On this day in history, 19th July 1543, Mary Stafford (née Boleyn, other married name Carey), wife of William Stafford and sister of the late Queen Anne Boleyn, died. She was survived by her second husband and her children, Catherine and Henry Carey.
We know so little about the sister of Anne Boleyn and her death is also a mystery – we don’t know how she died, where she died, how old she was when she died, or where she was buried. Very frustrating!
You can download a PDF report with clickable links to articles on Mary Boleyn and her children, Catherine and Henry Carey, along with a book list at www.theanneboleynfiles.com/pdf-reports/mary-boleyn/.
Two other important historical events happened on this day in history too:
- 1545 – The sinking of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s flagship, at the Battle of the Solent. Click here to read more.
- 1553 – Mary I was proclaimed queen in place of Queen Jane (Lady Jane Grey). Click here to read more.
Mary is indeed a mystery and she was relatively young when she died having survived her sister and brother by merely seven years, she was the sole heiress and Rochford Hall was left to her so therefore I think she and her family probably lived there and that’s where she could have died, has Rochford Hall got a family crypt? most manor houses did and that’s where the occupants were laid to rest, if not maybe they including her husband lie together in the local parish church, my ancestors were lords of the manor for generations in Buckinghamshire and they were all buried in the local parish church with inscriptions and some had a brass plaque with their images engraved like Sir Thomas Boleyn Mary’s father, I find it frustrating that Mary seems to have disappeared as she was the sister of the infamous Anne and every other member of her family have got a known resting place, what she also died of is a mystery, in those days they could sicken and die within a few days as we all know the medicines they had were only based on old wives remedies and invariably included blood letting with leeches, she could have had cancer or a stroke blood clot etc, or even a heart attack, unusual in a young woman unless of course she had a heart condition, guessing Anne’s age to be about roughly 35 when she died that would make Mary who was a bit older by maybe a year or to about 44 when she died, having been allowed to live her normal life span, yet 44 is not very old even in those days and as we have seen if you made it past babyhood and got to your teens then you could expect to live to your twenties, childbirth was the potential danger for women in those days so maybe she could have fallen pregnant and died in childbirth, whatever happened to Mary I doubt we will ever know unless some old documents lying somewhere in a church or attic are unearthed, wherever she is though I should imagine she’s at peace.