The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fatales Who Changed English History (5 page)

While Anne Boleyn Heydon’s charitable gifts give an insight into her character, it is the bequests that she was able to make that demonstrate the wealthy lifestyle that she led. As well as living mainly in Norwich, Anne kept a house in Kent, leaving her household goods there to her eldest son, John. Her daughter, Dorothy Cobham, received

three goblets of silver and gilt with one cover to the same, a psalter covered with blue velvet, one pair beads of gold, my chain of gold, one seler [i.e. a bed canopy] and tester with the covering of blue damask, iii curtains of blue sarcenet, one cushion of tawny and purple velvet, one pair fustions, vi pair sheets, mine hanging of cloth of arras.

Her daughter, Bridget Paston, received rich household furnishings, as well as a feather bed and two of the best sheets. She received two salts of silver and gilt, as well as a silver gilt cover and two pillows. Bridget’s husband, who was favoured by his mother-in-law, received two silver pots. For a third daughter, Anne Dymoke, there was a standing cup with a cover and a cross of gold while her husband received a silver-and-gilt bowl. A younger son, Henry, gained a silver basin and ewer, as well as two feather beds and bedding. He also received hangings of yellow and red which had decorated his mother’s own great chamber. An unmarried daughter, Margaret, received blankets, as well as a tapestry coverlet and fine cushions. Margaret may have had a pious reason for the fact that she remained unmarried, as her mother also passed her some of her religious paraphernalia, including two silver chalices and a vestment made of fine cloth of Baudkin, which was a particularly rich fabric interwoven with threads of gold. She received a specific bequest of all other goods ‘that pertaineth to the altar except that is bequest before and after’. Anne Boleyn Heydon remained on good terms with all her children, also remembering her grandchildren in her will. A grandson, George Cobham, for example, was to receive two salts of silver and gilt with a cover, to be delivered to him when he reached the age of twenty-one, with his father keeping the items safe for him in the meantime. Anne took steps to provide for George’s upbringing, leaving him an annuity of 10 shillings per year for five years to be delivered to his mother. George’s sister, Anne Cobham, received 66 shillings for her marriage, which was to be paid to her mother in the meantime, while another granddaughter, Frances Gurney, received an annual sum for her living expenses until she married. Frances also received a number of rich bequests and a sum to be paid on her marriage. She was a particular favourite of her grandmother, who bequeathed her all her gowns and furs, save those that had otherwise been disposed of in her will.

Anne Boleyn Heydon evidently delighted in her family in her old age, spending time with her children and grandchildren. Her will notes that she acted as godmother to a number of her grandchildren, something that suggests a particular closeness towards them and their parents. Furthermore, she made a gift of 20 shillings to one Elizabeth Thomas, a servant of her daughter, Dorothy Cobham: clearly, mother and daughter were frequently enough in each other’s company for them to be familiar, and even friendly, with each other’s servants.

Anne Hoo Boleyn’s eldest daughter, Isabel, who was born in 1453, married William Cheyne, esquire, of the Isle of Sheppey. Cheyne was the second son of Sir John Cheyne and his elder brother, who was also knighted, became a knight of the Garter.
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William was a member of the gentry and it was a solid, but far from spectacular, match. Isabel bore her husband two sons, Francis and William. She died in 1485, while still only in her early thirties, and significantly chose to be buried at Blickling, demonstrating her continuing attachment to her birth family. In her funeral brass she is depicted in fashionable clothes, with her dress and headdress resembling the Yorkist queen Elizabeth Woodville in style, something that is indicative of the fact that she aspired to the nobility and also that she was a fashionable woman.

The sleeves and collar of Isabel’s gown are furred, with a decorative veiled cap and ornate belt. Her low-cut dress, with a pleated skirt, shows a darker under-dress at the chest and she also wears an elaborate necklace with five dangling jewelled pendants visible. Isabel was depicted with a stylishly high forehead, with her hair largely hidden by her cap: such an effect would have been achieved through the plucking of her hair on her forehead. Interestingly, unlike the other memorial brasses at Blickling, of Isabel’s aunt, Cecily, and niece, Anne, Isabel’s facial expression appears striking and proud, rather than pious with downcast eyes. Her hands display an open gesture as opposed to the praying posture of the two other ladies depicted. From the evidence of the brass it would appear that Isabel had no wish to be depicted as a particularly pious woman, instead choosing to be portrayed to display her beauty, wealth and status.

Isabel’s husband survived her and both he and his brother proved to be staunch supporters of Henry VII, with her husband receiving a number of grants from the king after his accession in August 1485.
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He also served as sheriff of Kent in 1477 and was again carrying out this office in 1485 at the time of Isabel’s death.
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Given that the role of sheriff required a personal presence in the county it would seem probable that Isabel was also resident in Kent at the time of her death and that her death may have happened unexpectedly while she was visiting her family at Blickling.

All indications suggest that Anne Hoo Boleyn busied herself with her children, as well as managing the family estates, after the death of Geoffrey Boleyn II. Her eldest son, Thomas, succeeded his father while still legally a minor. He had reached his majority by 1466, suggesting that he was at least eighteen at the time of his father’s death.
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This Thomas Boleyn III was short-lived, dying in April 1471. His death was not unexpected. He was able to make a will, something which suggests ill health. In his will he asked to be buried with his father in London, leaving his mother as his executor and asking her to use his funds to provide for his soul’s health.

Anne Hoo Boleyn died in Norfolk in 1485.
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She was buried in Norwich Cathedral with her grave marked by a memorial brass. Sadly, her memorial has been moved since the sixteenth century and all that survives is the outline of a woman on the re-positioned stone. As the daughter of a nobleman, she brought an added level of prestige to the rising Boleyn family. This was followed by the even more spectacular marriage made by her eldest surviving son, William Boleyn, to Margaret Butler, whose father became Earl of Ormond.

While the Boleyn fortune, which had been built on trade, was substantial by the mid-fifteenth century, it was William Boleyn’s marriage which cemented the family’s links to the nobility and led to them becoming great landowners.

In around 1475 William Boleyn, who, following the death of his elder brother, Thomas, had succeeded to the Boleyn estates, married Margaret Butler.
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Margaret, whose parents are known to have been married by 1445 when her mother was only fourteen and her father a few years older, was probably of a similar age to her husband – in her early twenties.
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There appears to be some dispute over Margaret’s parentage, with one recent writer on the Boleyn family declaring, confusingly, both that she was the daughter of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond, and of Thomas’s elder brother, John Butler, 6th Earl of Ormond.
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Clearly, Margaret was not the product of two different fathers! An earlier writer also believed that she was a daughter of the sixth earl.
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There is in fact no doubt that both Margaret and her sister, Anne, were the daughters of the 7th Earl of Ormond. In the earl’s will he specifically referred both to ‘my daughter Dame Anne St Leger’ and ‘my daughter Dame Margaret Boleyn late the wife of Sir William Boleyn’.
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Both daughters received personal bequests from their father which he specifically noted as having belonged to their mother, with Margaret, for example, receiving a bed of tapestry work and an old great carpet. Anne, the elder sister, did rather better in the will, receiving, among other items, a little mass book covered with russet velvet.

The Butler family was an Irish one, with its earliest known member, Theobald Butler, recorded as having died in Ireland during the reign of Edward I.
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Theobald’s great-grandson was created Earl of Ormond by Edward III in the early fourteenth century, with the title passing smoothly from father to son up to the time of the fifth earl. Margaret Butler Boleyn’s father had been only the third son of the 4th Earl of Ormond. His eldest brother, James, had attained the family earldom in 1452 on the death of their father, having previously also been granted the English earldom of Wiltshire in 1449 due to his loyalty to the Lancastrian king, Henry VI.
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Henry VI relied heavily on James Butler, appointing him first as Lieutenant of Ireland and later as Lord Treasurer of England. The earl fought with the king at the first Battle of St Albans during the Wars of the Roses, finding himself forced to flee the field when it ended in defeat. He again fought for the Lancastrians in 1460 when they won a great victory at the Battle of Wakefield, leading to the capture and execution of Richard, Duke of York, the rival claimant to the crown. York’s death did not prove the end of the Civil War: early the following year his eldest son entered London and was declared king as Edward IV. James Butler, along with his two younger brothers, John and Thomas, remained loyal to the Lancastrian king. After defeat at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, James was captured, before being executed at Newcastle on 1 May 1461. Disastrously for the Butler family, this was followed in November by the earl’s attainder by Parliament, leading to him (and his heirs) being stripped of his earldoms and lands.

James Butler, in spite of making three marriages, died childless, with his younger brother, John, eventually acquiring the earldom of Ormond after making his peace with Edward IV. The earldom of Wiltshire was not however returned, instead being bestowed on a follower of the new king. At the time of Margaret’s marriage to Thomas, her uncle, the sixth earl, was still living, although his failure to marry meant she had reasonable prospects of eventually being the daughter of an Earl of Ormond. This occurred in 1478 when the sixth earl died unexpectedly during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, with his brother, Thomas Butler, inheriting the earldom in his place.

In 1475 Margaret was already a potential heiress to her father’s estates, a factor that must have been considered by William Boleyn and his mother when they negotiated the marriage. Margaret’s father had married Anne, the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Richard Hankford.
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This marriage produced only two daughters: Anne, who married Sir James Saint Leger, and Margaret, the younger daughter. Anne Hankford, who was past childbearing age by the time of her youngest daughter’s marriage, died in 1485.
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The seventh earl desired a male heir of his own and he took a second wife, Lora Berkley, who was the widow both of Lord Mountjoy and Sir Thomas Montgomery, at some point between January 1495 and November 1496.
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This marriage only produced a further daughter, Elizabeth, who died in childhood in February 1510, before her father’s death.
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Even without certain hopes of inheriting the lands connected with the earldom through his marriage, William’s choice of Margaret was helped by her impeccable pedigree. While her mother’s father was a mere knight, her maternal grandmother was a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Thomas Butler, as well as being the son of an earl, was also the maternal grandson of Lord Bergavenny. This family connection was a close and important one, with Butler’s grandmother, Joanne, Lady Bergavenny, leaving substantial bequests to her three Ormond grandsons and her Ormond granddaughter in her will of 1434.
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Margaret’s father, as the youngest son, received the least from his grandmother, although he was still granted the very personal bequest of bed of white and black velvet, with cushions and other furnishings to match. He evidently remembered his grandmother fondly and, in his will written nearly eighty years after her death, he left funds so that she, along with himself, his wife and parents, should be prayed for.
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In addition to this connection, Butler’s sister, Elizabeth, married the Earl of Shrewsbury, providing links to the highest levels of the English peerage. Butler remained close to his sister and his youngest daughter, Elizabeth, who was named after her, was buried in Sheffield church, a building strongly associated with the Shrewsbury family and suggesting that she may have been staying with her aunt at her death.

It is not at all impossible that the match between William and Margaret came about due to both family’s connections with London trade. William had been a younger son and, at the time of his father’s death in 1463, was still a child. It seems highly likely that his father would have contemplated a career as a merchant for him, something which he had himself of course undertaken as a younger son. There does not however seem to be surviving evidence to support the recent claim that William was admitted to the Mercer’s Company in 1472, however, or that he was also admitted as a lawyer to Lincoln’s Inn the following year.
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Margaret’s father had a connection with the church of St Thomas Acon in London, where he was buried.
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His mother, Elizabeth Beauchamp, had already been buried there and it is clear that the Butler family felt a strong affinity to the church, with Margaret’s father bequeathing a Psalter bound in white leather and signed in his own hand to the church, to be attached by a chain of iron to his tomb ‘for the service of God better to be had’ and so that anyone who wished could make use of it.
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The church of St Thomas Acon had reputedly been built on the birthplace of St Thomas Becket, and was founded by one of the martyred archbishop’s sisters in the late twelfth century. Interestingly, the Butler family claimed descent from Agnes, another of the archbishop’s sisters, who had married an Irish gentleman. It is this connection, which was referred to in a petition to Parliament in the mid-fifteenth century made by Thomas Butler’s brother, James, the fifth earl, which brought about the family’s interest in the church. The seventh earl was devoted to the saint, specifically bequeathing his soul to the ‘glorious martyr Saint Thomas’ in his will. In addition to this, the church, which was the chapel of the Hospital of St Thomas, had strong connections with the Mercer’s Company, which was based at the site and acted as its patron. The Mercer’s had begun to make use of the hospital’s hall by at least 1391 and, early the following century, they built their own hall adjoining the hospital church.
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When the hospital was dissolved during the reign of Henry VIII, the company took over the remains of the foundation, making use of the church as its own chapel. Thomas Butler and his family, through their own patronage of the hospital church, would have come into contact with the Mercer’s Company and, in all probability, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn and, later, his eldest surviving son.