Today we’re diving into a topic I think the Tudors largely overshadow, vilify, or ignore in favour of certain other members of the family. And with the Boleyns, no-one really talks about George Boleyn.
The life of George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, isn’t as in the spotlight as much as his sister Anne, and I can trace a lot of the misinformation back to either The Other Boleyn Girl or The Tudors TV show with Jonathan Rhys Myers. Mostly it’s The Other Boleyn Girl. All anyone really knows about him is that he was put on trial and executed for a lot of naughty things. People only really remember the incest. What people don’t think about is, if his sister’s trial was false, could we not say the same of George? “Of course not,” these people cry, “George is a man and therefore one villain in his poor sister’s tragic tale of abuse of power and the shaming of women in history!”
We consider the story of George Boleyn as told in The Other Boleyn Girl as an accurate portrayal. There is also a lack of evidence for his life after his execution. That’s not to say there wasn’t anything left behind. Many fiction writers and screenwriters forego historical accuracy in the name of telling a good story.
This episode aims to investigate who George was beyond the trail we know him for. We’ll make use of contemporary sources to uncover this mystery. I never trust a Tudor court, not even a legal one. Not when it comes to people Henry VIII or Thomas Cromwell consider their enemies.
George Boleyn’s Trial Was a Sham
We’ll start with what everyone’s probably aware of, on some level. On Monday, 15th May 1536, a jury unanimously found George Boleyn guilty of incest with his sister and plotting to kill the king. He was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, later commuted to beheading. We also know that Thomas Cromwell, in a conversation with Eustace Chapuys, the Holy Roman Empire’s Imperial Ambassador, following the Boleyns’ deaths, he had gone to a great deal of trouble arranging the plot to remove Anne Boleyn through adultery and incest, suggesting he did so in order to assist an alliance with Spain.
Firstly, in 1536, Anne Boleyn’s miscarrying of a son coincided with Henry VIII’s infatuation with her maid-of-honour Jayne Seymore. She had to go.
Secondly, Cromwell admired both Anne and her brother for their “sense, wit, and courage”. He arranged the trials so that the jury would pre-judge the Boleyns guilty. The four men accused of sleeping with Anne had their trial on Friday 12th May. There was little evidence, and the jury found all four men guilty.
The Boleyn Trial
The Boleyns stood trial on Monday 15th May, Anne a few hours before George, and found guilty. Because of Anne’s supposed guilt, the jury couldn’t acquit George. Everyone who witnessed George’s trial, including Chapuys, thought it was a magnificent defence and the jury would acquit him. Chapuys reported that those watching were betting 10 to 1 for an acquittal, and the court chronicler Charles Wriothesley said that his evidence was a marvel to hear. George, it turned out, wasn’t in the country for most of the supposed instances of incest.
But the jury had been paid off. They found George guilty. George asked for his confiscated assets to pay off his debts so that no one would suffer from his death. He continued to stress about his debts whilst awaiting death. In fact, his distress was so acute that the Constable of the Tower, Sir William Kingston, wrote to Cromwell twice, begging him to help ease George’s conscience.
This, I think, doesn’t sound like the evil schemer we find in The Tudors.
George Boleyn Was Too Good at His Job
George Boleyn, we can hypothesise, was good at his job. In 1531, Henry VIII chose George to argue the case for royal supremacy over the Church, before the Church’s advisory body, Convocation. His attendance rate in Parliament was one of the highest on record in 1533, indicating his commitment to his duties.
And yet, he was just too good at his job. When he was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle, among the highest appointments in the realm, Cromwell wasn’t happy. We know this, because George wrote to Cromwell on 26 November 1534, expressing fury that Cromwell had undermined one of his orders made as Lord Warden.
Later, on 23rd April 1536, people expected George to receive the Order of the Garter. The honour went to Sir Nicholas Carew, a known opponent of the Boleyns. The very next day, Henry instructed Cromwell to set up a special commission looking into various treasons.
It didn’t take Cromwell long. On 2nd May 1536, he had George and Anne arrested. The day before, George was a principal jouster at the May Day joust. He was tried on the 15th of May and executed on the 17th of May.
A trusted advisor to Henry VIII, Thomas Wyatt, in his poetry refers to George’s wit, charm and intelligence. He also calls George proud:
Some say, ‘Rochford, haddest thou not been so proud
For thou great wit each man would thee bemoan
Since it is so, many cry aloud
it is a great loss that thou art dead and gone.
We can assume, based on how good George was at his job, that his proud nature may have caused Cromwell to consider him a thorn he needed to remove.
George Boleyn Sent His Sister Biblical Books Banned in England
But George wasn’t just a diplomat. He was an acknowledged court poet of considerable merit and was also much admired as a talented linguist and translator.
As part of his passion for religious reform, he translated two magnificent religious texts from French into English. He gifted them to his sister Anne with the dedication, “To the right honourable lady, the Lady Marchiness of Pembroke, her most loving and friendly brother sendeth greetings.” He also sent Anne Lutheran doctrine, a risky business, considering Henry VIII was still Catholic in all but name.
As of 1520, the English court was aware of and debated Martin Luther’s ideas for a reform, but Protestants were a religious minority and heretics under the law. The English Reformation began as more of a political affair than a theological dispute. The Reformation Parliament of 1529 to 1536 abolished Papal authority and declared the reigning monarch to be the head of the new Church of England.
George was a reformer. That’s never been in doubt. He often tag-teamed with Anne in spreading the influence of Luther’s Reformation. People equally credit both Anne and George with the ideas, though Anne had more influence through Henry’s infatuation with her. Despite his baptism and Roman Catholic upbringing, George did not repent his religious ideologies in his scaffold speech.
For George to have been executed for treason and incest, rather than his religious ideologies, suggests he was far too powerful an orator for Cromwell to remove that way. The defamation of his character, rather than his work as a diplomat, proves just how much his skills must have meant to the Court itself. We don’t remember George Boleyn as a diplomat or a reformer, just what Cromwell wanted us to believe.
George Boleyn’s Last Words
When George Boleyn’s execution was on the morning of 17th May 1536. He was in the company of four other men on Tower Hill. His scaffold speech exemplified his ability to wield words as a diplomat. It was also rather long. For us to know this, for a scaffold speech to have been recorded in as much detail as George’s, the crowd must have been near enough silent. This was not a normal state execution.
George’s scaffold speech skirted propriety. It was dishonourable to deny your guilt once the court of law declared you guilty. So, he begged forgiveness of anyone he might have offended. He begged God’s forgiveness, as he was a sinner deserving of death. And he spoke of his religious beliefs and passion for reform. He came close to denying his guilt:
“beware, trust not in the vanity of the world or the flatteries of the court, or the favour and treacheries of fortune”
Essentially, he would be alive if he hadn’t trusted his fortunes. Luck was against him, not his guilt. This was as close as anyone ever got to declaring their innocence once condemned to death. Up until this moment, many people were still convinced George was innocent.
Anne Boleyn’s execution two days later is more well-known. But for as much of George’s scaffold speech to have survived reveals that this was an intelligent man who had the favour of the people. He didn’t panic when he submitted his neck to the axe. His speech skirted the propriety of execution etiquette where he almost denied his guilt. George Boleyn was a diplomat whose luck had run out and someone higher up the food chain decided he was too dangerous to keep alive.
Conclusion
It seems rather foolish to condemn a man five hundred years ago based solely on the charges brought against him we know to be falsified. Yet we still consume the media based on these beliefs. We think them as real as everything else in the dramatizations.
We know for a fact that the Tudor dynasty was cut-throat when it came to preserving their dignity. There’s also evidence for Thomas Cromwell working to undermine anyone who stood in his way. We believe their accounts without checking for irregularities.
It might balk the Anne Boleyn supporters to present them with the evidence that George Boleyn hadn’t even been in the country at the time of the accusations. We know the trial was a sham intended to get rid of him. Cromwell had paid the jury off before they even entered the courtroom. It’s shameful to ignore it in favour of defamation of a character.
George Boleyn risked his life to send his sister illicit religious books. If he was renowned for his poetry and skill with the spoken word, he can’t have been the monster modern fiction makes him out to be. We can’t villainise all men because they’re related to an injustice against women. George Boleyn was a diplomat working to advocate for change in a system rigged against him. This was a time when men usually saw women as property.
The simple fact is, George Boleyn was a little too good at his job. And being too good at your job was a death sentence if it threatened the power of Thomas Cromwell. We know this; we accept this. So why don’t we believe this?
