- Good evening, and welcome to this
evening's Gresham lecture. My lectures this year
will look at four families and their estates. The Churchills who built
their family fame and fortune through military service. The Cecils who constructed
theirs through administration. The Scots who rose through
illegitimate royal blood, and the Boleyns whose
success was based on trade. Until the industrial revolution, other than the law and the church, these were more or less the only routes to great wealth and honor. What all these families had in common is that they consolidated
that wealth and honor in land and buildings. Land of course, brought with it status, and a great deal of land
and a fine residence brought a great deal of status. And despite the ups and
downs of the economy, land was also the safest
and most sensible place to put your disposable income. The families I have chosen
could all be called dynasties, because the estates that they owned were the most powerful
cogs in a dynastic machine where marriage consolidated land holdings, brought in new money
and secured old money. Families that had been enriched by trade bought into the landed aristocracy, and aristocrats who'd become impoverished revitalized their family
fortunes by marrying into trade. And this is an excellent
place to start this evening, because the Boleyns were a family who invested money from trade
in land and consolidated it by a series of stunning
marriage alliances. Eventually of course, reaching
the pinnacle of social status marrying into the royal family itself. Now, the story I'm gonna tell this evening needs some quite careful introduction because I'm going to
mention a dozen people, and it's very important that we understand their relationship to each other. So we're going to have a family tree here and we're going to start with the man who effectively founded this
dynasty, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn. Now the Boleyn family were
landowners in and around Salle in Norfolk from
about the mid 13th century. Geoffrey Boleyn was a Norfolk gentleman who had a really spectacular career here in the city of London. How he got here, we don't know. At first he was a hatter
and then he became a mercer. And as a merchant, he
was extremely successful. As a citizen, he was
capable and very ambitious. He became sheriff in 1446 to seven. He became MP for London in 1449, London elector in 1450,
an alderman in 1452, Master Mercer in 1454. And finally Lord Mayor of London in 1457. The second person on
my family tree is Anne. The daughter of Thomas, Lord Hoo, and Hastings of Hertfordshire. Thomas Hoo, her father was a
leading Lancastrian courtier whose extensive family
estates were in Bedfordshire, and in Norfolk. He was married twice, his first marriage was to Elizabeth Witchingham,
a Norfolk gentry lady and their daughter was
Anne Hoo, born in 1424. There was a second marriage and there were three more
daughters, but no son. So Anne was the co-heiress
two great estates. How Lord Hoo met such Geoffrey
Boleyn, we do not know but in 1437 or 1438, thereabout, Boleyn married Hoo's eldest daughter Anne, forming the alliance you
see you're my family tree. So we have a hugely wealthy city merchant marrying an aristocratic heiress. Their first son, named
Thomas died in 1471. And their second son
who you see here William became the heir, and he's the third person
we now need to meet. So William Boleyn made a brief appearance in the city of London but he was basically set up as a very wealthy landowner in Norfolk, where he was much involved
in county affairs. Like his father, he made
a spectacular marriage. Here we have it, he married Margaret, the daughter of Thomas
Butler, the Earl of Ormond. Butler, like Hoo had not
succeeded in producing a son. And so like William's mother, Margaret was the co-heir
two great estates. So now two generations of the Boleyns had married aristocratic heiresses, vastly aggrandizing their wealth, and of course by association their status. But to return to our dramatis
personae this evening, we have to now introduce Sir
William and Margaret's son who was Thomas Boleyn. He was born in 1477. Now I'm gonna have a great
deal to say about this man who became one of Henry
VIII closest friends, and the father of Anne, Queen of England. But for now we need to
introduce Elizabeth Howard, the eldest daughter of Thomas
Howard, Earl of Surrey, who was the heir to
the Dukedom of Norfolk. Elizabeth married Thomas in around 1497. Now, unlike the spectacular marriages of his father and grandfather, this marriage brought no great fortune but did buy Thomas a father
in law who was a Duke. I'm briefly just going
to add to my family tree for completeness, Thomas' brother, James, 'cause he will appear
very briefly in our story, but to complete the family tree I need to mention the three children of Thomas and Elizabeth, Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn, and George Boleyn. So Anne, who we now have on the screen, obviously the star of the show tonight was descended from not only a
former Lord mayor of London, but much more importantly
on her mother's side from a Baron, an Earl and a Duke. This was a very classy ancestry. And as we now need to understand,
an extremely wealthy one, with huge estates and a
number of impressive houses. So now let's return to the
founding father of the dynasty, Sir Geoffrey, and ask ourselves what was the architectural
taste of such a man? He obviously had a house in the city, and he presumably had a manor house in his home county of Norfolk. But as his wealth grew and he became an elder statesman in the city, it was time to invest in land. And indeed, this is exactly what he did, buying an estate in Norfolk
in 1452, and in Kent in 1461. And what's fascinating is
that the two principal houses in these estates were
remarkably similar buildings. They were both moated castles
built in the 1380s or 1390s by former soldiers and royal servants. Now Jeffrey was an
exceptionally wealthy man, he could afford to lend
the King 1,246 pounds at a time when it was absolutely certain that he'd never get it back. So he could have afforded to buy an estate with a modern house, or perhaps an estate where
he could build a new house, but his choice to buy these
two late 14th century castles must have been entirely deliberate, and reflected a taste for a
military style of architecture. This could perhaps be
partially a reflection of the political instability and violence of the Wars of the Roses, but equally, and I think more likely, it reflected a desire to present himself not as an arriviste, but
as an establishment figure and as a Knight. So in 1452, Sir Geoffrey purchased one of North Norfolk's
most valuable manors. So John Fastolf's Blickling Hall. Fastolf famous to history
as the inspiration for Shakespeare's character. Although the real man was nothing like the man in the play. He was immensely rich, and he had invested the profits of his military
exploits in land and buildings, especially in Norfolk. He spent some 24,000 pounds
buying and improving manors, amongst which was the house at Blickling, which he bought in 1432. Fastolf without heirs, sold
it to Boleyn for a cash sum and an annuity. Well, here is Blickling Hall today, in my view, one of the
most gorgeous sites, anywhere in England. We're told from the
guidebook that it was built by sir Henry Hubbard in about 1618. But investigations by
a series of historians have shown that Hubbard in
fact modernized and modified an existing house, and the core
of what you can visit today with your National Trust card already existed when he
bought the property in 1616. And what is quite certain is that various features of the house
such as the long gallery, and you see the wing of it there. Plus various windows which you
can see in this view of 1725, unquestionably date from the
period of the Boleyn ownership. Fastolf's Blickling, had been
built and subsequently owned by military men and courtiers, and perhaps Geoffrey hoped
that some of their luster would wear off on him. So that's Blickling. The second country house
he bought was Hever. This was purchased in
1461 from William Fines Lord Saye and Seal. Hever Castle, as it stands today, as you see it there was built in 1383 by a man called John De
Cobham, and is one of a number of moated stone castles built
in the years around 1380 in reaction to the violence
and uncertainty of the age. Hever's square plan which you see here, was absolutely the norm for the time and paralleled by dozens of other castles of the same period, perhaps also including the
original house at Blickling. It was driven by the joint needs
of domesticity and defense. And its plan was completely
standard with a great gatehouse opposite which was a great
hall and upper staircase, on this side, on the west
here, the family lodgings, which were essentially
in just three rooms. Hever was a small neatly
planned, fortified house, the residence of a wealthy
landowner, not a great magnate. So why did Geoffrey buy it? Well, two reasons I think, first of all, and very importantly he needed a country house
much closer to London than Blickling, which,
and I live in Norfolk, so I can say this, is in
the middle of nowhere. And secondly, I think he bought it because it was situated in the
heavily wooded wield which was very good hunting ground. Now, though Geoffrey may have been happy with the external appearance of Hever, he actually decided to
modernize the interior. And you can see here that
this original great hall was a vast room, no fireplace,
hearth in the middle, smoke goes up through
the rafters of the roof. What Geoffrey Boleyn
does is he modernizes it, by putting big windows in
the north wall, a fireplace. He divides the great
hall to make it smaller, making a private ground floor room with a fashionable bay window before going up the stairs
to the three family rooms on the first floor. Here is a 19th century painting showing the great hall at Hever, with the big fireplace that
was put in by Geoffrey Boleyn. Now all of this, we can work
out from the surviving fabric at Hever, and I'm extremely grateful to the present owners of Hever castle for the opportunity to examine
the building in detail. But to get to this level
of knowledge at Blickling, will take quite a lot more work. Although I think it could be done. Disentangling the changes
that may have been made by Geoffrey, William
and his grandson, Thomas might never be possible. But what is clear is that the original 14th century fortified manor was hugely extended by the Boleyns into a double courtyard house. Now we don't know, but
it is quite possible that the original house
was very much like Hever, a gatehouse and a great
hall, and that the Boleyns built on this big, extra
bit, including a long gallery on the first floor above here. And that's what you get today. Two courtyards, double courtyard house. These houses were not
particularly uncommon but the people who owned
them were very rich. They were very prestigious having these two courtyard properties. So Blickling in the
Boleyn period was a large and very prestigious House. I suspect that much of
the extension of Blickling was actually undertaken by Thomas, or perhaps his brother James because it contained this long gallery, and long galleries are really
only common in these houses from the 1520s onwards. And I suspect that Geoffrey
lived in a smaller house, a more baronial house if you like, where he lived in splendor as a Knight rather than a merchant. Architecture you see holds
a mirror to self image. Well, substantial parts of
Blickling and Hever remained to tell us something of Geoffery's tastes, but we don't know anything
really about the third house that this family owned at this period. And this was Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire. So here's a map, we're going to build up the various houses, here
we've got Blickling, here we've got Hever,
and here is Luton Hoo, which was inherited
into the family by Anne as a portion of her estates from her father, Thomas
Lord Hoo and Hastings, who had died in 1455. It must have been a very big house as Lord Hastings was a major figure. And we know that the
Boleyns used it as a base much closer to London than Blickling, that was a hundred miles
further up the road. Well, this brings me very neatly onto the second generation of the family. Sir William Boleyn. William was very active in county matters occupying most of the
senior posts in Norfolk at one time or the other. But he also as far as we
know, spent some time in Kent. From the 1460s he was also renting Hoo before he actually inherited it. As well he might because it
was only 30 miles from London. But despite this Norfolk was
still the base for the family. And Sir William's son
and heir, Thomas Boleyn was probably born at Blickling in 1477. When at the age of 20, in 1497,
he married Elizabeth Howard, it's likely that his
father William moved out of the ancestral seat at Blickling and made his principal
residence at Luton Hoo, leaving Thomas, his son and
heir and his new wife, Elizabeth to preside at Blickling. And we kind of know this
because when Henry VII went on a big progress to Norfolk in 1498, it was Thomas who
received him at Blickling and not his father. And Thomas lived at Blickling
for most of the period between 1497 and 1505. And this means that it was there, in around 1500 that their
daughter Anne was born. Now, one of the features of English country aristocratic
life was the centrality of the parish church. English aristocrats
didn't want to be buried in distant Abbeys or cathedrals like their French counterparts. They wanted to be buried
and indeed baptized in their own proprietary churches, which were almost always
adjacent to their houses. And it was thus in this
font in St. Andrew's church next to Blickling hall that Anne Boleyn was almost certainly baptized. In a church that contained
the burials of her ancestors. And when you go there, the
church is normally open. When you visit the house
you can see the brasses of Anne's ancestors in the chancel. In 1501, the aging Sir William Boleyn granted Hever and his
other Kentish properties to some trustees for his lifetime to hold for his daughter in law,
Elizabeth after his death. And so in 1505, when sir William died, Elizabeth Boleyn, Thomas's
wife, owned Hever, and Thomas, her husband owned Luton Hoo. Thomas was also left
eight manors in Norfolk, but he was required to
pay his mother a pension, and allow his mother to
continue living at Blickling for the rest of her life. And as his mother outlived him Thomas's residence at Blickling was over. Well in 1505, when he comes
into all this property, Thomas was 28 years old. He was already a figure
at the court of Henry VII, and was well positioned
in 1509 to rise rapidly in the service of Henry VIII. He became a favored
companion of the young king in the tilt yard and in the hunting field. And in due course, he
became one of the king's most trusted diplomats, and in this role spent considerable time abroad. In 1519 he spent a year at the court of Francis I of France, and he followed that with his attendance at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which you see in the famous painting here in which he was a very important figure. Thomas was in France again, 1521 and 1527. And in 1522 to three, he was in Spain as the King's ambassador. Now, during some of this
time, when Thomas was abroad, it is possible that
Elizabeth and her children stayed at Hever. This would make a lot of sense. It's very close to the coast
and it's close to London. It's complete speculation, but it does seem that in
the early 16th century, there were some improvements made at Hever that would have made it more
comfortable for Elizabeth and her young children. The medieval house, and
the first floor had, this is just another random
building with a crown post roof but had exposed ceilings
with these crown post roofs. These may have looked very handsome but by the reign of Henry VII
they were very old fashioned. And therefore the family
rooms at Hever was sealed over with plaster ceilings,
making the house more modern and presumably warmer. But Hever was very small. The castle essentially
had a single principle first floor suite of rooms. And by the time Elizabeth inherited Hever she had three young children. Mary born in 1499, Anne in
1500, and George in 1504. Now of course the
children of noble families were often farmed out to wet nurses, and later put into the households of their social superiors, which of course is what happened to Anne. But in 1505, Anne was five, Mary was six, and George was only one. And we can have expected
them, have all to be living with their parents, with their
nurses and other attendants. And together with the household servants of Thomas and Elizabeth,
it's a bit problematic to regard Hever as being large enough to be the principal family home. And indeed it need not have been because in 1515 the Boleyn's finally came into
Thomas's mother's estates. Because if you remember Sir
William had married the co-heir of Thomas Butler, the
seventh Earl of Ormond, and when he died in 1515, two of the largest houses in Essex fell into the Boleyn property portfolio. New hall, near Boreham, and Rochford Hall, near Rochford in Southend. So these are the two Essex
houses that they got in 1515. Now the manor of Rochford had been owned by James Butler, Earl
of Wiltshire and Ormond who had forfeited it after
being on the wrong side in the battle of Towton in 1461. His brother, Thomas succeeded
in getting the title and the estates restored
to him in Henry VII's first parliament, and Thomas then went on to have a very successful career at court, serving as Elizabeth of
York's Lord Chamberlain, and then from 1509 as Chamberlain
to Catherine of Aragon. And he used Rochford Hall extensively, living there much of the time. It was a substantial house. Today, it is a golf club and visiting it made me almost
want to take the sport up, but perhaps not quite. It's in a very beautiful position. And as with Blickling and Hever, the church can be seen from
the windows of the hall. And Thomas Butler rebuilt
the West tower of the church, here are his arms over the door, proclaiming not only the
status of the church, but also the links between
the house and the church, which I've already talked
about at Blickling. Now, unfortunately the
surviving remains of the house have been cruelly defaced by
fires, bombs, and philistines. And despite actually very
imaginative restoration in 1987, working out what we have
there is not that easy. And I think actually
that most of the house that remains today, postdates the Boleyns. And it was actually built
by the fabulously wealthy and appropriately named
Richard Rich in the 1550s. It is just possible that
this very charming chapel in the church was built by the
Boleyns as a private chapel. And it is possible that Anne herself was on her knees in there when she stayed. But looking at the plan of the house, and this is just very
schematic, you can see that if you were building a brand new house you probably wouldn't have
built a range out at that angle. And so it is likely
that what we have today in the golf club does
contain at its heart, the house lived in by the Boleyn's. This reconstruction that hangs
on the wall in the golf club, shows it in the 1550s. I don't think it was
as large as that then, but it was unquestionably a house of some size and importance. Now, Thomas who lives here had been made a Knight of the Garter in 1523. And this is his brass in Hever church. And you can see him
wearing his Garter robes, his Garter badge, very,
very proud of that. In 1525, his stock rising further still, he was created Viscount Rochford. His title wasn't Blickling,
which was his ancestral home. It wasn't Hever, which his
grandfather had bought, it wasn't Hoo, it was taken
from his grandparents' estate in Essex because it's
his grandparents' lineage that led to the title, as his grandfather on his mother's side, of course was the Earl of Ormond. But this was an Irish peerage, and although he sat in
the English parliament with a rather strange title, Thomas Ormond De Rochford Chevalier, it wasn't a proper English title. And so Thomas' creation as Lord Rochford was the first usage of
it in the English period. And this stepping stone
which he took from this house was the next step to his
elevation in December, 1529 to the hereditary title
of the Earldom of Ormond. And at this point, his son, George became Viscount Rochford. Now as well as Rochford
Hall, Thomas Butler had also been granted
the former Royal estate of New Hall, Boreham
in Essex by Henry VII, which actually was really
very, very close to Rochford. And he was granted a license
to rebuild it in 1491. Now we don't know exactly
what the Butlers built there, but when he died in 1515, New Hall passed to Thomas Boleyn. This was another very substantial house. This is a plan of it in the 18th century, and you can see by this
stage it had five courtyards. And certainly the core of the mansion here existed in Sir Thomas' time. But, by 1515, this is a
view of the entrance front, that's this front here. By 1515, the Boleyns really did not need another vast mansion. They already had Hoo, they had Hever, they had Rochford, as well as Blickling, and a house in London. Thomas was at Henry VIII
side the whole time, and he must have suggested that the king might be interested in seeing it. In fact the king had already seen it because he had stayed there
with Butler in August 1510. But in June 1515, the king
visited New Hall twice, each time staying for a couple of days. This was not only a fine mansion but perhaps much more importantly it was cited in the middle
of a well-stocked park. And it was probably this
that excited Henry VIII more than anything else. And so in February, the
following year Henry bought the estate from Sir Thomas
Boleyn for a thousand pounds, and immediately launched a
campaign of rebuilding it and refurnishing it. But turning this Boleyn
mansion into a royal palace was not the end of its
history in the Boleyn fold, because in 1528 George Boleyn, Thomas's son and Anne's brother was made keeper of the house, giving him a right to live in it when the king was not there. And so, although the house
had been sold by the Boleyns to Henry VIII, the eldest son was still allowed to live
there quite a good deal. And this good deal was
all part of the structure of keeperships. Keeperships of royal houses was one of the big perks of royal service. And in fact, Thomas Boleyn
also won a keepership in 1521. That year, the Duke of
Buckingham had been attainted and Penshurst Place had
fallen to the crown. Henry granted the keepership of the house to Sir Thomas. Henry visited in September, 1538, but otherwise the house was
just left to Boleyn to live in. And it is likely that he resided there. And there's the great hall
that he would have known very well because if you
go into Penshurst Church, next door, you will find this little brass which is a brass to one of Thomas' sons, a little boy called Thomas,
who died at Penshurst, and was buried in the Sidney chapel in the church of St.
John the Baptist there. So by 1521, the Boleyn's had reached the pinnacle of their wealth. Let me just recap for a moment and you'll see how they amassed an extraordinary number
of important houses. So Geoffrey Boleyn buys
Blickling and Hever, and he marries into Hoo. His son, William marries into
a family and gains Rochford and New Hall, as well as a Hever and Hoo, and of course Blickling that
remained his family home. Thomas has through his
mother, has New Hall, and Rochford, in addition to Hoo. He gains Penshurst from Henry VIII, and he gets Hever through his wife. And of course his brother James
Boleyn still has Blickling This land, this property
was very much the background to their lives. These estates pumped
cash into their pockets. The great houses were places
to entertain and to hunt. But Thomas, when he was
not traveling the continent was required to be almost
continually at court. In Christmas 1514 for example,
the whole Boleyn family were involved in celebrations at court, including George, Thomas' elder son, who was then a paige to the king. Sir Thomas became
treasurer to the household, and to fulfill this duty,
he had to live in London. He had a house in London
but much more importantly, he had lodgings at court. In fact, when you look through
the royal building accounts you can work out that Thomas
and Elizabeth had lodgings at the following royal
palaces, Hampton court Richmond, Greenwich, where Thomas' rooms were directly beneath
the king's privy chamber. At Windsor, at Woking, at
Woodstock and at Whitehall, where the Boleyn's as we
shall hear in a second were amongst the first courtiers
to have lodgings there. In fact, Thomas and Elizabeth had lodgings at whichever house the
king was staying at. So now we need to turn to Anne. Anne, I hope as I have shown
was no country bumpkin. When she made her entry into
the English court in 1521, she'd lived in France for seven years. She had parents who had access
to three very large houses, as well as their hunting lodge at Hever, and lodgings at court. Her sister, Mary was the king's mistress, and her father was one of
the king's best friends. Fluent in French, a graceful dancer, she could play several
musical instruments, she knew about books, clothes, and art. She was strong-willed
and she was opinionated. Added to this she came from an extremely worldly wise family, and we've
seen that she was brought up by parents who were heavily engaged in property transactions,
state management, and building projects. She was used to moving
from one house to another, with different residences being used at different times of the year. And as Henry VIII's
passion for Anne developed, they faced a problem. Catherine of Aragon held
all the architectural cards. It was very easy for her to exclude Anne from the royal palaces. Nevertheless, Anne gradually
acquired her own base, independent from her parents
inside Henry VIII's houses. As early as May, 1527, only a year after the
king's infatuation began, Anne had her own independent
lodgings at Greenwich Palace, Henry's principal residence. By March the following
year she had her own rooms below the Kings at Windsor Castle. And in 1531, the King
bought a farm near Greenwich for Anne, perhaps as a
place for hoped for trysts. But all this was very unsatisfactory. And so Henry asked Wolsey to arrange for a separate residence for her. Now we don't know what Wolsey suggested, but Anne, strong-willed and clear-minded, didn't like his suggestion, preferring to make her own arrangements and renting the house of another courtier. Again, we don't know which house this was, but the King found it embarrassing and told her that it wasn't right that he should visit his lady lodged in the house of a servant. Nevertheless, Anne was set up
in an establishment of her own in the city of London. These very elaborate and
complicated arrangements that had to be put
together for Henry and Anne to live in the same place,
meant that they both longed for a place of their own. And in 1529, it became clear that this was going to be York Place. The house of Cardinal Wolsey. Of course, the building
that was renamed Whitehall, after Henry VIII took it over. On 22nd of October, 1529, Wolsey surrendered all
his property to the king, and just two days later,
Henry and Anne Boleyn accompanied by her mother, Elizabeth arrived by barge at York Place,
at the landing stage here. So they came down the river. This is Whitehall Palace, but
the core of it's York Place, arriving at this landing
stage, and inspected the house That's December, Henry and Anne spent Christmas together at Greenwich. We know because we have
the royal building accounts that the royal architect, James Needham was summoned to their chambers, and closeted away with the royal couple, Needham, helped them conceive an astonishingly ambitious
building project. It was for a huge new palace, which you more or less
see on the screen here, which didn't only contain
vastly enlarged royal lodgings, but a recreation center
and extensive gardens. Next to this would be a hunting park, which you can see the beginnings of here, and sited in the hunting park
was to be a satellite palace, St James' Palace, just off the screen in the top left hand corner here, which was destined to
be the future residence of the son and heir that
they both felt convinced that Anne would bear the King. In October 1532 Anne and
Henry went to France together to meet King Francis I. During that visit, they
probably slept together for the first time, and back in London on
the 17th of December, when Henry made a visit of
inspection to Whitehall, he knew that Anne was pregnant. The royal lovers were at
Greenwich for most of that January but early on the morning of the 24th, Henry slipped into a specially prepared and newly matted barge with Anne, and a couple of attendants,
and made for Whitehall. They disembarked at this landing stage, which you see a
Elizabethan drawing of now, made their way through the
galleries, to the gatehouse, the Holbein Gate. And in this room above the
gate, finally, the knot was tied and Henry and Anne were man and wife. The choice of Whitehall was deliberate, and I would say, symbolic. This was a new start for the king, and a new start for the country. A new queen, a male heir and
a modern up to date palace replacing the ancient
palace of Westminster. Soon, Anne was not just
wife, she was queen. This meant that she needed to
be provided with a jointure. Now a jointure was a portfolio of estates that yielded an income for the queen, because the queen had a
completely independent stream of money from the
king and from the state. She also needed a completely independent suite of houses because as the king moved on his own itinerary round the country, so the queen moved on hers. And so this jointure really
contained two things, land for investment and buildings, houses that she would actually use and live in. And this was standard
practice for a queen consort. What queens did when they
were assigned their jointure is they would then establish a council, or a commission of advisors. And the queens council would then manage the jointure lands, the lands that were kept
for the queen's income in her interest. Now, Anne was given a number
of grants of property, and in April 1533, all
the estates and houses of Queen Catherine were given to her. And what I just did was I
literally just took a photograph of the calendar for the year 1533. So this is the summary
of the original document which lists the manors
that were transferred from Catherine of Aragon to Anne Boleyn, and this is just one page. So a vast amount of land
transferred to Queen Anne as her jointure. And at that moment, Anne actually became a greater land owner than Catherine, and in fact, a greater
landowner than any other of Henry VIII queens. And her income at this
point was probably greater than any other member
of her family so far, and that is saying quite something. So Anne, as was traditional,
immediately appointed a council instructions were given
a very specifically to survey all these lands. So she immediately commissioned surveyors to go out and visit all these properties, and to review the terms
of every single lease, and every single rental. Anne was no back seat driver, this young woman we must remember was born into a family
whose wealth and status was built on the careful
husbandry of property. She personally considered the
terms of many of the leases, and we know that in 1534 to five, they yielded her an income of 5,056 pounds, 16
shillings and 11 pence. This actually and amazingly was more than she spent that year
putting her personal accounts into surplus. This is the end of the
story of the Boleyn estates. Father, daughter, brother,
and uncle between them we're now one of the richest
families in the kingdom. They had reached the
pinnacle of the social order. Anne as queen lived up to the
reputation of her ancestors as an acquisitive exploiter
of land for wealth and status. She was also, and this is
a very important point, the last in the line of Boleyn women who made all the running. We've got to remember that
four generations of this family were made by marriage and by the estates, the status and the connections
that the wives brought. And there's a real sense
in which the Boleyn family was built by women. But tonight we don't end with that point, we end with the king. Because up until he fell
in love with Anne Boleyn Henry VIII was not very
interested in building. Certainly he owned many properties, he inherited more than 20
from his father Henry VII. But if you look at the building works in the first part of Henry VIII reign, they're all to do with the interests of a teenage aristocrat. He's interested in tilt yards. He's interested in castles. He's interested in building
a factory to build armor. He's interested in stables for his horses. In no sense was he a great
patron of architecture, or a monarch who was
interested in building for its own sake. It was only with Anne at his side that he first embarked on a
major architectural project. And of course, Henry VIII later became one of the greatest royal buildings ever. At his death in 1547,
he owned over 70 houses, and had spent probably more
than one million pounds in Tudor money on building
and furnishing them. And Whitehall, which became one of the largest palaces in Europe and was the headquarters
of the English monarchy for 150 years was
conceived as much by Anne as it was by Henry. And in this way, it became the greatest of all the Boleyn houses. Well next time, on November 4th, I shall be talking about the Cecil family, a family who rose to
enormous wealth and success through an entirely different route. But for now we have some questions. - Thank you very much
for a wonderful lecture this evening Simon. I do have a few questions
from the online audience. The first asks, aside
from the fact that Thomas most likely enlarged Blickling, given the relatively small size of Hever, are there any thoughts
as to whether the latter could have been more of a hunting lodge, or was it indeed seen as
another primary residence? - Well, that is a very good question because of course one of
the really wonderful things about Hever, and I guess
many people who are listening have been there, is that
you walk into a building that is recognizably the
building that the Boleyn family, and Anne herself would, if they were to come back alive today would entirely recognize. But as I did make the point it was and is a very small house. And I think it's impossible really to imagine it being a major residence. I think the questioner is
right, it was a hunting lodge, but it was also very, very useful at the period when Henry and Anne were in this very tricky relationship where the king was married,
she had to preserve her honor, she couldn't be seen to
be giving into the king. It was very close to Greenwich. It was the closest of all the
Boleyn houses to Greenwich, and Henry VIII was able
to arrange his itinerary so he could ride out from Greenwich and be in the vicinity of Hever. Hever very small, you couldn't
have a lot of servants there. So it's actually very private. And so it was sort of
the ideal place, really, if you were going to be having a slightly illicit affair with somebody because if you had gone to
Hoo, or you'd gone to Rochford, it would be stuffed full of
dozens, hundreds of servants, and it would all have been very public. So yes, I think the questioner is right, it was a hunting lodge. But it was also a very
important part of the jigsaw of Henry and Anne Boleyn's courtship. - Thank you. Our second question is
about Thomas Butler. And the question is did Thomas Butler have any links to Ireland? - Oh yes, he absolutely did. He was an Irish peer and his principal lands were in Ireland. And in fact there was a a
huge, long running dispute about his title because
there was another branch of the family who felt
that they should inherit the Earldom of Ormond. And it was only after a tremendous wrangle and a lot of time and
effort and legal cases that Thomas eventually
became the Earl of Ormond. And as I said, that Irish
title was then translated actually into an English one, and for the first time
it became an English one, but the family was Irish, absolutely. - Thank you. How do we know which room
Henry and Anne were married in as the sources appear to
say just at Whitehall? - Oh, no I think the sources
do say a bit more than that, and I think we can be
pretty sure that the room that is described is the
room in the Holbein Gate. And if you read my excellent
book called "Houses of Power" now in paperback, very
reasonably sold all Waterstones, you will see the evidence set
out, including the footnotes, and you can check for yourself whether you agree with me or not. - There's a further question about Hever. As Hever was eventually
given to Anne of Cleves, I'm always intrigued as to
why it wasn't necessarily one of her favorite houses. Was there a reason for this,
was it to do with its design? Was it not considered modern by then? - Yes, well, of course this
is a very interesting point that Hever is eventually sold to the king and the king then makes
it part of the jointure of Anne of Cleves. So it's handed onto
another one of his Queens. And the Boleyn estates in Kent we're not just the manor of Hever, there were a number of
other manors attached to it. And so as it went to Anne of Cleves, it wasn't just the castle that we know, it was a number of other
manors attached to it. So it's quite a valuable gift. I'd spent quite a lot of time actually looking at the evidence
for Anne of Cleves, how much she used that house. And actually, I think she used it quite a lot more than we we think, there are quite a lot
of letters dated there. And there has been a German scholar who has been looking at some
of the letters in Cleves itself which she wrote to her brother, and quite a lot more of those
are dated at Hever castle. So I suspect that Anne of
Cleves probably used Hever a bit more than we currently imagine. - This is rather a larger question. - Oh golly.
(laughs) - Could it be said that
Henry only married Anne for fixing relations with France? - Oh gosh, I don't know. That's an interesting, a
very interesting question. I think he married Anne
because he wanted a male heir, and because she was an
incredibly attractive woman. And I must say having
spent quite a long career looking at Tudor buildings, particularly royal buildings
in the royal court. I kind of fancy the thought
of Anne Boleyn as well. I mean, she was clearly
quite an amazing person. Quite sort of magnetic. So I don't think there
were sort of macro global political motivations behind it. Unquestionably behind it
was this very strong sense that God was punishing him for a marriage that was contrary to
the book of Leviticus. That the reason he couldn't
have a son was because there was displeasure from on
high, and that had to be fixed by marrying someone who was legitimate, and hopefully would produce a son. But of course they didn't know about genes and you know, that's really
what the problem was. - And the final question,
what actually happened to the estates upon
Anne's fall from grace? - Well, what is interesting is that, well first of all, Anne's
own personal estates obviously finito they
just go back to the crown. That is what happens with a queen consort, they revert to the crown and
then they're granted out. In fact, many of Anne's
lands were granted out to subsequent queens, not as
many, but many of them were. Her brother, George, of course,
is implicated in her fall, he loses his head, and so there
is no male heir for Thomas. But in fact, Mary gets Rochford
and she has Rochford Hall, but Thomas and Elizabeth
they retain their estates and the Boleyn family
retain most of the buildings that we've been talking about. And gradually over the
years they are alienated and sold to various other people. And of course, each of the
houses I have talked about were subsequently bought
by other great aristocrats and extended and enlarged, which of course gives
people like me a job to do, to try and work out what
they were actually like in the 1520s. - That's great, Simon,
thank you very much. I also wanted to thank our audience for your attendance this evening. We're very grateful to you. We do apologize for the technical issues in the middle of the stream. In spite of intense testing today we're still obviously encountering
some teething problems. So thank you very much
for your patience with us as we work to resolve those. We will be sending you a link to the video and transcript very soon. Please do join us tomorrow for a lecture on radio in
the 78 era, 1920 to 1948. And that's being presented
by Jeremy Somerly, our visiting professor of music history. Good evening.
