Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn

hi I'm Claire Ridgeway creator of the ambolyn Falls website and also also of several to the history books including the fall of amberlynn countdown now today I'm going to talk to you about Thomas and Elizabeth Berlin the Earl and Countess of Wiltshire and the parents of Queen Anne Boleyn and also Mary Boleyn and George Boleyn Lord Rochford now over the past few decades Queen Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary Boleyn and recently George Boleyn have largely been rehabilitated with historians and authors challenging the old myths successfully challenging them on the whole although you know we sometimes still get the myths surrounding particularly George Boleyn and his wife Jane but on the whole they're being rehabilitated but sometimes the rehabilitation of the girls of anne and mary has been at the cost of their parents reputation sometimes we see you know Anna Mary being rehabilitated by them being seen as pawns of their family as chattels used to promote the family the family's interests at court as stepping stones for the Blinn success as tools to get the family close to the crown close to Henry the eighth Thomas Elizabeth and Elizabeth's brother the Duke of Norfolk as pimping the girls out to the king but there is however little evidence for this depiction of the Berlin family for Thomas and Elizabeth and also the Duke of Norfolk so often we see in fiction and movies and TV series we see a very weak Thomas Boleyn he's there pausing with his wife is cold and calculating wise and his brother-in-law the Duke of Norfolk they're plotting to advance the interests of the blin's and the Howard's at court by throwing Mary and Anne at the King were led to believe that Thomas Boleyn only advanced at court because the King was rewarding him paying him for the use of his daughters for allowing him to bed his daughters we're even led to believe by some that Elizabeth Boleyn slept with the king as well you know so so here we go Thomas being this really weak character that has to use the women in his life to advance at court for his own ambitions well Thomas Boleyn really was something wasn't he if you see that kind of side of him and then Elizabeth you know how cold and calculating can you be to be a mother who lets you know a king do that to your daughters and who let your husband do that to your daughters wow she really must have been something as well she mustn't have cared about her daughters at all or her son George for that matter yes Thomas Boleyn really was something he was a hard-working and gifted man we know that from the records of the time he had absolutely no need to pimp out his daughters to the king to rise at court in fact he was already a royal favorite a servant to the crown before either of his daughters got involved with the king Thomas berlin's rise at court was down to his abilities and his loyalty as a servant to the king now we don't actually know when Mary Boleyn had a sexual relationship with the king her relationship with the king is commonly dated to Shrovetide 1522 because King Henry the eighth's rode out to the special Shrovetide jazz Don Shrove Tuesday with the motto element curl and nivara or she has wounded my heart odd with the trappings of his horse had a picture of a wounded heart and that was the kind of the scene of the joust you know his heart was wounded by by this woman and but he didn't go out declaring that that was Mary Boleyn there was nothing in the records linking this motto and the theme of Shrovetide celebrations to Mary Boleyn we cannot know who has wounded his heart or who the King was attempting to woo at that time but it's always assumed it was Mary Boleyn there's it always appears in books in fiction that this was you know this is when Mary Boleyn was having a relationship with the king it's also dated to around this time because Mary Boleyn had married William Carey back in 1520 and he was being given royal grants and officers from this time on but it's a leap to suggest that the king was rewarded rewarding William Carey for the use of his wife Carrie was a gentleman of the Privy chamber he was also related to King Henry VIII A's and actually King Henry the eighth's I mean we always think of him as this tyrant and this monster but actually Henry the 8th was a very generous man to those who served him and he was incredibly generous to members of his privy chamber if you look through the grants you get lists of grants and in letters and papers and if you look through these lists of grants and offices that are given out you'll find the same names coming up over and over again and their loyal servants to the king and they're being rewarded for their loyal service and Carrie is no different I mean it's it's making a leap in my opinion to say oh he's being rewarded for giving his wife to the King for letting the king he use his wife I would suggest that is more likely that Mary was involved with the King before her marriage she married Carrie in February 15 20 the King slept with her at some point we don't know how many times he slept with her I knew that he had a sexual relationship with her at one point he slept with her and then organized a marriage to a member of his privy chamber when he had tired of her this kind of makes more sense to me because this is what happened with Elizabeth blunt Betsy blunt who was you know the King's mistress we know she was the King's mistress she had the king's son Henry Fitzroy he organized a marriage for her after you know he had finished with her so I kind of think that that was sort of Henry's MO really it's how he kind of did things so for me it makes more sense that Mary slept with the King at 1519 early 1520 and then he organized a marriage you know which was a good marriage for her to William Carey one of his privy chamber and a relative to the king and the King actually attended the marriage as well by that time by the time of her marriage her father was already a royal favorite so by the time that Mary is likely to have slept with the King her father was already a royal favor and he cannot be seen to pimped her out just to sort of rise at court here are just a few of his career highlights I go into more detail on Thomas in my book the ambling collection - and also articles on the amberlynn Falls website but this just gives you an idea of his early career 15:01 he was present at Katharine of Aragon's wedding to Prince Arthur that was in Henry the seventh reign in 1503 he was chosen as one of the party to escort Henry the seventh eldest daughter Margaret Tudor to Scotland to marry King James the fourth he was appointed an Esquire of the body before Henry's acceptance death and he was actually kept on by the new King Henry the 8th when he came to the throne in 15:09 so you know we're here in the early 1500s before you know his daughters became involved in him when they were children he was knighted by King Henry the eighth's in 1509 and his wife Elizabeth served as one of the Baroness's of the Queen's Chamber at the coronation of Henry the eighth's and Catherine of Aragon in 1509 in 1510 at 1511 he participated in court revels and Royal joust he was involved in the joust to celebrate the birth of Prince Henry Duke of Cornwall the discerner of Catherine of Aragon and Henry the eighth he only lived 52 days he was a chief mourner and one of the night bearers at Prince Henry's funeral on the 27th of February 15 1115 12 to 15 13 he was sent to the court of Margaret of Austria with John Young and Sir Robert Winfield to act as an envoy to her father Maximilian the first the Holy Roman Emperor to conclude an alliance between England and the Empire against France that was a really important job and he actually became very good friends with Margaret of Austria and close to her and that enabled him to get his daughter and to go to Margaret of Austria's court by 1514 he owned or had been granted a controlling interest in around 20 manners he was the keeper of various estates he was the keeper of the exchange at Calais and the foreign exchange in all English ports so very important 1514 he managed to secure places for both of his daughters Mary Ann bond in the entourage of Mary Tudor who was going to France Tamara King Louie in 1516 he acted as a canopy bearer at the christening of Princess Mary the daughter of Henry the eighth's and Catherine of Aragon the year later 1517 he acted as Queen Margot of Scotland's official Carver for her 40 day visit to England 1518 he was a member of the Privy Council by this time and he was involved in the negotiations for the Treaty of universal peace that was signed that October and then he comes with 15 1859 to he was appointed as the English ambassador to the French Court what an amazing career for this man and I could go on and on and on obviously he continued to rise because he was on the up from 1501 when he was at the wedding of Catherine of Aragon and Arthur Judah this man was a royal favorite he had absolutely no need to throw his daughters back the king I hope you get the picture he went on to receive more grants offices and titles but these are more likely surely to have being rewards for his loyal service for his diplomatic dealings for his loyal service to the King for the stuff that he did for his gifts his towns now rather than pushing his daughters at the king and pimping them out Thomas actually may have been unhappy and concerned about the Kings interest in them the fact that the King had to intervene for Mary Boleyn when her husband died of sweating sickness in 1528 to get her father to help her financially could suggest that there's some kind of breakdown in the relationships between Thomas and his daughter we don't know but it just seems a little bit weird that Mary had to go to the King to get her father to help her she must have already tried going directly to her father so could it be that he distanced himself from Manley when perhaps he felt that she tarnished her reputation that speculation then we have the words of used to shop we the Imperial ambassador he wrote about amber Lynn's relationship with the King in 1533 he hadn't heard yet that Amber Lynn and the King had married in January 1533 that news hadn't sort of got around when he wrote this in the February I must add that the said Earl of Wiltshire I a Thomas Boleyn has never declared himself up to the moment on the contrary he has hitherto as the Duke of Norfolk has frequently told me tried to dissuade the Kings rather than otherwise from the marriage so sharply is clearly saying there that the Earl of Wiltshire Thomas Boleyn has tried to dissuade the king rather than promote the marriage that doesn't sound like a man who is you know forcing his daughter on the king in May 15:33 Shapley wrote of ambulance indignation at her father and uncles opposition to her marriage she was unhappy that her uncle and her father weren't supporting her marriage to the king so that seems to me to be clear evidence of the mens concern about the situation rather than them being the ambitious men that we see in fiction in TV of plotting and plotting to get and to marry the king and doing everything in their power to get her the crown but what about Elizabeth by then well she tends to be a more shadowy figure she seems to always be sort of presented as a woman who actually didn't have much to do with her children or as a woman who sort of is callously throwing them out the king along with her brother and her husband well what we do know about Elizabeth is that she acted as a chaperone when King Henry the Eighth was courting her daughter and she was at with Ann at various times we know that she went on a visit with the king and am to see York Place which became known as Whitehall after the king took it from Cardinal Wolsey and when Anne and the King were looking at the property to see what they could do to it there's a renovation hands-on that she according to the records went with them she was chaperoning and we also know that she lodged with Ann at York place in 1530 that they were given accommodation their mother and daughter in a letter to her friend Lady Wingfield in 15 31 and wrote of her love for her mother she wrote that her loved Lady Wingfield you know could only be sort of compared to you know her great love for her mother when she was arrested in May 1536 Anne Boleyn wrote of her concern for her mother she wrote of her worry about what the news of her arrest would do to her mother this speaks of closeness and love not a distant relationship between mother and daughter as for the idea that Elizabeth Berlin slept with a king or when Henry the eighth's was accused of meddling with amber Lynn's mother and sister he replied never with the mother and there is no evidence at all that Elizabeth was unfaithful to her husband with any man never mind the king but what about the events of 1536 the events of those bloody days as Thomas Wyatt called them how could loving parents let their son George and their daughter Anne die like that without trying to stop the events about trying to stop their execution how could Thomas Boleyn carry on serving the king the way he did surely that is evidence that ambition one out and that he didn't care one ioser about his children well that would be judging the berlin's with our modern values and taking them completely out of their 16th century context taking them out of court life but the blin's are not like modern-day parents either to judge them like that is to just forget their context we don't know if the blends did do and I think to try and help their children in May 1536 we know that the the Western Sir Francis Weston's family and appealed to the French ambassador you know try to intervene to - stop try to pay you try to offer sort of money to stop there son you know being executed we know that because we've got the records of it we don't know we haven't got any records of the Berlin's trying to do anything but they may have written to Cromwell and the King we just don't know we can't say that it didn't happen but we can say that we don't have evidence of it but even if they didn't write to Cromwell all the King that doesn't equal them not caring or loving you know for their children as a court here as a man who'd been a royal favorite for so long as a man who was close to the king as a loyal servant Thomas would surely have known that his children had absolutely no chance he'd seen the full of people like the Duke of Buckingham who you know had lived at pence worth close to the balloons at Hever he'd seen people fall like John Fisher Thomas More you know all these people were loyal servants to the King he heeds watch them fall he'd seen them be imprisoned and executed he must have known that the fate of his children were a foregone conclusion that there was nothing that could be done anyway we have to remember that to the people of the time to the sixteenth century people that the king was God's anointed sovereign Henry the eighth's walls by the time that Amblin and George Boleyn got executed he was the supreme head of the church in England he was God's right-hand man in England he had been chosen by God to rule the country that was what people believed in the sixteenth century what Henry the eighth's said and did went and it was a courtiers job to serve their king royally and to go along with the decisions he made Thomas Boleyn was a katia he was a diplomat he was a privy counsellor he was Lord privy seal he was an officer of the king the king was his master like others before him like other families all the prominent families that had lost you know fathers sons and that to the executioner he had to come to terms with the fact that the king viewed his relatives as traitors and he had to work hard to demonstrate his loyalty to the king he had to focus on his surviving family he had to focus on the future of his granddaughter Elizabeth he had to focus on his duty to the King on the 29th of June 1536 just over a month after the executions of his son and daughter Anne and George Thomas was stripped of his office of Lord privy seal an office he'd held since January 1513 however his service to the king during the pilgrimage of grace and rebellion paid off he was able to sort of get back into royal favor by by working hard by by working for the king by showing his loyalty to the king he was present at Prince Edward's baptism in October 1537 and by January 15 38 he was actively back at court now in April 15 38 so just under two years after the executions of her children Elizabeth Berlin died she died at the abbot of Redding's residence near Bernard Castle in London I apologize for any squeaking that you can hear it's my cat meowing at my feet Elizabeth was buried with members of her family the Howard family at Lambeth at st. Mary's Church in Lambeth which is now the garden museum there's been speculation that the location of her death and the fact that she was buried at Lambeth instead of thank you he's Hever which is by Thomas Berlin arrests that is evidence of a breakdown in her relationship with her husband that it shows that the Berlin's have separated but there is no evidence of this at all and you think of the gossip of the Henry the eighth's court the sort of the gossips that we find in the loyal letters for example the letters that were written to Lord and Lady Lyle who were in Calais serving the King yeah a lizard ëthe is reported in those letters her funeral is reported in those letters you'd think that there be some mention of the fact you know that sir oh yes you know and of course she was separated from her husband and but you know her husband had wasn't even there I heard death wasn't there's been a few Ron didn't have anything to do with it was going you'd think that there'd be some kind of mention of different kind of gossip about the state of their marriage if they had been separated we don't know what she was doing in London and perhaps it was just tradition there as here a Howard women that she would be buried with with her family at Lambeth now there's further evidence of Thomas being back in favor with the king following the executions of his children because by 1538 there were rumours that he was going to marry Margaret Douglas so his wife died in April 15 38 I think it was by July 15 38 just a few months after Elizabeth as there were rumors going around that he was going to marry Lady Margaret Douglas who was Henry the eighth's nice now this obviously didn't happen but you have to be high in favor with the King for this even to be rumoured I mean a man who was out of favor with the king and the King hated and who was completely blackened you know he surely they wouldn't be rumors that he was going to marry the Kings niece I mean that shows just what favor Thomas have managed to climb back in - that's reported in a letter to lady loyal in July 15 38 Thomas died in March 15 39 just under a year after his wife he was laid to rest as I said the parish church at Hever just outside he the castle the Berlin family home further evidence of the fact that he was back in favor with the king is shown by the fact that King Henry the eighth's ordered masses to be said for Thomas Boleyn soul now Elizabeth Berlin survived and and George by just under two years Thomas survived them by just under three years thomas was about 62 when he died and his wife was probably around 58 we don't know their birth dates but that's what we can kind of glean from the record so far bad ages four to two people I mean you do yet you do see - two people living into their 80s that you know late fifties early sixties is not bad fitting you to people but I do wonder if their health was affected by grief I mean it is just hard to imagine what it must be like to have your son and daughter killed in such circumstances to lose them in that way now whatever your views on Thomas and Elizabeth this couple lost to their children to the executioner for crimes that they in all probability did not commit they had to live Thomasson Elizabeth had to live with the fact that the King they'd served so loyally had executed Anne and George they had to cope with their family name being dragged through the mud in April and May 1536 and it was ongoing after that though you know it was said that their daughter had seduced five men she was accused of following daily her frail and carnal appetites she was accused of seducing her own brother and Anna and her love including her brother were accused of trying to kill the king it was high treason and it was salacious kya trees and the words of the indictments and and what and did with her sort of her lust her carnal appetites it's just horrible how do you come to terms with that how do you come to terms of losing your son and rules about how do you come to terms with your your family name being dragged through the mud like that and now today history is still blackening their names we still constantly see Thomas Boleyn being being described as a pimp every time I write about his death in March every time I doing on this day in history you know Thomas Boleyn died March 15 39 I get oh you know karna a great you know he pimped out his daughters to the king he was responsible for Anne's death so good and you know Elizabeth billion we have fear the the rumors we have people writing out oh yes didn't she sleep with the king as well or you know she wasn't there for her daughter they did nothing to help their children in May 1536 history is still blackening their names today and I find that very very sad you know I'm sitting here thinking about you know paying tribute to Amblin because it's the anniversary of her execution but I think now is the time to rehabilitate her whole family her parents and just to see them as a couple who lost their children who obviously had was n distanced from their granddaughter as well you know how could they be involved in the Elizabeth's life you know now you know they were the parents of traitors and I just find it very very sad so on that note I will leave you and I hope you enjoy the rest of handling day take care bye-bye

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Keywords: henry viii, anne boleyn, tudor, the tudors, monarch, english monarchy, queen, king, tudor court, mary boleyn, george boleyn, the boleyns

Id: fvgbE1FaMYw

Length: 29min 6sec (1746 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2017