Chapter 1: How did the Boleyn family rise from humble beginnings?
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We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. Hi, folks. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. It's that Berlin girl. Her childhood home is a place of pilgrimage.
The site of her execution receives flowers every year on the anniversary of her death. Her fans tattoo their bodies with a design of her creations. Blind, uncontrollable passion for Anne Boleyn drove a king to upend the politics and the religion of Western Europe. And it seems that even after 500 years, many of us are still captivated. And it's not just Anne Boleyn.
Her sister was a lover of the king, her children possibly royal bastards. Their forebears also are an intriguing story of social and economic advancement in the late Middle Ages, proof that merit and luck could take you from the village to the palace.
And for all those reasons, that is why the House of Boleyn has come to symbolise a story, a Tudor story of ambition and talent and sex and intrigue and hubris. We've got Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, 1533 to 36. She helped to transform the religious settlement in Britain and beyond. She paid for it with her life. But Anne's story did not begin at the royal court.
It began generations earlier with a hat maker in Norfolk with big dreams. He was called Geoffrey Boleyn. And he was a sort of artisanal worker. He turned to merchant and he was a merchant. He did very well. He became Lord Mayor of London and he bequeathed his fortune to his heirs. And among those heirs was his great grandson, Thomas Boleyn. He was a courtier.
He mastered the dangerous dance of Tudor politics and he helped his family rise through that talent and his usefulness to his sovereign. And he built up a web of powerful alliances. And eventually he discovered that his daughters were his most potent weapons. Today we're going to talk all about that, folks.
We're going to talk about the rise and fall of the House of Berlin, how they got to the very apex of political power, and how in the glittering but deadly well of Henry VIII's court, that ambition, that soaring arc of success, led to their ruin. We have got a fabulous guest to talk us through this wonderful story, to help us navigate through the perilous world of the Tudor court.
We've got Philippa Gregory. She is a celebrated novelist and historian, best known for her vivid portraits of women in history, particularly those of the Tudor and Plantagenet eras. She has written the iconic books like The Other Bowling Girl and The White Queen. But she's not just an astonishingly good novelist. She has got a PhD in 18th century literature. So she knows what she's talking about.
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Chapter 2: What role did Thomas Boleyn play in the family's ascent?
And then they promote you to a civic position. And the position of being Lord Mayor of London is, of course, very grand because London is, as it were, a separate political and civic place. almost principality. So you get to hobnob with the court, and that's really your big rise.
You're an aristocrat of trade, I suppose. So you're not a member of the old martial aristocracy, and you haven't risen up through the church, but you can do it through trade and money in London.
Yes, particularly London. I would think any big... City, you could rise in civic terms, but London is really because you're right next door to Westminster and you have lots of hobnobbings with the king and you have a lot of influence in parliament because you're co-cited fundamentally. And then what the Bolins do is, for two generations, they marry very well.
So they marry into the old Norman families.
Yes, because they're penniless. They need the cash.
Yes.
Well, I wouldn't say penniless. I mean, they own half of England. But what they really don't mind is new money and this authority coming in. And anyway, it's only their daughters. It's not their sons they're giving away. So basically, the Boleyns then marry, I mean, ultimately the Howards, but also into the Ormonds aristocracy.
So that's how you get, when you get to Thomas Boleyn and Boleyn's father, you get this chap who's got a very wealthy background on his own account, and he's got a very posh wife and a very posh mother. And so he's got these aristocratic connections, but he's not the oldest son of an ancient noble house. He's not got that sort of
background, but what he has got is the confidence of a man who earned his own money and is married well. And of course, he then moves into the diplomatic service, which is the absolutely classic sideways step. So you become important at court.
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Chapter 3: How did Anne Boleyn's marriage to Henry VIII change the Boleyns' fortunes?
But say Thomas Cromwell had risen, he would have been reporting to Thomas Cromwell about overseas trade and overseas responsibilities. It remained minor but significant.
Yeah. Thomas Boleyn, as you've said, marries into the Howard family. Again, it's on both sides, as we talked about. He gets her kind of aristocratic pedigree. She marries a refined gentleman with lots of money. So it sort of works on both sides.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And also she brings with her property. So they have by then Blickling Hall. They buy Hever Castle later. It's a reasonable match and it happens. We're very familiar with it throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries when you see trade getting aristocratic ambitions and values from marriage and where you see aristocrats topping up their wealth through trade.
But there isn't that snobbery about it, I think, in this century in the way that there is later on. So there's a real acceptance that this makes complete sense for the two of them. And they seem to be quite happily married. There's no great scandal. And they have three children, George first, and then Anne or Mary subsequently. We're not even now entirely convinced which girl comes first.
And in my opinion, it's an historical fact, which would be nice to know, but it's not an historical fact that would make any difference to the story.
So he's got his wife, he's got a family, he's climbing.
He is. And of course, the white hot hope is George, who is the eldest son of this combination of aristocracy and wealth, whose father is a diplomatic court, who is young and handsome and fit and makes sure that he buddies up with the young Henry VIII. and jousts with him and is one of the so-called minions, basically lads about all together.
And George is going to undoubtedly, as he gets older and more senior, take over a lot of the diplomatic roles. But he'll do it with a bit more heft behind him because his father was a diplomat before him and he's personal friends with the King of England. So there's this clear relationship upward trajectory of the Boleyns, which they expect to really finalise and complete and confirm with George.
So it's quite a big thing to get your son in the way of the king.
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Chapter 4: What were the challenges faced by Anne Boleyn as queen?
That's everything, yeah.
I can imagine that going on at the moment with young Prince George in some school in Windsor, various families hurling their children in his way.
Absolutely, and trying to figure out where he'll go to university to send their girls there.
Yes. Okay, so Thomas does well to get in that sort of inner circle, right? So Henry VII goes, oh yes, any nice young lads around court, feel free to play with my son Henry. That's how it works.
Yes, absolutely. And of course, because Henry VIII himself comes to the throne so very young, he's not very much guided by older, wiser heads. He's just picking the people who joust well and who he admires and who he likes. So some of his friends are very unsuitable.
But George is not a particularly unsuitable young man and is married quite young in his 20s to a maid of honour, to Catherine of Aragon. So she's at court as well. Her father's lands run alongside George's. They get her for a very, very, very cheap dowry because her father's not very astute. And he marries Jane Parker, daughter of Lord Morley.
So it's not that Henry VIII's eyes caught one Boleyn girl or the other one. He was actually friends with George first. They were jousting buddies.
Absolutely. And Mary Boleyn is at court as a maiden waiting to Catherine of Aragon. And then she's married to Henry's friend, another friend of Henry's at court, quite young also, while Anne is in France.
And George's closeness to Henry VIII is highlighted by the fact he's promoted, he's become a knight of the bath, and he takes part in the coronation festivities of young Henry VIII. So he's a very close buddy.
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