George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat Read online

  Jousting is first recorded in 1066 and enjoyed widespread popularity during the thirteenth century. It remained popular until the late sixteenth century, when it went out of fashion. The sport was particularly dangerous, and one at which Henry had excelled in his youth. Thomas Boleyn himself had jousted with the King before Henry was forced to give up the sport following a nasty fall in January 1536. Participation in the sport took courage and recklessness, of which Henry would have approved, together with grim determination and a competitive spirit. The only record we have of George Boleyn in the joust is the May Day tournament of 1536, but to have been considered as a principal competitor, it must have been a sport in which he had previously indulged frequently. The thought of him jousting contrasts sharply with the view of him as a poet and intellect, but any courtier who wished to remain in the intimate royal circle had to have all-round abilities in order to keep the King amused and entertained. Similarly, the constant jockeying for position and status must have been exhausting - or exhilarating, depending on your point of view. To be constantly employed in keeping the King amused must also have been debilitating, as well as nerve-wracking. It would be rather like keeping a small child entertained, only one who was particularly egotistical and dangerous. Thomas More phrased it best when he wrote in his collection of Latin poems:

  You often boast to me that you have the king's ear and often have fun with him, freely and according to your whims. This is like having fun with tamed lions, often it is harmless, but just as often there is fear of harm. Often he roars in rage for no known reason, and suddenly the fun becomes fatal.8

  In addition to sporting pursuits, both George and his sister Anne were keen readers. Most of the books that we know belonged to them are religious, but George Boleyn's collection also contains volumes that were read purely for pleasure and amusement. Two books survive that were provably in his possession at some stage. The first is a manuscript containing a translation in French by Jean Le Fèvre of Mathieu of Boulogne's thirteenth century poem Liber lamentationum Matheoluli (The Lamentations of Matheolus), a satire on marriage, followed Le Fèvre's Le Livre de Leesce (The Book of Joy/Gladness), which appears to be a refutation of Matheolus's work.9 There is controversy over Le Livre de Leesce, with some scholars taking it at face value as a pro-feminist defence of women and a rebuttal of Matheolus' misogynistic arguments,10 while others see it as playful and tongue-in-cheek, with "a heavy dose of make irony" to amuse male readers.11 Karen Pratt has gone so far as to say that, rather than it praising marriage, Le Livre actually praises "the joys of marital sex", something which Henry VIII's courtiers may well have found amusing.12 George certainly owned the manuscript because it is inscribed "thys boke ys myn George Boleyn 1526" (See Figure 2); it has been suggested that Thomas Wyatt the Elder may have given it to George as a wedding present because it bears Wyatt's signature at the end, along with two teasing verses in Italian and French. Historian Susan Brigden points out that 1526 was "the time of Wyatt's own marital catastrophe" so his inscriptions "can be read in the light of his experience".13 However, George was married in 1525, probably early in the year, so it is more likely that George purchased the book or was given it some time after his marriage.

  At some point George gave or loaned the book to the court's young musician, Mark Smeaton, because it also bears the inscription "A moi M. Marc S." The fact, that the book was, at some point, in the possession of both George and Mark Smeaton has been used by one historian as the sole piece of evidence to support a theory that George was having a homosexual relationship with the musician.14 Such an assertion, ignoring Thomas Wyatt's endorsement, seems to be a matter of turning a small, inconsequential fact into so-called "evidence", in a poor attempt to prove a pre-conceived theory. The satire on marriage was widely circulated amongst scholars in Europe and clearly did the rounds of courtiers, many of whom, like Wyatt, were trapped in loveless matches and could appreciate its irony. While Smeaton may have seen the acquisition of the book as a mark of his acceptance into the society of men like Boleyn and Wyatt, the sad truth was that to the Boleyns and their circle he was as important as a grain of sand is to a desert. Wyatt's scribbling of a French proverb mocking a social upstart may well reflect the group's views on Smeaton. To suggest that either of the proud Boleyn siblings would have chosen the lowly commoner as a lover is not credible.

  The second book in George's collection is a copy of Ramon Lull's Libre del Orde de cavalleria, reworked in French by Symphorien Champier as Lordre de Chevalerie (the Book of the Order of Chivalry). The book describes the progress of a young squire's meeting with an old knight who has become a hermit. The hermit instructs the squire in what is expected of a knight and the ways of chivalry. Interestingly, the book says that on entering the order of chivalry, a knight must confess his sins against God, and that if he is cleansed of sin he ought to receive his saviour. George's scaffold speech demonstrates that this was a lesson he took very much to heart. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, may have given the book to George, after 8 December 1529 (when George became Viscount Rochford) since George proudly and endearingly entered on the title page, "Thys booke is myn George Rocheford".15 16 If the gift was indeed Suffolk's (something which may never be established conclusively), he was obviously better disposed towards George than he was to George's sister Anne, whose relationship with Suffolk and his wife, Mary Tudor, was always strained. It would also indicate that Suffolk had taken it upon himself to take the newly-knighted George under his wing, perhaps out of respect and affection for the young man, perhaps as a way of ingratiating himself with the by then powerful Boleyn family. George went on to have the book translated into English by Thomas Wall, Windsor Herald, as a gift for the King in 1533.17 Julia Fox notes that Wall's manuscript has various underlinings and corrections, which she believes were made by George because his knowledge of French was "more up to date than Wall's".18

  George Boleyn certainly lived life to the full in all respects, and it is a tragedy that his life was cut so short. His love of sports, gambling and outdoor pursuits such as hunting gave him even more in common with his future brother-in-law, the King, than merely his intellectual prowess. He was not only a young man after whose sister the King lusted, he was also someone whom the King personally liked. Before their deaths, George Boleyn, Henry Norris, and to a lesser extent Francis Weston, were all intimates of the King, and had been for many years. It makes the tragedy of 1536 even more poignant, since these men were not strangers who meant nothing to the King - they were the people with whom he chose to spend his leisure time, and his friends.

  6 - Religion

  To the medieval mind, religion was not a matter of choice. God's existence was a fact, not a question of personal belief or faith. Failure to accept this amounted to heresy and could result in a fiery death at the stake. Belief in demons, omens, vengeful spirits and witchcraft was equally strong. Science was in its infancy, and to an ignorant people any unexplained phenomenon was caused either by the forces of evil or the wrath of God. The only way to defend yourself was through total adherence to the church. Fear and devotion could be exploited through greed and corruption, resulting in the church acquiring vast wealth, land and power. In the early 1500s, the church meant the Catholic church and its inherent rituals. There was no other permitted faith, and adherence to any other religious format was considered heresy. Religion shaped and formed an integral part of the lives of the Tudors. Everything worked around the church calendar, and the laws of the land were based on the church's doctrines. However, there were those who actively pursued religious reform, often at great personal risk. It is impossible to write about George Boleyn's life without writing extensively about his religious beliefs, which were staunchly Reformist and evangelical, and an essential part of his life. They helped to shape his character, and ultimately helped to destroy him.

  Until Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome following the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, England was a devoutly Roman Catholic country. He
nry himself was fervently Catholic and, until his desire for the annulment led him to break with Rome, he actively persecuted religious Reformers. Henry's defence of the Catholic church, in his pamphlet Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (Declaration of the Seven Sacraments Against Martin Luther), led to the Pope granting him the title "Defender of the Faith", a title of which he was immensely proud. The man against whom Henry VIII was defending the church was Martin Luther (1483-1546), a German monk, theologian and church reformer. He is to this day considered to be the founder of Protestantism and the main catalyst of the Reformation.

  Luther's writings, which included The Ninety-five Theses, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, On the Freedom of a Christian and On the Bondage of the Will, were circulated widely around Europe and had a major impact. His theology challenged the papacy by holding that the Bible was the sole source of religious authority, and that salvation and redemption were attainable only through faith in Christ and God's grace, unmediated by the rights and rituals of the church. Luther translated the Bible into German, making it more accessible to ordinary German people. He rejected the idea of the priesthood mediating between God and man through the miracle of the mass, and attacked the sale of indulgences by the church, complaining that Christians were being led to believe that this practice would give them absolution when salvation was actually available free through Christ.

  In short, Luther preached faith rather than ritual, thereby directly challenging the basis of Catholicism. Luther's writings, along with those of his followers, were widely banned throughout Europe. Luther was excommunicated in January 1521, and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, declared him an outlaw and heretic in May 1521.

  Despite Henry's active persecution of those who failed to conform to the orthodox Catholic faith, Thomas Boleyn favoured religious reform, as did his youngest two children. Both Anne and George were drawn to reform of the Catholic church, no doubt initially through their father's influence. Some historians see Thomas Boleyn as a conservative Catholic;1 however, his links to French Reformers suggest otherwise, as does his use of his godson Thomas Tebold as an agent on the Continent, reporting back on the current state of religious persecution in France, and spreading the word that Thomas Boleyn was "a promising patron of works - theological and other". Tebold also sent Thomas Boleyn a religious work by French Reformer Clément Marot, an action which would only make sense if Thomas was sympathetic to the cause of Reform. Another man linked to Thomas Boleyn is Reyner Wolf, a bookseller who used his travels abroad to work as an agent for the English government, carrying messages between Reformers such as Heinrich Bullinger and Thomas Cranmer. It is hard to believe that a conservative Catholic would have such links.

  The Boleyns' religious idealism bred in zealous Catholics a hatred of the family, a hatred that continued long after their deaths, and which spawned many of the rumours, innuendos and slanders against them that persist to this day. When the Boleyn siblings first entered court life, the aristocracy were mainly staunch Catholics, appalled at the thought of any reform to the church, let alone the drastic approach of Reformers such as Luther. The Boleyns' faith and evangelism resulted in them acquiring many powerful enemies, who made the most of the family's later fall from grace.

  Although religion was an enormously important part of sixteenth century life, at the time the Bible was only available in Latin, and only the highly educated were able to read it. The common people had to rely on parish priests to interpret the Bible for them and to teach them the doctrines of Christianity. There was a significant movement in England that supported reform of the Catholic church - for the rites of the faith to be reformed, and for the word of God to be accessible to the masses. George and Anne Boleyn were not merely devotees of this group; in time they came to embody it. Their desire for reform came from their natural and genuine religious tendencies. With a traditionalist Catholic English King on the throne, this reform seemed an unlikely prospect. In time, as we obviously know, Henry VIII also came to accept reform, but his motives for instigating the Reformation were very different to those of the Boleyn siblings: he wanted a break with Rome because this fulfilled his desires. Eventually, he also came to believe that he should have supremacy over the Church of England. The Boleyns were Reformers, and the fact that the eventual break achieved Henry's annulment and facilitated his marriage to Anne was a marvellous bonus.

  Henry's views hardened towards Rome between late 1532 and 1535, but in the late 1520s and into the 1530s, Reformist literature was still banned in England. George Boleyn's regular trips abroad in the early 1530s enabled him to obtain religious literature that was banned in England and across most of Europe. We know of George's trips to France as ambassador because these are referred to in the state papers. There may also, however, have been private trips that he made abroad that would not have been documented, some of which could have taken place prior to his first diplomatic mission. Any literature he brought back was read with interest not only by George but also by his sister Anne. When Anne and George's goods were confiscated after their deaths, they were found to include a number of evangelical books written in French.

  The religious manuscripts owned by Anne and George Boleyn were acquired either by George himself or through other intermediaries. George turned two religious works into magnificent presentation manuscripts for Anne. These manuscripts were based on works by Jacques Lefèvre d'étaples: Les Epistres et Evangiles des cinquante et deux sepmaines de l'an (The Epistles and Gospels for the Fifty-two Weeks of the Year) and The Ecclesiaste. The manuscripts were based on cheap printed books that would have been hard to obtain in England in the early 1530s (unless you happened to be the King's future brother-in-law). Les Epistres consisted of the dates of the liturgical calendar followed by the Epistle or Gospel in French rather than the usual Latin, and then an exhortation, or homily, by Lefèvre. Anne's copy of The Ecclesiaste consisted of the book of Ecclesiastes translated into French by Lefèvre, with an English translation of German theologian and Reformer Johannes Brenz's commentary. Both books were written with the aim of making the Bible accessible to the masses; Brenz's commentary stressed the need for a living faith in Christ rather than a reliance on the rituals and practices of the orthodox Catholic Church, which was precisely the ideology of Martin Luther. Brenz called for reform, and exhorted priests to serve the laity by following the pattern of Christ's Great Commission laid out in Matthew 28 – that is, "preaching and baptising in a positive evangelical service" rather than "controlling salvation through the dispensing of the sacraments".2 Interestingly, while Martin Luther's Notes on Ecclesiastes was aimed at monks and clerics, Brenz's commentary focused on rulers and those who are ruled. Brenz saw King Solomon as a preacher and "the chief spiritual watchman and spokesman for his people", a man who had religious responsibility as well as that of a ruler.3

  Jacques Lefèvre d'étaples, the original author of Les Epistres and The Ecclesiaste, was a French theologian, humanist and Bible translator. In his biography of Lefèvre, Philip Edgcumbe Hughes writes of how "Lefèvre blazed the trail that led from Renaissance to Reformation", and he is seen by many as the precursor of the Protestant movement in France. Although his name is not as famous as that of Martin Luther, Eric Ives refers to Lefèvre as the "herald of the Protestant Reformation";4 he was promoting the doctrine of justification of faith as early as 1509, well before Luther's Ninety-five Theses (1517). In fact, all three foundations of the reformed theology, which became the hallmarks of figures such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, were propounded first by Lefèvre. First, sola gratia (by grace alone): the idea that Christians were saved by the mercy and grace of God; secondly, sola fide (by faith alone): the doctrine of justification by faith, that Christians gain God's pardon for their sins, and eternal life, through faith alone and not human works; and finally, soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory): the idea that Christians should live their lives to glorify God and not themselves or ot
hers.

  Putting these doctrines together, Lefèvre believed that sinners were justified and pardoned by faith alone, through the divine grace of God and Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and that all the glory should go to God for his mercy and grace. Lefèvre also saw scripture as the highest authority, being the Word of God.5

  Les Epistres was printed in 1525, and was condemned by the Sorbonne later that year. The doctrines implicated in that condemnation included: justification by faith alone and the idea that good works did not contribute to a believer's salvation; salvation by the grace and goodness of God alone; Jesus Christ as the sole mediator between God and man; and the idea that only the Word of God should be preached and taught by the church.

  Yet all these beliefs were derived from the New Testament.

  Lefèvre writes in his exhortations that sins will be forgiven if we simply have faith in Christ, because He has paid the price of our sin.6 This is a recurrent theme in his exhortations, and this doctrine of justification by faith was obviously taken on board by George and Anne. These two volumes were not the only books by Lefèvre that Anne owned; she also owned a copy of his French Bible, and clearly valued his work.

  Lefèvre never left the Catholic church, and was not a schismatic. He sought to reform and renew the church by going back to scripture and making scripture accessible to everyone, so that all could receive God's grace and learn about God's message. Theologian Guy Bedouelle views Lefèvre "neither as a Catholic with a bad conscience nor as a crypto-Protestant, but rather as an evangelical who firmly believed that the truth when positively proclaimed would triumph over error."7 8 This description of Lefèvre could also fit the Boleyn siblings. Although Chapuys described the Boleyns as "Lutheran", their influence was French, and like Lefèvre, they appear to have been evangelical Catholics looking to reform the church from within, and to bring renewal to their country through the dissemination of the Bible in the native language.