The Trial of George Boleyn

George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford, was was brought to trial on 15 May 1536, accused of incest with his own sister, Queen Anne Boleyn.

Until the day of his trial, people — even his enemies — thought George would be acquitted. No one really believed he had slept with his sister, and he was a great favourite among many people. And he was doing well at first. Noted chronicler Charles Wriothesley wrote that George, “made answer so prudently and wisely to all articles laid against him, that marvel it was to hear, but never would confess anything, but made himself as clear as though he had never offended.” Likewise, Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador who hated the Bolyen’s with a savage passion, wrote that George, answered so well that many who were present at the trial, and heard what he said, had no difficulty in waging two to one that he would be acquitted, the more so that no witnesses were called to give evidence against him or against her, as is customary in such cases, when the accused denies the charge brought against him.

However, at one point during the trial, George was given a note claiming Anne had told him that the king had “quil navoit ne vertu ne puissance” (neither strength nor virtue) during copulation. Cromwell gave strict instructions that George “was only to say yes or no, without reading aloud the accusation; but to the great annoyance of Cromwell and others, he read it aloud” in court for everyone to hear. This enraged the king so greatly that George basically signed his own death warrant.

Frankly, I think the note was entrapment. I think Cromwell, seeing that George was going to get off and would doubtlessly retaliated for his sister’s murder, needed George to do something that would guarantee his death. Cromwell would have known that demanding George not to read the note would have made Boleyn sure to read it just to defy the chancellor. In my opinion Cromwell’s show of dismay and anger when the note was read was for the king’s benefit, and a red-herring to distract from his own duplicity. Cromwell wanted Anne dead, and he wanted to make sure no one could come after him for orchestrating her murder.

George was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to die. When he heard that he was condemned, he said to his judges “that since die he must he would no longer plead “not guilty,” but would own that he deserved death. His last prayer to the King was that certain debts, which he named, should be paid out of his personal estate.” This does not mean George was actually guilty, though. Even if Chapuys is telling the gospel truth about George’s plea, it was a belief among the evangelical reformers (which George probably was) that all people were sinners undeserving of God’s mercy. If it was God’s will that he should die, then George was willing to say he was a sinner who deserved whatever punishment the Lord commanded. It was not an admission that he bumped uglies with his own sister.

In spite of his innocence, George Boleyn has gotten a bad historical rap, for reasons unknown to me. Two of the most bewildering myths bandied about him are that he was a monster who frequently committed sexual assault and was as gay as a Christmas tree full of drunken monkeys.

It appears these beliefs were born from a manuscript published by George Cavendish, which was accepted uncritically by historians in the days of long ago. The legend of Lord Rochford the Rapist was a very popular belief among historians in the Victorian era, but since the 20th century scholars have dismissed the allegations as pure poppycock. There is no other evidence than Cavendish’s ravings to support the idea that George Boleyn raped anyone. This would not have been a crime that would have been inspired justice and/or gossip to turn a blind eye, especially if it had been committed against ladies of the court. Even if George had gotten away with raping commoners (which was all too likely), he would have at least been charged before he was pardoned by his friends in high places and we’d have a record of it. 

Likewise, Cavendish’s implication that George committed ‘sodomy’ has been found to be baseless by more modern scholars. For one thing, during George Boleyn’s lifetime there was no such thing as ‘gay’.  Homosexual acts, which were commonly called “buggery” or “sodomy” because dude on dude anal sex was the only thing they thought of as being able to occur between men, was considered a “perversion” done by the degenerate for their own twisted thrills, rather than an aspect of sexuality. Cavendish was trying to call George Boleyn a nasty pervert, not gay.  In the hierarchy of perversions, depraved men were supposed to go from sex with many women, to raping women, to bestiality, and then to buggery. The Tudors thought that a guy only had anal sex with another man when sexual congress with a goat was no longer exciting and deviant enough. Women were only supposed to be perverted if they were witches who sold their soul to the Devil, and even then their sexual partners were considered to be animals and Satan, not each other. As for the idea that men could have oral pleasure with another male partner, well that was just crazy talk! Married men and woman who indulged in oral sex with their lawfully wedded spouses could get in big trouble for that, let alone two men with each other.

Cavendish’s accusations seem to have been based on a flimsy composite of sensationalist rumour and muckraking gossip that grew taller with each telling. However, to give Cavendish his due, he probably believed every over-the-top disparagement of George Boleyn as having had its basis in solid fact. Cavendish was a devoted ally and servant of Cardinal Wolsey, and as such hated the whole Boleyn family’s ever-loving guts with an intense fervour. He, like many others, blamed the Boleyn faction for Wolsey’s downfall, rather than Wolsey’s own greed for power and his covert shenanigans against King Henry VIII. In Cavendish’s mind nothing was so horrible that a Boleyn couldn’t be suspected of doing it.

If Cavendish has been soundly debunked by academics, why does his calumnies against George Boleyn continue to flourish?

Because Cavendish’s works and the opinions of nineteenth century histories are still used as resource material for at least one of today’s most widely read popular historians, who then presents these slanders as potentially legitimate truths in his/her work. Since the theoretically non-fictional books of popular historians are used as research material by some authors of historical fiction — authors who are sincerely trying to be as accurate as possible in their work, by the way — the result is that George Boleyn is erroneously depicted as a rapist/homosexual in otherwise excellent stories. These stories are consumed by many people who enjoy both the narrative and the historical facts they trust the authors have gotten correct because many of the books are clearly written by people who do their absolute beat to achieve reasonable historical accuracy. Thus, the myths about George Boleyn are constantly perpetuated.

Inasmuch as I have the Asperger’s obsession with facts/truth, these unceasing inaccuracies are enough to make me tear my hair out. The beliefs that Lord Rochford was a sexual predator, a homosexual, or had sex with his sister are false as stories about George Washington’s wooden teeth, and just as pernicious to eradicate.