George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford ( – 17 May 1536) was an English courtier and nobleman who played a prominent role in the politics of the early 1530s as the brother of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII. George was the maternal uncle of Queen Elizabeth I, although he died long before his niece ascended the throne. Following his father's promotion in the peerage in 1529 to Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond, he adopted his father's junior title Viscount Rochford (created in 1525) as a courtesy title.George was however created a baron in his own right between the period 1530 and 1533. G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage (vol XI, "Rochford", p. 51 & vol. IX, appendix B ("English baronies created by Henry VIII"), p. 18 "1530, Rochford") states that he "was Lord Rochford as early as 1530 when he was the second of the barones" (Latin) "who signed the letter to the Pope", and thus "presumably had some other form of creation" prior to his writ of summons to Parliament dated 5 Feb 1532/3 (vol. IX, appendix B, p. 18) – (which automatically creates the addressee a baron in the peerage). However it appears he never dropped the style Viscount in favour of the junior rank of baron, which would have been a humiliation He was accused of incest with his sister Anne during the period of her trial for high treason, as a result of which both were executed.
Early years and family
George was the son of Thomas Boleyn, later Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond, and his wife, Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey and future 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and his first wife Elizabeth Tilney. Therefore, on her maternal side, George was the nephew of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, and first cousin of poet, politician and soldier Lord Henry Howard, styled Earl of Surrey (his courtesy title as heir apparent to the Dukedom of Norfolk),"Earl of Surrey Henry Howard", A Dictionary of British History, (John Cannon, ed.), OUP, 2009 and Lady Mary Howard, wife of Henry VIII's illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, as well as Henry VIII's future fifth wife, Catherine Howard, daughter of George's uncle, Lord Edmund Howard. George and his sisters were probably born in Norfolk at his family's home of Blickling Hall. However, they spent most of their childhood at another of the family's homes, Hever Castle in Kent, which became their chief residence in 1505 when Thomas inherited the property from his father, Sir William Boleyn.
Thomas and Elizabeth had a number of children, including two sons named Thomas and Henry who failed to reach adulthood. Three children survived: Mary, Anne and George. There has been much debate over the centuries as to the age of the three Boleyn siblings, but there is general agreement that George was born c. 1504. This stems from a number of different sources. George Cavendish says in a poem that George was about 27 when he gained a place on the Privy Council in 1529. Cavendish gives this as a maximum age in order to make his tortuous verses more rhythmic (such as "thrice nine"). In addition to Cavendish's verses, foreign diplomats believed George was too young to be appointed as Ambassador to France in October 1529. Mary's date of birth is again generally accepted as being c. 1500 but there is some disagreement as to Anne's date of birth with arguments for 1501 and others for 1507.The current academic debate on Queen Anne's birth is focused on two very different dates: 1501 and 1507. See for the arguments favouring the earlier date and for arguments favouring 1507. However, following the executions of Anne and George in 1536 their father wrote to Thomas Cromwell and in his letter he stated that upon his marriage his wife gave him a child every year. As Thomas and Elizabeth were married between 1498 and 1499, if Thomas is to be believed this indicates that all five Boleyn children, including the two who failed to reach adulthood, were born between 1500 and 1504, and if we accept as the evidence suggests that George was born in 1504 this is persuasive evidence for suggesting he was the youngest Boleyn child. This is the current thinking of the vast majority of modern historians with only one notable exception.For arguments favouring George as the youngest child, see ; ; ; ; ; . For arguments favouring Mary as the youngest child see
Like his father, it was understood that George would have a career as a courtier, politician and diplomat. The monarchy was the font of all patronage and potential wealth and it was only through service to the Royal Family that a family could hope to achieve or protect their greatness and social position. With this in mind, George was introduced to Henry VIII's court at the age of ten, when he attended the Christmas festivities of 1514–15. He attended an indoor melee with his father and acted in a mummery with his father, and the much older Charles Brandon and Nicholas Carew. Thanks to his family's influence and the fact he obviously impressed Henry at an early age, he became one of the King's pageboys shortly afterwards.
Since learning was highly praised at Court and essential for a career as a diplomat, George received an excellent education, speaking fluent French together with some Italian and Latin. His two sisters are known to have been educated abroad (Mary from 1514 to 1519, Anne from the spring of 1513 to late 1521). George is thought to have remained in England throughout his early years, although George's first biographer suggests George may have spent time in France as a child when his father was on embassy from January 1519, as an explanation for how George could speak such perfect French from a young age, and why Anne and George remained so close during their formative years. However, this is pure speculation. Whatever the case, there is a long-standing tradition that George attended the University of Oxford when he was not in attendance at Court, although he does not appear in any of the University's records – a relatively frequent occurrence in the period before the English Civil War, when few of the aristocrats who attended either technically matriculated or graduated.
Personal life
Less is known about George's personal life than about his celebrated court career, but what is known is that he married Jane Parker sometime during 1524. They were certainly married by January 1524 because a note of that date in Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's hand confirms that an extra £20 a year had been awarded to "young Boleyn for him and his wife to live on".
There has always been much speculation as to whether the marriage of George and Jane was happy but there is no way to know for certain, as the state papers are virtually silent with regard to Jane. There is no mention of the couple having any children, which as the brother-in-law and sister-in-law to the king, there surely would have been had such a child existed. It had been thought that George Boleyn, Dean of Lichfield, may have been their son; but it is more likely that he was a distant cousin. There is no record of the couple having a child, and Jane makes no mention of a child for whom she is responsible when she wrote a begging letter to Cromwell following George's death. Jane's letter to Cromwell
Whether or not the marriage of George and Jane was happy, George had a reputation as a womaniser. George Cavendish, gentleman usher to Cardinal Wolsey, in his poetry entitled Metrical Visions lambastes the young man for his womanising, saying:
Yet in the same poem Cavendish, who was a staunch Catholic and hated the Boleyns and what they stood for, acknowledges George's good looks and charm, saying:
Thomas Wyatt in his poetry recognises George's "Great wit" (although wit in the 16th century could suggest that a person was witty and charming, it mainly meant intelligence, and it is George's intelligence that Wyatt was referring to.) Wyatt's verse with respect to George reads:
Historian David Starkey referred to George as having "many of Anne's talents and all of her pride".
For all George's good looks and talent, as can be seen from the above verse, Wyatt, who was a friend of the Boleyns, also says that George was too proud. Although Wyatt's poem is often used to suggest George was hated for his arrogance, there is nothing to support this. Despite George's pride, Wyatt acknowledges that at his death many considered his death to be a great loss. It may also be that the allegations of George's womanising are exaggerated, since there was no scandal surrounding the Boleyns' marriage, and none of the Boleyns' enemies felt that George's behaviour towards women was base enough to comment on. Likewise, neither Cavendish nor the Imperial Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, who was actively looking for faults in order to demonise the Boleyns, make any mention of him being particularly arrogant. Chapuys' only complaint was that George could not resist entering into Lutheran discussion whenever he was being entertained by him.
One modern historian, Retha Warnicke, believes that the men accused of being Anne's lovers were chosen because of ambiguity over their sexuality. This has led to an increasingly enduring myth that the men were charged with sodomy as well as treason. In fact, none of them was charged with sodomy, and there were no extant rumours of homosexuality relating to any of them.A schedule of the charges against the four commoners and the Boleyns are contained in the Baga de Secretis, in . Warnicke's theory was put forth in her 1989 biography of Anne Boleyn, but has been criticised by many other historians for lack of evidence to substantiate it.
However, more recently Alison Weir has resurrected the theory regarding George's sexuality by using the same arguments that Warnicke used 20 years previously. In addition to this, Weir also suggests that by his use of the phrase forced widows, Cavendish was insinuating that George was a rapist. As with the theory of George's sexuality, there is no evidence to support the notion that he was a rapist. If he had been guilty of the criminal offences of rape or homosexuality, and if Cavendish knew about it, then so did the rest of the court. Yet no one ever commented on George's supposed bisexuality, or even hinted at it, not even enemies of the Boleyns, such as Chapuys.
Metrical Visions are Cavendish's interpretation of George's scaffold speech, when George said he was "a wretched sinner deserving of death".There are many different versions of George's scaffold speech, but they all follow the basic contents. It can be found in Wriothesley's Chronicle, pp. 39–40, Thomas, The Pilgrim, pp. 116–117, Chronicle of Calais, pp. 46–47 and Constantine in Archaeologia 23, pp. 64–66. But the most detailed version of it is at Bentley, Excerpta Historica, pp. 261–265 Despite the current enthusiasm for believing that Cavendish was referring to homosexuality, his 16th-century interpretation was that George was apologising for his promiscuity, of which he may or may not have been guilty. To use Metrical Visions and George's scaffold speech as the lone pieces of evidence to support an argument for homosexual behaviour is problematic. The verses in Metrical Visions are based merely on Cavendish's interpretation of George's scaffold speech, with Warnicke and Weir solely re-interpreting George's final words on the basis of Cavendish's writings.
Appointments and career