The Rise and Fall of the Boleyns

Summary

Dan Snow's History Hit — The Rise and Fall of the Boleyns (May 25, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this compelling episode of Dan Snow's History Hit, acclaimed historian and novelist Philippa Gregory joins Dan to delve into the dramatic ascent and catastrophic fall of the Boleyn family at the heart of Tudor England. Their discussion traces the family’s origins from humble Norfolk roots through their meteoric rise in royal circles, culminating in Anne Boleyn’s queenship, her downfall, and the Boleyn legacy that continues to echo through history. With her trademark storytelling and insight, Gregory untangles the web of ambition, sex, intrigue, and shifting fortunes that made the Boleyns both icons and cautionary tales in British history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Origins of the Boleyn Family (05:09–08:52)

• Humble Beginnings: The Boleyns began as tenant farmers in Norfolk during the 1300s, becoming prosperous through sheep farming—a key medieval English industry.
  • Quote: “They start off in Norfolk as tenant farmers... What we know from them there is that they endow a few churches and they start to rise, they start to make money. Sheep farming.” — Philippa Gregory (05:21)
• Path to Prominence: The family rose via commerce and civic positions, especially Geoffrey Boleyn who became Lord Mayor of London, which provided a route to courtly influence.
  • Quote: “The position of being Lord Mayor of London is of course very grand because London is, as it were, a separate political and civic almost principality... so you get to hobnob with the court and that's really your big rise.” — Philippa Gregory (06:35)
• Strategic Marriages: Boleyns married into old noble families (e.g., Howard and Ormond), creating a blend of wealth and pedigree that supported their court ambitions.

Thomas Boleyn and the Royal Court (08:52–15:48)

• Courtly Ascension: Thomas Boleyn leveraged his wealth and connections, excelling as a diplomat and courtier. His children’s proximity to power—especially George Boleyn’s friendship with Henry VIII—was crucial.
  • Quote: “There's this clear upward trajectory of the Boleyns, which they expect to really finalize and complete and confirm with George.” — Philippa Gregory (12:20)
• The Role of the Next Generation: George Boleyn is poised as the family's best hope, forging close bonds at court, while Mary and Anne maneuver as ladies-in-waiting.

Anne and Mary Boleyn: At the Heart of the Drama (15:48–23:29)

• Anne’s Education & Style: Anne’s formative years in the French court gave her cultural sophistication that captivated English society upon her return.
  • Quote: “She learns French and she's brought up in this very, very cultured, very educated, pro reform of religion court in France... she walks in and everybody goes like, who's this new?” — Philippa Gregory (16:00)
• Intrigues & Affairs:
  • Mary Boleyn becomes Henry VIII's mistress with little public outcry. She has two children—possibly royal bastards.
  • Anne Boleyn distinctly refuses to become Henry’s mistress, instead staking everything on marriage—a move of “extraordinary ambition” (23:29).
• The Family’s Fortunes: Thomas Boleyn gains land and influence as his daughters attract the king’s favor, illustrating the link between sexual politics and political advancement.
  • Quote: “You see that he gets grants of lands firstly when Mary starts sleeping with Henry, and then he gets a big grant of lands when she has her baby... and then when Anne takes his eye.” — Philippa Gregory (20:18)

The Pinnacle of Power and Onset of Jealousies (23:23–28:38)

• Anne Becomes Queen: Henry’s infatuation leads to seismic changes—breaking with Rome, legal battles, and Anne’s controversial coronation.
• A Family Under Siege: The rapid rise brings jealousy and a court rife with ambition. Mary Boleyn withdraws after remarrying someone of low status, while Anne and George (and George’s wife Jane) hold the family’s power at court.
• Court Competition: Other noble families, notably the Seymours, learn from the Boleyn rise and pursue similar strategies, contributing to shifting alliances and rising tension.

The Fall: Betrayal, Scandal, and Execution (31:18–43:26)

• Failure to Secure a Heir and Changing Fortunes:
  • Anne’s inability to produce a surviving male heir (bearing only the future Elizabeth I, then miscarriages) leaves her vulnerable, fuelling superstitions and accusations.
  • Quote: “There is a belief that that miscarriage and any form of defect at birth or stillbirth is a consequence of the woman being either illegally sexual or a witch.” — Philippa Gregory (32:26)
• Enemies Mobilize: With Cromwell’s political maneuvering, previously loyal courtiers—some within the Boleyn extended family—help bring Anne down.
• Show Trials: Anne and George are both executed for fabricated charges. Thomas Boleyn retires quietly, while Jane Boleyn, George’s widow, becomes one of history’s most enigmatic survivors.
  • Quote: “The ludicrous nature of the charges are not enough to prevent the lords, including her uncle, including Jane Boleyn's father, all the lords of the land sitting on her trial and finding her guilty..." — Philippa Gregory (32:26)

The Aftermath and Lasting Legacy (43:26–47:30)

• Survivors: Despite catastrophic losses, branches of the Boleyn family persisted:
  • Elizabeth I: Anne’s daughter becomes England’s iconic queen, keeping her mother's memory close despite the shadow of her fall.
  • Mary Boleyn’s Children: Both Catherine and Henry Carey maintain influential, if discreet, court roles—possibly as royal bastards. Henry Carey’s tomb in Westminster Abbey bears heraldic clues to his rumored royal paternity.
    • Quote: “His tomb, which you can see in Westminster Abbey today, is the tomb of a royal bastard...” — Philippa Gregory (45:39)
• Jane Boleyn: Gregory’s new book, Boleyn Traitor, explores how Jane survives and thrives post-scandal, ultimately falling in the Catherine Howard debacle.

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On Social Mobility:
  “They start off in Norfolk as tenant farmers... sheep farming.”
  —Philippa Gregory (05:21)

• On Anne Boleyn’s Ambition:
  “She is absolutely determined that she's not going to be his mistress as Anne was. She sets her heart with extraordinary ambition on being his wife.”
  —Philippa Gregory (20:18)

• On the Court’s Culture:
  “If you didn't know what was going to happen, you would think it was Camelot... just absolutely full of very, very glamorous young people having a ridiculously good time.”
  —Philippa Gregory (14:48)

• On the Charges Against Anne:
  “Somebody says that she keeps her page, Smeaton in a cupboard... she asks for marmalade. I mean, it's just impossible.”
  —Philippa Gregory (32:26)

• On the Enduring Legacy:
  “If you count descent down the maternal line, which of course, as a feminist, I think you should always have your eyes open... It's the only one you can be sure of.”
  —Philippa Gregory (46:09)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | | ---------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | 05:09 | Boleyn origins: from Norfolk farmers to nobility | | 08:52 | Civic ascent & strategic marriages | | 12:16 | George Boleyn as the family’s bright hope | | 16:00 | Anne’s French education and return to England | | 18:12 | Mary Boleyn as Henry VIII’s mistress | | 20:18 | Ambition: Anne aims to be queen, not mistress | | 23:29 | Henry’s obsession and grants; Boleyn fortunes peak | | 28:38 | Rivalries, court dangers, and Machiavellian games | | 31:18 | Cromwell’s role and Anne’s trial | | 32:26 | The fall: miscarriages, superstitions, accusations | | 36:05 | Thomas Boleyn and Jane’s survival | | 39:51 | Jane Boleyn’s continued court career & demise | | 43:26 | The Boleyn legacy: Elizabeth I, Carey children | | 47:30 | Philippa Gregory introduces her new book |

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Episode in a Nutshell

With Philippa Gregory’s vivid narrative, this episode is a rich, accessible retelling of the Boleyn family saga—how their ascent to the zenith of Tudor power relied on ambition, strategic marriages, and the heady, perilous world of Henry VIII’s court, and how that same ambition led to sudden cataclysm. Beyond palace intrigue, it contemplates how the Boleyn name, through both legitimate and rumored offspring, continued to shape English history and mythology for generations.

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To Learn More:
Check out Philippa Gregory’s latest book Boleyn Traitor, which spotlights Jane Boleyn, arguably the survivor of the family’s undoing.

“I've literally found a new Boleyn to love.” — Philippa Gregory (47:30)

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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[Dan Snow]

law

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[Dan Snow]

Hi folks, welcome Dan Snow's history hit it's that Berlin girl. Her childhood home is a place of pilgrimage. The site of her execution receives flowers every year on the anniversary of her death. Her fans tattoo their bodies with a design of her creation. Blind, uncontrollable passion for Anne Boleyn drove a king to upend the politics and the religion of Western Europe. And it seems that even after 500 years, many of us are still captivated. And it's not just Anne Boleyn. Her sister was a lover of the king, her children possibly royal bastards. Their forebears also are an intriguing story of social and economic advancement in the late Middle Ages, proof that merit and luck could take you from the village to the palace. And for all those reasons, that is why the House of Boleyn has come to symbolize A story, a Tudor story of ambition and talent and sex and intrigue and hubris. We got Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, 1533-36. She helped to transform the religious settlement in Britain and beyond. She paid for it with her life. But Anne's story did not begin at the royal court. It began generations earlier with a hat maker in Norfolk with big dreams. He was called Geoffrey Boleyn and he was a sort of artisanal worker. He turned to merchant and he was a merchant. He did very well. He became Lord Mayor of London and he bequeathed his fortune to his heirs. And among those heirs was his great grandson, Thomas Boleyn. He was a courtier. He mastered the dangerous dance of Tudor politics. And he helped his family rise through that talent and his usefulness to his sovereign. And he built up a web of powerful alliances. And eventually he discovered that his daughters were his most potent weapons. Today we're going to talk all about that, folks. We're going to talk about the rise and fall of the House of Berlin, how they got to the very apex of political power, and how in the glittering but deadly well of Henry VIII's court, that ambition, that soaring arc of success led to their ruin. We have got a fabulous guest to talk us through this wonderful story. To help us navigate through the perilous world of the Tudor court, we've got Philippa Gregory. She is a celebrated novelist and historian, best known for her vivid portraits of women in history, particularly those of the Tudor and Plantagenet eras. She has written the iconic books like the Other Boleyn Girl and the White Queen. But she's not just an astonishingly good novelist. She has got a PhD in 18th century literature, so she knows what she's talking about. Her novels have been adapted for film and TV and she's also written acclaimed works of non fiction, so we're very lucky to have her on. Her latest book, Boleyn Traitor tells the gripping story of one particular character. And all those themes of ambition and betrayal and survival in Henry VIII's. She chooses the vessel, Jane Boleyn, a figure that we'll be hearing about in today's episode. So you can hear about that too. You listen to Dan Snow's history here. Settle in as we trace the rise and fall of the House of Boleyn. Philippa, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. It's been far too long. Good to see you, Dan.

[Philippa Gregory]

It's lovely to see you. How are you?

[Dan Snow]

Very good indeed. And I'm excited about the Boleyn family. But first of all I'd like to know how could we be sure about their existence and their goings on pre, their illustrious. When they produced a queen of England briefly.

[Philippa Gregory]

Well, they're nouveau, so they're great ones for recording their various rises. So they start off in Norfolk as tenant farmers. They're not very grand at all in the. About the 1300s. And what we know from them there is that they endow a few churches and they start to rise, they start to make money. Sheep farming.

[Dan Snow]

Don't tell me Britain's the Saudi Arabia of wool. In the medieval period. That's all we seem to do. We're just pumping out wool.

[Philippa Gregory]

It is all we do. It is all we do. And it's probably. It's the only thing that we're really, really specialist at because of the rain, loads of grass and you know, a very, very unintelligent domesticated animal. So like, what can I say? It just suits us temperamentally.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. We finally found an animal that will do what we ask it well.

[Philippa Gregory]

And also we're not asking much of it. Basically once it's bred, all you're doing is cutting its coat off when it's too hot. So it does it good. It's a symbiotic relationship. It's a partnership.

[Dan Snow]

Well, actually that's good. I never thought about that. It is. And so the Boleyn family, they're farmers and they're just good at it, I suppose. They buy more and more land like the grand Spencers of Princess Diana fame. The same sort of thing going on. You just slowly, over the generations, well managed farms, you get bigger and wealthier,

[Philippa Gregory]

they get wealthier and wealthier. And the first one we really notice gets himself knighted and becomes Lord Bearer of London. Which is really the nouveau way ray to rise that you are in the company of merchants who recognize wealth and who respect wealth. And then they promote you to a civic position. And the position of being Lord Mayor of London is of course very grand because London is, as it were, a separate political and civic almost principality. So you get to hobnob with the court and that's really your big rise.

[Dan Snow]

You're an aristocrat of trade, I suppose, so you're not sort of a member of the old martial aristocracy. And you haven't risen up through the church, but you can do it through sort of trade money in London.

[Philippa Gregory]

Okay, yes, particularly London. I would think any big city you could rise in civic terms. But London is really, because you're right next door to Westminster and you have lots of Hobnobbins with the King. And you have a lot of influence in Parliament because you're coated, fundamentally. And then what the Boleyns do is, for two generations, they marry very well. So they marry into the old Norman families. They.

[Dan Snow]

Yes, because they're penniless, they need the cash.

[Philippa Gregory]

Well, I wouldn't say penniless. I mean, they own half of England. But what they really don't mind is new money and this authority coming in. And anyway, it's only their daughters, it's not their sons they're giving away. So basically, the Boleyns then marry. I mean, ultimately the Howards, but also into the Ormonds, Irish aristocracy. So that's how you get. When you get to Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's father, you get this chap who's got a very wealthy background on his own account, and he's got a very posh wife and a very posh mother. And so he's got these aristocratic connections, but he's not the oldest son of an ancient noble house. He's not got that sort of background. But what he has got is the confidence of a man who earned his own money and has married well. And of course, he then moves into the diplomatic service, which is the absolutely classic sideways step. So you become important at court. You're basically doing a lot of admin and you're basically using a lot of your business skills as a diplomat, but you're not visibly in trade in the same way.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so I should just quickly mention the Howard family you mentioned there, that they are the Dukes of Norfolk. I mean, they are the apex predator of the 16th century world. So, as you say, very, very posh relations. So diplomacy, is that the sort of thing that men of independent means would offer their services to the King and say, look, I can go and represent you in Antwerp and the courts of Europe. I speak languages, I'm cultured, refineably represent you well. And what does that mean? I mean, are they kind of negotiating trade deals? Like, what sort of stuff are diplomats doing in this period?

[Philippa Gregory]

Well, they're doing trade deals, but also they're going to the courts and representing the King at the court. So if there's an alliance in the offing, they're the ones who go and say, shall we do a royal visit? What do you want? What's your attitude to the Pope or Spain? So basically, you've got a few key countries which you have to either be formally in alliance with or formally enemies with. So Bohlin Goes to the French court quite often. Obviously his French is very good. Obviously he has connections because of his trade background and also because of his now aristocratic connections. So he's in a very good position to go there and just be super charming and put the point that the English want. So you'd have things like exchange of prisoners if there'd been. Or joint policy on parrots if you had difficulty actually with trade negotiations, taxes and tariffs, he'd be doing stuff like that. And then ultimately, when it really, really matters, he's organizing things like the king's visit to Calais.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. So important. But we're not talking a senior, senior officer of state. And if it hadn't been for his daughter, we probably, probably wouldn't have heard of him, particularly, I mean, scholars like you would have done, but I wouldn't have heard of him.

[Philippa Gregory]

Humble brag. I think we would have heard of him as one of the court functionaries who do things. I mean, what if Anne Boleyn hadn't been queen? Would Thomas Cromwell have risen? But say Thomas Cromwell had risen? He would have been reporting to Thomas Cromwell about overseas trade and overseas responsibilities. It remain minor, but significant.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. Thomas Boleyn, as you've said, marries into the Howard family again. It's on both sides, as we talked about. He gets her kind of aristocratic pedigree. She marries a refined gentleman with lots of money. So it sort of works on both sides.

[Philippa Gregory]

Absolutely, absolutely. And also she brings with her property. So they have by then Blickling Hall. She brings. They buy Hever Castle later. It's a reasonable match. And it happens. We're very familiar. Familiar with it throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries, when you see trade getting aristocratic ambitions and values from marriage and where you see aristocrats topping up their wealth through trade. But there isn't that snobbery about it, I think, in this century in the way that there is later on. So there's a real acceptance that this makes complete sense for the two of them. And they seem to be quite happily married. There's no great. And they have three children, George first and then Anne or Mary subsequently. We're not even now entirely convinced which girl comes first. And in my opinion, it's an historical fact, which would be nice to know, but it's not an historical fact that would make any difference to the story.

[Dan Snow]

So he's got his wife, he's got a family. He's climbing.

[Philippa Gregory]

He is. And of course, the white hot hope is George, who is the eldest son of this combination of aristocracy and wealth. Whose father is a diplomat at court, who is young and handsome and fit and makes sure that he buddies up with the young Henry VIII and jousts with him and, you know, is one of the so called minions, basically lads about altogether. And George is going to, undoubtedly, as he gets older and more senior, take over a lot of the diplomatic roles. But he'll do it with a bit more heft behind him because his f was a diplomat before him and he's personal friends with the King of England. So there's this clear upward trajectory of the Boleyns, which they expect to really finalize and complete and confirm with George.

[Dan Snow]

So it's quite a big thing to get your son in the way of the king.

[Philippa Gregory]

That's everything.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, I can imagine that going on at the moment with young Prince George in some school in Windsor, various families hurling their children in his way.

[Philippa Gregory]

Absolutely. And trying to figure out where he'll go to university to send their girls there.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. Okay. So Thomas does well to get in that sort of inner circle. Right. So Henry VII goes, oh, yes, nice young lads around court, feel free to play with my son, Henry. That's how it works.

[Philippa Gregory]

Yes, absolutely. And of course, because Henry himself, Henry VIII himself comes to the throne so very young, he's not very much guided by older, wiser heads. He's just picking the people who, you know, joust well and who he admires and who he likes. So some of his friends are very unsuitable, but George is not particularly unsuit, suitable young man and is married quite young, in his twenties, to a maid of honor to Catherine of Aragon. So she's at court as well. Her father's lands run alongside George's. They get her for a very, very, very cheap dowry because her father's not very astute. And he marries Jane Parker, daughter of Lord Morley.

[Dan Snow]

So it's not that Henry VIII's eyes caught one Boleyn girl or the other one. He was actually friends with George first. They were jousting buddies.

[Philippa Gregory]

Absolutely. And Mary Boleyn is at court as a maid in waiting to Catherine of Aragon. And then she's married to Henry's friend, another friend of Henry's at court quite young also, while Anne is in France.

[Dan Snow]

And George's closeness to Henry VIII is highlighted by the fact he's promoted, he's become a Knight of the Bath and he takes part in the coronation festivities of young Henry viii. So he's a very close buddy.

[Philippa Gregory]

I mean, as you say, it's a very glamorous court. It's a very Young court. There's no sign at this point of Catherine of Aragon's dowdiness and the hair shirt and general sorrow. They're newly married, newly crowned, everything to hope for. And for Catherine in particular, this is the end of years of poverty and hardship in England as the unwanted widow of the previous heir, now suddenly she's Queen of England. Henry this, they call him the handsomest prince in Christendom. If you didn't know what was going to happen, you would think it was Camelot. It's just lovely. It's just absolutely full of very, very glamorous young people having a ridiculously good time using a lot of the metaphors of chivalry because they're very keen on Arthur. So you've got lots of jousting and I would say general, you know, chivalry nonsense. People falling in love with people and writing them poetry and people falling out of love and poetry about it. And it's very, very attractive.

[Dan Snow]

So there's a glittering court life of young, good looking folks doing sport, having fun, bit of politics, bit of socializing, all marrying each other. Great fun. Why is Anne in France?

[Philippa Gregory]

Her father very cleverly gets her a place with Margaret of Savoy at the French court as a preparation for her to be a lady in waiting or wife of somebody pretty important in the English court or even probably the French court. He sent her away quite young, we don't know exactly how young, but quite young. And she learns French and she's brought up in this very, very cultured, very educated, pro reform of religion court in France. And she comes home to England and literally wows everybody the minute she walks in because France is famously stylish and cultured and fashionable. And she walks in and everybody goes like, who's this? Who's this new?

[Dan Snow]

And in 1522, there's that bizarre moment where the men attack a castle and there's a sort of pageant. They attack some sort of castle and the women defend the castle.

[Philippa Gregory]

Yeah, we've got a record of it, but they're doing this pretty well every month, certainly every feast day. This is the masque. This is the great tradition of the masque. You have a lot of scenery, you have a lot of moving big, big scenery parts. The castle, the chateau verte in this story is a wheeled in enormous structure with the ladies inside the castle defending the virt. And they are attacked by the king's men and they are defended by the king's choristers who throw sweets and little toys and little presents. And the men finally capture the castle. Everyone's disguised. You've got this big, big, heavy emphasis upon disguises. And everyone pretends not to know it's Henry until unmasking time, when he takes his mask off and everybody goes like, good heavens, who is this handsome stranger? It is the king. And it's just playing with what they have anyway, which is privilege and wealth and youth and beauty. It's just a celebration of that which they do, I must say, over and over and over.

[Dan Snow]

I mean, no wonder he becomes a megalomiacal narcissist. I mean, I would. I mean, it's astonishing if that's your day to day activity. It's ridiculous. Okay, so Sister Mary becomes mistress around the time of the Chateauvert pageant. She becomes the mistress of Henry viii.

[Philippa Gregory]

We know her part, we know she's wearing a green gown, she's a young married woman, but Henry takes her as his mistress and nobody complains about it very much at all. In fact, nobody complains about it at all. She has a baby who's called Catherine, which is a sort of bit of a backhanded compliment, you would think, to Catherine of Aragon, the queen, who she was the lady in waiting to. Then she has another baby, Henry, named obviously for the king. And we don't know to this day whether he is of the king's fathering. But he's never claimed by the king, who doesn't then know that he's not going to get loads more babies. And he's accepted by her husband, Carrie. And so just when she's in actually in childbed, in confinement and takes the eye of the king and fundamentally seduces him from her sister, who is at that moment in bed giving birth to his son. So it's a bit brutal in terms of sibling rivalry. We don't know how much. It's an agreement among all the Howards that there should always be a Howard girl in the king's eye, because that is the route to power and influence and popularity at court. But certainly by then, George becomes less the golden boy and the hope of the Boleyns, and more and more the assistant and supporter and protector and promoter of first one sister and then another. So from George's point of view, it's a bit of a miserable downsizing. From their point of view, it doesn't really matter as long as in this court, which is entirely focused upon one man, a young man, and the whims of a young man, all that matters is that he thinks that your family is the best thing.

[Dan Snow]

Odd for George Thomas, the dad he's promoted at this time, isn't it? I mean, he's now a very, very, very serious royal. He has made it, hasn't he? He's at the apex of the royal court. Is that connected to the fact his daughters are so popular? Well, all his kids are so popular at court. I mean, he's obviously a talented guy as well. Does Henry promote him?

[Philippa Gregory]

Yeah, he's a talented guy. But you see that he gets grants of lands firstly when Mary starts sleeping with Henry, and then he gets a big grant of lands when she has her baby. Then there's another grant of lands and titles when she has her second baby and then when Anne takes his eye. You then have basically Anne being part of policy making and the first sort of thing she puts in place is the suggestion that the king should be able to get a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. She is absolutely determined that she's not going to be his mistress as Anne was. She sets her heart with extraordinary ambition on being his wife.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history Don't give up on Astrisia. There's more coming.

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[Dan Snow]

So the wider family doing very well because Henry becomes absolutely infatuated with Anne.

[Philippa Gregory]

He really does. There's a period of time when everybody gets the sweat and actually Mary Boleyn's husband dies in the sweat and Anne has it and is desperately ill. And Henry doesn't see her because he's completely then and thereafter paranoid about his health. He's terrified about being sick. But he sends her out a stream of letters promising eternal love and hoping. Desperate for her health, he sends her his own position. It's very, very clear that this is a man, as I think probably narcissists do, who has just become obsessed with winning the unwinnable thing, the thing that he thinks will make his life complete. And he sets himself to that. And it costs him an extraordinary amount in terms of England's peace, in terms of his relationship to all the other monarchs, in terms of his relationship to the Pope, in terms of his relationship to his own religion and to God. It's a very, very, very costly passion that Henry feels and he just seems to go through it with a ruthlessness which is later bodes no good to anybody.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. Do you think Thomas Boleyn, Anne's dad, did he ever dream, at what stage did he start to dream that Anne might get the big prize, might actually become queen? I mean, that's unimaginable. He would have been perfectly happy for her to remain as or to her time as a mistress, would he?

[Philippa Gregory]

I don't think he would have wanted her to be a mistress if she'd been a single woman, because that's much worse for her reputation. I think the complacency about Mary being a mistress is because she's a married woman at the time. So in a sense, her honor is in her husband's keeping. It's not Boleyn honor anymore, but when he thought that she was going to be queen, I would imagine was a good deal after she thought it was possible. So probably the first person who she shared the ambition with would be George, who I think was closest to both of them and was acting as go between for a lot of this material. I think the hopes were very high. Of course, in between all of this that we haven't even mentioned is Anne gets into disgrace trying to marry Henry Percy. So she's not good enough for a duke in the eyes of Thomas Wolsey or her father or her uncle Thomas Howard. So there's a real sense that that's too high for her to aim. But lo and behold, she comes back to court after a period of exile. Everybody is just very, very taken with her. She seduces the king not sexually, but certainly emotionally. And the next thing, the girl who wasn't good enough to be Duchess of Northumberland is heading to be queen of England.

[Dan Snow]

Wow.

[Philippa Gregory]

I mean, I think for a long time nobody thinks she'll do it. And I think for a long time everybody thinks that she is bound to give in, that she'll just parley the best deal for it and then have sex with Henry. And you would think that that happens. She gets a very, very, very good title and she gets a huge grant of land. And I think at the same time she gets a promise of marriage. And then they have sex at some time when they visited the king of France at Calais, probably on the way home, and then they're married in secret.

[Dan Snow]

Once they are married, the grip of the Boleyn family at court gets even firmer. Thomas father is ennobled, made earl of Wiltshire, and presumably accompanying that is, well, wealth, but also further responsibilities.

[Philippa Gregory]

Yes, he becomes very, very major in the king's council. But they all do. So when there's next mission to France, George Boleyn does it. George Boleyn becomes very, very significant in terms of international diplomacy and very, very significant still going between the king and the queen in terms of advice. What becomes the main object is to finalize and establish the legality of the marriage, which takes place initially in secret, and then there's. After that there's a coronation. But the legality of the marriage and the absolute importance of the succession, because Anne is certain that she's going to have a boy. And part of the promises she gave to the king undoubtedly is that she will give him a boy, which Catherine of Aragon has failed something like 11, 12 times. To do. Catherine of Aragon only ever has one child, one surviving child, Princess Mary. So next you have this massive legal changes, which are the act of Supremacy and the act of Succession, which is. One establishes Henry as leader of the Church of England, now reformed, so it's not the Pope anymore, it's Henry. And the other establishes the right of Anne's children to be the legal heirs.

[Dan Snow]

We're obviously covering a vast amount of ground here, but continuing to focus on the sort of family, the House of Boleyn. Presumably success inspires jealousy. Before Anne's fall, there must be lots of whispers at court about this family of upstarts who are doing quite well and insinuating themselves, inserting themselves into all sorts of, you know, important positions.

[Philippa Gregory]

Well, they undermine themselves as well in that there's only three siblings, Anne, George and Mary. Mary, once she's out of the King's bed and interest, she literally seems to do all she can just to get out of court altogether. And she marries someone that nobody's ever heard of very much Stafford, and she goes and lives with him in the country. She falls out with Anne, I believe, because when she comes to court, Anne can see that she's pregnant. They cannot make a good marriage with her because she's had the cleverness to marry somebody relatively unimportant straight away. So she's of no use to the Boleyns in terms of power, broking a woman as a pawn. And she's no use to the Boleyns in terms of being attractive to the king because they don't want him diverted. So she retires to the country, to Essex, actually, and doesn't significantly come back as a power player at all. So now there's just two of them, but two of them and George's wife, Jane. Jane Boleyn. And so the three of them are responsible for maintaining the attraction and the power of the queen. And that is against a constant stream of new ladies in waiting and new maids in waiting at court who have learned from Anne that one of the ways to get enormous riches for your family and enormous success and possibly the top job is to seduce Henry, even though he's married to somebody else. Nobody has ever seen divorce as a sort of marital choice before. Queens have been put aside, but mostly for being infertile, for the marriage being annulled in some way or another for religious grounds. Nobody has ever just said, I want a new wife and I think I'll have one before. So once the floodgates are opened, this is a possibility. Everybody goes like well, and of course, most notably, the Seymours are in that queue, as are, as it turns out, other Howard girls. There are the Sheltons, who obviously are at court and who have affairs with Henry. So there's this sort of backlog of young women turning up at court to try the chances, really. So the Boleyns have that as a personal problem, but as a political problem. Cardinal Wolsey fails to deliver a religious agreement on the divorce and is ruined as a result of it, and then dies. And Thomas Cromwell is the person who says he can deliver the extraordinary, extraordinarily huge religious, financial, legal and political changes necessary to guarantee the succession of Anne's children and herself as queen.

[Dan Snow]

Did Cromwell like the Berlins or was it just convenient because he knew that Henry was temporarily obsessed with one of them?

[Philippa Gregory]

I don't think Cromwell would allow his likings or dislikings to come into it, really. I think he's a very astute political player. I think when the Boleyns have clearly got all the bases covered, then he works with them. He saw what happened to Thomas Woolsey when he failed to work with. But I think Thomas Cromwell is very, very, very active and instrumental in the trial of George and Anne which leads to their death. So he doesn't like them in the sense that any liking stands in the way of the most expedient thing for Cromwell.

[Dan Snow]

Well, let's come onto that trial because Anne fails to have a healthy son. She has a daughter, Elizabeth, who people may be familiar with Princess Elizabeth, who will become Elizabeth I. She miscarries a boy. She's pregnant for a third time. She gets pregnant a fair few times, and a third time she miscarries a boy in 1536. And it does appear at this point, Henry starts to believe that, well, he falls out of love and believes that in fact he was bewitched by Anne and this is God's punishment on him.

[Philippa Gregory]

Yeah, it's not as unreasonable to them as it is to us in that there is a belief that that miscarriage and any form of defect at birth or stillbirth is a consequence of the woman being either illegally sexual or a witch. So the mere fact of two miscarriages, one of which is reported as being malformed, as they would say, then the mere fact of that casts a huge shadow over Anne's reputation. It suggests either that she's undertaking forbidden sexual practices or that she's engaging in witchcraft. The stillbirth is the proof of the other. So that's really, really, really problematic before you start. And Anne's enemies, of course, who are everyone who is Roman Catholic, so that's a good half of the country. Everyone who supports Queen Catherine. So that's a whole chunk of people. Everyone who supports her daughter, Lady Mary, who Anne has been bullying mercilessly, and everyone who supports other people, like Jane Seymour. So by being the tallest poppy by far, they have got a real set of enemies lined up against them. And at the first whisper of trouble, there is enormous trouble. And Cromwell goes about collecting evidence against Anne. I think other people are giving evidence too, because it's so nonsensical. As good a lawyer as Cromwell would not have bothered with it. But basically, basically there's this kind of explosion of tittle tattle and gossip. And she's seen doing this and she's seen doing that. Somebody says that she keeps her page, Smeaton in a cupboard and that somebody fetches him for her to have sex with him when she asks for marmalade. I mean, it's just impossible. But because the mood against her is so strong, the ludicrous nature of the charges are not enough to prevent the lords, including her uncle, including Jane Boleyn's father, all the lords of the land sitting on her trial and finding her guilty and sentencing her to, I think, initially be burned as a witch, subsequently commuted to be executed. So it's an extraordinary show trial. And George Boleyn's trial comes thereafter and he's found guilty, too. Of course,

[Dan Snow]

you listen to Dan Snow's history hit the best is yet to come. Stick with us.

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[Dan Snow]

So Anne and George, brother and sister, both found guilty. He is found guilty of having sex with his sister.

[Philippa Gregory]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

Shocking. What's Thomas Boleyn doing at this time? The Earl of Wiltshire, I think he's

[Philippa Gregory]

excused from sitting on his daughter's trough, but her uncle's there, certainly the family turns out there. He retires rather promptly, rather quietly, to Hever Castle with his wife Elizabeth, and keeps his head down. And the survivor, the extraordinary survivor from this story is the heroine of my new novel, Boleyn Traitor, who is Jane? Jane Parker, married to George, who is said by some people to have given evidence against him. Her name isn't on the witness record. I don't believe she actually gave sworn evidence, but she certainly, I think, reported to Thomas Cromwell of the atmosphere and the activities of the Queen's rooms. So she's on, in a sense, Cromwell's side of history at this point. And I'm sure of that because when the. The Boleyns-Vat Hever Castle and stay very quiet, actually, until their deaths, Jane is promoted to be Lady Jane Seymour's lady in waiting. Queen Jane Seymour's lady in waiting. There's a special law passed in Parliament to improve her very bad dowry. So she ends up owning Blickling hall and being immensely independently wealthy. And she is at Jane Seymour's side when she gives birth. She's there at the christening of the baby prince and she's there at Jane Seymour's funeral. Of all the Boleyns, the one that we pay the least attention to is the one who literally rises like a phoenix out of these ashes and goes on to a brilliant career.

[Dan Snow]

How interesting. You say she reported to Cromwell on the sort of the vibe of Anne Boleyn's inner circle. The suggestion that Anne Boleyn was practicing witchcraft and having sex with her brother and all this kind of stuff, probably unlikely, but there was enough fun, sexy, naughty flirtatiousness to just give Cromwell something to go on.

[Philippa Gregory]

I mean, I think what we're saying is we noted earlier this sort of chivalric, we'll call it the historical term folderol, generally dancing about and disguising and dressing up and wearing masks and kissing in corners and swearing eternal love and then fancying somebody the next day. That's going on all the time. I suggest in the novel Bohlin Traitor that this gets more and more heated because the urgency to tell the King that Anne is the sexiest woman in the palace becomes more and more serious as he starts looking at other women and as she starts becoming the very not sexy figure of a woman who cannot carry a baby, as opposed to being the very sexy figure of a woman who has not yet been seduced. So I think the intensity of the compliments and the. The heat of the sex play gets more and more strong. And in turn, that can be used very easily by Cromwell to say this is a hotbed of misbehavior and adulterous promises and Queen Anne's rooms are not being managed as a queen's room should be kept. And I think that may be the case. And one of the problems it solves is why, on the one hand, you have people saying that she has a genuine interest in religion, she has a genuinely devout attitude to the reformed religion that she helps bring into England, and that she initially instructs her ladies in waiting in her maids to behave very, very respectably and very devoutly. And then at the end of it, you have this court dissolving in charges of the most bizarre sexual behavior and adultery. And I think it's because the game of chivalry gets toxic.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. She eventually gets caught up in this Game of Thrones.

[Philippa Gregory]

Well, it is literally, it's a game of Thrones. So she goes from being Jane Seymour's lady in waiting and right hand woman, which is a pretty abrupt and extraordinary transition, if you think about it. And then she works for Anne of Cleves, but I think all the way through, she is working for and with Thomas Cromwell and reporting to him what's going on in the Queen's rooms. And we see that she's paid very, very highly by somebody for doing something. And I think it's Thomas Cromwell for spying on the queens. When Thomas Cromwell wants rid of Anne of Cleves because she has failed to please Henry, it is Lady Rochford she is by then. But it's Jane Boleyn, whose signature is second on the witness evidence that says that the King is not consummating his marriage and that Anne of Cleves doesn't know know what she's supposed to do and is unfit fundamentally, therefore, to be Queen of England. She's Anne of Cleves chief advisor. As her chief lady in waiting. I think she probably advised her to take the money and go and be glad that she'd still got a head on. And Anne of Cleves does just that and retires, as it happens, to Hever Castle and to other places around England, which lots of people will know, because there's lots of Anne of Cleves, pubs everywhere. And then Jane just moves smoothly on to be lady in waiting at the court of her cousin Catherine Howard. And it's there that it all starts to go very wrong again. Thomas Cromwell is executed on the day of Catherine Howard's wedding day. A coincidence which means nothing to Henry viii, who is fed up with him by then, but which really signals, I think, the end of the of Jane having an advisor who knows the ins and outs of courts and from her point of view, someone who knows what the King is thinking and tells her before anything happens. In addition to that, she's in the almost impossible job of trying to organize a 16 year old, very spoiled, very ill educated 16 year old girl as Queen of England in a court which is now established as one of flirtation and adultery. And Catherine Howard, either already abused and groomed or prematurely sexually experienced, I think probably already abused and groomed, falls in love, I think for the first and probably last time in her life with Thomas Culpepper, another friend of Henry's, handsome young friend of Henry's. Of course, the friends are getting younger as the King is getting older. The friends stay at a dazzlingly handsome mid-20s as the king gets older and older. He's now old enough to be Catherine's grandfather, but he marries her anyway and he calls her his Rose and he thinks she's going to give him a son. And I think Jane, without advice, absolutely unable to control the steam train passion of Catherine, for Thomas Culpepper, tries to be a duenna and stay with them in their meetings, but in fact is therefore just literally implicated in their adulterous affairs. So when the King finds out about it, which is unlucky because they might have got away with it, but when the King finds out about it, ultimately he executes Thomas Culpepper, someone else named as her lover, Thomas Culpepper's friend who's done absolutely nothing, and Catherine Howard and most wrongly, Jane Boleyn.

[Dan Snow]

But that is not the end of the Boleyn family. Let's just quickly check in. Anne Boleyn's mum died shortly after her execution, having lost her son and daughter so quickly. But old Thomas Boleyn, the Earl of Wiltshire, he dies as well. But the House of Boleyn, oddly, I suppose it does continue with Queen Elizabeth I, of course, is of the House

[Philippa Gregory]

of Boleyn, definitely continues with Queen Elizabeth I, who keeps a miniature of her mother, Anne Boleyn by her throughout her life, and whose extraordinary high reputation in the regard of subsequent Protestant Historians means a complete revaluation of Anne Boleyn, which means a complete revaluation of the Boleyn family, which really rises Anne Boleyn to this idea of virtuous reformer queen wrongly done to death by terrible people like Thomas Cromwell and indeed her sister in law, Jane, who then gets the blame for this execution, which she probably had very little to do with. So, yes, you end up with, as we believe, a virgin queen. And that is the end of that line of the Boleyn family. Of course, Mary Boleyn survives.

[Dan Snow]

Well, that's it. I'm intrigued because of Mary Boleyn surviving. And these children you've told me about are likely to be Henry's and they go on and have very illustrious marriages and really do remain at the pinnacle of British aristocratic society for the rest of time.

[Philippa Gregory]

Absolutely, yeah. They're all over. So the Henry, the little baby Henry grows to be Henry Carey, who is Elizabeth I's acknowledged cousin and highly regarded advisor.

[Dan Snow]

Hang on. But that's a bit strange. Cousin on both sides, Interestingly, mother and father's side.

[Philippa Gregory]

Or half brother. Or half.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, my God, you're right. Half brother and cousin.

[Philippa Gregory]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

Interesting. Okay.

[Philippa Gregory]

He never makes any claim to being an heir to the throne. He never makes any claim to being a Tudor, which is smart of him because Elizabeth has this unfortunate tendency to throw her heirs into the tower or execute the.

[Dan Snow]

The Tudors are rather jealous about that. So he wants to keep his head on his shoulders.

[Philippa Gregory]

Yes, she was. So he never says a word until his. The instructions in his will. And his tomb, which you can see in Westminster Abbey today, is the tomb of a royal bastard.

[Dan Snow]

Really?

[Philippa Gregory]

Yes. Apparently you have to be much, much better informed about heraldry than I am. But I was told that by one of the custodians at Westminster Abbey who pointed out the heraldry on the tomb, which is as close as he wanted to go to telling Elizabeth that he was her half brother, which was wait till he was safely dead and then make the claim.

[Dan Snow]

I'm dead already. Wow. So the house of Boleyn, it had a pretty big crisis, but it. Well, it endures. It endures to this day. Wow.

[Philippa Gregory]

It endured. I mean, what's extraordinary is if you count descent down the maternal line, which of course, as a feminist, I think you should always have your eyes open.

[Dan Snow]

Far more reliable, if you don't mind me saying. It's only the tent that matters as far as I'm concerned.

[Philippa Gregory]

It's the only one you can be sure of.

[Dan Snow]

Exactly.

[Philippa Gregory]

But yes. So through Catherine Mary Boleyn, you get Catherine Carey, her daughter is then Leticia, who marries Knollys and becomes Dudley's wife ultimately as well. So, I mean, they really are woven through. What's really rather horribly lovely is that Letitia is, if you see a portrait of her, she's red headed, she's creamy skinned, she's green eyed, she's very, very beautiful. She looks very, very much like a young Elizabeth I. And she comes to Elizabeth I's court just as Elizabeth is not looking like a young Elizabeth I, she's looking like an older Elizabeth I. And Elizabeth hates her. And I'm sure that there's a family resemblance there, which is of course, that she is Elizabeth's half sister's daughter.

[Dan Snow]

And then she nicks Elizabeth's favourite as well.

[Philippa Gregory]

And then she takes Elizabeth's favourite as well. Yes. And she's never allowed back at court after that.

[Dan Snow]

Well, what a drama. Thank you. I mean, Philippa Gregory, I should have known you were gonna spin a good yarn. I mean, what was I thinking as I logged onto this call? But that was absolutely brilliant. And tell everyone what the new book is called.

[Philippa Gregory]

Well, the new book is about Jane Boleyn that we've been talking about who is really the survivor from the Boleyns. And it's called Boleyn Traitor and it's out now. And I loved writing it. You know, you would think that I had said enough about Boleyn's already, but I'd never dealt in any detail or with any empathy with Jane Boleyn. And I've literally found a new Boleyn to love.

[Dan Snow]

Well, amazing. And I hope there's many more that you will learn to love and keep punching out those wonderful books that we all enjoy so much. Thank you very much, Philippa Gregory, for coming on the podcast.

[Philippa Gregory]

Thank you. Done.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you very much to Philippa joining us. She is an extraordinary talent. Just brilliant to have her on. Always fascinating to return to the Tudor court. What a place. And thank you for listening. And if you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to check out Philippa's latest book, Bolin Traitor. It's available right now. See you next time.

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[Dan Snow]

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