The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fatales Who Changed English History (2 page)

Geoffrey often found himself on the wrong side of his lord during the first half of the fifteenth century. In 1412 he was accused of ploughing over a field division in order to extend his own land at the expense of his social betters.
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He took water belonging to one of the manors in Salle without making any payment, something that resulted in his regular appearances in court between 1419 and 1439 when he finally capitulated and paid a fine. Geoffrey was an ambitious man and acquired a number of pieces of land in Salle and neighbouring parishes, not always paying the specified sums for the land when they fell due.
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He must have been a substantial man in the town by the time of his death in 1440, but he remained below the rank of a lord. He farmed approximately 30 acres and was prosperous, for example in 1424 selling six loads of barley and oat straw for thatching to the lord of Kirkhall manor in Salle. He, like most of his neighbours, would also have kept sheep.
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It is the church however which stands as a monument to his prosperity. A memorial brass, commissioned by Geoffrey for both him and his wife, Alice, stands prominently in the middle aisle of the church and testifies to his importance to the building of the church at Salle.

Geoffrey’s wife, Alice, is, like her predecessors as Boleyn ladies, a shadowy figure. She was apparently as pious as her husband as the pair are known to have made a gift to the church at Salle of a hearse cloth of tapestry work and two matching cushions.
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These may well have been decorated with the couple’s names and badges and would have further served as a reminder of their important role in the foundation of the new church. Alice was an excellent match for Geoffrey socially, as the daughter and heiress of Sir John Bracton of Bracton.
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Based on the dates of birth of their children, the couple must have married in the early years of the fifteenth century. The gift of land in Salle that Thomas Boleyn I made to Geoffrey in 1399 would seem to be a probable marriage gift to the couple: an heiress was never acquired cheaply and Alice’s father would have insisted on substantial provision being made for her on her marriage. It is a testament to the prosperity of Thomas Boleyn I (and, perhaps, his claims to be a member of the gentry through his grandfather, Nicholas) that he was able to secure a wealthy gentlewoman for his son.

A representation of Alice Bracton Boleyn survives in her funeral brass at Salle. Alice survived her husband, who died in 1440 and she is therefore very likely to have played a role in the commission of the monument and its design. Her representation can therefore be considered an accurate view of how she wished to be presented. The brass shows Geoffrey and Alice standing side by side. Both are dressed fashionably, with Geoffrey wearing a cap and knee-length gown with large hanging sleeves. Alice is depicted wearing a pleated floor-length gown, again with hanging sleeves which are gathered up at the cuff. In keeping with the fashion of the period, she wears a large headdress of cloth which entirely covers her hair and hangs down over her shoulders. The pair stare forward from the brasses. Over their heads, there is a scroll which can be translated as ‘God be merciful to us sinners’.
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Underneath, the inscription reads ‘Here lies Geoffrey Boleyn, who died 25 March 1440, and Alice his wife and their children: on whose souls may God have mercy. Amen.’ The depictions on the brasses, which are likely to be true likenesses, are conventional for the period and demonstrate that the couple saw themselves as local dignitaries, important in the parish and local area.

A visitor to the church in the late eighteenth century noted that the memorial to Geoffrey and Alice also originally included depictions of their five sons and four daughters. Only three of their children can be identified with any certainty and this, coupled with the fact that the brass inscription referred to their children being buried with them, suggests that a number died before adulthood, as was all too common in the fifteenth century. The names of only two sons are known and, given the fact that both became prominent, it would seem highly likely that their three brothers did not survive to adulthood and to build their own distinguished careers. Certainly, a Simon Boleyn, who served as a priest at Salle and has a memorial in the church there, should not be identified as their son. Simon, who died in 1482, left a will dated 1478 in which he referred to a sister Joan and brothers James and Thomas of Gunthorp.
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He also mentioned a niece, Joan, who was the daughter of his brother Thomas. Since Geoffrey and Alice’s son Thomas was a priest, it seems highly unlikely that he is the brother referred to (due to the requirement for celibacy). Also, there is no known connection between Geoffrey’s son Thomas and Gunthorp. More likely the relationship was considerably more distant. Parsons suggested that Geoffrey Boleyn I could be identified as Simon Boleyn’s great-uncle. Heraldic visitations taken of the families of Norfolk in 1563 and 1613 recorded the names of two further brothers of Geoffrey Boleyn II (a son of Geoffrey Boleyn I and Alice): William, who was recorded to have married, and John.
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However, visitations, which relied on the memories of family members, were often inaccurate. In this case, the parents of the brothers are listed as Thomas Bullen of Salle and his wife Jane, daughter and co-heir of Sir John Bracton. While the visitation appears to have been reasonably accurate with regard to the lineage of Geoffrey Boleyn II’s mother (if not her Christian name), it entirely omitted Geoffrey Boleyn I as their father. Given that there are no surviving records relating to William or John, their existence is doubtful. They can, perhaps, also be identified as children of Thomas Boleyn I rather than his grandchildren. The visitations are highly doubtful for the Boleyn family as Anne Boleyn III, who married Sir John Shelton and will be discussed later, was also described as a daughter of her brother, Thomas Boleyn IV, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, something that would have made her a sister of her namesake, Queen Anne Boleyn, rather than her aunt.

Given the fact that women married and changed their names (and often led less prominent lives) it is probable that more of the daughters of Geoffrey and Alice survived infancy. An Alice Boleyn married a gentleman, Henry Aucher of Otterden in Kent, a marriage which would place her birth date at around 1410.
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This Alice bore her husband two sons, John and Henry. It is not at all impossible that she can be identified as a daughter of Geoffrey Boleyn I and Alice Bracton Boleyn. However, there is no further evidence of her parentage and the name Boleyn was not uncommon – any identification must therefore be tenuous. The only daughter of Geoffrey and Alice who can be certainly identified is Cecily. Geoffrey Boleyn II, who was by far the most prosperous early member of the family, purchased the fine manor of Blickling in Norfolk, moving the centre of the family’s interests there from Salle. He evidently took his unmarried sister, Cecily, there with him as a fine brass survives to her in the church next to the manor, recording that ‘Here lieth Cecily Boleyn, sister to Geoffrey Boleyn, lord of the manor of Blickling, which Cecily deceased in her maidenhood, of the age of L [50] years, the xxvi [26] day of June the year of our lord MCCCClviij [1458], whose soul God pardon Amen’.

Cecily was born between 27 June 1407 and 26 June 1408, making her the youngest of the three known children of Geoffrey Boleyn I and Alice Bracton Boleyn (with Thomas as the eldest son and Geoffrey II born in 1405). Her memorial brass, which was commissioned by her brother Geoffrey, shows a woman with her hands at prayer and downcast eyes. She is bare-headed, with a large (and very likely plucked) forehead, which was the height of fashion in the late fifteenth century. Cecily is depicted simply dressed in a pleated high-necked gown drawn in beneath her breasts. Her sleeves are full and hanging with plain under-sleeves glimpsed at the wrists. The simplicity of Cecily’s pose and dress can be contrasted sharply with that of her niece, Isabel Boleyn Cheyne, who is also commemorated on a brass at Blickling and appears in a furred gown with jewellery and an elaborate headdress. Given the emphasis on the fact that Cecily died a maid, coupled with the fact that she described herself as the spiritual daughter of Thomas Drew, the chaplain at Salle, who died in 1443 and bequeathed her a rosary, it does appear that there was a pious motive to Cecily remaining unmarried.
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This did not extend as far as taking holy vows and she evidently remained at Salle with her parents until at least 1443. Alice survived her husband, who died in 1440, and her daughter presumably remained with her until her death at an unknown date. After that, Cecily lived with her brother, Geoffrey. The siblings were close enough for Geoffrey Boleyn II to commission the fine memorial to his sister after her death in middle age.

The close relationship between Cecily and Geoffrey Boleyn II was echoed in the relationship between Geoffrey Boleyn II and his brother, Thomas Boleyn II, something which suggests that Geoffrey Boleyn I and Alice Bracton Boleyn enjoyed a contented family life as parents. It was Thomas who claimed to be the son and heir of Geoffrey Boleyn I in a court case in 1463 in which he claimed the manor of Calthorpe and he can therefore with certainty be identified as the eldest surviving son. Since Geoffrey II was born in 1405, this would place Thomas II’s birth in the early years of the fifteenth century and he lived to a venerable age, dying in 1472. The fact that he became a priest, something which was unusual for an heir, suggests that he may originally have had an elder brother who predeceased him. Thomas was ordained as a deacon in March 1421 and then as a priest later in the year.
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He was already a fellow of Trinity Hall at Cambridge at that time, something that suggests that he had studied at the university. He retained a connection with Cambridge for most of his life, becoming the seventh master of Gonville Hall (which later became Gonville and Caius College) in 1454. He was fond of the college and donated a window in the old dining hall there. Thomas was relatively well known in court circles and, in 1434, was chosen by the king to attend the Council of Basle – a singular honour. He was also selected by Henry VI to be one of six men to draft the statutes for Queen’s College, Cambridge, in 1446 at the college’s foundation.
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Thomas Boleyn II’s career took him far from his family’s agricultural origins in Salle and he was to have a career as prominent as that of his younger brother. There is strong evidence for affection between the two brothers in Geoffrey II’s will, where he asked that ‘£20 sterling of my goods be dispended upon the work of the body of the church of Blickling aforesaid, or upon ornaments for the same church or on both, as shalbe thought most necessary by the discretion of my brother Master Thomas Boleyn, and of my executors’.
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Geoffrey specifically asked that Thomas should attend a dinner held in his memory and that he should be one of the people asked to compose the guest list. Thomas, along with Geoffrey’s wife and executors, was further given discretion over the distribution of bequests to Geoffrey’s daughters, as well as being named as one of the people who were required to assent to the daughters’ marriages. Thomas was finally paid the complement of being the overseer of Geoffrey’s will.

The surviving evidence suggests strongly that Geoffrey Boleyn I and Alice Bracton Boleyn were able to build a contented family life, as well as launching their sons into prominent positions. Further testament to the family’s close relationship can be seen in the will of Geoffrey Boleyn II, in which he left 200 marks to fund an ‘honest and virtuous priest’ to pray for Geoffrey II’s soul ‘and the soul of Dionise sometime my wife, and for the souls of Geoffrey and Alice my father and mother, and of Adam Book, and for the souls of all them that I am bounden unto’. Geoffrey II’s parents were evidently still remembered fondly by him and he took steps to ensure the safety of their souls. Geoffrey’s will, which is dated 1463, makes it clear that Alice Bracton Boleyn had already died although there is no further evidence for her date of death, save that it occurred between 1440 and 1463.

Geoffrey Boleyn II’s first wife, Dionise, or Denise, is an even more shadowy figure. The mention of her in her husband’s will is the only surviving evidence for the marriage. The recent suggestion that Dionise may have been the mother of Geoffrey’s eldest surviving son, Thomas Boleyn III,
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is highly likely to be false as Thomas referred to Geoffrey’s second wife, Anne Hoo Boleyn, as his mother repeatedly in his own will and placed a good deal of trust in her in the document, including making her his executor, something that does suggest that she was more likely to have been his mother than her predecessor.
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In all probability, the marriage to Dionise was a short one and she was soon supplanted by her more prominent successor, Anne Hoo. There is a tantalising hint in the records that she may have borne a child, and, in a list of early benefactors to Queen’s College, Cambridge, which was founded in 1446 and with which Thomas Boleyn II was strongly associated, a Dionysius Boleyn appears alongside Geoffrey Boleyn II and Anne his wife, as well as Thomas Boleyn II.
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The name Dionysius is so unusual that a comparison with the name Dionise must be made. It is perhaps not too romantic an interpretation to suggest that Dionysius was the son of Geoffrey Boleyn II and Dionise, with the child named in memory of a mother who died in childbirth – a common enough end for young married women in the medieval period. Dionysius was presumably an adult when he made his gift to the college at some point before his father’s death in 1463. This also suggests the possibility that he was the child of Dionise as Geoffrey’s remaining children, who were born to his second wife, were all minors at the time of his death. Dionysius, if he can be identified as the son of Geoffrey Boleyn II, died within his father’s lifetime, presumably still as a young man as he merited no further mention in surviving documents, including his father’s will.