Mary boleyn biography henry viii

Primary Sources

(1) Alison Plowden, Tudor Women (2002)

It was naturally the height of every family's ambition to get a pretty and promising daughter accepted as one of the Queen's maids of honour, but unless a girl's rank automatically entitled her to a place in the royal entourage, competition was fierce, and much string-pulling on behalf of hopeful candidates was usually necessary. Sir Thomas Boleyn, however, encountered no difficulty when the time came to introduce his younger daughter into Queen Catherine's household.

A combination of shrewd business acumen and a series of advantageous marriages had, in three generations, transformed the Boleyn family from obscure tenant farmers into well-heeled gentry very much on the up and up. Thomas, a younger son, had come to Court at the turn of the century to make a career in the royal service and had established himself as a useful underling, capable and conscientious, a man who could be trusted to carry out instructions. He was, nevertheless, an ambitious man and, like his father and grandfather before him, had married well - to Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, who "brought him every year a child". Three of these children survived, George, Mary and Anne.

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Books

Mary Boleyn: 'The Great soar Infamous Whore'/Mary Boleyn: Picture Mistress delineate Kings (2011)

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The Boleyn family were well-respected at court, their heritage a blend of mercantile and noble, and Thomas Boleyn had successfully built upon the foundations laid by his father and grandfather. He was equally ambitious for his children, and secured Anne’s sophisticated education at Margaret of Austria’s court at Mechelen, while it is likely that Mary was tutored at Blickling and then Hever Castle in Kent. Mary’s was certainly a less glamorous education than Anne’s, but she, like her brother, enjoyed a well-rounded education as befitting her status.

Royal connections

In 1514 Mary’s father secured her a position as a maid of honour to Henry VIII's younger sister, Princess Mary Tudor, accompanying the princess to France for her marriage to King Louis XII. She was likely accepted because she had some knowledge and skills in speaking French, a great asset serving the future queen in a foreign court. Unfortunately, Louis died a few months into the marriage, but Mary Boleyn did not follow her mistress back to England, and instead stayed on to serve at the court of the new king, Francis I.

During her time at the French court, Mary was the subject of rumours of promiscuity, and it was even believed that she had been Francis I’s mistress, later being labelled a “great and infa