The Family of Mary Boleyn

The only other point of refutation is most clearly expressed by Fraser, which is that King Henry never showed any special acknowledgement or favour to Henry Carey, although he did acknowledge Henry FitzRoy as his illegitimate child. FitzRoy was the son of Elizabeth Blount, Henry’s mistress immediately before Mary. FitzRoy was in a far more favourable position because he was, in fact, the King’s first male offspring, and Elizabeth Blount was unmarried, so Chivalry alone would have required an acknowledgement. Having a son proved Henry’s potency, a great relief for Henry and an absolute necessity for a fragile dynasty of usurpers like the Tudors, and it did at least place in storage a potential male heir who could be legitimised later if all else failed. FitzRoy was later created Duke of Richmond in 1525[23] when it seemed unlikely that Henry would get a male heir from Catherine of Aragon. The real point is, though, that King Henry did not need a second illegitimate male heir, and there was no point in acknowledging one. That would have cost the King at least another title and a grant of land and property as well, and the King was notoriously stingy with his mistresses.[24] With this in mind, by itself the offhand treatment of Henry Carey does not really tell us anything as to whether King Henry was his real father or not.

But concerning Royal grants, William Carey was granted his manors and estates in June 1524 and February 1526, dates which coincide with Catherine’s and Henry’s births.[25] A reward for being a co-operative cuckold?

In any case, for our family history we are not concerned with Henry Carey, but with his sister Catherine Carey, for it is from her that we are descended. She was two years older than her brother and she definitely was born during the time that Henry’s and Mary’s affair was still very much on. Therefore Catherine’s claim to Royal lineage seems circumstantially better than her younger brother’s. The evidence in favour of this claim is thus the total of all the evidence in favour of Henry Carey’s fathering by King Henry, but with none of the possible detractions relating to her brother Henry. In addition to all of the documentary evidence already cited, it is very clear that it was widely accepted at the time, as shown above by Sir George Throckmorton and Vicar Hale being willing to risk a charge of Treason for saying so in public.

So where does this leave us? With evidence in favour and evidence against. This is the evidence in favour:

· Two contemporary statements – Throckmorton and Hale. To this must be added Henry Carey’s assertion of his own lineage, and the confidence of whomever put the child up to saying it.

· Henry’s admitting of the affair, admitted in his request for a Papal Dispensation in 1528, and in his Divorce Petition later. He admitted “affinity” and “consanguinity” with Mary Boleyn. This could have been refuted, or might not have been necessary, if there were no child resulting.

· The evidence of dates. Catherine Carey was born well inside the period of the affair. Henry Carey was born just at the end, and it is unlikely Henry would have allowed Mary any other lovers at the same time.

· On the evidence of dates, Catherine Carey is even more likely than Henry Carey to be King Henry’s child, since she was the firstborn.

· In the manner of the times, one would expect a cuckolded husband to be rewarded for his co-operation with substantial property, and this indeed happened to William Carey at times exactly coinciding with the births of Catherine and Henry Carey.

This is the evidence against:

· Two authors’ doubts, but without evidence.

· King Henry’s general disregard for Henry Carey, but see the text for reasons why this would be so. In any case, this argument impinges little upon Catherine Carey.

· General lack of primary documents, or hard proof to a high legal standard.

So, then, what do we conclude? What is my own estimation that we are Royal Bastards? I would say 60-80%, but no one will ever know for sure.

Everyone knows that King Henry rarely had a happy time in any of his six marriages, but as far as Mary is concerned, a more romantic ending would be hard to find. William Carey had died suddenly of the ‘sweating sickness’ in 1528.[26] Bad as that was, there was worse. After William’s death, his “ … offices reverted ‘in the King’s gift’. The King generously distributed these sources of income and Mary, his widow, was left destitute. Despite their relationship of several years, Henry felt no lingering affection, no obligation; he scarcely even remembered Mary.”[27] Hever Castle passed to King Henry by custom of the widower inheriting his deceased wife’s estate.[28] It was later given to Anne of Cleves in 1540, as part of her divorce settlement. No one can miss the irony in all that.

But in 1534, Mary sacrificed all – the rewards, the position, the honours, the intrigues – and re-married for love. For nine more years[29] she lived happily ever after. Her letter[30] to Thomas Cromwell comes straight from her heart. Pleading, in vain as it turned out, to be allowed back into Court after marrying William Stafford without family and Court approval, she wrote:

“But one thing, good master Secretary, consider; that he [Stafford] was young, and love overcame reason. And for my part I saw so much honesty in him that I loved him as well as he did me; and was in bondage, and glad I was to be at liberty; so that for my part I saw that all the world did set so little by me, and he so much, that I thought I could take no better way but to take him and forsake all other ways, and to live a poor honest life with him; and so I do put no doubts but we should, if we might once be so happy to recover the King’s gracious favor and the Queen’s. For well I might a had a greater man of birth and a higher, but I ensure you I could never a had one that should a loved me so well nor a more honest man… But if I were at my liberty and might choose, I ensure you, master Secretary, for my little time, I have tried so much honesty to be in him, that I had rather beg my bread with him than to be the greatest Queen christened. ”

That says it all.

Epilogue

Poor Mary and William must have felt like outcasts in 1534, and in 1536, her sister and brother were both beheaded. But, things improved from there on. The Boleyn family was all but wiped out, but on the death of the parents, Mary began to inherit property everywhere, and the State Papers[31] are full of grants, reversions, inheritances and other acquisitions. William Stafford actually made it back into Court circles, being one of the party of Gentlemen who received Anne of Cleves on her arrival in England.[32] One imagines he could not have missed the irony in that.

Henry Carey did extremely well for his position. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth shortly after her succession and created Baron Hunsdon shortly thereafter (January 13, 1558/9).[33] [He was, after all, the Queen’s half-brother, and this may well explain the Queen’s affection later in life.] He had a successful political and military career, if minor and unworthy of elevation, always corresponding with the Queen in affectionate terms,[34] and died on July 23, 1596, at Somerset House, the use of which the Queen had given him. She also paid the expenses of his burial in Westminster Abbey. Her Majesty visited him and laid on his deathbed the patent and robes of the Earldom of Wiltshire, last held by Mary Boleyn’s father. Her care and consideration, throughout his life, were most unusual; perhaps she knew she was addressing not her cousin but her half-brother? “Madam”, he said, “seeing you counted me not worthy of this honour whilst I was living, I count myself unworthy of it now I am dying.”[35] On Elizabeth’s death, his seventh son, Robert Carey, received the ring prised from the dead Queen’s hand and dropped from her window at Richmond Palace, and rode with it in two days to James I in Edinburgh.

Catherine Carey married Sir Francis Knollys (or Knowles), who became Treasurer of the Royal Household.[36] She died on January 15, 1568/9 at Hampton Court while in attendance on the Queen,[37] although it was suggested that her decease was caused by the prolonged absence of her husband in the North of England, where Elizabeth had entrusted him with the custody of Mary Queen of Scots.[38] She was buried at Royal expense[39] in St. Edmund’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey. Her memorial there is prominent, and in excellent condition, having obviously been restored in modern times, and is pictured following. An Epitaph was printed in broadside, a copy of which survives[40] and which is reproduced following. Considerable correspondence regarding a dispute over her hearse “fringed in silke and gold cushioned stools” remains in the Westminster Abbey Library.[41]

Catherine left seven sons and four daughters, one of whom, Cecilia, was a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth,[42] and another of whom, Anne, married Thomas West, Lord De La Warr. Of Anne’s marriage, the second but eldest surviving son Thomas West (1577-1618) inherited the title and became a founding member of The Virginia Company,[43] sailing there in 1610 with 150 settlers. One of Anne’s younger sons, John West, followed his brother, married a lady named Anne in Virginia, and began a line of Americans leading down to us.[44] So, in one generation, the struggle had changed from Court intrigues to pushing back the Frontier. One wonders if, out in the New World, they ever thought about the old family drama back in the Merrie Court of King Henry VIII.

H.A.F., December, 2001

	King Henry VIII Circa 1520, when the affair with Mary Carey began Unknown Artist, National Portrait Gallery, Catalogue 4690

Portrait of William Carey

In Henry VIII A European Court in England, Collins & Brown, 1991, David Starkey states, p.57: William Carey (c.1500-1528), a distant cousin through the Beauforts, became keeper of Greenwich Palace in 1526. A gentleman of the Privy Chamber in 1519, he married Mary Boleyn in 1520 and when Anne replaced her sister as the King’s mistress, seemed destined for greatness. But in 1528 he died of the sweating sickness.

This painting is identified by an Elizabethan copy [see next page] which includes the sitter’s coat of arms. The copy was made after the original [above] had been subjected to overpainting. Instead of a book, the copy shows him holding a pair of gloves and the dress becomes Elizabethan. These changes, removed from the present picture when it was cleaned, were made because (as the cleaning also revealed) the original painting had been left unfinished. Finally the cleaning uncovered an underpainting which resembles Holbein’s drawing of ‘M Souch’ [Zouche], p.101.

This underpainting, and the fact that the date of the sitter’s death coincided with Holbein’s departure from England at the end of his first visit, must lead to speculation that the painting was his, but despite the sensitive rendering of the face, an unknown French or Flemish artist (though not a Horenbout) cannot be ruled out. Artist Unknown, 16^th Cent., Oil on Panel, 790x660, private collection, and quotes J. Fletcher, A Portrait of William Carey and Lord Hunsdon’s Long Gallery, Burlington Magazine, 123, (1981), p.304; see References at end.

The Inscription reads: The Right Honorable Lady Katherin Knollys cheefe Lady of the Quenes Ma^ties beddechamber and wiffe to s^r Frances knollys Knight Tresorer of her Highnes Howseholde departed This Lyfe the 15 of Ianuary 1568 at hampton courte and was Honorably buried in the flower of this chappell. This Lady Knollys and the Lord Hundesdon her brother were the childeren of William Caree Esquyer and of the Lady Mary his wiffe one of the doughters and heires to Thomas Bulleyne Erle of Wylshier and Ormond, which Lady Mary was sister to Anne Quene of England wiffe to Kinge Henry the eyght father and mother to Elizabeth Quene of England   Quae Francisce fuit tibi coniunx en catherina Mortua sub gelido marmore Knolle iacet Excidet ex animo tibi mortua sat scio nunquam viva tibi semper amata fuit Illa tibi liberos sex et bis quinque marito Protulit aequalis faemina masque fuit Illa tecum multos utinam vixisset in annos Et tua nunc coniunx facta fuisset anus Sed deus hoc noluit voluit sed sponsa maritum In coelis maneas, O Catherina, tuum. Lo! Francis, Catherine Knollys your wife who lies dead under the frozen marble. Dead and removed from your soul she is never forgotten. While she was alive she was always loved. She bore you six and twice five children. Would that she had lived as many years as you and that she had lived to old age as your wife, but God did not want that. He wanted your bride to wait for you in Heaven. – Tr. Rosemary Jeffreys

The Arms on the Tomb are:[45]

Quarterly of Four, viz. 1^st and 4^th , Azure Crucilly, a Cross Moline, Or, voided throughout; Knollys 2^nd and 3^rd, Gules on a Chevron Argent three Roses of the Field: Impaled Quarterly of Sixteen, viz. 1. Argent on a Bend Sable three Roses of the Field; Carey. 2.Sable two Bars Nebule Ermine Spencer. 3. Quarterly, France and England, with a Bordure Gobony, Argent and Azure, Beauford. 4. Gules a Fess between six Cross Croslets Or, Beauchamp. 5.Chequie Or and Azure a Chevron Ermine, Warwick. 6. Gules, a Chevron between ten Crosses Patée Argent, Berkley. 7. Gules a Lion passant Argent crowned Or, Gerard. 8. Argent a Chevron Gules between three Bulls’ Heads, couped, Sable armed Or, Bulleyne. 9. Quarterly Sable and Argent, Hoo. 10. Or, a Chief indented Azure, Butler. 11. Argent a Lion rampant Sable crowned Gules. 12. Asure a Fess between six Cross Croslets Or. 13.Azure three Dexter Hands, couped at the Wrists, Argent, Malmains. 14.Ermine on a Chief Sable three Crosses Patée Argent, Walsingham. 15. Fretty Argent a Chief Gules. 16. Or, two Bends wavy, Gules Bruer. Crests: 1.an Elephant Azure attired Or. 2. a Swan rising, Proper. 3. a Bull’s Head couped, Sable, armed, Or. 4, A Maiden’s Head, Proper.

Dean Stanley, the authority on monuments in Westminster Abbey[46] says, in a section on Elizabethan Magnates: “…the reign of Elizabeth also brings with it the first distinct recognition of the Abbey as a Temple of Fame. It is a natural consequence of the fact that amongst her favourites so many were heroes and heroines. Their tombs literally verify Gray’s description of her court: -

Girt with many a baron bold,

Sublime their starry fronts they rear;

And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old

In bearded majesty, appear.

What Strings symphonious tremble in the air,

What remains of vocal transport round her play!”

“The ‘gorgeous dames’ are for the most part recumbent. But, as we have seen, they have trampled on the ancient altars in their respective chapels.” [Page 55 states that Catherine Carey’s memorial occupies the space where previously the Altar to St Edmund stood.] “…mural tablets, first of their kind, commemorate … the cousin of Elizabeth, Catherine Knollys, sister of Lord Hunsdon, who had attended her aunt, Anne Boleyn, to the scaffold.”[47] … “But the most conspicuous monuments of this era are those of Lord Hunsdon… Henry Cary [sic], Baron Hunsdon, the rough honest chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth, brother of Lady Catherine Knollys, has a place and memorial worthy of his confidential relations with the Queen… His interment was signalised by displacing the altar of the Chapel of St. John the Baptist. The monument was remarkable, even in the last century, as ‘most magnificent’[48] and is, in fact, the loftiest in the Abbey.”

Westmonasterium, Or, The History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St. Peter’s Westminster, two Volumes, John Dart, London, 1723, British Library Shelfmark 208.i.4.

Volume I, p.112, A Very good engraving of the Monument to Catherine Carey showing the English text clearly. It quotes the full Latin text and then says: “The Verse will make but a bald narrative translation, and signifies only that Catherine, once wife to Francis Knollys, lies dead beneath this cold marble: The Poet tells him, that as he lov’d her living, so he was well assured he could not forget her dead, &c.”

Page 187: A very good engraving of the tomb of Henry Cary (sic), Lord Hunsdon; pages 188-9 the Inscriptions.

	The Knollys Memorial, St Nicholas, Rotherfield Greys, Oxfordshire

According to Pevsner:

In the North chapel a vast and expensive free-standing monument with the recumbent effigies of Sir Francis Knollys and Lady Knollys and kneeling children around the sides. On a canopy over them are Lord William Knollys [ a son d. 1632] and his wife before a prayer desk. The monument is of alabaster and marble with much original painting and gilding. The effigies recline on fat embroidered cushions with the exotic heraldic symbols of an elephant and a swan at their feet. The vault of the canopy is decorated with pendants and rosettes and stands on six columns. In the centre are two arched supports with pilasters decorated with gold reliefs of musical instruments. The canopy has urns at the corners, and cherubs in proto-Baroque poses pointing to the kneeling figures. The treatment of the large effigies is stiff and conventional, but the carving of details such as the cherubs and the reliefs on the pilasters of the canopy is polished and accomplished. It is certainly not the work of a local mason and must be by the Southwark school of sculptors.

The Buildings of England, Oxfordshire, Jennifer Sherword & Nikolaus Pevsner, Penguin, 1974.

The chapel was added to the church in 1605 to house a monument of exceptional character and quality. The floor has its original tiles and the west and east facing windows have small inset ovals made up of fragments of early stained glass… The tomb displays reclining effigies of Sir Francis Knollys (1514-1596) and his wife Katherine (née Carey). … The second of Sir Francis and Lady Knollys’ sons, William, who subsequently became the Earl of Banbury, had the chapel built and the monument erected. He himself and his wife are to be seen kneeling at a ‘Prie Dieu’ on the canopy. Fourteen brothers and sisters kneel on either side of the base of the tomb. The eldest daughter wears the coronet and robes of a peeress. She was married first to Walter, Earl of Essex, and second to Robert, Earl of Leicester. The seven daughters are matched on the opposite side by seven sons. To the right of the mother Lady Knollys lies a sixteenth child that died in infancy.

Guide to the Church of St Nicholas, Rotherfield Greys, 1981.

The Epitaph of Catherine Carey Knollys, 1569, Huntington Library, California, Call Number 18322; Original size 8 x 13 ¾ inches. Reproduced with permission  

	An Epitaphe upon the worthy and Honorable Lady, the Lady Knowles.
Death with his Darte hath us berefte a Gemme of worthy fame, A Pearle of price, an Ouche of praise the Lady Knowles by name.	The vertues all, the Muses nine, and Graces three agreed, To lodge within her noble breast, while she in Earth did feede.
A Myrroure pure of womanhoode, a Bootresse and a stay, To all that honest were, she was I say both locke and kaye.	A head so straight and beautified, with wit and counsaile sounde, A minde so cleane devoide of guyleds, is oneth to be founde.
Among the Troupes of Ladies all, and Dames of noble race, She counted was, (and was in deede) in Lady Fortunes grace.	But gone she is, and left the Stage of this most wretched life, Wherein she plaid a stately part, till cruell fates with knife:
In favoure with our noble Queene, above the common sorte, With whom she was in credit greate, and bare a comely porte.	Did cut the line of life in twaine, who shall not after goe, When time doth come, we must all hence, Experience teacheth so.
There seemde between our Queene&Death, Contencion for to be, Which of them both more entier love, to her could testifie.	Examples daily manifolde, before our eyes we see, Which put us in remembraunce, of our fragilitie.
The one in state did her advance, and place in diginitie, That men thereby might knowe, to doe, what princes able be.	And bid us watch at every tide, for Death our lurking foe, Sith dye we must, most certainely, but when, we do not knowe.
Death made her free from worldly care, from sicknes, paine and strife, And hath ben as a gate, to bringe her to eternal life.	Som which to day are lusty Brutes, of age and courage ripe, Tomorrow may be layd full lowe, by Death his grevous gripe.
By Death therfore she hath receivde, a greater boone I knowe: For she hath made a chaunge, whose blisse, no mortall wight can showe.	Respect and parcialitie of persons is there none, For King, or Kaiser, rich or poore, wise, foolish, all is one.

She here hath loste the companie, of Lords and Ladies brave, Of husband, Children, frendes and kinne, and Courtly states full grave.	God grant that we here left behinde, this Ladies steppes may treade, To live so well, to die no worse, Amen, as I have saide.
In Lieu whereof, the gained hath the blessed companie Of Sainetes, Archangels, Patriarches, and Angelles in degree.	Then maugre Death, we shall be sure, when corps in earth is closde, Amonge the ioyes celestiall, our Soule shal be reposde.
With all the Troupes Seraphicall, which in the heavenly Bower, Melodiously with one accord, Ebuccinate Gods power.	F I N I S Tho. Newton.     Imprinted at London in
Thus are we sure: for in this world she led a life to right, That ill report could not distaine, nor blemish her with spight.	Fleetestreete, by William How, for Ri charde Iohnes: and are to be solde at his Shop under the Lotterie house.
She traced had so cunningly, the path of vertues lore, Prefiring God omnipotent, her godly eyes before:
And all her dedes preciselie were, so rulde by reasons Squire, That all and some might her beholde, from vice still to retire.

The only text of this ballad in the UK is transcribed in Ballads & Broadsides, chiefly of the Elizabethan period, and printed in Black-Letter, most of which were formerly in the Heber Collection and are now in the library [of S. R. Christie-Miller] at Britwell Court, Buckinghamshire, edited with notes and an introduction by Herbert L. Collmann, 1912, British Library shelfmark C.101.h.10. These were sold to the Huntington Library in California in 1924. Page 201: “Thomas Newton, poet, physician, and divine, a native of Cheshire, was born about 1512. He studied successively at Oxford and Cambridge. The DNB gives a long list of his miscellaneous publications, which include translations from classical and medical writers, as well as a quantity of contributed verse. He died in 1607. This Ballad was licenced to Richard Jones in 1568/9 (Arber’s Transcript, i, 385).” The Introduction states: “The Broadside poems … are … of an ephemeral character, and may be regarded as a creation of the sixteenth century fostered by the increasing popularity of the printing press, and with the newsletters sowing the seeds of modern journalism. …by the year 1560 there are said to be as many as seven hundred and ninety-six copies of Ballads stored at the Stationers’ Hall. Ballad writing offered an easy livelihood to a number of obscure and not too reputable rhymsters, few of whose names have survived. … Considerable profit attended the production of ballads, and this soon excited the envy and disgust of the better writers of the day… Their language closely reflects the opinions of nine-tenths of the population of London at the time of their issue.”

Дата добавления: 2015-08-05