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- [00:01]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home? Or explore the castles that made up Henry VIII's English stronghold? With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tudor past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:35]
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- [01:06]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line, but.
- [01:24]
There the last one.
- [01:28]
Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.
- [01:36]
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- [02:10]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
- [02:46]
Every great story has its missing figures, the ones who shaped history from the edges of the stage. In this episode, we're delving into the life of one such elusive woman, Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of Queen Anne Boleyn, whose presence in the drama of Tudor England has long been obscured by silence.
- [03:06]
Our guest historian Sophie Backus Waterman, has taken on the challenge of bringing Elizabeth out of the shadows. Her new book asks why this woman who stood at the heart of one of the most notorious families of the 16th century has been left almost invisible in the historical record. There are no letters, no portraits, no words in her own voice. Yet, as Sophie reveals, absence itself can tell a story. Drawing on fragmentary records and a deep understanding of Tudor society, she. She pieces together Elizabeth's world. Her upbringing among the powerful Howards, her marriage to Thomas Boleyn, and her role as wife, mother and courtier. We see her not just as a supporting character in Anne's rise and fall, but as a woman of intelligence, influence and quiet resilience. One who navigated the glittering but perilous world of Henry VIII's court with skill and dignity through richly imagined reconstruction. Sophie invites us to picture Elizabeth at Sheriff Hutton Castle as the young Howard daughter, and later at Hever Castle as the matriarch of a rising dynasty. And when the Boleyn family's fortunes turn from triumph to tragedy, she shows us Elizabeth enduring the unendurable. A mother watching her children's world collapse. This is a story about the silences in history, what they conceal and what they reveal. And it's about how one historian has worked to restore voice and agency and humanity to a woman history forgot. Join us as we talk with Sophie Backers Waterman about Elizabeth Willing, a portrait not of a shadow, but of a life lived in the half light of Tudor power and peril. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and this is not just the Tudors from history hit.
- [04:55]
Sophie, welcome to the podcast.
- [04:57]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Thank you very much for having me. Really excited to be here.
- [05:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Let's go back to her noble origins. How did Elizabeth's upbringing and family connections shape her life and role at court?
- [05:10]
Sophie Backus Waterman
So Elizabeth was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and Elizabeth Tilney. And on both sides, she had quite illustrious parentage, her father recently having been made Duke of Norfolk and her mother being the sole heiress to Frederick Tilney. That parentage allowed, or should have allowed for Elizabeth Villan to have an illustrious court career from quite a young age. But father fought on the side of Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth. Her grandfather was killed, John Howard, in the Battle of Bosworth. And so as a result, Elizabeth's family fell quite dramatically from favour during the early reign of Henry vii. Her father was arrested, taken to the Tower of London after the Battle of Bosworth, and Elizabeth would have grown up without her father. So this story that should have been a story of wealth and power, suddenly they lost it all. So after Thomas Howard was released from the Tower of London several years after The Battle of Bosworth. In 1489, Elizabeth Boleyn and her family went to Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire, as you mentioned in the introduction, and that is where Elizabeth would have spent her teenage years, with several women in the household of her mother, one of whom, fascinatingly, was Margery Wentworth, the mother of Jane Seymour. We know this from a poem that John Skelton wrote called the Garland of the Laurel, in which he mentions several women in the service of Elizabeth Tilney, one of whom is Elizabeth Howard, later Elizabeth Boleyn. So she would have had quite a wealthy upbringing, but quite an isolated upbringing in Yorkshire, a place where they still held Richard III in high regard.
- [06:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And give me some sense of how lavish Elizabeth's upbringing would have been.
- [06:59]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that they would have been fairly well off. It's so hard to see. We have so little direct evidence of that childhood, but we're thinking of velvet gowns and beautiful headdresses. And the Howards still owned quite a lot of property when they returned to London round about 1498. They probably stayed in Norfolk House in London, which was on their London properties, and they had lots of land there. So she would have been accustomed to wealth even after the downfall of her family.
- [07:31]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And give me some sense of what we know about the life of a young noblewoman. What were they supposed to do? What were the expectations of them?
- [07:40]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that the expectations placed on Elizabeth and her sister Muriel would have been quite high, particularly because of the downfall of the family. So they would have always been looking to claw back the power that they had under Richard iii. In the reign of Henry vii, it would have been expected that Elizabeth and her sister learned the feminine pastimes, things like embroidery, dancing, horse riding, but also archery. They would have had quite a varied education.
- [08:11]
So they would have been expected to be courteous and prayerful and pious. We have no direct evidence, unfortunately, of Elizabeth Boleyn's book ownership, for example, which would have, I think, offered us quite a lot of insight into her interests and her own religiosity. But looking at the book ownership of other women of that station, she would have had books of hours, she would have been well read, she could write and would have had a grasp of mathematics and how to run a household. It would have been a very varied upbringing.
- [08:45]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Now, her marriage to Thomas Boleyn is a critical turning point. How beneficial was this marriage to her, politically and personally?
- [08:56]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that the marriage has been quite downplayed in historiography. The idea that Elizabeth Boleyn, the then Elizabeth Howard, married so beneath her station possibly has been overplayed. The Howards and the Boleyn family family knew each other for about 20 years before the marriage of Elizabeth and Thomas, which we can't date exactly. It would have happened sometime around the turn of the 16th century. Anywhere between 1498 and 1501 is the window. I tried to date it slightly more accurately in the book because of when the Howards returned from the north, where Elizabeth spent her teenage years. Thomas Bullen would have come into a vast property portfolio upon the death of his father. The families knew each other. I think it was a fairly well arranged marriage for Elizabeth. They were also roughly the same age and during the Tudor period. Sometimes that's all you can hope for. Something that I tried to centre is their professional working relationship, which I think has been overlooked in historiography. The idea that Thomas was a courtier and for Henry VIII and Elizabeth Boleyn served Catherine of Aragon. They had parallel court careers that complemented and mirrored one another.
- [10:04]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And in fact, before that, you're suggesting there's even this period of service, of course, to the previous monarch. Would you share with us your deductions on the date at which you think they might have married?
- [10:16]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that we can place it between March 1498 and then the latest is 1501 because of when Elizabeth's jointure was settled on her. But we can be more specific. Earliest date, March 1498. Latest date. Muriel Howard, Elizabeth's younger sister, was married by November 1500 because she is mentioned in the will of a relative as Viscountess Lyle. So because she was the youngest sister, she was probably married after Elizabeth. I think that gives us the window of March 1498 and November 1500 for the marriage of Thomas and Elizabeth. Without other documentation, we can never know. I think it would go a long way to solve the mystery of the birth order and the. The birth dates of the children. But that's probably as accurate as we can be.
- [11:07]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And certainly your conclusion does not rule out the possibility, which seems most likely to me, of Anne being born in 1501. How does this union between a rising family and an established one that perhaps has fallen a little in recent years, but is clawing its way back up, influence the trajectory of their children, especially the girls Anne and Mary?
- [11:30]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Firstly, I think that we have massively underplayed Elizabeth Boleyn's involvement in the early years of Anne, Mary and George, if she's mentioned at all, she pretty much gives birth to the children and then disappears from the story. But she would have been heavily involved in the educations of all of her children. Certainly before the ages of around seven. George would have gone off to learn male education, and Mary and Anne would have stayed under the tutelage and guidance of Elizabeth and other women, learning things like Elizabeth herself, embroidery, dancing, feminine pastimes like that. They would have been expected for Anne, Mary and George to all go into court service like their parents. I couldn't find any direct evidence of Elizabeth Boleyn at court prior to the coronation of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII in 1509. But her sister Muriel was back at court, as was her father, Thomas Howard, by the time that the children were born. So it would have been expected that they go into court service and Elizabeth and Thomas would have been training them for that court service later in life.
- [12:36]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So the case that's often made for Thomas Boleyn's influence on the children's education is that it is Thomas who is a humanist, that it is he who speaks French and, of course, impresses Marguerite of Austria so much, and therefore it is often adduced that it would be Thomas who was setting the agenda for the children's education. What evidence is there to support a more active, engaged Elizabeth?
- [13:04]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that the evidence is, firstly, the closeness between Anne and Elizabeth later in life, even after a time abroad that Anne spent in the court of Margaret of Austria and later in France, and then Mary in France as well. She and Elizabeth are close later in life. That closeness probably was forged in childhood, in those early years. That suggests a more engaged version of Elizabeth in the story of their children. Another piece of evidence, I believe, is Elizabeth's own court service. As I say, she was in the household of Catherine of Aragon from 1509 to about 1522, which is when she seems to disappear from those records. That's a long time. So by the time Anne and Mary are back at court, Elizabeth has a lot of advice to offer them and a lot of her own experiences at court to offer her children. Certainly during Anne's rise to queenship. That part of the story, I think, has been downplayed, if not overlooked altogether.
- [14:08]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Let's talk a bit more about that, then. Elizabeth among Queen Catherine Varagam's closest attendants. How would that have prepared the family for what was to come and what might she have learned, being quite so close to power?
- [14:24]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think she would have learnt a lot. It's really hard to get those specifics again, because we have these fascinating household lists that have survived that give us the name of a Lady Boleyn. At court. It has been argued that's perhaps Anne Tempest, Elizabeth Boleyn's sister in law. It's possibly been argued that is another Elizabeth Boleyn. Elizabeth would. But all the evidence points to that being Elizabeth Howard, later Elizabeth Boleyn at court, Catherine Faradin's service. If we assume that it was for that period that I mentioned, 1509 to 1521, then she would have experienced. She would have gone to joust, she would have gone to feasts, she would have been very involved in direct court service. We can see the evidence of that in a reference that sometimes makes it into biographies of Anne, where shortly after Anne becomes queen, in her deposition, Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, who prophesied against Henry and Anne's marriage. There's a fascinating reference that often makes it into biographies of Anne where Elizabeth Barton says that Elizabeth Boleyn suggested that she wait on Anne, that she is in Anne's household. Fascinating and random reference, if you don't think about it within the wider context. When you think about the context of Elizabeth Boleyn's experience, her sister having served in the household of Elizabeth of York, and Catherine Gordon, the wife of Perkin Warbeck, also having served in the household of Elizabeth of York, which means that she then has to walk publicly behind Elizabeth of York for the rest of her life. She is neutralized in the eyes of the Tudor regime. When you think about the fact that Muriel Boleyn was in Elizabeth of York's household and the story of Katherine Gordon possibly reached Elizabeth Boleyn, perhaps they even met, we don't know. Then it suddenly makes sense that Elizabeth Boleyn is making this suggestion about Elizabeth Barton. Because here you place an enemy of the Tudor regime into the household of the rightful queen and that enemy is publicly neutralized and denigrated in the eyes of the public. That suddenly gives us a window into. Into the kind of information and the kind of knowledge that Elizabeth Boleyn was able to bring to Anne during her queenship. She had personal experience serving at court. She had a political savviness that we have not afforded her.
- [16:50]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Let us think, though, a bit more about the closeness between Elizabeth and Queen Catherine. You suggest that she may have had a special role at court.
- [17:04]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Yes. So there is one household list which suggests that possibly Elizabeth Boleyn becomes a lady in presence. There is a particular household list from October 1519 where the members of Catherine of Aragon's household are listed and there is little reference to ladies in presence. And besides that, there is number Two, the only women who are named in that list are Elizabeth Boleyn and Maria de Salinas, who was a close friend of Catherine of Arrogance. It's possible that because they are the only two women who are listed, perhaps Elizabeth Boleyn and Maria de Silinas had this particular role of lady in presence. It's difficult to ascertain exactly what that involved, but looking at the household records of nobility, ladies in presence would have accompanied the Queen to mass, they would have held train as she walked in, they would have been quite literally in presence, dressing and undressing in the mornings and being close attendants. It's fascinating to consider the possibility that Elizabeth Boleyn and Maria de Salernes both had that role in October 1519.
- [18:16]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Okay, so then, how did Elizabeth balance her loyalty, her closeness to Catherine of Aragon, with her two daughters as the King's love interest? Anything about either how Catherine felt towards Elizabeth or how Elizabeth felt about her daughters catching the eye of Henry?
- [18:37]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I wish we did. There is one particular reference to Elizabeth in the love letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn. And Henry says, I have been told that the opinion in which I left you is totally changed and you would not come to court either with your mother if you could, or in any other manner. So that's Henry speaking about Elizabeth. It's a really interesting reference to Elizabeth in the love letters because it's the only one of its kind. As far as I know. She's not mentioned elsewhere. But that goes to show that at some point the possibility of Elizabeth Boleyn accompanying Anne at court has already been raised. This possibly suggests that she was in favour of the match and that she only wanted Anne to go in her company. Or perhaps this was Elizabeth saying, stay away from Henry. Is it Anne saying, I don't want to go to court at all with my mother. Any other capacity? Or is it Elizabeth saying, don't go? We don't know because we don't have Anne's responses. But I think that Elizabeth's confusion or mixed feelings about the situation.
- [19:48]
We can only really guess at how she would have felt because of a lack of direct surviving evidence. It must have been a very conflicted and difficult time for her when Anne starts to catch Henry's eye, possibly even when Mary did.
- [20:03]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
But Anne obviously is a much more serious proposition in the end for Henry, I think.
- [20:09]
Sophie Backus Waterman
So we know so little about the affair between Mary and Henry. I think that's very interesting to consider, particularly when you consider the stain that it had on Elizabeth's own reputation. When I looked into references to Elizabeth's alleged affair with Henry, it is often mentioned in tandem with Mary's affair to Henry. Famously, of course, Henry saying, never with the mother, and then Thomas Cromwell saying, no with the sister either. So it seems like because there was the affair between Mary and Henry that later came back to haunt Elizabeth. We don't know. I've been asked before if we know anything about Elizabeth's feelings about the affair between Mary and Henry, but we don't because we know so little about that affair on its own. If she knew about it, and I'd imagine that she probably did because it seems to have been common knowledge, Certainly by the 1530s.
- [20:59]
She would have known once Anne caught Henry's eye, she wouldn't have wanted the same for Anne, given what happened to Mary and how she seems to have been used and discarded quite quickly. She would have known from her own childhood how quickly a family could fall from grace because of the Howard's own downfall.
- [21:21]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Now we've got this idea of Elizabeth at court, but you also paint a picture of her life at Hever Castle in Kent, the family seat, especially during the times when Thomas was away. You suggest that she would have acted as an estate manager and can we build up a picture of what that would have involved for her?
- [21:44]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Yeah, absolutely. That was a really fascinating part of the research, because I knew that it was going to be a challenge because we have, as I say, very little direct evidence of what Elizabeth was up to. So you have to look more broadly at what the life of a woman running an estate would have involved. And it would have been very varied and very busy, making sure that rents are paid, keeping up with what tenants were getting up to, making sure that the household was running. When we have imagined Elizabeth Boleyn, or certainly I imagined this before I started doing my research. Quite a retiring, reclusive, hermit type figure who stayed away at Hever. But that suggests that she wouldn't have been involved in the very busy and active running of places like Hever and Penshurst Place. To uncover some of that interiority, besides some exciting new discoveries that are in the book, I was able to look at the household records of other households like the Lestrange family, who were quite local, and the kinds of household records that Hever would have produced that are now no longer extant, offered some suggestion as to the sort of financial dealings that Elizabeth Boleyn would have been overseeing. I also have a quote from Christine Pizan which gives us really interesting insight into the sort of knowledge that Elizabeth Boleyn would have had to have when running the estate. A slightly different manner of life from that of the Baroness is suitable for ladies and demo cells living in fortified places or on their lands outside of towns. These women spend much of their lives in households without husbands. The men are usually at court or in distant countries, so the ladies will have responsibilities for managing their property, their revenues, their lands. The lady or domicile must be informed of the rights of domain of fiefs and secondary fiefs, about contributions, the lord's right to harvest shared crops and all other rights of possession and the customs both local and foreign. The world is full of governors of lord lands and jurisdictions who are intentionally dishonest. Aware of this, they the lady must be knowledgeable enough to protect her interests so that she cannot be deceived. So that is from the treasury of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan and she clearly lays out that you had to have a lot of knowledge and be aware of what was going on your estate at all times. When I imagined Elizabeth Valenik Hever, I imagined her retired and quiet and uninvolved. But just by looking at the lives of other women in a similar position, that wouldn't have been the case at all. I think that it was fascinating to imagine Elizabeth in charge of the estates when Thomas was away at court.
- [24:37]
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- [25:37]
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- [26:07]
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- [26:34]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thomas Boleyn, as we know, is elevated to Earl of Wiltshire and Elizabeth becomes a Countess as well. So can we think about what that might have meant for her, the regaining of that status after her family's fall and the privileges and responsibilities that came with this rank?
- [26:56]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that it must have meant a lot when they finally got those titles. Elizabeth had been rising, and Thomas too, rising in the ranks for quite some time before that. The Howards had regained a lot of the lost status after Thomas Howard's success at the Battle of Flodden 1513. So the Howards had regained their peerage status by then, which I think would have been a very proud day for Elizabeth. But when she eventually becomes Countess of Wiltshire and Ormond, it must have been a very triumphant day to finally, in her own right, regain that status and privilege that the family had lost all those years ago. The parallel that I draw is when Elizabeth actually becomes Viscountess Rochford, because her sister Muriel, who died in childbirth a couple of years prior to that, was Viscountess Lyle for a while when after she married John Grey, her first husband, who was Viscount Lyle. So when I wrote about that, it occurred to me that both sisters held the same title, eventually years apart, and I thought that was a really interesting parallel. I think that she would have been relieved to have that status back in her own right.
- [28:12]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And of course, when Anne became Queen, she's now the Queen's mother. What does that mean?
- [28:21]
Sophie Backus Waterman
It was really hard to see what role Elizabeth played directly because shocker again, lack of surviving sources. One of the earliest things, as I say I found was November 1533 when she makes that suggestion about Elizabeth Barton. Another really interesting source that I use for that period was the pay books of James Needham, which record repairs to various palaces and manors across the country and throughout, those are references to Elizabeth Boleyn, sometimes as the Queen's mother, sometimes as Lady Wiltshire. And that was really interesting because that goes to show that she had rooms at all of these various palaces across the country. We haven't put her there, we haven't imagined her there at court, but there are her rooms, there's the payments for repairs to her rooms. So we know that she would have been much more present at court than we've allowed for. Something else that I think she would have offered, besides the sort of political insight that she was able to give to Anne from her own long court service, was emotional support, which we haven't really imagined. Again, we imagine Anne as this isolated figure who had no women around to support her, but mothers often attended daughters during childbirth. So if we imagine that, and if we also place Elizabeth Boleyn in the service of Catherine of Aragon during that long period, then she would have probably been present for Catherine of Aragon's pregnancies as well. And she gave birth herself five times that we know of, possibly more. She was probably there for the birth of Princess Elizabeth and would have been an emotional support for Anne during her queenship, offering emotional support and also political insights that we haven't afforded her.
- [30:02]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And actually, if we go back a bit in time, you suggest that Elizabeth was pivotal in ensuring that Anne received the proper respect from Cardinal Wolsey.
- [30:13]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Yes, absolutely. That was one of the first things that I came across when I looked for direct references to Elizabeth Boleyn is this odd reference that sometimes makes it into biographies of Anne when we talk about her mother being present during the courtship of Henry and Anne, which is that on the 3rd of March, 1528, Anne and Elizabeth stop Thomas Heneage, one of Cardinal Wolsey's attendants, on their way to dinner with the king. And Anne bemoans, oh, Cardinal Wolsey has forgotten about me. I'm owed a token of his and he has not given it to me. And then Elizabeth jumps in with, I was also promised a morsel of tunny, a morsel of tuna, some tuna, some fish from Gardiner, Wolsey's pond. Which seems like an old and random request when you take it immediately at face value. But when you think about the time that this occurred, when Anne was on the rise, when Anne and Elizabeth were both expecting what was due to Anne as the queen in waiting, it suddenly takes on a new relevance that Elizabeth is not silently chaperoning Anne around, but she is there making sure that Anne and she both get what they are due as women of a certain status at court. It's one of the only times that we hear Elizabeth speak for herself. And I really think that it offers us insight into her loyalty towards Anne and the fact that she was making sure that both she and Anne get their due.
- [31:45]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes, it's interesting, isn't it? And it shows that she's able to extract the most out of a situation. In this case, it's a demonstration by the highest churchman in the land of his respect for her, you know, as the king's mistress's mother. I mean, she's asking him to become her petitioner, to approach her with gifts. And that's an interesting turning of power on its head, isn't it?
- [32:16]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Yeah, absolutely. Particularly, we get the story from Heneage himself, and he tells us in the letter that Elizabeth Blinn says that she'd already petitioned somebody else. She'd already asked somebody who in the letter is called Forrest, for this token that she hadn't gotten. And so now she's asking again. It goes to show that she's able to stand up for herself, that she's not this shy, retiring wallflower figure that we might have perhaps imagined when we think about Elizabeth Boleyn at all. But here she is in a primary source, speaking up for herself and Anne as well.
- [32:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Let's go to the events of 1536, the downfall of Anne and her brother. Now, what we have here is Elizabeth's near complete silence. And it raises really interesting questions about women's agency and power and survival strategies at the Tudor court. The men in the family are forced into visible roles at this time, but Elizabeth can withdraw. But we have to kind of imagine, I suppose, whether we think her absence was strategic or was it any kind of enforced isolation. Is it because she's incapacitated by grief? Is she ill? You know, what is the emotional cost of withdrawal for her? What do we know?
- [33:28]
Sophie Backus Waterman
We know frustratingly little. I will say that I was afraid to write about this because we know so little about what she felt or what she was doing or where they were. And this vilification, as I said earlier, has fallen on Thomas Boleyn's shoulders for not protecting their children. We know that Elizabeth Boleyn was at court on 14 April 1536. That's the last reference that I found to her being at court. From there, we don't know anything else. We don't know when she retired or if she did in the letter that placed her at court on 14 April it is mentioned that she is unwell at that time, that she has a severe cough, which has been suggested to be tuberculosis, that ultimately killed her a couple of years later. So it's possible that she retired from court shortly after the 14th of April 1536. However, I don't think that she did. I don't think that she would have done because George was in the May day joust on the 1st of May. And given Anne's own recent loss, why would Elizabeth have left Fah unless she was, as you say, severely incapacitated?
- [34:37]
As controversial as it might be, I think that there's a possibility that Elizabeth was there at the May Day joust the last time that Anne saw Henry, because she and Anne were close. And Anne, I believe, must have sensed that the tide was turning. Elizabeth must have sensed that things were changing. Why would she have left her children at court when she could be there when we know that Thomas was there? Something that I found fascinating when I did my research is that shortly after Anne's arrested, she asks Kingston where her father is and Kingston says, I saw him at court this morning. I didn't know that until I did my own research and I read those letters. And to me that suggests a father blindsided by what happened, not somebody who was scheming and withdrew strategically before the arrests, but was completely taken aback. He was at court that very morning when his children were arrested. It's possible that Elizabeth was there as well.
- [35:36]
I hoped that I would find some sort of new reference to Elizabeth that had been overlooked. But Anne's arrest and the whole downfall has been mentioned and discussed and researched so often that I didn't find anything new per se. But by going through Elizabeth's whole life story up until that point, I think that it is completely possible, perhaps even likely, that she was there on the day of the May Day joust, and possibly even there when Anne was arrested. Another piece of evidence for that is the fact that when she is arrested, Anne asks about the whereabouts of her father and her brother. She obviously doesn't ask about her sister who'd been banished from court. She also doesn't ask about her mother's whereabouts either. Could be because she knows that she's a heaver. Or it could also be because she had just seen her mother not long at court.
- [36:26]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Very interesting.
- [36:38]
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- [37:52]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So we don't have any information about how she dealt with this terrible event in her life, of having two of her children executed and this enormous blow to the family fortunes that came with that terrible grief. And in fact, our last reference to her is her funeral being recorded in a brief, almost impersonal account. What does this say about historical memory and who is remembered or forgotten?
- [38:26]
Sophie Backus Waterman
That's a really interesting question. Elizabeth has been overlooked in the historiography because she seems to, at least from the random chance survival of sources, have been overlooked in life as well. That we have no letters that have survived, we have no letters to her or from her. This is possibly because of her role as the queen's mother. When you look at women who held that position before her, geographically close women, people like Jacquetta of Luxembourg, for example, mother of Elizabeth Woodville, or Anne Beecham, the mother of Ann Neville, they were a threat to the king because as the mother of these women, they had a close emotional connection to their daughters and could offer advice contrary to the king's wishes. So I think that during Anne's queenship, Elizabeth was almost forced into the shadows because she was Anne's mother and because we know that they were close. And then when it came to the downfall of their children and she was able to retire from court service in a way that Thomas Boleyn wasn't and seems to have, as you say, spent the rest of her life at Hever, away from the spotlight. She has therefore necessarily been forgotten in the story and seems to have been forgotten in life as well. It's very interesting when we think about Elizabeth as a member of the Howard and Boleyn families, these two very famous, powerful, influential families of their day. And Elizabeth is at the intersection of those two families and yet has left us so little.
- [40:06]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What inspired you to write a full biography of someone who is so elusive in the historical record?
- [40:11]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that was the exact reason, because she is so elusive in the historical record. Because when you read biographies of Anne, you come across these references, these very brief references to her mother served in the household of, they say, Elizabeth of York and Catherine of Aragon. And I thought, there's a story there. If Anne's mother served Catherine of Aragon and then obviously the rivalry between Anne and Catherine later in life and everything that happened, what must that have been like for her mother? So that was the inspiration. Is there more to know about Elizabeth Boleyn and what is that story, if you take it by itself, outside of the story of Anne?
- [40:44]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So how did you go about doing it? How did you approach reconstructing her life with such limited sources?
- [40:52]
Sophie Backus Waterman
The first step was to piece together the sources that we did have that directly referenced her. Looking at, for example, we knew that she was in the household of Catherine of Aragon, and so trying to find events that we know that she attended, household records, that sort of thing. After that, it was a matter of filling the gaps where we didn't know where she was and what she was up to either, by reading between the lines of the sources that we do have. So, for example, she was in the household of Catherine of Aragon. And then if you looked at Edward hall, the chronicler, he tells us what they were up to at certain points. And so that filled in a couple of those gaps. When she disappears off the record for a while when she was at Hever, you can look at what a lady of the household would have been up to, what the days would have been like, that sort of thing. And so that was how I filled the gaps. I think of it as like the direct references to Elizabeth are almost like the bones of the thing, and then the imagination or the speculation is like the flash that pieces it all together. That was how I went about it.
- [41:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And so would it be fair to say it's a kind of balancing of imaginative storytelling with historical rigour?
- [41:56]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think so, yes. And I think it had to be when you've got a figure as whose sources are as fragmented as Elizabeth's, it had to be a case of using imagination and educated speculation to place her at certain points in her life. And I think that there may be people who think that I put Elizabeth in places that she probably wasn't, or perhaps speculated that she was more involved than she might have been. But the more I looked at the story from her perspective, the more I found that it was likely that she was there. For example, with the birth of Princess Elizabeth, Anne's daughter, we know that mothers often attended their daughters during pregnancy and birth. We know that Anne Boleyn and her mother were close. It therefore follows that Elizabeth Boleyn probably would have been there when Princess Elizabeth was born. And so there was that sort of level of careful speculation and saying always that it was only speculation that we can't know. We don't have the sources that survive to tell us, but here is the most likely.
- [42:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's very interesting. It's an approach pioneered by black feminist historians like Saadia Hartman, who are writing about women, as you may well know. So it's interesting to see it being used to tackle these women of the 16th century. And one of the interesting parallels there is that you write that Elizabeth's absence from history might stem from discomfort around her story. Obviously, quite often when we're looking at the stories that people like Saidi Hartman have pulled out, the discomfort is around women not having power. And you're suggesting actually here it might be the opposite, that actually it's a discomfort with women's ambition or influence. Why do you think Elizabeth Boleyn has been sidelined for so long?
- [43:35]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that it is because we vilified Thomas Boleyn so much and obviously historiography is turning around on that quite a bit. But Thomas Boleyn shoulders all of the blame for the downfall of his children. And because of a lack of surviving sources, Elizabeth has been left out of that story and that blame, because we also like to imagine that Anne didn't have close female friends. We imagine her with her rivalry with Catherine Varagan, her rivalry with Jane Seymour, her rivalry with her own sister. The idea that Anne might have been a woman who relied on her mother and looked up to her mother and had a close relationship with her is not one, I think, that has been entertained, because the story of Anne Boleyn as an isolated female figure is the one that has been so popularised in depictions. Because we have a lack of surviving sources of Elizabeth. She hasn't made it into fictionalised portrayals. Many of them don't adventure at all. She's not in the Tudors, for example, which is a lot of people's gateway into history. And so I think that is why we've left Elizabeth out, because we imagine the Boleyns As a family of ambitious social climbers, Elizabeth doesn't fit into that story. She's been trapped at Hever Castle, not mentioned at all, even though we know that she had a long court career in Catherine of Aragon's service. So I would say that it's a mixture of a lot of factors, not least a lack of direct primary source evidence.
- [44:56]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Given that you have spent this time working on Elizabeth's life, what would you say recovering her life does in terms of either challenging or enriching a broader understanding of women's roles in Tudor history?
- [45:11]
Sophie Backus Waterman
I think that when it comes to recovering the lives of women at court, women during this period who have left little direct primary source evidence, we have to think more imaginatively and more broadly about how we recover their lives and how we tell their stories. When I approached this project, I was told by other historians that it was impossible that there was not enough direct primary source evidence to recover the life of Elizabeth Blinn. And that is true when you look for her directly in the sources. But once I approached this with, as you say, other historiographical techniques, and once I thought about filling those gaps where we don't have any direct evidence, it allowed me to place Elizabeth Blynn back in the story. And now, having told the story of Anne from the perspective of her mother, I can't really understand how we haven't done it before. Maybe that sounds arrogant, I don't know. But she seems to have been so important to Anne. She's mentioned at so many different points in Anne's life, before she's queen, during her queenship, and then, as you say, all the way up to her own death, afterwards. She's there throughout. And I think that in order to recover her story and the stories of other women like her, we need to take a broader view of the sources that have survived and think about why we have what we have. So I think that the kind of influence that Elizabeth Blyn had on Anne and Mary and George hasn't survived in the primary sources, because we think about who was writing these primary sources. You've got ambassadors, dispatches and chroniclers who aren't mentioning women by name, who are leaving them out the story completely. So once I saw the sources in a slightly different way, I was able to imagine Elizabeth in the story a lot more than had previously been allowed.
- [47:09]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes. The sources that we're drawing on are so often written by men, and they're not written with the intention of capturing the affective relations between women. That's not what they're asking as a question or that they're noticing?
- [47:26]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Absolutely. In Heneage's letter that we referenced earlier, where Elizabeth and Anne ask for shrimp from Woolsey and tuna from Woolsey, he ends that letter by saying, pardon me that I am so bold to write unto your grace hereof. It is the conceit and mind of a woman. It's not just the conceit and mind of a woman, this trivial thing. Oh, Anne and her mother are asking for this gift. It is a sign of respect to Anne that was afforded to her by Woolsey, that she expected that Elizabeth also expected Anne's mother. But you see it in the primary source itself. Heneage, dismissing this request, I think we can go further.
- [48:06]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I don't think it's just asking for respect. I think it's asking for a certain deference. It's, you know, you supply me, churchman, with the fish I want because I'm on the rise and you are the King's good servant. Well, thank you so much, Sophie Bacus Waterman, for your work in uncovering Elizabeth Boleyn and for coming onto the podcast to talk about it.
- [48:28]
Sophie Backus Waterman
Thank you so much for having me.
- [48:32]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tutors from here History Hit. And to my producer Rob Weinberg, we are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line and Not Just the tudors@historyhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode next time on Not Just the Tudors From History Hit.
- [49:06]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [49:36]
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