The Backstory: Losing your head over royalty

The Boleyn sisters were red-hot English socialites in the early 1500s. Their rise and fall, one as the mistress of King Henry the Eighth and one as his queen, was shocking even by the standards of the time. Why did a bishop call one of them the “most infamous whore of all”? How did they catch the king? And how did they lose him, along with one of their heads? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can you imagine two sisters both becoming the obsession of
a king. One became the mistress of King Henry the
eighth and one his queen. But it all came crashing
down with one of them losing her head. I'm Patty Steele.
The rise and catastrophic fall of Anne and Mary Bolin.
That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back talk

(00:25):
about a family story made for a Real Housewives spin off,
and I have to thank By the Way Backstory listener
Nicole Shelley for this story idea. The Bolin sisters were
aristocrats in England in the early fifteen hundreds. Their father
was an intense social climber and worked really hard to
get his daughters recognized by royalty. Both daughters, with their

(00:46):
father's encouragement, became involved with King Henry the Eighth. Henry,
of course, was the large and larger than life King
of England from fifteen oh nine to fifteen forty seven.
He was infamous for his huge appetite for food, wine,
women especially, and also for his habit of executing anybody

(01:07):
who got in the way of what he wanted. That
included two of his six wives. Mary Bolin was the
older sister of Anne Bolin. When Mary was fifteen, she
was sent to Paris as a maid of honor to
the soon to be wife of the French King. Mary
had one heck of a good time and developed a
reputation as a party girl. While in Paris, she had

(01:29):
rumored affairs with a ton of men, including possibly French
King Francis the first One. Catholic bishop described her as
in don't get mad at me. This is a direct quote.
He called her a very great whore, the most infamous
of all. When she was nineteen, Mary went home to
England where she was appointed yet again as a maid

(01:51):
of honor, this time to Catherine of Aragon, the first
wife of King Henry the eighth. She got married not
long after arriving back in the England, but pretty soon
she became Henry's mistress. See what a soap opera this
really is anyway. Not long after that, her younger sister Anne,
also part of the palace social scene, caught Henry's eye.

(02:13):
She was in her early twenties. She was beautiful, cultured,
incredibly intelligent, and extremely confident. Henry was crazy about her,
and he wanted yet another Bullyn's sister. As his mistress. Now,
wouldn't that infuriate her sister Mary? Well, the two weren't
very close, so that didn't stop her. But the thing
is Anne wanted nothing to do with being his mistress.

(02:37):
She basically told Henry, put a ring on it if
you want me. Henry, meantime, was already done with his wife,
Queen Catherine. He wanted a male heir to the throne.
But since their marriage, Catherine had had four babies that
were either still born or died within weeks of being born.
When she had a fifth child, it was a baby
girl Mary. Henry was happy to have the little girl,

(03:00):
but really wanted a boy, and he also really wanted
Anne Bolin, so he tried to get his marriage to
Catherine and old. Now the problem is they were Catholics
and the Church wanted no part of this messy affair.
That's when Henry decided he would make himself Supreme Head
of the Church of England and separate from the Catholic Church.

(03:20):
That allowed him to annul his marriage to Catherine, remove
her from the palace, and marry Anne Boleyn. She was
crowned Queen in fifteen thirty three. That was everything. She
and her socially ambitious family wanted right well. Meantime, her
sister Mary's husband died. A few years later. Mary secretly

(03:40):
married a really nice guy, but with no money, and
her family banished her. She never saw Anne again, although
Anne did try to send her money from time to time. Anyway,
Anne's wedding and coronation took the Bolin family to the mountaintop,
but there was just one problem, mother nature. The queen
quickly started to lose Henry's devotion after she, just like

(04:03):
his first wife Catherine, failed to give him the male
heir to the throne he desperately wanted, and truthfully, the
honeymoon was over anyway. Insiders in the court said he
started to get tired of Anne's super vivacious personality, even
though that's what made her so attractive to him. Early on,
he grew suspicious of her, and at the same time

(04:24):
he had become infatuated with one of Anne's own ladies.
In waiting Jane Seymour. To bypass the nuisance of a
divorce and the bad press, Henry simply ordered his wife's
arrest on contrived charges of adultery, incest, witchcraft, and conspiring
to kill him. Her brother George, with whom she was
really close, was accused of incest with her. Both were

(04:48):
thrown into the Tower of London. A sham trial took place,
and just four days later, on May nineteenth, fifteen thirty six,
Anne and her brother were beheaded. That was just three
years after her marriage and coronation. Mary, in the meantime,
died in July of fifteen forty three, disconnected from her family,

(05:09):
wanting too much? Can sure be a slippery slope? Oh
and by the way, their father, who had orchestrated his
daughter's right into Henry the Eighth's bed, continued to be
in the King's good graces after Anne's beheading and continued
to enjoy the good life once again. I want to

(05:32):
thank backstory listener Nicole Shelley for this story idea. Feel
free to DM me if, like Nicole, you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele and I hope
you like the backstory with Patty Steele. I would love
it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to get
new episodes delivered automatically. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is

(05:57):
a production of iHeartMedia, prem Neworks, the Elvis Durand Group,
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the

(06:19):
Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't
know you needed to know.