Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire and 1st Viscount Rochford, passed away on 12 March 1539 at his family home of family home, Hever Castle, Kent, where he had been born some 61 years before. The only members of his family to survive him were his eldest daughter, Mary Boleyn, and his three grandchildren, Catherine Carey, Henry Carey, and the future Queen Elizabeth I.
Thomas Boleyn is often portrayed as a monster, and perhaps from a modern viewpoint he was a inexplicably cold parent more devoted to his station in life than his children. However, this doesn’t take into account the 16th century mindset — the beliefs about family, duty, God’s Will, and the absolute obedience to the king — that would have effected his decisions.
He did very well for himself, largely thanks to his own intelligence and charisma. His mother was descended from Lady Eleanor de Bohun, the granddaughter of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor of Castile through Elizabeth of Rhuddlan, but his father’s family had become rich through trade. Thomas Boleyn was thus not quite as noble as he wanted to be, and in a time when merchants were regarded as ‘lesser’, Thomas had to prove himself as a gentleman. And prove himself he did.
He was so well thought of in Henry VIII’s court that he became ambassador to France in 1518, and envoy to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521. As an envoy to Charles V, he went to the Low Counties and met Archduchess Margaret of Austria, the emperor’s sister and the Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. Thomas managed to charm the wise and witty Margaret of Austria so profoundly that he got her to offer his comparatively low-born youngest daughter, Anne, a place at her court. This was a big deal, since the Archduchess’s court was what historian Eric Ives called “Europe’s premier finishing school” for young women of the nobility and peerage.
Which brings up topic of Thomas Boleyn as a parent. There is no doubt he tried to do the best for two of his three children. Anne was given the plumb role as a maid of honor in Margaret of Austria’s court, and his son, George, was launched into the Tudor court with every advantage Thomas could secure him. Thomas’s reputation as a horrid parent seems to rest on three legs: 1) his treatment of Mary Boleyn 2) his push for advancement when Anne was Henry VIII’s main squeeze, and 3) his continuance at court after Henry murdered 2/3 of the Boleyn offspring. But what are the facts of the matter from Thomas’s perspective?
First, there is Thomas’s relationship with Mary Boleyn. He allowed her to wed a relatively minor second son, a courtier named William Carey, in 1520, saving the potential heir of Earldom of Ormond for his younger daughter, Anne. Then he refused to help Mary when she was widowed in 1528, and it was up to Anne to coax Henry VIII into giving her sister money and forcing her father to aid his eldest daughter as well. Finally, he publically disowned Mary when she eloped with William Stafford (later Sir William Stafford) in 1534.
But did Thomas feel justified in these actions, by the mores of his time? Was Mary in love with William Carey and determined to wed him, regardless of her father’s plans? Did Thomas feel (as many men of his time would have) that Mary’s independence was a sign of disrespect and disobedience to her father? Did he know about her affair with Henry VIII, and if so, was he humiliated? Turning a blind eye to the king’s affairs with a female relative was something only lower-status men seemed to HAVE to put up with; was Thomas hurt by Mary’s behavior? Was her rejection of his fatherly ‘rights’ why he chose to cast her off? If so, he would have been within his cultural rights to do so. And if the king, hypocritically, chastised Mary for her formerly less-than-chaste behavior … was her flirtations or affairs the reason Thomas Boleyn was refusing to help her? Certainly Mary’s choice to marry William Stafford while her sister was queen was a blow to her family – if Mary constantly put her own wants above the needs of her family, is it surprising her father would be strongly displeased with her?
We know too little about what was actually happening in the Boleyn family, and too little about what Mary Boleyn was like, for us to know if Thomas Boleyn was being a ‘bad parent’ by the standards of his time.
Moreover, he did NOT use his daughter Anne as bait for Henry VIII. When the king formed designs on Anne, the very moral and very religious Anne hightailed it back to Hever castle to hide from her suitor. She couldn’t have done this without her father’s permission and her father’s aid. Thomas Boleyn did not ask her to return to court and make nice with the monarch. He let his youngest daughter stay safe at Hever in the hopes the king would get over his infatuation. Thomas did not encourage Anne to become Henry’s mistress. This was not a ploy for marriage because no one thought such a thing was possible; the king was married and if he were freed he’d marry another princess. Henry’s offer to marry Anne was unexpected and nearly unprecedented.
When Anne agreed to wed Henry VIII, the king bestowed many gifts on Thomas Boleyn and George Boleyn, but this was expected … it was how you treated potential family, not just how you rewarded men when you were tapping their female kin. Although his elevation doubtlessly pleased the newly-made Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond, there is no evidence he traded his daughter for them.
The assumption that Thomas Boleyn was a cold and scheming man who didn’t love his children is often interpreted backwards, based on the fact he remained subservient to the sovereign who killed his youngest daughter and only son, but this is unfair. Although it is nearly inexplicable to the modern mind, Thomas Boleyn probably didn’t realize he had any other OPTIONS but to suffer his majesty’s wrath. The king was appointed by God, and thus it was God’s Will that the king should murder the Boleyn children. Perhaps Thomas thought it was divine judgement on himself? The earl was bound, by the laws of the Church and State, to obey and serve his king. Rebellion and rage was something for zealots or nobly-born peers to contemplate – not for mid-level courtiers to indulge in.
What could Thomas Boleyn could have done, realistically, after the deaths of his children? If he made Henry VIII angry, he’d be executed and everything he’d worked for would be stripped away. Granted, that is the choice I would make; I’d have burn the world down in my grief and rage. Or would I? Knowing there was one child left – and he had reconciled with Mary by this point – would I have forced myself to smile even at the monsters who killed two of my children to keep the last one safe and secure? Would he have risked Elizabeth, or the other grandchildren? He wouldn’t have been the first, or last, parent in the English court to have bent a knee to the man who killed their offspring. Are we confusing pragmatic survival with indifference to the death of one’s children?
Whatever his motivations, Thomas Boleyn was enough in the favor of Henry VIII that when the earl died the king paid for masses to be said for his former father-in-law’s soul. Let us generously hope the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth found some measure of peace in death, after suffering such losses in life.