Have The Boleyn Sisters Been Misunderstood By History? | A Tale Of Two Sisters | Chronicle

[Music] [Music] there are few more notorious names in english history and few who are more mysterious or disputed in the five centuries since her death anne berlin has been celebrated and damned her every action has been interpreted and reinterpreted was she a martyr a schemer or a victim home wrecker trollop you would not believe the things that they love to call ambulance for many hundred years later she was this devil woman who bewitched henry and made him deviate from the true religion we have to take some of that reputation with a bit of a pinch of salt her sister mary is more elusive still where remembered by history at all she is often dismissed as a fool a a disappointment i think her reputation as an infamous has been overstated she wasn't at all many girls had much more affairs than she did how much choice she had in becoming a mistress is not clear the reality of both women human and flawed as they were has frequently been lost there's something about both ann and mary that really resonates with people we're still talking about them now some 500 years later the sisters had a very complex relationship it was neither hostile nor was it loving it was a mixture of the two they lived in the court of a dangerous and powerful man where there were unparalleled opportunities to rise but where a single misstep could cost them their reputation their family's fortune and even their lives this is a story of ambition and power of desire and obsession of a man who could take whatever he wanted and two sisters who faced the consequences [Music] notorious though the women may still be remarkably little is known for certain about much of their lives what they looked like is disputed the most famous portrait of anne berlin was not painted in her lifetime and the only image we have of mary is now thought to be of someone else perhaps even anne nor is it certain when exactly the sisters were born depressingly it tended to be the births of male heirs that were well recorded girls were largely forgotten as a result if they had been from a royal family then they would have had their births recorded the balloons were important but in the grand scheme of things they were quite a modest moderate family and it just wasn't considered important to write down the birthplaces and dates of these two girls mary berlin is assumed to be the eldest because of various different pieces of evidence none of which are absolutely conclusive but probably the most compelling is that when her sister anne was later granted a title she's referred to simply as one of the daughters of thomas berlin if anne had been the eldest they would have said that in the grant the sisters were both probably born at blickling hall near norwich a few years either side of 1500 but much of their adolescence was spent in kent [Music] kiva castle was the berlin family country estate it was inherited by mary and anne's father thomas in 1505. thomas berlin was an ambitious courtier and diplomat a gifted linguist he ensured an excellent education for all his children including his daughters if you had girls you could just educate them to be wives future mothers so needlework things like that things that were considered useful for women but if you were from a wealthier family you'd teach them how to speak latin perhaps arithmetic would be important so they would have had a good upbringing it was evident from quite early on that anne was the precocious one she's often referred to as being a very forward child very intelligent so it's clear that of the two sisters she enjoys the greater intellect in around 1513 the adolescent anne was sent to europe her father had secured her a place at the court of the archduchess margaret of austria it was a coup for anne and the berlins the court was regarded as the foremost finishing school for young ladies in europe going to margaret of austria's court i can't begin to describe what a big deal this was it's like if you were a stage mom and you have the opportunity to put one of your children in a steven spielberg movie it's like giving her that opportunity margaret of austria's court was known for being sort of quite flamboyant and artistic and margaret of austria herself is supposed to have been a very kind and generous woman and there is some evidence that she was actually very personally attached to anne she immediately took to anne she recognized a kindred spirit and what better education for the young and berlin than to be raised in one of the most cultured and civilized courts in the world poor old mary berlin was left behind during her embroidery and seen pretty much a second best [Music] it would have been natural for mary to resent her precocious younger sister mary's chance would come in 1514 both mary and anne were chosen to serve as ladies in waiting to henry viii's younger sister who was set to marry the king of france anne however was still at margaret of austria's court so mary went alone the marriage was not a success louis xii died less than three months after the wedding the crown passed to louie's cousin francois soon afterwards anne joined her sister at the new french court but the berlin girls would have very different experiences there at this point you really start to see ann and mary's lives diverge that mary is the much more home loving one she doesn't really quite catch on to the quick barbed intrigues of court life that anne just relishes the jowl she relishes the fight plot of france let all the other ladies go back but she offered to let anne stay in court with her this is a french queen very cultured very educated very well respected but she wanted anne anne's life became very much based in france for a good number of years she kept those french affectations for the rest of her life ann remained exposed to this highly artistic cultivated renaissance court and she was certainly exposed to some very powerful women the queen mother of france louise of savoy for one and would have been able to see how women of influence and power were able to operate for themselves and i think that time was incredibly formative in terms of the woman that she would become [Music] anne would remain in france for seven years mary had a less successful time at the french court the new king was a notorious womanizer it seems mary was among his conquests and word got out mary soon caught the attention of francois who was very very similar to henry viii really his mirror image in france loved ladies loved the finer things in life and of course mary belin was a famed beauty so she soon caught his attention mary disappeared from recorded history for the next five years she was not at the french or english court some have speculated that she was sent away to a noble house in france there out of sight her reputation could mend and mary could be schooled in the conduct expected of her all we know for certain is that on the 4th of february 1520 mary was in england for that was the day she got married king henry viii attended their wedding perhaps that was where mary caught his eye for soon afterwards he began an affair with her mary's affair with henry viii is fascinating because there is strong evidence to suggest that in fact she wasn't entirely complicit in this and that henry maneuvered her into such a position that actually she was obliged to become his mistress he usually waited until a woman was married to seduce her and any children that she had would have been claimed as the husbands that was just the way things were done then there are lots of contradictions at the court of henry viii when it comes to love affairs so on the one hand everything is governed by a very strict moral and chivalric code it's all very romantic but then beneath that of course it's a court full of ambitious young men beautiful ladies there are liaisons going on all over the place and so the reality is a good deal less moral than henry would like to project in public a woman at court is in a very difficult position particularly when the king impetus you what are you going to do say no he might banish you he might banish your husband he has all the power and you don't have any at all in 1522 relations between england and france soured anne was summoned home to king henry's court once again she soon outshone her older sister even while mary was the king's mistress and possibly had a child by him she was overlooked by most at court anne was the star and stood out from other women in the english court because of that french influence because of how long she'd spent there she's had an excellent education in france and also with margaret of austria now it's her time to shine in england there's always been people male and female who have what was called the 1920s it there's just something about them that's extra charismatic and anne had that coming out of her pores [Music] it is not known when henry ended his affair with mary by 1526 however it was certainly over as he had found a new love it was of course anne berlin [Music] in the 1520s the lives of the berlin sisters revolved around henry viii the elder mary had a secret affair with the king and may even have borne him a child in the middle of the decade it was anne who captured the king's desire her hold over him would last far longer and would have far greater consequences the affair between mary and henry began to fizzle out it was partly because he always lost interest in his affairs and he found her accommodating and very sweet but not particularly interesting enough to catch him the popular misconception about henry viii and ann berlin is that it was love at first sight in fact it takes henry about four years to notice her so it's in around 1526 that ann seems to have finally caught the king's attention and he makes a declaration of love for her he makes no secret of it once he's fallen for anne then he falls big style he is absolutely obsessed with her it could have been a week between him getting rid of one sister and moving on to the next there could have been that crossover could have been a couple of months and it would be tempting to think there was at least a little bit of crossover because the more time he spends with mary the more likely amberlynn is to be nearby henry courted anne in style he showered her with gifts he wrote these effusive love letters he visited her he really besieged her tried to make her his mistress but of course anne famously refused [Music] and kept the king at arm's length she retreated to the family estate of hever castle where she remained for two years her absence from court has been debated by historians for decades was it a scheme to heighten the king's desire or was it a genuine attempt to end his obsession she packed up her stuff she headed back to heaver she stayed with her mom that's not playing hard to get that is hard to get the last thing that's going to happen is a courtier from the 1500s being able to tell henry viii back off i think unlike her sister anne never allowed her heart to rule her head she kept a certain degree of shrewd political acumen but she had seen her sister set aside and she believed i think that she had a purpose and a destiny and i think ultimately henry being the alpha male of england found that incredibly alluring and only incited him to pursue her more by 1527 king henry's wife catherine of aragon could no longer bear children their 18-year marriage had produced just one surviving child their daughter princess mary henry was desperate for a son to continue the tudor line he became convinced that god himself was denying him catherine after all had once been married to his late brother she insisted her first marriage was never consummated but henry would not be deterred catherine won't have her marriage declared illegitimate and so she was living in sin that would also make her daughter a bastard and remove her from the line of succession and there is this battle of wills we should be in no doubt that if casprin had had a living son none of this would have happened actually they had a happy marriage for 20 years instead of doing what he really should have done finding another foreign princess to create a union with instead he let anne gain this utter ascendancy over his heart and he was determined to get her the thing is once he was getting a divorce and he made it clear he wanted to marry her there was no one else in that kingdom she could marry there was no one that was going to risk his wrath to marry her so her options were to become a nun or marry him securing an annulment would not be easy henry entrusted the matter to his chief minister cardinal thomas woolsey over the next five years lawyers and churchmen across europe would grapple with the matter as they did the berlins grew more and more powerful of course to a family a daughter's virtue is the most important thing but if they think they can push their daughter in the way of the king and get some kind of power influence position lands out of it then they will and so the berlins saw that they'd get power out of anne they could use anne as a conduit to the king but sickness nearly derailed everything in the summer of 1528 there was an outbreak of the deadly sweating sickness anne herself fell ill with the disease which could kill in hours much to the king's relief she survived the berlin family were not left unscathed on the 22nd of june the disease took mary's husband william carey she was left with two young children to care for and it's clear that she was if not destitute poor and she was on the fringe really of her family it was thanks to anne's intervention in fact that mary was granted an annuity of a hundred pounds anne also took over the ward of her young son henry carey so that meant that of course henry was no longer a financial burden upon mary and clearly anne was there to step in and help out her sister and there seemed to have been some bond of affection sisterly affection between them certainly at that time although that would change [Music] the widowed mary left court and returned to heaven castle once again she disappeared from recorded history for several years [Music] anne and the rest of her family had greater concerns little progress was being made in the annulment between henry and catherine henry bean henry assumed that he would be able to get that dispensation from the pope in rome quite quickly within a matter of months however of course that didn't happen he was not prepared for this and wasn't prepared for this no one was prepared for how hard it would be henry's in this impossible position catherine won't go she won't retire she won't say her marriage was consummated with arthur the pope is backing her up so is the holy roman emperor there doesn't seem to be any way of doing it but he has to do it rumors of the king's affair with mary berlin were also spreading they exposed the hypocrisy of henry's case for if catherine's relationship with his brother made their marriage incestuous then surely henry's affair with mary ruled out any connection to anne the ongoing failure to secure the annulment infuriated the king he searched for somebody to blame woolsey of course was an extremely powerful man at court for many years the right-hand man of the king he played an important part in trying to get the annulment of henry's marriage from katherine however he failed repeatedly and i think anne began to blame him for not pursuing the annulment as vigorously as she thought he might that was strike one for the cardinal the second part was that he started to negotiate with europe and it was widely agreed that if henry cast an aside it would be much easier to negotiate when anne found out she was horribly offended she was absolutely furious and she refused to have anything to do with woolsey and she essentially said to henry you know you have to sort this out she wouldn't stand for it woolsey was a brilliant statesman very shrewd but he miscalculated he thought anne was just another of henry's short-lived love interests and that she would soon be out of court of course that was a grave miscalculation and he paid the price woolsey was banished from london he was accused of treason and ordered to return only to face the charges he died on the journey with woolsey dead anne grew more powerful and she gained a new ally in the figure of thomas cromwell he shared and sympathies for reforming the church and with her support soon had the king's ear he tried a different approach to woolsey and king henry would be declared supreme head of the english church nobody would then be able to deny him and years of waiting were nearly over in 1531 henry dismissed his wife from court he would never see her again ann was queen in all but name early in 1533 henry and anne were finally married henry and anne's wedding was so secret that we can't be absolutely sure when it took place it was probably the 25th of january 1533 at whitehall at the time the king was still married to catherine of aragon so technically he was a bigamist at this point there would have been only a handful of witnesses it would have been a very low-key affair and in the end it was rushed through and for good reason because anne was already pregnant henry had banished his wife of two decades he had broken with the roman catholic church and he had enraged half the country all for anne all for the sons she would give him it was anne's greatest triumph her family were the most influential in the land even mary still secluded at hever castle would rise alongside her sister victory seemed total but this berlin supremacy would prove short-lived in 1533 the long years of waiting were over parliament passed laws to strip the catholic church of its authority in england henry viii chief minister thomas cromwell finally forced through the annulment of the king's first marriage and anne and henry were finally wed all was set that june the pregnant anne berlin was at last crowned queen of england amberlynn's coronation was an extraordinarily lavish affair the like of which had never been seen in england henry went to great expense there were pageants and celebrations across the capital there was a procession of barges down the river the celebrations went on for four days thousands of people turned out to watch the spectacle there was feasting she was carried in a litter through streets and people were performing plays so it was four days of festivities all for her so it must have felt like she was the second most important person in the world she'd done what no other woman had ever done before she grabbed the king for herself and most of all she was really the true wife of the king he was in love with her it wasn't an arranged marriage that he'd done for dynastic purposes he was utterly in love with her and so she was now the queen the public despised anne berlin she had very few supporters they saw her as usurping the rightful queen catherine of aragon who was greatly beloved of the people and widowed sister mary returned to court she was appointed as one of the new queen's ladies in waiting but again her time at a royal court proved an unhappy one as she wrote later in a letter i saw that all the world did set so little by me she bore the brunt of her sister's unpopularity and was keenly aware of it all were convinced that the new queen would grant henry what he desired most in september 1533 anne went into labor and gave birth to a baby girl the birth of elizabeth was a catastrophe yes she was healthy yes she was strong but she was a girl he'd been convinced it was a boy and to him it was an omen it made a mockery of everything he had gone through to marry anne and to set aside his first wife because the only reason that anne would have been accepted by the population of england would have been if she'd given birth to a prince an heir the minute that that baby was declared a female that was the beginning of the end [Music] the birth of another unwanted girl only deepened the growing unhappiness in anne and henry's marriage their long courtship had perhaps set impossible expectations on both sides henry blamed anne for the failure to provide him a son and anne struggled with the change from mistress to wife ann was an incredibly intelligent woman much cleverer than the king and so she wanted to help him rule but what she found was that henry expected certain things of a queen she wasn't cut out to be the wife of the king now henry was used to a wife who was compliant she knew her duties to be very much in the background that wasn't ann's style at all she wasn't prepared to turn a blind eye to his indiscretions and when she knew that he was starting to pay attention to other ladies she was furious and she upgraded him in front of his courtiers which he hated a woman who was very religious who had refused to become the king's mistress no matter what that's when you get all the stories of anne's bad temper well how she didn't just start stabbing henry i don't know despite their quarrels anne soon fell pregnant again in 1534 she had almost reached full term when she had a miscarriage she lost the baby it was a boy her second pregnancy she flaunted it of course she was very confident she famously uh talked about her cravings and really showed off the fact that she was expecting again and lost that child very late into that pregnancy possibly into about the seventh or eighth month which would have been an extremely traumatic event for her henry seems to have been absolutely beside himself that was clearly a very emotionally destructive event for the two of them and fell pregnant again quite quickly but we start to see the same pattern as we see with katherine of aragon failed pregnancies miscarriages simply pregnancies that will not go to term and every time pregnancy fails henry loves anne a little less [Music] anne had lost a child and was losing henry the sadness and anger she felt were heightened by the actions of her sister in the late summer of 1534 just weeks after anne's miscarriage mary reappeared at court she was clearly pregnant in secret mary had remarried her new husband was a man named william stafford a man with no title or fortune to speak of something shocking and incomprehensible had happened mary had married for love women have no right to marry for love they marry for security they marry for money they marry for their families prospects that's what they're there for in those days you certainly have to ask your father for permission and when your sister is the queen of england you certainly have to ask her and mary didn't do either of these things probably because she knew that she would be turned down the person she chose just a lowly soldier he had no social standing he certainly wasn't good enough for his sister of the queen it's at precisely this moment when ann is really struggling to give henry a son or indeed just another living child that her sister mary arrives at court she's newly married and she's pregnant one can't help but suspect she's showing off really [Music] and the rest of the family were furious with mary she was banished from court there would be no allowance to support her this time the two sisters would never meet again mary was very shocked at the severity of her sister's reaction and indeed the king's reaction and she was probably quite hurt and a little bit panic stricken because i think she just accepted it as a given that as the new queen's sister her place at court was assured in a letter to cromwell mary wrote good master secretary sue for us to the king's highness and beseech his highness whichever was one to take pity to have pity on us why did she write to cromwell well he is the most powerful man in england next to the king he's the new chief minister really of henry viii and it's thanks to cromwell i think that anne boleyn is on the throne he in the end had arranged that annulment had put anne on the throne so of course mary is pleading to cromwell to help her but i'm afraid her pleas fall on deaf ears by now the wily cromwell was no friend to anne he may have helped her become queen but the pair clashed repeatedly after england's break with rome a wealthy prize was up for grabs the land and property of the monastic orders but anne and cromwell disagreed on how to spend the money thomas cornwall sent his hit squads all over england looking at how much money the monasteries had and anne felt that the money of the monasteries if it was taken from them should be used for good works and creating educational opportunities given to charity cromwell felt very clearly they should be given to the royal coffers to give henry a boost she didn't want the desolation of the monasteries she fought that and that may actually be what killed her anne had had her preacher preach a sermon which drew parallels between how cromwell was dealing with the dissolution of the monasteries and pocketing some of the money perhaps not for himself perhaps not into worthy causes and i think cromwell found this sermon very threatening and began to think this is you or me and it was a matter of survival anne was standing between thomas cromwell and money that turned out to be not a good place to stand and made a great mistake in making this powerful enemy in thomas cromwell because if he wanted to bring her down he could [Music] it was cromwell who would engineer anne's fall when it came it was sudden and dramatic within weeks of celebrating the death of catherine of aragon in early 1536 and had yet another miscarriage it was her last chance just months later anne was arrested on charges of treason on the 2nd of may 1536 she was taken to the tower of london and berlin's fall was as sudden as it was brutal henry viii had pursued her obsessively for nearly a decade now just three years after becoming queen anne faced trial and execution anne was now in an incredibly vulnerable position henry clearly was losing interest in anne he'd also lost faith in her i think so she hadn't delivered the son that he desired his eyes had fallen upon a new lady at court jane seymour jane seymour was the opposite of anne she was sweet she was gentle she was retiring and henry became obsessed by the fact that he must marry jane and have a son with her there was one man who had the power and cunning to dispatch a queen after all he had done it once already i think most historians now agree that thomas cromwell really was the person who fought up and conspired the plot against and now thomas cromwell knows an annulment won't work this time round he has to get rid of anne permanently and so he devises this gossip he managed to secure confessions of ladies of anne's chamber who placed accusations towards the queen about her impropriety with other gentlemen of the king's chamber anne was accused of adultery with not just one but five men including her own brother george now it's no coincidence that every single one of those five men were enemies of thomas cromwell he's killing two birds with the same stone by claiming incest it made henry look less bad if she just committed adultery with one man maybe it was because henry was failing her but if she was so vicious and disgusting that she would sleep even with her brother well that's clearly not henry's fault that's clearly something wrong with her so he went to henry whispered his little poison in henry's ear and then henry became as far as anybody can tell sincerely convinced that ambulance must have been sleeping with a hundred men when she would have had time to do this while surrounded by a billion other people and not even sleeping alone in the same room magic i assume for the crimes of adultery incest and treason there could be only one punishment and was arrested on the 2nd of may five men including anne's brother george joined her in the tower of london when she arrived at the tower she knew she was never going back it was not going to be a fair trial in those first few days she seems to have undergone some kind of breakdown she was distraught there was a lot of incoherent ramblings as she mused on what must have been brought against her cromwell of course made good use of that during anne's imprisonment in the tower she'd become almost hysterical at one point famously putting her hands around her neck and saying you know i have a little neck the execution won't take long but towards the very end her bravery shone through [Music] the first trials were held on the 12th of may three courtiers and a musician were accused of adultery with the queen all four were found guilty and condemned to death three days later anne and her brother were put on trial the indictment accused anne of despising her marriage and entertaining malice against the king and following daily her frail and carnal lust anne was faced with a jury of peers presided over by her uncle the duke of norfolk but by now she was beyond the help of her family in a tudor court once somebody had been accused of a crime then they were assumed to be guilty of that crime unless they could prove themselves innocent got to remember the only man to confess sleeping with anne was the only man low-born enough to have been legally tortured there's no proof he was tortured but he's still the only guy that confessed men that could not legally be tortured every single one of them went to their grave saying they were innocent it was a rag bag of gossip and tittle tattle woven together which fabricated the case against her it was not going to be a fair trial it was a done deal she was going to be found guilty of adultery with all these men and so as a consequence they and she were going to be publicly executed on the 19th of may 1536 ann berlin was [Music] executed henry gave her one act of mercy which was that rather than an axe he called for a french swordsman to come over especially from france and cut off her head in one little chop beheading by the sword was much swifter much cleaner than by the axe so it was one last favor that henry showed towards anne then she knelt in the straw arranged her skirts behind her and it is said at some point that she turned briefly to the swordsman and at that point he called out for the boy to catch to get the sword from beneath the straw and as she looked round in the direction of that voice the swordsman struck with one clean stroke and her neck was taken from her body [Music] only days before the execution henry had his marriage to anne announced by the archbishop of canterbury anne's daughter elizabeth was declared illegitimate he was making absolutely sure of it it wasn't enough to have her executed for adultery he had to have the marriage dissolved too he needed to clear the path to any offspring that he would have with jane seymour he did so according to the fact that he had had previous relationships with anne's sister mary this brought the three of them into the first degree of affinity which was against kind of moral and church law and and meant that any union which anne and henry had entered into could not be a valid one and that was grounds to declare the marriage null and void after her execution anne was buried in the chapel of the tower of london henry married jane seymour just 11 days later she at last would give him the son he had so longed for edward was born the following october jane died soon after the birth and despite marrying three more times henry would have no more children he died in 1547 and sister mary lived in obscurity for the rest of her life there is no proof mary ever reconciled with what was left of her family after her father died in 1539 mary inherited the berlin estate and became a wealthy woman we don't even know she was in london or in court there is no record of what she thought about the demise of her sister or her brother unfortunately her family had been publicly shamed and the terrible aspersions had been cast on them it was very clear to her that there will be no place for her in the future of course in the future of aristocratic life in britain she goes into obscurity we don't know much about her life thereafter and that may have been deliberate she knew when to keep a low profile mary has often been seen as rather lacking in intelligence the stupidest berlin even though the balloons were disgraced and suffered a lot and both her brother and sister were executed she stayed out of it and was not drugged into the case or the trial or the execution so perhaps in the end she's rather cleverer than we gave her credit for mary died on the 19th of july 1543 her resting place as with so many details of mary's life is unknown she died of natural causes in a loving marriage and fine home which is more than can be said for her sister anne and mary's offspring would shape british history for centuries mary's children became knights and courtiers and one of her descendants now sits on the throne of england anne's daughter elizabeth was restored to the succession she went on to become one of the greatest monarchs in british history in their own times few valued the berlin sisters beyond their potential to catch a powerful man's eye to give him pleasure or grant him a [Music] i son the legacy of both of them is the fact that we're still talking about them now some 500 years later ann berlin was a force of nature she was a woman ahead of her time in so many ways and she was such a pivotal and important part of the reformation that she really changed the landscape mary by contrast was far more conventional she was a well-to-do lady who became a royal mistress and then led a comfortable life thereafter it is a crying shame that both of those women are still slut-shamed for things that would be on their control so i think their legacy is tarnished and it shouldn't be their legacy should be that they were strong they did the best they could with what they had and then they were punished for being too good at it [Music] they have a legacy of their own in their actions and identities as individuals as women as sisters [Music]

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 400,314

Keywords: British history, Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries, Critical examination, Documentary series, Documenting history, Empowered women, Engaging narratives, Female empowerment, Female perspective, Hidden stories, History enthusiasts, Investigative documentary, Powerful women, Revealing the mysteries, Royal affairs, Royal documentary, Royal scandals, Sisters' relationship, Tudor queens, Women rulers, historical sisters

Id: R4p6aQkCXAM

Length: 43min 13sec (2593 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 05 2022