The Anne Boleyn Collection II: Anne Boleyn & the Boleyn Family (26 page)

1. Figure 35
   - Anne Boleyn's falcon badge stone carving
   

Thomas Miagh 1581

Above Anne Boleyn's falcon badge is an inscription by Thomas Miagh which reads:

"THOMAS MIAGH WHICH LETH HERE THAT FAYNE WOLD FROM HENS BE GON BY TORTURE STRAUNGE MI TROUTH WAS TRYED YET OF MY LIBERTY DENIED-THOMAS MIAGH"

Miagh was imprisoned in the Beauchamp Tower, and, if we are to believe his inscription, tortured for his links with Irish rebels.

Charles Bailly 1571

This rather wordy carving is dated 1571 and reads:

"Principium sapientie timor Domini. I.H.S. X.P.S. Be frend to one. Be ennemye to none. Anno D. 1571. 10. Sept.

"The most unhappy man in the world is he that is not pacient in adversities. For men are not killed with the adversities they have, but with ye impacience which they suffer. Tout vient apoient, quy peult attendre. Gli sospiri ne son testimoni veri dell' angoscia mia. aet. 29. Charles Bailly."

Bailly was the Bishop of Ross's servant and a member of Mary, Queen of Scots's household. He was implicated in the Ridolfi Plot against Elizabeth I when incriminating letters were found on him at Dover in April 1571. He was racked and imprisoned in the Tower of London, but was released sometime around 1573.

The Gates

The Court Gate, through which Anne entered at her coronation and when she was arrested, is a bit of a disappointment. It is found outside the Tower on the river-side. Instead of having a plaque telling of Anne's entrance into the Tower and her first public kiss with Henry, it is sadly neglected; when I visited it had rubbish bags piled up against it. Instead, visitors are shown Traitors' Gate and told that that is where Anne Boleyn entered.

1. Figure 36
   - The Court Gate at The Tower of London
   

When Anne's daughter, Elizabeth, was imprisoned in the Tower on 18th March 1554 after Wyatt's Rebellion, she didn't enter by Traitors' Gate either. It was low tide, so she was taken to Tower Wharf. David Starkey comments on how terrifying her walk from the wharf would have been, She would had to have walked past the Tower menagerie, past a line of guards and under the Bloody Tower where she may well have seen, across the court, the scaffold left over from the execution the previous month of Lady Jane Grey.
¹²
Although some books state that Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Bell Tower, she actually stayed in the royal palace, just like her mother before her. Elizabeth was released from the Tower on 19th May 1554, the 18th anniversary of her mother's execution.

1. Figure 37
   - Traitors' Gate at the Tower of London
   

A Royal Fortress

When you visit the Tower of London, you may think of it as simply a tourist attraction, but it's not. The Tower is still a royal fortress and the Yeoman Warders, or Yeoman of the Guard, are not everyday people dressed up in silly costumes. In fact, it's a requirement that they be former senior non-commissioned officers who have served in the armed forces with an honourable record for at least twenty-two years, and who have received the Long Service and Good Conduct medal. Yeoman Warders were royal bodyguards in the past and their commander in chief today is still Her Majesty the Queen.

Ceremony of the Keys

The Ceremony of the Keys takes place every night at the Tower of London and has been going on for around 700 years.

At 9.53pm, on the dot, the Chief Yeoman Warder, wearing his long red Tudor watchcoat and bonnet, makes his way out of the Byward Tower to Traitors' Gate to meet his escort, a member of the Tower of London Foot Guards. They lock the main gates of the Tower, and also the gates of the Middle Tower and Byward Tower, to secure the fortress for the night.

As they make their way back towards Traitors' Gate, they are stopped in Water Lane by a sentry who says, "Halt, who comes there?"

The Chief Yeoman Warder replies, "The keys."

"Whose Keys?'" asks the sentry.

"Queen Elizabeth's Keys." replies the Chief Yeoman Warder.

"Pass Queen Elizabeth's Keys, and all's well." replies the sentry.

The party then makes its way through the archway of the Bloody Tower and to the Broadwalk Steps, where the Tower Guard and escort present arms. The Chief Yeoman Warders steps forward, raises his bonnet and proclaims "God preserve Queen Elizabeth". "Amen", replies the Guard as the bell strikes ten o'clock. The Last Post is then played and the Chief Yeoman Warder takes the keys to the Queen's house.

The only known time in history when the ceremony has been interrupted was during the Second World War. During an air raid, incendiary bombs fell on the guardroom as the Chief Yeoman Warder and his escort were walking through the Bloody Tower archway. They were unhurt and simply dusted themselves off and carried on with their duty. They were simply late that night completing the ceremony and even wrote to King George VI apologising for the delay. The King did not mind!

Members of the public can apply for tickets to attend the ceremony at the Historic Royal Palaces website.

Notes and Sources

1 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 175.

2 Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn.

3 Ross, "Winchester Castle."

4 Russell, "May 17th 1536 - Deaths on Tower Hill."

5 Bell, Notices of the Historic Persons Buried in the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula in the Tower of London, 21.

6 Ibid., 26.

7 Bell, Notices of the Historic Persons Buried in the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula in the Tower of London, 30.

8 Freeman-Mitford, Lord Redesdale, A Tragedy in Stone and Other Papers.

9 "Red Roses for Anne Boleyn."

10 "Tower Green."

11 de Lisle, The Sisters Who Would Be Queen, 114.

12 Starkey, Elizabeth:Apprenticeship, 143.

19.
Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn, Parents of Anne Boleyn

I recently read a comment on a Tudor history Facebook page which really got me thinking, as well as causing me to bang my head on my desk. The writer was of the opinion that Thomas Boleyn did not deserve to be buried in St Peter's Church in Hever; indeed, that he should have been buried in a field somewhere, in an unmarked grave, because of the "horrible things" he did to Anne and to George. I considered these to be incredibly harsh words, but it made me think that perhaps this was the general perception of Thomas Boleyn, father of Mary, Anne and George.

I decided to carry out a bit of an experiment on Facebook and Twitter to see what people thought of Thomas. Obviously, you have to bear in mind that Anne Boleyn Files followers are Tudor history lovers with some knowledge of the Boleyns rather than people who know nothing about the period. Even so, the general consensus was that Thomas Boleyn was an awful man who forced his daughters into their relationships with the King so that he could rise at court. There were a few comments giving him the benefit of the doubt, but the comments below summed up the general perception and got "liked" by other Facebook members:

"Her father?! I don't like him at all. He seemed to only care about his position, his wealth, how much power he had. Did he care that 2 of his children were killed?! That one was disgraced?! I doubt it."

"Overly ambitious, not the best Father for pretty daughters…Yes I know it was the way of court to sell off your daughters to the highest bidder…however I think he took it toooooo [sic] far."

"I think he used his children for family advancement."

"He was very greedy and wanted power."

"Used his family to gain power. In the end, it destroyed his family."

"He was definitely a clever character, but I do not like how he treated the situation with his daughter Anne, when she was executed. To save his own life, he just let her die without a fight."

Although his intelligence is recognised, the comments are rather damning, don't you think?

I thought I'd try the same experiment with his wife, Elizabeth Boleyn (née Howard), and here are a few of the comments left:

"Don't know much about her...if she was a real mum I just can imagine the horror she went through."

"I think she was an intelligent woman; she saw that her children needed a good standard of educating in a day that it wasn't seen fit to educate girls."

"So little is known about her."

"She must have loved her children dearly because Anne said something like 'my poor mother will die of sorrow' upon learning of her execution."

"I feel for her. The execution of one child would be horrible enough, but having two of your children executed...I can't imagine the sorrow she went through."

"She isn't buried with her husband, so perhaps she never did speak to him again."

"Elizabeth seems like she was such a product of her times; very much the homemaker, handling things within the home."

"I don't think Elizabeth was without ambition either - after all, she was a Howard."

"I thought that Anne's mother had died when she was young and that Mrs Boleyn was her step-mother. I read that they were very close and had a loving relationship."

The comments about Elizabeth are much more sympathetic. People feel that Thomas was a cunning, manipulative, money grabbing man who prostituted his daughters and then abandoned Anne and George to their fate in 1536, and that Elizabeth Boleyn died of a broken heart and never forgave her husband. Great fiction, but is it really true?

Where do people get this kind of idea of the Boleyns from? Well, more often than not it is from
The Other Boleyn Girl
or
The Tudors
, so let's look at how this couple are presented by Philippa Gregory and Michael Hirst.

The Boleyns of The Other Boleyn Girl

In
The Other Boleyn Girl
, Thomas and Elizabeth always seem to be having family conferences with Elizabeth's brother, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk is the man in charge, the one pulling the strings; and when he says "jump", everyone else says, "how high?". It is then up to Thomas and Elizabeth to put these plans into place and to tell Mary, Anne or George what they should do to ensure the family's rise in status and wealth. Their children are like puppets, and every action they take has to be good for the family or woe betide them.

The Boleyns of
The Other Boleyn Girl
appear happy to prostitute their daughters and to use them to climb the ladders of success and wealth. We see Thomas Boleyn being created Viscount Rochford when Mary becomes pregnant by the King; yet when the King appears to be looking for a new wife, Thomas comments that he won't pick Mary because "she's had her heyday". Everything is just business to him, and he doesn't think about his children's feelings. In the book, Thomas Boleyn is quite a strong, intelligent character, but in the movie he is spineless and is completely controlled by his brother-in-law. Elizabeth seems the stronger of the couple.

Elizabeth is a cold, unfeeling character. When Anne confesses to secretly marrying Henry Percy and to consummating the marriage, her mother tells her to forget about it and to keep it to herself otherwise she'll be "whipped and sent to Hever". Elizabeth continues, saying, "I would rather see you dead at my feet than dishonoured....You make yourself hateful to us all." Not at all motherly and caring. She then forces Anne's sister, Mary, to forge a letter to Percy from Anne to break up the relationship, and comments that Anne and Mary need to be taught obedience. Elizabeth seems to lack all maternal feeling. When Mary misses her baby, Elizabeth just can't understand it. When Mary asks her if she missed her daughters when they were sent to France, Elizabeth is surprised by the question and answers that she simply did the best she could for her daughters; in her opinion, there was no better place than the French court. Her life revolves around supporting her husband in his bid to help the family climb the social scale.