00:02:14.480the archival records, like coming to their own conclusions, not just kind of assuming based on
00:02:18.980what other books are written. And so I'm really trying to do a fresh, fresh look at the life
00:02:23.560of Anne Boleyn, one of the most famous women in history. I also confirm some facts here
00:02:29.480with Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica online. And I'm shouting all these things out just because
00:02:35.740you might want to read the book, Hunting the Falcon, but also just so you know,
00:02:38.960AI was not evolved in the creation of this episode. I'm using actual sources.
00:02:42.500and you know if you're a new listener to this podcast you're like well who's the guest why
00:02:46.500are you introducing the guest babe there's no guest it's just well there is a guest it's my
00:02:50.520cat Hepburn she's here directly in front of me but this is a this is a solo episode that's just
00:02:56.840me and my research telling you a story actually and the other thing I'm going to mention to you
00:03:02.320is that we've kind of been setting the scene for this with previous episodes this season and previous
00:03:07.180seasons. So if you scroll back in your podcast app, I did an episode about the Boleyn family
00:03:13.380with Tracy Borman. And Tracy explained a lot of kind of the background of who the Boleyns were
00:03:19.320and how they kind of came to prominence and who some of the people were in that family.
00:03:23.280This episode, I'm going to be referring to a lot of other episodes. If you want to hear
00:03:27.200about some of the people who mentioned, I'll be like, listen to this, listen to this. But that's
00:03:30.960just so this episode won't be like six hours long. So scroll back and you can hear more about
00:03:35.840the Boleyn family and then come back here welcome back so Anne Boleyn was born into a family that
00:03:42.760was kind of on their headed up they had started started from the bottom now they're here so her
00:03:49.180father's name was Thomas Boleyn it had been like I think three generations his great-grandfather
00:03:55.920had gone from being like a guy in the textile biz to like really elevating the family through like
00:04:01.960some clever marriages to wealthy women um and just like his really his success being a merchant
00:04:07.320so by the time thomas was born the family was like new money is how they were considered in
00:04:12.280this era so the great-grandfather kind of like got them up there the grandfather was doing well
00:04:17.100thomas's father so anne's grandfather william boleyn elevated the boleyns to like like the
00:04:23.700every generation just got a bit more prestigious and william had gotten them to this like really
00:04:27.960high level because William Boleyn had married a woman called Margaret Butler. Margaret Butler
00:04:33.620was the heir to the Earl of Ormond, a wealthy Anglo-Irish peer. And so we talked about her
00:04:40.360in the episode as Tracy Borman. Again, you can get more information about her there.
00:04:44.460And I did reference there like, oh, well, she was, you know, Anne Boleyn had an Irish granny,
00:04:48.520which she did, but it's like Anglo-Irish. And so I do want to clarify that it's not like
00:04:53.300The Tudors, especially under Henry VIII, really fucked up Ireland in a colonization, genocide type way. And so Anne Boleyn's ancestor, her grandmother, her granny, Margaret Butler, was Anglo-Irish. So this is like an English person who went to Ireland. She's not like an Irish person, but she does have this in her lineage.
00:05:17.640So Margaret Butler was like a hugely wealthy heiress. William Boleyn marrying her like elevated the family even more. So William Boleyn, Anne's grandpa, he was a courtier in England because, you know, he had this great marriage. He was a prominent person. So he's a courtier actually. And this is how close all this history happened. Like first to Richard III.
00:05:40.880And if you want to go back to me explaining to you the Wars of the Roses and how the Tudors got on the throne, that's the first episode of this season.
00:05:50.000But like the Boleyns were on the scene in the background of everything.
00:05:53.120So like he was a courtier to Richard III.
00:05:55.700And then that all went south, Richard III's, you know, monarchy.
00:06:04.580And then William Boleyn was a courtier to him.
00:06:07.980In fact, he was just like a popular guy in the scene.
00:06:10.980In fact, he was there in the background of some very notable events, such as when Catherine of Aragon first arrived from Spain, he was there in the entourage to greet her.
00:06:21.480So Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father, the oldest son of William Boleyn.
00:06:26.780And so then he, you know, the Boleyns were already like doing so well, everything's going so well.
00:06:31.960And then Thomas Boleyn got a really good marriage that got them even more elevated because he married Elizabeth Howard, who is a daughter of the Earl of Surrey. And the Howards, you might know the surname from Henry VIII's later wife, Catherine Howard, those Howards.
00:06:48.460later on, a century later, there's a notable Howard called Francis Howard. Anyway, the Howards
00:06:54.620were among the country's most important old nobility. They were like old money. So the1.00
00:06:59.920Boleyns are kind of on the upswing, new money, but they're marrying into this family with so many
00:07:05.440roots and so much prestige. And in fact, so Thomas and Elizabeth, there's a lot of stuff in the early
00:07:12.060part of Anne Boleyn's life where it's like, what year did this happen? People didn't really write
00:07:15.920down dates back then. That's just kind of their vibe. But we know that Thomas and Elizabeth were
00:07:21.560married by 1498 because in 1498, Henry VII, the king traveled through their neighborhood and
00:07:29.120they hosted him at their home. And hosting the king at your home was like a pretty rare and
00:07:34.340prestigious thing to get to do. So that kind of shows how high up they were, but also shows like
00:07:38.820the Boleyns were just like in there, like they were in all the stuff that's happening around the
00:07:45.000king. Like there's always a Berlin on the scene. So Henry VIII had two sisters. He had a sister0.93
00:07:51.940called Margaret and he had a sister called Mary. And guess what? I've done episodes about both of
00:07:56.580them. So you can scroll and learn more about them. So Henry VIII's older sister, Margaret Tudor,
00:08:03.340was married off to the king in Scotland. And then that's the lineage where Mary Queen of Scots
00:08:08.400comes from. And again, I did like a 25 part series about Mary Queen of Scots and I talk about
00:08:12.560Margaret Tudor there. Anyway, but in terms of this, Thomas Boleyn was part of that entourage
00:08:18.200that accompanied like to, you know, as like bodyguards slash diplomats when Margaret Tudor
00:08:23.300went to Scotland to marry the king of Scotland. So the king of Scots, sorry. So Thomas Boleyn
00:08:29.180just keeps being on the scene. And this is because he was like a really charming guy.
00:08:33.920He's also really skilled guy. Like he was, he had all the skills of courtier about, you know,
00:08:38.160just like being able to talk to anybody, just being good at, you know, knowing about books and
00:08:44.500being able to talk about topics. And he could like speak French, like he was just kind of all
00:08:48.440the skills you need. So this is why they keep involving him on all these committees. So in
00:08:53.9801509, Henry VIII becomes king. And Anne's father, Thomas Boleyn, who had been friends with Henry
00:09:00.860for a while, like he was promoted even further. He became a knight of the bath at the time of
00:09:06.820Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's coronation. Anne Boleyn's mom, Elizabeth, was named a lady
00:09:11.860in waiting to Catherine of Aragon. So, like, the Boleyns are just, like, there. They're on the
00:09:16.040scene. They're always everywhere. If there was, like, a TMZ of the time, like, there would be a
00:09:20.660Boleyn in the background constantly. So, during the midst of all of this, like, Henry VIII becoming
00:09:25.420the king, like, them getting these new prestigious positions, Thomas and Elizabeth, had a bunch of
00:09:30.600children. Many of them did not survive childhood or infancy, but three of them did. And that's
00:09:36.660George, Mary, and Anne Boleyn. So again, with the whole like, well, people didn't really write down
00:09:42.600dates. So most historians at this point that I'm recording assume that Mary was probably the oldest
00:09:50.200and then Anne and then George. This is what we're guessing based on various contextual clues and
00:09:56.620stuff and actually if you're curious about like but like if you're astrology girly and you're like
00:10:01.260what was but what was Anne Boleyn's like rising sun or whatever like guess what we're going to
00:10:05.760be doing a bonus episode about that later this month because I don't know I don't think I've
00:10:09.560mentioned like October is Anne Boleyn month we're doing all Anne Boleyn content on vulgar history
00:10:15.220and that is going to include a special chat with a astrologer about Anne Boleyn's star sign but we
00:10:23.080don't know when she was born, but she and her siblings were born very close together in the
00:10:28.960early 1500s. Maybe they were born something like Mary was born in 1499, Anne was born in 1501,
00:10:35.340George was born in 1503. Like they're all very close in age and they're all born around the year
00:10:39.6601500. So when Anne was about five years old in 1505, the grandfather, William, died. And this
00:10:48.680led to a sort of like family uh like a lot of times when when somebody dies and it's like who's
00:10:55.220going to inherit what etc there was some drama and that was that he had said that thomas and dad
00:11:02.760his oldest son um should pay an annuity like an amount of money to to margaret butler which is
00:11:11.600william's now widow thomas's mom and that thomas should allow her to keep various properties
00:11:17.780And Thomas spent the next like seven or so years fighting against this because like he didn't want his mother to have that income. And why was this? Because he was, I was saying, you know, the Tudors, not the Tudors, the Boleyns, they're on the scene, they're always in the background. And it's like, when you're at court, you have to have like certain outfits for certain times. And when you're having the king come to stay with you, like you have to have certain dishes and like stuff.
00:11:47.780fancy forks or whatever. And the king doesn't pay for those things. You have to buy those things
00:11:53.040yourself. So Thomas was in debt. And so he wanted this money for himself is why he didn't want his
00:12:00.900mother to have it, which is very shitty of him. And we talked about that more in the episode
00:12:04.540of Tracy Borman. Anyway, during this time, after William died, Thomas, Elizabeth, and their three
00:12:11.180kids, Mary, Anne, and George, moved to Hever in Kent. And so Hever is still a heritage home that
00:12:20.080you can visit and it's beautiful and it's on my bucket list and I want to visit there one day,
00:12:23.600but this is famously the Boleyn family home. So this is around the time that they go there.
00:12:29.300There's various other families living in the area. I mean, not next door, each property is
00:12:34.060quite far apart from each other, but one of the families who the Boleyns would have known,
00:12:38.780who Anne might have gone to visit them sometimes or they would have met each other is the Wyatt
00:12:43.380family who lived at nearby Ellington Castle. The head of this family was Sir Henry Wyatt,
00:12:48.840who is Henry VIII's master of the jewels. Cool job title. So Anne was just growing up in Hever
00:12:56.220with her two siblings, presumably having a really nice time. It's a lovely home. It's a lovely
00:13:00.760property. And so I said that it was like all this going back and forth about the estate and stuff.
00:13:06.740And so by 1511, Anne is like 10 or 11 years old. And her grandmother, for some reason, agrees to sign some paperwork that kind of gave all these properties and money to Thomas, to Anne's dad. Now, maybe she was ill. Maybe she had like some sort of dementia or something. Like, why did she sign this? I don't know. Because she was otherwise like a very strong woman.
00:13:28.760Like in terms of the female role models, Anne Boleyn had like her grandmother and her mother, Elizabeth Howard, were both out there doing stuff, transacting business, you know, but for some reason, her grandmother sends away basically everything to her dad.
00:13:42.000and this was pretty shitty for margaret bettler but it helped thomas a lot because he needed the
00:13:48.580security of this inheritance like not just he needed the money from it now but he needed to
00:13:53.340be like i have this inheritance i'm going to get these properties so that he could get more loans
00:13:57.940for more people like to show that he had like that he could pay it back basically so while he's
00:14:04.120dealing with money related things ann is provided with with education and so are her siblings so
00:14:11.240because as the children of the up-and-coming continuing to go up, continuing to be more and
00:14:17.520more prestigious Berlin family, like their goal is for her to become a courtier as well, like for
00:14:22.340her and her siblings to get positions at the royal court. And when she was around 12 years old,
00:14:29.540Henry VIII sent her father, because remember Thomas is like, he's such a good courtier. He
00:14:33.400has all these skills. He speaks French crucially. So Thomas was sent to Mechelen, which is in modern
00:14:40.260day Belgium near Antwerp. Long time listeners of this podcast know that I have strong feelings
00:14:46.840about Antwerp and that's a bustling city in this time. Anyway, so Thomas was sent there for just
00:14:54.140kind of like alliance reasons, like Mechelan and England were kind of like allies against France.
00:15:02.460And so Thomas was sent there because he could speak all these different languages and he's so
00:15:06.000good as a diplomat and they're just kind of like figuring out some alliance related things. And
00:15:10.240why is he going to the palace of Margaret of Austria? Why isn't there a man in charge?
00:15:14.300Well, let's talk about Margaret of Austria because she was in charge. And this is going to be another
00:15:20.920one of Anne Boleyn's kind of female role models. So Margaret of Austria, this is going to connect0.89
00:15:26.520to yet more episodes of this podcast. I hope that this is an episode you can listen to,
00:15:31.120but if you're just like, wait, I've heard of that. Oh yeah, there was an episode about that before.
00:15:35.100Or if you were like, I want to know more about that, you can go listen to it.
00:15:37.780but this connects to an episode I did several years ago about Juana of Castile, who is the
00:15:43.780sister of Catherine of Aragon. So Margaret of Austria, there's, I want to say three Margarets
00:15:50.480in the story. No, there's four Margarets in the story and they're all pretty great. So Margaret
00:15:54.680of Austria was the widow of Juan, Prince of Asturias. So Juan, Prince of Asturias was the
00:16:01.880brother of Catherine of Aragon, the brother of Juana of Castile. And so they, Juana had died a
00:16:07.920few months after their marriage. So she's a sister-in-law to Catherine of Aragon and Juana
00:16:11.940of Castile. Margaret of Austria is also doubly sister-in-law to Juana because Margaret of Austria
00:16:18.380was the sister of Juana's husband, Philip the Handsome, who is a horrible person and honestly,
00:16:25.140not even that handsome, not handsome at all. So she's connected to them through marriage.
00:16:31.880So her second marriage was to a guy with a really fun name, Philibert II, Duke of Savoy. He died just three years after their marriage. So Margaret, at the point that Thomas Boleyn comes over to be a diplomat, is 24 years old.
00:16:49.280she's a double widow and she was also kind of in charge of things because her she was a Habsburg
00:16:58.200if you're familiar with that whole dynasty but she's not she's not like the other Habsburg she's1.00
00:17:04.120a cool Habsburg I feel like her jaw could close she didn't have the like wildly inbred situation0.96
00:17:09.520happening anyway so she has these husbands the husbands had died she had not had children1.00
00:17:16.260And so it's kind of like, well, who's going to be in charge of all these places? Like there needs to be a man, ideally, or perhaps a boy. And at this point, it was a boy. So the head of the Netherlands was at this point, a little baby called Charles or Carlos.
00:17:36.560so this is her nephew in law or just nephew it's the son of her no her nephew because it's the son
00:17:46.660of Juana of Castile and Philip the handsome so this is Margaret's nephew little baby Carlos
00:17:52.460but she was appointed to be the regent of the Netherlands until he came of age because Margaret
00:17:57.100was with it she was smart she had a head on her shoulders and her father the holy Roman emperor
00:18:03.520Maximilian I was just like, she gets it. Margaret's cool. She can be in charge. That's fine.
00:18:09.100So the reason that Charles was baby head of the Netherlands was because Philip the Handsome was
00:18:13.500dead. And the reason why Margaret becomes the regent is because she's got a head on her shoulders
00:18:18.700and a nose on her face and she's doing great. But also baby Charles slash Carlos's mother,
00:18:25.800Juana of Castile, is not seen as fit to be regent because she was allegedly insane.
00:18:30.260so Margaret's in charge of the Netherlands at this point she's just this 24 year old
00:18:37.460hottie just like getting it done uh and she was very like pro-England at this time so this is why
00:18:46.020Henry VIII sent over an ambassador to just kind of like make sure that their alliance is all going
00:18:50.340well and that ambassador is Thomas Boleyn so Thomas Boleyn is hanging out with Margaret um
00:18:57.340She's glamorous. She's independent. She's confident. She's fully in charge of her own destiny. This is highly unusual for a woman in this era, I say, as a person who's been reading about this era for a long time. She is the coolest. So she wore her hair in like the way that a widow, there's like, this is how widows wear their hair. So when you walk down the street, people go, that's a widow, that's not.
00:19:21.260and so she wore this widow's hairstyle to signal her independence from men to just be like hey0.99
00:19:26.720guess what I'm a strong independent woman and I'm also a widow so just like don't mess with me
00:19:30.980she has two mottos one of them and they're not in English but I'm going to read you the English
00:19:36.340translations one of them is a change in fortune makes a woman stronger which like put that on a0.86
00:19:44.180sticker like put that on your travel mug her other one and I love this it's like grudge if you like
00:19:51.360and long live burgundy so she was involved in burgundy but I just like this grudge if you like
00:19:58.640it's just like haters gonna hate is kind of what she's saying so she's amazing she's like again
00:20:06.100I'm talking about like Anne Boleyn's how does Anne Boleyn get to meet her hang on so Thomas was just
00:20:11.380like, hey, this woman's amazing. And I feel like she could be a good role model to my daughter,
00:20:15.840Anne Boleyn. And so he muster up the courage one day to ask, can Anne come to your court? Can she
00:20:21.800be one of your maids of honor? And maids of honor are like, it's like a lady in waiting type0.97
00:20:27.660situation. It's just kind of like young girls, like in their teens who would kind of come and
00:20:33.240help. They're not servants. They're kind of like helpers, but they have to be from very prestigious
00:20:39.940his families and they could go there and get an education. And, you know, she kind of, this is
00:20:45.780the way that Anne Boleyn could just learn better about how to live at royal court. Margaret is just0.52
00:20:50.820like Thomas Boleyn, you're a cool guy. You speak French. Like, sure, your daughter can come over
00:20:57.720and be my maid of honor. So when Anne Boleyn is about 12 or 13 years old, she was sent to
00:21:03.300Mechlin. And she did great. Margaret of Austria was just like, this girl gets it. I love this
00:21:12.040girl. She, in fact, there's a letter where Margaret wrote to Thomas about Anne Boleyn.
00:21:16.580I find her so bright and pleasant for her young age that I am more beholden to you for having
00:21:20.900sent her to me than you are to me. She's saying just like, honestly, like, thank you for sending
00:21:25.860her. Like, I know, like, you're grateful I took her, but I'm even more grateful that you sent me
00:21:30.500your cool daughter because she's great and she was she's kind of like the star pupil of this
00:21:37.120whole situation there's all the ladies in waiting and she during her time in Michelin with Margaret
00:21:42.800of Austria and Berlin she perfects she becomes completely perfect in speaking French she studies
00:21:48.460etiquette she learns how to live alongside royalty how to speak to royalty she also like she's learning
00:21:55.160these specific skills you know it's like what fork do you use when you're eating dinner or like how0.99
00:21:58.760curtsy to who or whatever but she also got to see margaret of austria just like fuck shit up and be1.00
00:22:04.940like the coolest so she got to see like this politically agile woman who was working as a1.00
00:22:11.000regent and like being in charge of shit and everyone like respected her margaret and sam0.93
00:22:17.400belin is just like this is great so she also learned like how to dress how to play various0.99
00:22:21.780musical instruments like the lute she learned all the dances that everybody has to know if you watch
00:22:26.300any movie set in the Tudor era. There's always a dance. Everyone seems to know this stuff. She
00:22:29.720learned all the dances. And Margaret of Austria was just like, these are my ladies of honor. I'm
00:22:37.040ride or die for these girls. I love these girls. She arranged for the girls to be schooled or
00:22:43.540educated together alongside Margaret's nieces, who were girls around the same age who would go
00:22:49.340on to become the queens of Portugal and of Denmark and of Hungary. So Anne Boleyn is just
00:22:54.860like hanging out with royalty like in terms of the boleyn family just like getting more and more0.87
00:22:59.740prestigious like ann boleyn is like the beneficiary of all of that now margaret of austria was just1.00
00:23:06.360like these are my girls and she was very protective of them too she had very strict rules of the1.00
00:23:11.580household so only authorized people were able to even come and talk to margaret let alone get into0.87
00:23:18.660her like most innermost rooms so she also margot was like she had a good time you know part of1.00
00:23:26.720courtly etiquette is like how do you court somebody how do you flirt or whatever but she1.00
00:23:31.340had like very firm rules where it's just like yeah like these are the rules of um courtly love games1.00
00:23:37.940but margot was like but you have to follow the rules so gossip and flirting was forbidden her1.00
00:23:45.460girls like she protected their reputation she kept them all just kind of like learning how to flirt1.00
00:23:51.340with men but also margot was just like men don't cross the line girls don't cross the line like
00:23:55.940everybody just like behave yourselves please and as evidence of this so at one point a scandal
00:24:03.860occurred uh i think while ann was there in the household like just after she joined the household
00:24:08.180So Anna's like 12 or 13 years old. So this fuckboy, Charles Brandon, who was like one of King Henry VIII's bros. And I talk about him in the episode about Henry VIII's sister, Mary Tudor, for reasons you'll understand soon. He's played in the TV show The Tudor's by a young Henry Cavill. So picture that, except shitty.
00:24:30.800so Charles Brandon was on the scene in Mechelan and he did the he what he did was he sexually0.88
00:24:38.360harassed Margaret it was something to do with like these are the rules of courtly love and like
00:24:44.340you can tease somebody and like take their jewel but you have to give the jewel back and he didn't0.99
00:24:49.140it was something like that and Margaret was just like fuck this guy and she was so offended by0.97
00:24:53.880Charles Brandon's behavior that she like formal she made like a formal um protest to Henry VIII0.98
00:24:59.940she was just like your man was inappropriate to me like what are you gonna do about it and this
00:25:07.720was kind of startling to both Charles Brandon and Henry VIII because in their experience being
00:25:12.320like you know entitled guys in England like they had never encountered a woman in control of her
00:25:19.080own life before and they were just kind of like don't understand what this woman is doing why is
00:25:23.400she why is she so independent like what's happening like she's 24 like why doesn't she want to marry1.00
00:25:29.100me. I'm Charles Brandon. I look like Henry Cavill. So they both were just kind of like,
00:25:34.160oh, she's just playing hard to get or whatever. And in fact, Henry VIII was like, you know what,
00:25:40.600it'd be great if Charles Brandon married Margaret of Austria. And to make that easier to happen,
00:25:47.240he made Charles Brandon the Earl of Surrey to give him like more of a title so he could maybe
00:25:51.440marry Margaret of Austria. And there was a tournament and Brandon, Charles Brandon wore
00:25:56.840like margaret's colors and we brought his lance he's just like this is in honor of margaret of0.99
00:26:01.400austria love that girl and when margaret of austria found out she was just like fuck you0.97
00:26:08.640and she made henry um end the rumors of this quote-unquote romance and henry did0.99
00:26:15.220because you don't fuck with margaret of austria and this and many other things uh cooled relationships
00:26:22.980between the two countries. Margaret of Austria maybe was just kind of more like, you know what,0.95
00:26:28.140do I want to fuck with England? No, like it's being run by fuckboys and just like, no. So around1.00
00:26:34.380this time, so eventually Anne's apprenticeship with Margaret ended as kind of like relations
00:26:40.820cooled between her and England. If you're like, why is Anne being sent there? Like, what about
00:26:47.420her older sister, Mary? Don't things usually happen in age order? So yes, Mary Boleyn is
00:26:52.920also being set up for various positions. So she, at around this time, joined the entourage
00:26:57.620of Henry VIII's younger sister, also called Mary. There's so many Marys and Margarets in
00:27:03.380this story. I'm going to use their last names just to keep it clear. So Henry VIII has a younger
00:27:09.160sister called Mary. Henry VIII's sister Mary was going to France to marry the King of France.
00:28:08.220And there's another scandal, another Charles Brandon-related scandal.
00:28:13.120He just keeps this guy. So, well, the scandal is that Charles Brandon was sent to pick up Henry VIII's sister Mary and bring her back to England. And Henry VIII's was like, Charles Brandon, I know you're a horndog, but do not fuck my sister.
00:28:34.680and charles brandon is like bet um but he and henry's sister mary were really hot for each0.99
00:28:41.200other and in fact they ran up together and secretly got married and again listen to the
00:28:46.780mary tutor episode to get more information about that so like that's all going down
00:28:50.780meanwhile anne boleyn is emily in paris she's anne boleyn anne boleyn in paris because she is being
00:28:59.980the the lady-in-waiting to queen claude who is at this point 15 and pregnant and so she's in paris
00:29:07.760like and at this time you know we i don't know about you but you know london is like a huge
00:29:13.880city and i kind of think of it as just like a just a person living over in a small city in canada i
00:29:21.360picture all these cities is kind of like big instead of equivalently big but at the time paris
00:29:25.660was much bigger and much more populous and much more cosmopolitan and like fashionable than
00:29:31.400London. It was also bigger than Michelin. So this is the biggest place Anne Boleyn had ever been.
00:29:36.600And Claude is another sort of influence over Anne Boleyn's whole deal. So the thing with Claude,
00:29:42.160I mean, she's 15 and pregnant. She is not renowned for her beauty. She's apparently really short
00:29:47.580also. But she is like really known to be gracious and like sweet and kind of like all the things0.93
00:29:54.860that you kind of want a queen to be. And she's also really, really into branding, like into her0.88
00:30:01.360personal brand. I mean, so C is her monogram for Claude. She also has like an image of like an
00:30:06.620animal that represents her. And she puts her monogram on like the walls, on like the masonry,
00:30:12.660on the ceilings of her rooms, on her dishes, on her books, basically everywhere. She's just like,
00:30:16.920I'm the goddamn queen. Here's my letter. It's C. Claude's the queen. This is what Claude is doing.1.00
00:30:23.060And I also love this book, Claude. So she has this amazing library full of like books, but also objects that she keeps in her favorite chateau. So her mother had, she'd inherited from her mother a book and tapestry collection and Claude refused to give a key to her husband, the king, because she was like, no, it's my private library slash also she was like, worried that the king might like take the stuff and try to sell it or something.
00:30:47.960And yet another role model is here for Anne Boleyn, and that is yet another person called Margaret. Margaret of Angeloume. Angeloume. Margaret of Angeloume, which is the sister of Francis, the king of France.
00:31:04.980And now for a quick advertising break.
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00:33:46.900So, Margaret of Angoulême was the sister of Francis, the king of France.
00:33:52.620And she also would become known as a patron of humanists and reformers and a really prolific author.
00:34:01.920She was a major figure of the Renaissance era in France.
00:34:05.600She is tall, charming, gorgeous in her early 20s and also a shrewd political or politician.
00:34:13.360She was married, but to a man who mostly left her alone.0.54
00:34:17.360So she could just like meditate and write books.
00:34:20.560she literally would meditate like in a christian religious way but still it is kind of like
00:34:26.960the the vibe that she and her husband live separately and she's just like i'm just gonna
00:34:30.400like get out my yoga mat and just chill so this is her vibe and she was like her brother francis
00:34:38.080the king would like come to her for advice um because she was really smart she was with it
00:34:42.760Like she, she was great. And eventually Francis actually created her, like he gave her, it's called created her as Duke of Berry, but like not Duchess of Berry, but like he made her the Duke, which gave her the legal status of a man as if she was the king's brother, not the king's sister.
00:35:07.700So this is yet another example showing Anne that like a woman can rise to a position of power in a man's world if you're like smart and clever.
00:35:16.540And if the man in question is like kind of chill and respects you.
00:35:21.720So we know from Margaret's writing a lot of what she thinks about things.
00:35:25.680Like, for instance, she wrote about how she saw these double standards in the rules for sexual relationships between men and women.
00:35:32.400She's like, in her view, men pursue women in two ways, by seduction or by brute force.
00:35:37.220And in either case, women really have no choice but to succumb in the society they're in.1.00
00:35:41.580And she's like, and that's bullshit.0.99
00:48:47.400A woman called Jane Parker, who would later become the wife of George Boleyn,
00:48:52.800so Anne Boleyn's future sister-in-law, was Constancy.
00:48:57.060Anne Boleyn's sister, Mary Boleyn, was kindness, and Anne herself was perseverance.
00:49:02.700so again in some portrayals of what's happening at the Tudor court like they kind of shrink down
00:49:09.660the timeline to be like well maybe this is where Anne Boleyn caught Henry's eye but it is not0.88
00:49:14.400because Henry was currently fucking Anne's sister Mary Boleyn the other Boleyn girl
00:49:20.000so at this point Mary Boleyn and maybe we'll do an episode about her later because her story0.52
00:49:25.880is interesting but also there's so much both with the story of Mary Boleyn but especially
00:49:31.240with the story of Anne Boleyn. And this is why I appreciate this book, Hunting the Falcon,
00:49:35.040because Julia Fox and her chapters about Anne Boleyn really hammers down like, well, here's
00:49:39.860this rumor, but this was first said a hundred years later, or this was first said 50 years
00:49:44.240later, or this was... So because of everything that happens with Anne Boleyn, and we'll get
00:49:50.760into that in future episodes, retroactively people would say like, oh, she was doing this
00:49:56.200and that and like beforehand. It reminds me quite a bit of Cleopatra in the sense of people who
00:50:03.360hated her are where we get most of her sources about what she did. So especially when people
00:50:08.780talk about what she was up to before she got involved with Henry VIII, like there's a lot of
00:50:13.760rumors. And anyway, but we do know this is true. Mary Boleyn was Henry VIII's mistress at this
00:50:22.120point so mary boleyn was married she was married to the king's distant cousin william carey because
00:50:27.840this story needs another william in it obviously and this is sort of henry the eighth at this point
00:50:33.420he had had another mistress elizabeth blount blount bessie blount who had had a son who was
00:50:40.100called henry fitzroy so that's henry the eighth's illegitimate son but at this point just for like
00:50:45.900various religious reasons and whatever he kind of didn't want to complicate things but like what if
00:50:50.660he had another illegitimate son, then like who would be the heir? And so he, he liked to fuck1.00
00:50:55.160married women because then if you're married, and I think this might still be the law now in a lot1.00
00:50:59.220of places, like whoever you're married to is officially the father of the child, even if1.00
00:51:04.040biologically you, like you fuck somebody else. So it's kind of like if Mary Boleyn got pregnant,0.99
00:51:11.180it wouldn't be like necessarily an illegitimate son of Henry VIII. But also William Carey was
00:51:18.080like one of these ambitious courtiers. And so he's just like, yeah, like, I don't know. Did he
00:51:22.740pimp out his wife? I don't know. Anyway, this is what's happening. Mary Boleyn is the mistress of
00:51:28.140Henry VIII. There is still and has been historical gossip that Mary Boleyn had previously, previous
00:51:35.880to this, been mistress to Francis, the king in France. But that is probably not true. That's
00:51:43.380probably one of those rumors that was made after the fact after all the fallout with Anne Boleyn0.98
00:51:48.620happened like her sister was kind of being like and she was also a whore we'll discuss
00:51:53.780Mary Boleyn probably in a later episode for sure she was Henry's mistress at this point and she's0.93
00:51:58.940in this banquet playing kindness Anne is just kind of also there at this point Anne is the other
00:52:04.540Boleyn girl so but between all of this like the Boleyn family is just like on the scene like the
00:52:11.100dad is still this like superstar french-speaking diplomat um mary is the king's mistress george
00:52:18.180and the younger brother who's probably now like 19 or so he gets taken into service and he's like
00:52:22.820the perfect courtier like he's also been trained by the family to like speak all these languages
00:52:28.260and like be really able to speak about all these books and play instruments and stuff so it's just1.00
00:52:32.780like boleyns are just infiltrating everywhere brackets complimentary so all of these reasons
00:52:38.700Like the Boleyns are just like there, they're on the scene. And some combination of all these reasons and maybe Cardinal Wolsey, like sort of like backing her, convinces Catherine of Aragon to agree to take Anne on as one of her ladies and waiting.0.95
00:52:53.400and so that's Anne's new job she's bringing all of her skills she learned from from the
00:52:59.700household of Margaret of Austria that she learned from her time with Claude to go and become a lady
00:53:06.480waiting to Catherine Aragon I wonder what happens next I'm sure it'll be fine I'm sure nothing weird
00:53:13.120will happen so next week we're gonna talk about what happens when Anne Boleyn becomes
00:53:19.680the lady waiting to cast her baragon and you know it's a little cliffhanger there
00:53:26.240so I have a couple of announcements that I want to let you know about firstly and most importantly
00:53:32.260coming up this Saturday October 3rd members of my paid members of my Patreon who are at the six
00:53:39.240dollars a month or more level um can join me for a zoom live event that I'm doing with author
00:53:44.900allison rushby who's been on this podcast before she's got a new um super gothic horror novel
00:53:51.360coming out and we're going to be talking about victorian death photography so the photographs
00:53:57.360of the dead that victorians did because they were just really fucking weird that's coming up this
00:54:02.140saturday october 3rd at 4 p.m pacific 7 p.m eastern so if you were thinking of joining my0.82
00:54:07.700patreon um at the six dollars a month level that will be a nice thing that you can do the recording
00:54:13.340for that will be available later as well. And so speaking of the Patreon, you can keep up with me
00:54:19.400there. You can get ad-free episodes for a dollar a month, or if you join at that $6 a month level,
00:54:24.480you also get bonus episodes featuring me and some of my friends. Recently, we did an episode
00:54:28.300discussing the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic, A Little Princess. In an upcoming episode,
00:54:33.020we're going to be talking about the first episode of the TV show, The Tutors, which is going to
00:54:37.200involve some of the stuff I talked about here, but presented quite differently. Members at the $6
00:54:42.520a month level also get access to our discord chat where you can hang out with other history fans as
00:54:47.880well as access to my zoom live events which we're having this one coming up on saturday and then
00:54:52.720later this month um that's actually how i'm going to be having the anne boleyn astrology what was
00:54:57.480her star sign etc discussion that's coming up later this month so go to patreon.com and foster
00:55:03.180writer to get a free trial or to join as a paid member and i wanted to mention um we have
00:55:11.020merchandise including some new Tudor era merchandise I've got timed for this for Anne
00:55:16.140Berlin month we have a new design that is made by friend of the podcast Karen Moynihan and it
00:55:23.240it's the names of the six queens of the the women who were the queens to Henry VIII and so you know
00:55:30.940there's the rhyme like divorce beheaded died divorce beheaded survived but it has those words
00:55:37.000And then the women's names are like slashes over them, like covering them up to be like, no, like they're not just those words.
00:55:47.440You can get that at my store, vulgarhistory.com slash store.
00:55:52.340And I also wanted to mention, so at the same time that I was planning this season and playing these Anne Boleyn episodes, actually, and honestly faking out what I wanted to do for merch.
00:56:01.280this campaign launched by historic royal palaces which is the um charitable organization in early
00:56:08.120organization in the uk that oversees a lot of the houses including heaver that um you can go and
00:56:13.380visit they pay for this they help pay the staff and the upkeep and stuff and historic royal palaces
00:56:18.180led by a past podcast guest tracy borman have launched this new campaign called teach the six
00:56:26.240queens differently so it's talking about look behind the rhyme and discover the women behind
00:56:31.480it so they have all these resources featuring the cast of the musical six um there's some videos of
00:56:36.540them but there's fact sheets and biographies um lots of information about who are the queens and
00:56:42.180it's encouraging educators to look at these women and who they were and not just teach them as like
00:56:48.540a bundle like a group of six people who are all kind of interchangeable and that's really the vibe
00:56:53.440of this new design that we have in our merch store,
00:57:17.020And I am, I know the, the pressure of, of wanting to like deliver this story in a way that suitably honors this figure in history.
00:57:30.960So at Vulgar History, we have a brand partnership with a jewelry brand that's called Common Era.
00:57:37.460so they're a u.s based jewelry like a small woman-owned business um that a woman named
00:57:44.800tori runs this business and she does all of the designing herself and she's got a really small
00:57:49.020team that works out of i think new york city making these uh pieces so it's a lot of pennant
00:57:56.460necklaces it's rings and they're almost all inspired by women from classical history that's
00:58:01.580why it's called common era so there's you know like cleopatra and people like that on jewelry
00:58:05.900But then she made one exception, which is Anne Boleyn, because she's such an icon that she surpasses any, you know, themes of time period or anything.
00:58:17.040So there is a beautiful Anne Boleyn pendant, which you can get as a gold piece, but also in more affordable gold vermeil.
00:58:25.860And if you're listening to this podcast, I want to let you know that podcast listeners get a discount if you wanted to buy something from Common Air Jewelry.
00:58:34.340so you need to use code vulgar15 like v-u-l-g-a-r-1-5 to get 15% off your order at checkout
00:58:43.060so you can go to commonair.com slash vulgar15 or just use code vulgar15 at your checkout to get
00:58:48.640one of their beautiful pieces including the gorgeous Anne Boleyn pendant and I mean I've
00:58:56.040given you so much to think about with all these reminders I just gave you and I'm really excited
00:59:01.840to honestly I'm excited such dreading uh the next part of Anne Boleyn's story because this first
00:59:09.260part is so optimistic and hopeful but also I think seeing all these women who she who impacted her
00:59:17.000who sort of mentored her like you you get to see why she had the confidence the audacity brackets
00:59:24.300complimentary that she did because she saw women who were able to do all of these things and so
00:59:30.440But then when she got put in a position of power, she's like, well, I, too, I'm going to try to be like Margaret of Austria.
00:59:37.020I'm going to try to be like Margaret of Angelem.
00:59:38.680I'm going to try to, you know, put my name everywhere like Claude.0.99
00:59:41.220Of course, this is how she behaved.0.99
00:59:44.840Like she saw women who did this and thrived.
00:59:47.500So I think that's really interesting.1.00
00:59:50.140Anyway, until next time, my friends, keep your pants on and your tits out.1.00
00:59:55.620vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster editor is christina lumagi theme0.99
01:00:03.560music is by the severin duo vulgar history artwork by karen moynahan social media videos by magdalena
01:00:09.840denson transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com by aveline malik you can get
01:00:15.920early ad-free episodes of vulgar history by becoming a paid member of our patreon at patreon.com