Claire | June 22, 2022
On the night of 22nd June 1509, during the celebrations for the forthcoming coronation of King Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon, the king rewarded twenty-six men for their loyal service to the crown by making them Knights of the Bath. One of these men was Thomas Boleyn, father of Anne Boleyn, the woman […]
Joel Ridgway | March 12, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 12th March 1537, Cistercian monk William Haydock of Whalley Abbey, Lancashire, was hanged for treason at Whalley. Haydock’s abbey had been implicated in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace Rebellion, so Henry VIII wanted the abbey punished. Find out more about Whalley Abbey’s part in the rebellion, how Haydock and […]
Claire | February 18, 2022
One of my very favourite books on the Boleyns is Dr Lauren Mackay’s “Among the Wolves of Court”, a dual biography of Thomas Boleyn and George Boleyn, so I’m very excited to have Lauren as a speaker at my “Anne Boleyn, the Woman who Changed England” online event. REGISTER TODAY DOORS CLOSE 25th FEBRUARY Here’s […]
Claire | January 27, 2022
“How did Thomas Boleyn feel sitting in judgement on his children?” is a question that I was asked recently, and it’s one I’ve been asked before. But did Thomas Boleyn even sit on the jury that tried Queen Anne Boleyn and her brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford? Find out what history tells us about the […]
Claire | August 18, 2021
Episode 1 of BBC Two’s new three-part series on the Boleyn family – The Boleyns: A Scandalous Family – aired on Friday 13th August, and episodes 2 and 3 have already been released on BBC iPlayer. It is a wonderful series and well worth watching because it introduces a very different Boleyn family. Gone are […]
Claire | March 12, 2021
On this day in history, 12th March 1539, at the Boleyn family home, Hever Castle, Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, died. His servant, Robert Cranwell, wrote to Thomas Cromwell the following day to give him news of Wiltshire’s death, writing: “My good lord and master is dead. He made the end of a […]
Claire | November 7, 2020
In this latest edition of my Questions about Anne Boleyn series, I consider whether Anne Boleyn and her cousin, Catherine Howard, were pawns of their families and whether the Boleyns and Howards deserve to be blamed for their subsequent executions. Did Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn, and Elizabeth’s brother, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, force […]
Claire | July 2, 2020
On this day in Tudor history, 2nd July 1536, Thomas Cromwell, the king’s right-hand man, was formally appointed Lord Privy Seal. The previous holder of the office had been Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, who’d been stripped of the office following the falls of his children, Queen Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn, Lord […]
