovation. When Wolsey was stripped of his government offices and property in 1529, Tunstall succeeded him as Bishop of Durham, vacating the position of Lord Privy Seal, when Thomas Boleyn was appointed in 1530.

48.The Star Chamber comprised seven privy councillors, the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Keeper of the King's Privy Seal, a bishop, a temporal lord and two common law judges. It used the Council's powers, but remained a distinct Court and could separately receive petitions involving property rights, public corruption, trade and government administration, disputes arising from land enclosures, and cases of public disorder. See A. F. Pollard, ‘Council, Star Chamber, and Privy Council under the Tudors: 1. The Council’ and ‘Council, Star Chamber, and Privy Council under the Tudors: 2. The Star Chamber,’ in English Historical Review 17 (1922): 337–60, 516–39, respectively.

49.Many historians consider Thomas' tenure as Lord Privy Seal unremarkable, conservative and predictable, noting only his dates of service, before they move on to discuss Thomas Cromwell's high distinction in the position immediately following Thomas' resignation. However, during his term, the role extended to the oversight of a wide range of matters – from legal disputes, summonses to appear before the council, orders to the chancellor to issue letters under the great seal, and directions to the exchequer to make money payments. He was there to preserve the status quo, and made no attempt to change the nature of the position – unlike his successor, Cromwell, who dismantled it. It could have been an opportunity to wield power – in 1536 when he became Lord Privy Seal, Cromwell had an unprecedented overarching view of the entire governmental system from which he could use the confluence of these roles to run the entire bureaucracy of the country, along with which came concentration of power in the hands of a single minister of the king, rather than several.

50.Geoffrey Elton, ‘Presidential Address: Tudor Government: The Points of Contact. III. The Court,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 26 (1976): 211–28.

During Boleyn's six-year term, the role extended to the oversight of a wide range of matters – from legal disputes, summonses to appear before the council, orders to the chancellor to issue letters under the great seal, and directions to the exchequer to make money payments.

51.Cal. Span., IV, 224.

52.Ibid., 241.

53.Ibid., 257.

54.Ibid.

55.Ibid.

CHAPTER TEN THE BOLEYN ENTERPRISE

1.Starkey, Six Wives, 400. Charles was crowned on 24 February in the church of San Petronio.

2.William Robertson, The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V with a View of the Progress of Society: From the Subversion of the Roman Empire, to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century (New York: Harper Brothers, 1838), 117.

3.L&P, IV, 1939.

4.The mission might have been futile but it was well funded – Henry provided the group with £1,743, almost £800,000 by today's currency as well as 80 horses and 20 mules.

5.L&P, IV, 6253. Henry VIII to Boleyn: ‘[Unclear]…has shown us your letters to himself, in which you appear particularly desirous that we should write to the dean and heads of the faculty of theology at Paris. We send you accordingly our letter to them, with a copy, so that if you and our kinsman think it will promote our cause, you may deliver them; but you must take the greatest care to be sure of the good will of the majority beforehand, lest you give an advantage to our enemies.’

6.HHStA, England Bericht, Karton 4, fol. 126; Span. Cal, IV, i. 250.

7.Ibid.

8.HHStA, England Bericht Karton 4, England, c. 226, 6. ‘Besides which, it is rumoured in certain quarters – and the rumour has been adroitly circulated – that this embassy is not so much sent for the purpose of this marriage as for the conclusion of perpetual peace with Your Majesty.’

9.Ibid., c. 226, 3.

10.HHStA, England Bericht, Karton 4, England, c. 226, 6.

11.Ibid. The meeting had no effect on Chapuys' policy, but his letter to Charles, urging him to assemble as many learned men as possible to combat Boleyn's arguments, as Henry was sending some of the ablest men to argue Henry's case, gives some indication of how Chapuys saw Boleyn.

12.L&P, 6254.

13.Ibid.

14.‘Then the Duke went on to say that he was now going to speak to me rather as a friend and brother than as a foreigner and ambassador. “You are aware (he said), that my brother-in-law, the Sr. de Vulchier (Wiltshire) is not of a warlike disposition; on the contrary, he is very timid, and if, on his arrival in Italy, he should find any danger abroad, or even suspicion of it, I believe him capable of not venturing to proceed on his journey.” The Duke, therefore, begged me to write to Your Majesty, that some precautions should be taken for his security.’ Cal. Span., IV, I, 255.

15.Cal. Span., IV, I, 255.

16.Ibid.

17.J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 255.

18.Cal. Span., IV, i, 252, 432. As evidenced by du Bellay's letter to Francis: ‘The king of England is very anxious that your Majesty would get the faculty of Paris to give its opinion in writing in favor of his Majesty's cause. You could not do him a greater pleasure, or bind him to you more effectually. We hear he is sending the said opinions, along with others, to the earl of Wiltshire (Boleyn) to show to the Pope, so as to incline him to the King's will in good time; if, at least, your Majesty, conceiving the cause to be a just one, will take such expedients as shall seem good to you and your Council. For this reason he wishes justifications and final proofs sent by the Pope and Emperor. Moreover, the present earl of Wiltshire, as a person greatly in the King's confidence, interested though he be, and, some say, in order to obtain from the Pope what is desired, had a commission to make great expense, and promise assistance…with a good sum of money. But this I hear from others, not from “S. P.,” who thanks your Majesty much for your reception of the said Earl. I can learn no other cause for the Earl's mission, unless there be some promise for the restitution of the Queen's dower to the Emperor, with security for the Queen's good treatment.’

19.Cal. Span., IV, 265.

20.L&P, IV, 6539.

21.Ibid.

22.Cal. Milan, I, 813.

23.Ibid.

24.L&P, IV, 6324.

25.Ibid., IV, 6290, 6293.

26.Ibid.

27.Ibid.

28.Ibid., 6285.

29.John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. George Townsend (London: R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1841), 9.

30.Ibid.

31.Cal. Span., III, 434.

32.L&P, 6293.

33.Ibid., 6293.

34.Ibid.

35.Cal. Milan., I, 815, 816.

36.Ibid., 838.

37.L&P, IV, 6355.

38.L&P, IV, 6307.

39.Starkey, Six Wives, 405.

40.Ibid.

41.L&P, IV, 6393.

42.Ibid.

43.L&P, IV, 6304.

44.Ibid., 6397.

45.Ibid., 6563.

46.Cal. Span., IV, I, 790.

47.Ibid. ‘Just as I was leaving the room the earl of Wiltshire arrived, at which the Duke said he was glad, as I had not seen the Earl since his return from Italy. The Earl having enquired after Your Majesty's health and most courteously offered his services, began slandering the Pope and cardinals so violently that full of horror at what was being said I took leave and left the room immediately.’

48.Ibid.

49.Ibid., 799.

50.Cal. Span, IV, II, 915.

51.HHStA, England Bericht, Karton 5, 17.

52.George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 20? 1.

53.Ibid.

54.Cal. Span, IV, i, 270.

55.L&P, IV, 6579.

56.George Godfrey Cunningham, Lives of Eminent and Illustrations Englishmen from Alfred the Great to the Latest Times, Vol. 2 (Glasgow: A. Fullarton & Co, 1837), 8.

57.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 615.

58.Ibid.

59.Seymour Baker House, ‘Literature, Drama, and Politics’, in The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy, and Piety, ed. Diarmaid MacCulloch (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 183.

60.Greg Walker, Plays of Persuasion: Drama and Politics at the Court of Henry VIII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 20.

61.Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle: Containing the History of England, During the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of Those Periods (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 764.

62.Cal. Ven, IV, 693.

63.Cal. Span, IV, 584: ‘In two former letters I mentioned the impossibility of doing anything in the matter enjoined me by your Excellency's Lord Lieutenant, by reason of the absence from this Court of the Earl of Wiltshire [Thomas]; the King's Almoner [Edward Lee] being of opinion that this business should not be attempted through any other channel than that of the Earl.’

64.Sforza Archives, Milan, 642.

65.Greg Walker, ‘Persuasive Fictions: Faction, Faith and Political Culture in the Reign of Henry VIII,’ Sixteenth Century Journal 29 (1998): 20.

CHAPTER ELEVEN AINSI SERA, GROIGNE QUI GROIGNE

1.L&P, V, 27.

2.See Lehmberg, Appendix B, which lists Thomas as being in attendance for 42 out of 45 days. George Boleyn was in attendance for 41, and Norfolk for 38. The attendance list is found in the House of Lords Record Office, Lord's Journal.

3.Stanford E. Lehmberg, The Reformation Parliament: 1529–1536 (Cambridge: University Press, 1970).

4.Gerald Lewis Bray (ed.), Documents of the English Reformation 1526–1701 (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 1994), 115.

5.Original is in the National Archives: Records assembled by the State Paper Office, including papers of the Secretaries of State up to 1782, SP 6, Theological Tracts Henry VIII, Folio 94 ‘Rochford MS,’ A treatise delivered to the Convocation of the Clergy on 10 February 1531, by George Boleyn, Lord Rochford. Previously described as ‘treatise upon whether certain texts pertain especially to spiritual prelates or to temporal princes, viz John, XX, ‘Sicut misit me pater, ita et ego mitto vos’; and Acts, XX, ‘Attendite vobis et cuncto gregi in quo vos Spiritus Sanctus posuit episcopas etc.’ In defence of the royal supremacy.’

6.The Boleyns formed a powerful political circle in Parliament – including Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Boleyn, his nephew James and his son George Boleyn, whose attendance, Stamford Lehmberg believes, helped to ‘popularize the Boleyn cause with younger generations,’ Lehmberg, Reformation Parliament, 30.

7.Richard Hall, The Life and Death of the Renowned John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester: Who was Beheaded on Tower-Hill, the 22d of June, 1535, ed. Thomas Bayly (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1739), 79.

8.See John Guy, Henry VIII: The Quest for Fame (London: Allen Lane, 2014), 498–99.

9.Cal. Span, IV, ii, 641. ‘The bishop of Rochester [Fisher] is quite ill in consequence. He has made, and is still making, as much opposition as he can to the measure; but as he and his followers have been threatened with death, by being cast into the Thames.’ It is not clear who, if anyone, actually threatened to throw Fisher into the Thames.

10.Cal. Span, IV, ii, 646.

11.Ibid.

12.Hall, The Life and Death of the Renowned John Fisher, 109.

13.Nicholas Sanders, trans J. Christie, The Rise and Progress of the English Reformation (Dublin: J Christie, 1827), 83. ‘This yere was a coke boylyd in a cauderne in Smythfeld for he wolde a powsyned the bishop of Rochester Fycher with dyvers of hys servanttes, and he was lockyd in a chayne and pullyd up and downe with a gybbyt at dyvers tymes tyll he was dede.’

14.K. J. Kesselring, ‘A Draft of the 1531 “Acte for Poysoning”’, The English Historical Review Vol. 116, No. 468 (September 2001), 894–9.

15.Hall, The Life and Death of the Renowned John Fisher, 109?11.

16.Ibid.

17.HHStA, England, Karton 5, c227, 5.

18.Ibid.

19.HHStA, England, Berichte Karton 5, 227.

20.Ibid.

21.Ibid.

22.Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen (London: Faber & Faber, 2010), 348–9.

23.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 765.

24.Ibid.

25.L&P, V, 1207.

26.L&P, V, 375.

27.Ibid.

28.L&P, V, 686. Shirts and material for shirts and collars seemed to be one of the most popular gifts from the wives of court –perhaps there was a concerted effort to ensure Henry would not have to go back to his wife to have any more shirts made.

29.Samman, ‘The Henrician Court, 321–2.

30.L&P, V, 688. Piers wrote to Boleyn: ‘Your grandfather, by his deed gave me and my heirs the manors of Tullagh and Arcloo; whereupon I recovered them out of the possession of Irishmen. Yet Kildare boasts he has obtained of you a lease of the said manors, with the Karig; whereof I marvel. He covets them for no love of your Lordship, but only to confound me. The late insurrection was made by his kinsmen, and all the Pale would have been destroyed if I had not come to the rescue in the dead winter at my own cost, and incurring debt, of which I shall not be free this seven years … I give you yearly 10l. sterling to have your good will and to further my causes. I pray you suffer me to have the benefit of the said deed; and, if you cannnot be content that I shall have the Carryk for a reasonable rent, that you would set thereon one of your servants or some indifferent person. I pray you to assign no default in me for not paying your rent for Michaelmas term last. “It chanced me then to be in Dublin at the Parliament, where I continued seven weeks, spending much more than my ordinary revenues and rents would maintain; natheless, at my returning home, I prepared your payment, and there was no passage with whom I might have conveyed your money to you, unto now that this bearer departed, by whom I have sent your payment.’

31.Bernard, The King's Reformation, 512.

32.Cal. Span., V, 1013.

33.Cal. Span., V, 1165.

34.See Ives’ discussion of Anne's collection of French manuscripts, including her French bible, translated by Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples, 270. His arguments regarding Anne's collection of French reformist works as a definitive sign of her intellectual and religious preferences are applicable here in terms of Thomas' Erasmian interests. Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn.

35.See Barry Collett, A long and troubled pilgrimage: the correspondence of Marguerite d'Angoulême and Vittoria Colonna, 1540–1545 (Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 2000) 11; J. K. McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952).

36.For further discussion, see Alois Gerlo (trans.), La Correspondance D'Erasme, VIII (Brussels: University Press, 1979), L. 2266.

37.Desiderius Erasmus, Epistle 2322, trans. Alexander Dalzell, cited in The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 2204–2356 (August 1529–July 1530) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 86.

38.Ibid.

39.Ed Bailey, The Colloquies of Erasmus (London: Reeves and Turner, 1878).

40.Cited in J. Austin Gavin and Thomas M. Walsh, ‘The Praise of Folly in Context: The Commentary of Girardus Listrius’, Renaissance Quarterly 24 (1971): 198. Before we presume that this Lutheran influence is what Friesland is alluding to, we must go further back. Listrius had met Erasmus years before, and is most famous for his defence of Erasmus' The Praise of Folly, a work for which Erasmus was widely criticised; Listrius' commentary is almost as an apologist. The most provocative passages of the Folly revolved around matters of liturgy – the public worship and the morals of the clergy, and thus viewed by some as almost heretical; Erasmus was highly critical of indulgences, ridiculing those ‘fools who seek to buy salvation by indulgences. But this one thing I know, that what Christ promised in the gospel concerning the remission of sins is more certain than what men promise, especially since this whole affair is recent and but lately discovered. Lastly, many men, trusting in these pardons, take false comfort and give no thought to reforming their lives.’

41.In Peter G. Bietenholz's Contemporaries of Erasmus: a biographical register, of the Renaissance and Maria Dowling's work on the English Reformation, both scholars are sceptical about Boleyn's actions and argue that Erasmus could not explain why Boleyn had approached him. Maria Dowling, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 221–4. G. Peter Bietenholz and Thomas Brian Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 87–90.

42.Emily Kearns, A Threefold Exposition of Psalm 22, In psalmum 22 enarratio triplex, in Exposition of Psalms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 120.

43.See Plate 10.

44.Kearns, Expositions of the Psalms, 120.

45.H. H. Milman, ‘Life of Erasmus’ in The Quarterly Review 106 (London: John Murray, 1859), 42.

46.Ibid.

47.Desiderius Erasmus, The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 2204–2356 (August 1529–July 1530) trans. Alexander Dalzell (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 2266. Erasmus gave three systematic interpretations of the psalm for Thomas, beyond what he would usually write, as nowhere else does he do this.

48.The work was titled Ennaratio triplrex in Psalmum XXII, has the dedication: ‘Clariffimo Angliae Baroni, D. Thomae Rochefordo’, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, denuo recognitum et auctum. Vol. IX, eds. Percy Stafford Allen, Helen Mary Allen and William Garrod Heathcote (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 350. See also Letters (Epistles) 2512, 2576 and 2266. Erasmus also claimed satisfaction at having admirers in both Katherine of Aragon's and the Boleyns' camp.

CHAPTER TWELVE NOWE THUS

1.L&P, V, 1592.

2.L&P, I, 3774.

3.Ibid. Boleyn was elected Sherriff in 1517, though in some modern accounts, he is erroneously listed as Mayor. L&P, IV, 3783. For a full list of Boleyn's appointments as Commissioner of the Peace, see Appendix.

4.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1003.

5.Ibid., IV, ii, 802.

6.Ibid.

7.Ibid.

8.Ibid.

9.L&P, V, 1274.

10.See Ives for a detailed account of the meeting. Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 158–60.

11.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1023.

12.The Chronicle of Calais, in the Reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. To the Year 1540. Ed. from Mss. in the British Museum. Edited by John Gough Nichols (London: J. B. Nichols and Son, 1846), 41–2.

13.Hall's Chronicle, 793–4.

14.L&P, V, 1474.

15.L&P, IV, ii, 1541.

16.Ibid.

17.Nicholas Harpsfield, Treatise on the Pretended Divorce between Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon, ed. Nicholas Pocock (London: Camden Society 1878), 234–5.

18.HHSTA England Berichte, c. 228, No. 13. Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1048.

19.Ibid.

20.Ibid.

21.Ibid.

22.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1047.

23.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1051.

24.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1047.

25.Ibid.

26.Ibid.

27.L&P, VI, 1481.

28.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1056.

29.L&P, VI, 230.

30.Ibid.

31.A letter from Francis makes clear his position: The King will therefore be glad if Francis will despatch an agent to the Pope to intimate to him the following points: 1. That if he refuses to admit the King's excusator, and proceeds against the King, Francis will not allow it, but both will resist it to his great disadvantage; but if he will maintain the King's privileges, and not intermeddle in the cause, he will find us his true friends; otherwise, we will never enter into any alliance with him.

2. And then he will be obliged to Francis if he will order his Ambassadors at Rome to join with the King's in persuading the Pope and the Cardinals to be satisfied with what is done, and not attempt to contravene it; or, in case the Pope should attempt it, will be glad if Francis will gain over as many Cardinals as he can for the King's support. The Ambassador is to tell the Grand Master and the Admiral that the King has great confidence in them, and appoints them protectors of his cause in the Court of France, and he is to deliver them the letters herewith sent. Also, they shall make what interest they can for him there. They shall assure Francis that there is no prince or personage on whose support and comfort he relies so much, and that his kind words and promises are a great consolation to Henry, especially as he vows never to abandon the King in this cause, but aid and maintain him in his succession, declaring that he will hold all that trouble him or condemn his proceedings, whether it be Pope or Emperor, as his adversary.

32.L&P, V, 882. The letter is listed under 1532, but the contents of the letter suggests such a date is illogical.

33.L&P, VI, 255.

34.L&P, VI, 351. When he returned, he was granted the wardship and marriage of Edmund Sheffeld, son and heir of Sir Robert Sheffeld during his minority. L&P, VI, 419.

35.Stanford Lehmberg, Reformation Parliament 1529–1536 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1960), 30.

36.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1072.

37.Ibid.

38.Ibid.

39.Ibid.

40.Ibid.

41.L&P, VI, 391.

42.Cal. Span., IV, ii, 1077.

43.L&P, VI, 601. Also mentioned in Charles Wriothesley, ed. William Douglas Hamilton, A Chronicle of England During the Reign of the Tudors (London: Camden Society 1875), 21–2.

44.Ibid.

45.HHStA, England Berichte Karton 5, 228, 46.

46.L&P, VI, 601. Also mentioned in Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England During the Reign of the Tudors, 21–2.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN TURNING TIDES

1.L&P, VI, 613.

2.Ibid.

3.I am grateful to Professsor Barry Collett for his view of Marguerite as an ardently devout young Catholic woman ‘who became restless with her religion’, a frustration she shared with George and Anne.

4.L&P, VI, 831. ‘Within all the way the King went the t[own was] hanged over with fair linen cloths upon bowe … walls hanged with arras, children to the num[ber of] 40 in garments of silk, spears in their hands [crying] viva le Roy. In the midst of the town three o[r four] young women upon a stage in like gorgeous a[pparel]. In the third place, likewise the fyft, with tr[umpets] and other minstrelsy.’

5.L&P, VI, 891, 892.

6.L&P, VI, 954.

7.Glossop's letter still exists in which he sends ‘12 Banbury cheeses, half hard and half soft, and wish they were worth 20,000l. I am almost four-score years old, impotent, lame of the gout and cramp, and one of my eyes is gone. I hope you will help me [to] 4 nobles more of my masters the Taylors, for I have 4 paid me every year; or else 2 nobles more, to make even 40s., with a chamber, and 4 qrs. of coal amongst their beadmen. I have a feather-bed with a bolster for Master Will. Wellyfed's son, who is at Cambray at your finding. My mistress your mother was my aunt. Thos. Allkoke's wife, of Werkworth-in-the-Peak, was my godmother and my aunt. “Loke upon my byll at the instance of Owre Blessed Lady of Sumshon,” sending to Master Hubbulthorne, who will serve you with the master of the Taylors’ fellowship. “Thus blessed St. John Baptist have you in keeping night and day”. L&P, VI, 696.

8.Clearly Boleyn went above and beyond his duty, as Glossop later wrote: ‘I dwell with my good lord of Lincoln. My lords of Norfolk, Wiltshire, and Windsor put me to him. I am bound to thank them, especially my lord of Wiltshire.’ L&P, VI, 697.

9.Erasmus, A playne and godly Exposytion or Declaration of the Commune Crede (which in the Latin tonge is called Symbolum Apostolorum) and of the x. Commaundementes of goddes law, newly made and put forth by the famouse clarke Mayster Erasmus of Roterdame. At the requeste of the moste honorable lorde, Thomas Erle of Wyltshyre: father to the moste gratious and vertuous Quene Anne wyf to our most gracyous soueraygne lorde kynge Henry the VIII, trans. William Marshall (London: Robert Redman, 1733), 1–4.

10.J. K. McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 61.

11.Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, denuo recognitum et auctum. Vol. IX, eds., Percy Stafford Allen, Helen Mary Allen, and William Garrod Heathcote (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), Letter 2845.

12.Alois Gerlo (trans.), La Correspondance D'Erasme, VIII (Brussels: University Press, 1979), 224.

13.See Aysha Pollnitz, Princely Education in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 125.

14.Ibid.

15.Spiritualia and Pastoralia: Disputatiuncula de Taedio, Pavore, Tristicia Iesu/Concio de Immensa Dei Misericordia/Modus Orandi Deum/Explanati, Vol. 70, eds., John W. O'Malley, Beatrice Corrigan and John Schoeck (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 236.

16.Jonathan Willis, The Reformation of the Decalogue: Religious Identity and the Ten Commandments in England, c.1485–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 284.

17.Ibid.

18.Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017), 140.

19.Erasmus, Correspondance of Erasmus, Letters 1356–1534, X, 464.

20.Ibid. Boleyn did show signs of being deeply involved in an Erasmian blend of humanism and piety.

21.L&P, VII, 111.

22.Cal. Span, V, i, 22.

23.I desire you and my good lady to be good unto Thomas Hunt, a poor man at Calais, for the room of soldier with 6d. a day in the King's retinue, when any such is vacant.’ L&P, VII, 177.

24.Muriel St Clare, The Lisle Letters (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 167.

25.Henry Gee and William John Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, Compiled from Original Sources (London: Macmillan, 1896), 232–7.

26.Ibid.

27.Paulet to Cromwell, ‘This day my lord of Wiltshire and I go to my lady Mary; thence to court to; make report; and so to my house for 12 days.’ L&P, VII, 529.

28.Cal. Span., V, i, 71.

29.See Maria Dowling, ‘William Latymer's Cronickille of Anne Bulleyne,’ Camden Forth Series, vol. 39, (1990): 56–60; Thomas Freeman, ‘Research, Rumour and Propaganda: Anne Boleyn in Foxe's Book of Martyrs,’ Historical Journal 38 (1995): 806.

30.James P. Carley, ‘“Her moost lovyng and fryndely brother sendeth gretyng”: Anne Boleyn's Manuscripts and their Sources,’ in Illuminating the Book: Makers and Interpreters, Essays in Honour of Janet Backhouse, eds, Michelle P. Brown and Scot McKendrick (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 261–80.

31.‘Her moost lovyng and fryndely brother sendeth gretyng – Anne Boleyn's Manuscripts and Their Sources’ by James P. Carley in Illuminating the Book edited by Michelle P. Brown and Scot McKendrick (London: the British Library and University of Toronto Press, 1998).

32.George Ellis, Specimens of the Early English Poets, to which is Prefixed an Historical Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the English Poetry and Language (London: Bulmer and Co, 1803), 94.

33.Ibid.

34.Helen Allen, Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterdami, 2824.

35.Michael Welker, Michael Weinrich, and Ulrich Möller, Calvin Today: Reformed Theology and the Future of the Church (London: Bloomsbury, T & T Clark, 2011), 186.

36.Collected Works of Erasmus: Spiritualia and Pastoralia: Disputatiuncula de Taedio, Pavore, Tristicia Iesu/Concio de Immensa Dei Misericordia/Modus Orandi Deum/Explanati. Vol. 70. Edited by Beatrice Corrigan, John O'Malley and Richard Schoeck (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), xxviii.

37.See Bettie Anne Doebler, Rooted in Sorrow: Dying in Early Modern England (New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994).

38.See Alberto Tenenti, Il senso della morte e l'amore della vita nel Rinascimento (Francia e Italia) (Turin: G. Einaudi, 1977).

39.L&P, III, ii, 3232.

40.‘The Queen his mistress much rejoices in the deeply-rooted amity of the two kings, but wishes her to get the interview deferred… Her reasons are, that being so far gone with child, she could not cross the sea with the King' State Papers, vii, 565.

41.L&P, VIII, 776.

42.L&P, VII,1655.

43.Cal. Span., V, i,

44.Boleyn was part of the special commission of Oyer and Terminer, called to hear the cases of the monks, and decided that the case should go to a grand jury. L&P, VIII, 609.

45.Cal. Span., VIII, 666.

46.Ibid.

47.L&P, VIII, 760.

48.Ibid., 793.

49.Ibid., 909.

50.Ibid., 1478.

51.As evidence in a letter from the Mayor and Jurats of Rye to Cromwell: ‘We have informed the Council, and sent letters to my lord of Rochford, the warden of the Cinque Ports, but he is one of the King's ambassadors beyond sea. In his absence my lord of Wiltshire has opened the letters, and shown them to Mr. Chr. Hales, the King's Attorney, who advises us to send the parties to you.’ L&P, VIII, 776.

52.L&P, IX, 566. In the margin, the names are given as ‘Millor de Rochesfort et millord de Guillaume.’

53.J. Duncan M. Derrett, ‘The Trial of Sir Thomas More,’ EHR 79 (1964): 451.

54.For example, see David Loades, The Tudor Queens of England (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), 123.

55.William Roper, The Mirrour of Vertue in Worldly Greatnes, or, the Life of Syr Thomas More, Knight, Sometime Lo. Chancellour of England. (Paris: English College Press, 1626).

56.Ibid.

57.Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat’, 173.

58.Cal. Span., V, i, 180.

59.Thomas More, The Last Letters of Thomas More, ed. Alvaro De Silva (Michigan: W. B. Eerdmans, 2001), 112.

60.Evidently Thomas moved between his Kentish estates, but his presence at Penshurst is interesting as we tend to link him primarily to Hever.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN TRYING A QUEEN

1.Cal. Span., V, ii, 3, 9.

2.Cal. Span., V, ii, 9. The original is in cipher, but we owe a great deal to Garrett Mattingly who translated this report in his PhD thesis on the Imperial ambassador, and his translation corresponds with Gayangos' translation.

3.L&P, X, 141. The original is found in HHStA, England Bericht, Karton 7, fasc 236, 3.

4.For example, Robert Hutchinson, House of Treason: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Dynasty (London: Hachette, 2009), 207; Elizabeth Norton, The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fetales who changed English History (Stroud: Amberley, 2013), 237.

5.Cal. Span., V, ii, p. 39.

6.Ibid.

7.Cal. Span., V, ii, 29.

8.L&P, X, 458.

9.Ibid.

10.L&P, X, 458

11.Cal. Span., V, ii, 43.

12.HHStA, England Berichte, Karton 7, 270–1.

13.Cal. Span., V, ii, 699.

14.Ibid.

15.Ibid.

16.Ibid.

17.Ibid.

18.Cal. Span., V, ii, 43.

19.For example, Tracy Borman, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant (Hodder and Stoughton, 2015), 212; Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 295; David Starkey, Six Wives, 588.

20.Aldrich, The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, 496. Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Leslie Stephen (London: Macmillan, 1887), 9:58.

21.Robert Aldrich, The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, from its cover in black velvet, usually called The Black Book (London: J. Barber, 1724), 394–5.

22.Ives, Anne Boleyn, 323.

23.HHStA, England Bericht, Karton 4, Fasc. 230, 29.

24.Cal. Span., V, ii, 48.

25.L&P, X, 793.

26.L&P, X, 902.

27.Muriel St Claire, Lisle Letters, 161.

28.Ives, Anne Boleyn, 323.

29.L&P, X, 843.

30.Cal. Span., V, ii, 55.

31.L&P, X, 876.

32.Further to the point, when Jane Boleyn, George's widow, herself was executed in 1542 for treason, again her father seems to have given no opposition. For further discussion, see Marie Axton, James P. Carley, David Starkey, et al., Triumphs of English: Henry Parker, Lord Morley, Translator to the Tudor Court (London: British Library, 2000), 165.

33.T. B. Howell, comp., A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Year 1820, Vol. 33 (London: Longman, 1826), 417. He notes that Boleyn was not part of the trial at all.

34.Cal. Span., V, ii, 55. ‘Neither the concubine nor her brother were taken to Westminster as the other criminals had been; they were tried within the Tower, and yet the trial was far from being kept secret, for upwards of 2,000 people were present.’

35.Cal. Span., V, ii, 55.

36.Ibid.

37.Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England (R. Priestley, 1820), I: 306. Burnet believed that Jane played a major role in providing evidence against her husband and sister-in-law due to the fact that she was jealous of her husband's close relationship with his sister and was ‘a woman of no sort of virtue’.

38.See Elizabeth Norton, The Boleyn Women, 25. George Cavendish, who knew her, described her as ‘a widow in black’. The evidence of Jane's possessions also suggests that she habitually wore black, something that, given that her widowhood lasted for nearly six years, was far above what was required by convention.

39.MS Cotton, Otho C, X, fol. 225;

40.Cal. Span., V, ii, 55.

41.L&P, X, 876.

42.Cal. Span., V, ii, 55.

43.Cal. Span., V, ii, 55.

44.Thomas Wyatt, ed. Kenneth Muir, Patricia Thomson, Collected works of Sir Thomas Wyatt (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 1969), 157.

45.Paul Friedmann, Anne Boleyn: A Chapter of English History, 1527–1536 (London: Macmillan, 1884), 51.

46.Ives, Anne Boleyn, 329.

47.David M. Loades, The Boleyns: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Family (Stroud: Amberley, 2011), 86.

48.Thomas Warley to Lady Lisle, 14 April 1536, Lisle Letters, III, 673.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN AFTERMATH

1.Ellis, Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, Vol. II (London: Richard Bentley, 1848), Vol. III, 22–3.

2.Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat’, 180.

3.BL Cotton Vespasian, F XIII, fol. 109. The original letter is as follows: ‘Mayster Secretory, as a power desolate widow wythoute comfort, as to my specyall trust under God and my Pryns, I have me most humbly recommendyd unto youe: prayng youe … my father payed great soms of money for my Joynter to the Errell of Wyltchere to the some off too thowsand Marks, and I not assuryd of no more duryng the says Errells natural lyff then one hundredth Marks; whyche ys veary hard for me.’

4.L&P, XII, ii, 926.

5.Ibid., 1199.

6.Ibid., 291.

7.L&P, XII, 1310, 782. Ives sees his prompt payments as evidence of Boleyn ‘buttering up’ Cromwell. Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 353.

8.Ibid., XII, 738.

9.Ibid., 722.

10.Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 353.

11.L&P, XII, 445.

12.L&P, XII, 580.

13.Dean, ‘Sir Thomas Boleyn: The Courtier Diplomat,’ 184.

14.L&P, XII, 610.

15.He was also one of the banner bearers in the cortege along with Suffolk, the Marquis of Dorset, and the Earls of Surrey and Sussex. L&P, XII, ii, 1060.

16.Lisle Letters, V, 1086.

17.It would not have been customary for Boleyn to be chief mourner, as the position was always held by the closest relative, in this case, Elizabeth's brother.

18.L&P, XIII, I, 1419.

19.L&P, X, 458.

20.P. H. Ditchfield and George Clinch, Memorials of Old Kent (London: Bemrose and Sons, 1907), 237; L&P, XIV, I, 511.

21.Ibid., II, 781.

22.Ibid., I, 950.

23.Ibid., 608, 609.

24.Brock, ‘The Courtier in Early Tudor Society,’ 11.