Mary vs. Anne: Who was the better Boleyn?

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and i'm dr kat and in this video i want to talk about a question that i got asked over on instagram i was asked who i thought was the more successful of the berlin sisters was it anne or mary and it's taken me a few days to think about how i wanted to approach this topic and i don't think i would ever be able to provide an answer that i would be 100 comfortable saying was a definitive one but i do think the question is fascinating and the topic certainly worthy of discussion and so that's the plan for today today we're going to be looking at whether mary belin was more successful than her sister anne for many years scholarship and writing that made reference to mary berlin almost always positioned her as a supplementary character in the lives of her more famous or rather infamous family members i think this changed after 2001 following the publication of philip gregory's novel the other berlin girl in gregory's novel mary is written as being anne's younger sister she's also shown to be sexually inexperienced prior to her marriage to william carey and her affair with king henry viii additionally in the novel her first two children catherine and henry carey are presented as being unquestionably henry viii children the novel was the basis for a tv drama that was broadcast in 2003 and perhaps more famously for a film that was released in 2008. in the aftermath of the publication of the novel in 2001 there have been a number of biographies about mary berlin that have been published however i think it's worth pointing out that this has not happened in response to a significant piece of evidence about her life being unearthed rather than i would argue that mary berlin has become a figure of interest because of the fiction that because of this interest her name has come to be viewed as a way to generate income but if we step away from the fiction who was she or rather what do we know or claim to know about who she actually was mary is believed to have been the eldest child of thomas berlin and his wife elizabeth whose maiden name was howard she comes from an incredibly prominent family mary's birth is dated to around 1499. she would soon be followed by her more notorious siblings we think anne probably came next in around 1 500 with george's date of birth being estimated to be about 1504 while amberlynn's time on the continents and at the french court are put forward as being foundational elements in the shaping of both her character and her success at the english court she was not the only berlin daughter to spend formative time in france in 1514 mary berlin attended mary tudor king henry viii's 18 year old sister as she set out to begin her new life as queen of france she was to marry louis xii he was 52 and he would be dead less than three months later the widowed mary tudor dowager queen of france returned to england but mary berlin remained in france to serve the new queen claude wife of the new king francis the first it would seem that thus far her career is therefore following the same path her sister the two berlin daughters side by side at the french court although it also appears that anne was already marking herself out for performance in a way that mary simply wasn't perhaps mary didn't match anne in courtly skill or witty reparty or intellect perhaps queen claude was simply disinclined to favor a woman that she knew or at least believed had been intimate with her husband whether justified or not mary berlin's time in france earned her a reputation for promiscuity indeed in march 1536 the papal nuncio in paris bishop rodolfo pio wrote that francis knew mary quote for a very great and infamous above all how accurate this assertion is is questionable after all it comes two decades after her time in france and during the reign of her sister as the queen of an england that had divorced itself from the paper scene pio's employer for her sake whatever the reason mary berlin was certainly recalled to england before her sister and she must have been back there with a place in queen catherine of aragon's household in time for her marriage to william carey he himself was a gentleman of king henry's privy chamber the pair married on the 4th of february 1520. in the june after her marriage much of henry's court travelled to france for the glittering peace meeting of henry and francis it had been in the works for two years and it would come to be known as the field of cloth of gold this year marks 500 years since that event and unfortunately the pandemic has put pay to the elaborate celebrations that were being planned to remember it 500 years ago thomas berlin played an integral part in planning this event in his role as ambassador to francis the first perhaps thomas berlin's role in planning events enabled his daughter mary to claim her own place in the english camp to field a cloth of gold if she did then it's very possible that this is where she was reunited with her sister although not certain we think that anne may well have accompanied queen claude some assert that amberlynn's evident gift with languages would have made her a natural and useful companion for the french queen while her renowned wit no doubt would have made her a pleasant one the promised universal piece which field of cloth of gold was in part hell to celebrate would not last long and as tensions began to rise anne was recalled to england and to court in 1521 mary and anne were back together in the household of queen catherine from the start of the following year 1522 mary berlin's husband william carey became the recipient of a number of royal grants and some view this as evidence of the king compensating william for the affair that he had begun with his wife jonathan hughes suggests that we can date the start of henry and mary's relationship to at least 1522 and he suggests there is evidence for this that can be found in henry's choice of insignia of a wounded heart that was accompanied by the motto she has wounded my heart that henry wore on the 2nd of march 1522 to joust he was jousting before the imperial ambassadors the tournament was to honor them but with this motto and insignia is it possible that he was also honoring his new love mary berlin two days after this joust it was shrove tuesday and at cardinal woolsey's york place the same ambassadors were treated to members of the court performing in the mask of chateau there mary berlin played the role of kindness and she was joined by her former mistress the king's sister and dowager queen of france mary tudor who was appointed to take the role of beauty mary berlin's future sister-in-law jane parker played the role of constancy and her sister amberlynn played perseverance it is unclear how long mary berlin enjoyed the attentions of her royal lover the grants given to her husband william carey were still being made in 1525 and have been taken as evidence that the relationship lasted from at least 1522 until then if not later much is made of henry viii having a ship named mary berlin in 1523 although the significance of this in regard to his feelings or lack thereof for mary herself may be obscured as it is thought by some that this ship was actually bought from thomas berlin and so therefore it may have arrived ready named mary gave birth to her first child catherine carey in around 1523 catherine would be joined by a brother henry carey on the 4th of march 1526 both children as is evident through their surnames are being acknowledged as the offspring of mary's husband henry viii did not make provision for these children to be named fitzroy as he had done with betsy blount's son henry he is not acknowledging them as his children and thus the paternity of both of them remains in question to this day indeed there are only two recorded occasions on which henry viii acknowledged that he had had a sexual relationship with mary berlin the first was when he was trying to marry her sister to do this he was seeking a dispensation from the pope so that he could marry a woman who was related to himself in the first degree of affinity which was a forbidden form of wedlock this refers to the fact that his intended bride is the sister of his former mistress the second occasion on record came when henry viii was accused of sleeping with all of the berlin women the sisters and their mother to which he is said to have replied quote never with the mother mary berlin was widowed on the 22nd of june 1528 when her husband william succumbed to the sweating sickness we remain unsure what the sweating sickness actually was the famous saying asserts that a person who contracted it could be merry at breakfast and dead by dinner in the bout of 1528 anne boleyn and cardinal woolsey both fell ill but as we know unlike william they survived how different might english history have looked had this not been the case the novel the other berlin girl makes much of the fact that henry viii gives ann berlin the wardship of henry carey after william's death in the novel this is presented as an adoption or more accurately as a theft this fundamentally misunderstands and underplays the ubiquity of warship in tudor england and berlin would not be viewed by anyone as henry's mother although she would be responsible for him his education and lifestyle she would not be the one actually raising him from day to day but equally it's also unlikely that mary would have performed this role in person either even before william's death like anne mary had work to do at court her children would have to do their growing up elsewhere and this would be even more relevant even more true as amberlynn star continued to rise mary was a berlin she was yet another loyal warm body to fill the court with to ensure the family's interests were being worked towards and maintained mary berlin would return to france in october 1532 she was to accompany her sister who was now the marquis of pembroke and the king as they sought king francis of france support for henry's case to annul his marriage to catherine so that he could be free to marry anne the berlin sisters would attend the fabulous banquet that was thrown by henry viii and they were performed together in a mask which allowed anne to flex her considerable diplomatic muscles while dancing with king francis in 1533 as i'm sure we can imagine the berlins could scarcely conceive of a way to rise any higher anne was crowned queen of england and in the september of that year she gave birth to elizabeth true heir to her father's throne until her brother came along which they all hoped would be imminently with her family at these dizzying heights mary berlin behaves oddly or at least it's odd for somebody who was a berlin a family known for displaying an incredible amount of personal ambition if mary had this in common with them it's unclear why she acts in the way she does because in the aftermath of their greatest victory mary berlin secretly marries a man far below her station a second son of a minor gentry family from the midlands sir william stafford the secret of this marriage was out when mary appeared obviously pregnant the berlins were it seems horrified they had mary banished from court and her father removed her allowance just why mary berlin behaved in this way will i think always remain a mystery for the romantics among us it's possible that we see this as true love that she was madly in love with william stafford and could not bear to be apart from him so she married him fully aware of the repercussions that she would get from her family however it's also possible that she made a mistake that she gave in to a physical affection she felt for him and found herself pregnant that she did not want to have a child out of wedlock and so she made the best of a bad lot and married him and then had to deal with those consequences regardless it would not be long before mary's perceived shame would seem insignificant in may 1536 the other berlins anne and george would be publicly tried convicted and executed as incestuous traitors furthermore amberlynn's daughter by henry elizabeth was denounced as a bastard when her parents marriage was annulled on the 17th of may 1536 this was two days before anne's own execution it is possible that mary berlin's relationship with henry viii was suggested as a justification for the annulment and the bastization if we think back after all henry viii had sought out a dispensation from the pope to marry anne because of his relationship with her sister henry could therefore argue if he so chose that there had always been a part of him that saw his marriage to anne as incestuous invalid and illegal in the aftermath the tragedy that befell her family mary berlin stayed away from court but she did seemingly enjoy an improved relationship with her father after the apparent shame of her secret marriage perhaps her being his last surviving child put things into perspective for him thomas berlin allowed mary and william stafford to use his own rochford hall in essex as their principal residence it was there that mary berlin died on the 30th of july 1543 but what are the two children that she may or may not have shared with king henry viii in the case of the eldest catherine carey in november 1539 catherine joined the household of henry's then-wife anne of cleves as a maid of honour the next year on the 26th of april 1540 catherine married francis knowles with whom she went on to have a brood of future courtiers perhaps the most famous of these courtiers was latisse knowles countess of essex the mother of elizabeth the first favorite during her later life robert devereaux a man who elizabeth would eventually have executed however a number of years prior to this execution letice herself would earn the queen's displeasure when she secretly married elizabeth's first favorite robert dudley the earl of leicester but what about mary berlin's second child henry carey when henry's cousin and possible half-sister elizabeth came to the throne on the 17th of november 1558 henry carey had long been a gentleman of her household perhaps he was there from as early as 1551. and as elizabeth rose so did henry he was swiftly knighted and on the 13th of january 1559 he was made baron hunsden in the same year he was given grants of land in hertfordshire kent and essex which were worth its believed 4 000 pounds a year in july 1585 elizabeth made henry lord chamberlain at the household and it was by this title and in this role that from 1594 henry carey acts as patron to william shakespeare and his company they were known from this date 1594 as the lord chamberlain's men but let's not forget the question at hand who was the more successful sister mary or anne berlin well i think before we even attempt to think about answering this we need to decide on what we think constitutes success what it means in this context is it simply about survival in which case clearly mary beats anne hands down or is it about something else is it about recognition perhaps in your lifetime perhaps afterwards is it about the political power that you hold and grow during your lifetime is it about advancing your wealth and social status or advancing your own family is it about all of these things in which case arguably anne beats mary butch on the flip side of that anne becomes the biggest threat to her family and of course to herself with her fall is mary therefore the safer pair of hands she never reaches the dizzying heights but in not doing so she therefore doesn't pose the enormous threat that anne does to both herself and her wider family or perhaps we should find success somewhere completely different in legacy in the lives of these women's descendants and perhaps in that anne and mary in different ways are level pegging anne gives the world elizabeth the first arguably the greatest queen that england ever had but elizabeth gives anne no grandchildren the line ends with her while mary has henry and catherine solid courtiers in their own rights who rise to prominence not that of their cousin but prominence nevertheless and what they also do is have a brood of children each through her children mary berlin's descendants live on i cannot even count the number of times that i am contacted by somebody who is a direct descendant of mary berlin that is something that amberlynn simply can't claim but what do you think as always i'm looking forward to reading your conversations in the comments section underneath this video or you can find me over on my social media i'll leave links to my instagram and twitter in the description box follow me there and we can continue this conversation i do have enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did then please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe to this channel and also perhaps check that you are still 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Channel: Reading the Past

Views: 141,971

Keywords: Boleyn, Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, Tudor, Field of Cloth of Gold, Francis I, Queen Claude, Mary Tudor, Louis XII, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: tTICbSdIjxU

Length: 20min 45sec (1245 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 06 2020