Mary Boleyn – Royal Matriarch

Everyone knows Mary’s sister, poor Anne Boleyn, the first Queen on British soil to be executed, and by her petty, violent, maniacal husband Henry VIII. She achieved a lasting notoriety but her line petered out with her glorious daughter Elizabeth I. Mary’s history is not well know beyond the fact that she was Henry VIII mistress before her sister became his wife and was nicknamed The Great Whore. He really was a charmer. Poor Mary left court and managed to avoid the disgrace and execution of her brother and sister. She had four children and died six years after being banished from court.

However, that’s not the end for the Boleyn sisters and in fact Mary is the direct forebear of Elizabeth II. This was a remarkable little fact that I never knew until the other day.

Keeping it in the Family

From:

History has a funny way of favoring the underdog. The least expected outcome is often the one that takes center stage. This certainly seems to be the case with the likes of Mary Boleyn. With her humble beginnings as a royal mistress, to her disgraced exit from her family and the royal court, Mary Boleyn seems the least likely candidate to make any sort of meaningful appearance again in the pages of history. And yet, here she is, staring us in the face-or rather, her 12th great-granddaughter, stares at us through the papers and our televisions, as our very own very Queen Elizabeth II. Yes-a 12th great granddaughter of “the infamous whore” Mary Boleyn, sits on the throne of England. Through her mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Mary Boleyn through her daughter Katherine Carey.

It’s as though Mary Boleyn has reached out from the grave, assuring that her bloodline remains on the throne of England. As a matter of fact, the late Princess Diana is a descendant, as is Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Prince Andrew, the Queen’s second son, and mother to his two daughters. Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, third in line to the throne, is also a descendant. In essence, catastrophic deaths could hit the royal family of England, and Mary Boleyn’s descendants would still sit on the throne of England, as her descendants are heirs from nearly every direction. This is quite incredible for a shunned, and disgraced ex-mistress to King Henry VIII.

The Family Tree

And from : The Anne Boleyn Files

(Just to clarify how it works, it’s a written bloodline rather than a family tree, as that would be very big and complicated, so I only mention the relevant people in the bloodline. Mary Boleyn married William Carey and they had a daughter, Catherine, who then had a daughter Lettice, who had a son Robert, who had a daughter Frances, and so on, all the way to the present day.)

• Mary Boleyn (d. 1543) m. William Carey
• Catherine Carey (c.1524-1569) m. Sir Francis Knollys
• Lettice Knollys (1543-1634) m. Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex
• Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1565-1601) m. Frances Walsingham
• Frances Devereux (1599-1674) m. William Seymour, Duke of Somerset
• Jane Seymour (1637-1679) m. Charles Boyle, 3rd Viscount Dungarvan
• Charles Boyle, 2nd Earl of Burlington (d. 1704) m. Juliana Noel
• Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1695-1753) m. Dorothy Savile
• Charlotte Elizabeth Boyle (1731-1754) m. William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire
• Dorothy Cavendish (1750-1794) m. William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, Prime Minister
• Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Charles Bentinck (1780-1826) m. Anne Wellesley (Lady Abdy)
• Reverend Charles Cavendish-Bentinck (1817-1865) m. Carolina Louis Burnaby
• Cecilia Nina Cavendish-Bentinck (1862-1938) m. Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne
• Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1900-2002) m. King George VI
• Queen Elizabeth II (1926- ) m. Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, now known as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
• Charles, Prince of Wales (1948- ) m. Lady Diana Spencer (1961-1997)
• Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (1982- ) and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (1984- )

There’s More

What’s interesting, though, is that Princes William and Harry are also descended from Mary Boleyn through their mother’s Spencer line:

• Mary Boleyn (d. 1543) m. William Carey
• Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (1526-1596) m. Anne Morgan
• Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth (c. 1560-1639) m. Elizabeth Trevannion
• Thomas Carey of Sunninghill Park (d. 1634) m. Margaret Smith
• Elizabeth Carey, Viscountess Mordaunt (1632-1679) m. John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt
• Brigadier-General Lewis Mordaunt (d. 1713) m. Mary Collyer
• Anna Maria Mordaunt (d. 1771) m. Stephen Poyntz
• Margaret Georgiana Poyntz, Countess Spencer (1737-1814) m. John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer
• George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834) m. Lady Lavinia Bingham
• Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer (1798-1857) m. Adelaide Horatia Seymour
• Charles Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer (1857-1922) m. Hon. Margaret Baring
• Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer (1892-1975) m. Lady Cynthia Hamilton
• John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer (1924-1992) m. Frances Roche
• Diana, Princess of Wales ((1961-1997) m. Charles, Prince of Wales
• Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (1982- ) and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (1984- )

 

So there we have it. The Boleyn bloodline lives on and with the next King there will be Boleyn blood on both sides of the family tree. All hail the House of Boleyn! 😀

For more royal or Tudor blogs have a read of the following

And the bride wore hand-me-downs… …and what hand me downs they were!

The Elizabethan and Jacobean Country House – Dr David Bostwick.

Pour me a glass...

Liz Hurley as well as being the owner of this blog, runs a bookshop in Cornwall, right by the sea and writes books.  You can buy them in her shop (of course), Waterstones and other outlets, as well as Amazon.

The Hiverton Sisters

When she’s not reading, she’s writing and when she’s not writing, she’s walking.  And when she’s not doing any of that she’s binging on box sets and sleeping.

This website is for her fictional works. Her Cornish non-fiction titles and walking guides can be found at https://www.cornishwalks.com