George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford
| George Boleyn | |
|---|---|
| Viscount Rochford | |
George Boleyn's signature
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| Spouse(s) | Jane Parker |
| Noble family | Boleyn |
| Father | Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire |
| Mother | Lady Elizabeth Howard |
| Born | c. April 1504 Blickling Hall, Norfolk |
| Died | 17 May 1536 (aged 32) Tower Hill, London |
| Buried |
Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London 51°30′31″N 0°04′37″W / 51.508611°N 0.076944°W |
George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford (c.1503 /c. April 1504 – 17 May 1536) was an English courtier and nobleman, and the brother of queen consort Anne Boleyn. This made him the brother-in-law of King Henry VIII and the maternal uncle of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
A prominent figure in the politics of the early 1530s, he was falsely accused of incest with his sister Anne during the period of her trial for high treason. They were both executed as a result.
George was the only surviving son of the courtier and ambassador Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Norfolk.
Thomas and Elizabeth had a number of children, including two sons named Thomas and Henry who failed to reach adulthood. Three children survived: George, Mary and Anne. There has been much debate over the centuries as to the age of the three Boleyn siblings, but there is general agreement that George was born c.1504. This stems from a number of different sources. George Cavendish says in a poem that George was about 27 when he gained a place on the Privy Council in 1529. Cavendish gives this as a maximum age in order to make his tortuous verses more rhythmic (such as "thrice nine"). In addition to Cavendish's verses, foreign diplomats believed George was too young to be appointed as Ambassador to France in October 1529. Mary's date of birth is again generally accepted as being c.1500 but there is some disagreement as to Anne's date of birth with arguments for 1501 and others for 1507. However, following the executions of Anne and George in 1536 their father wrote to Cromwell and in his letter he stated that upon his marriage his wife gave him a child every year. As Thomas and Elizabeth were married between 1498 and 1499, if Thomas is to be believed this indicates that all five Boleyn children, including the two who failed to reach adulthood, were born between 1500 and 1504, and if we accept as the evidence suggests that George was born in 1504 this is persuasive evidence for suggesting he was the youngest Boleyn child. This is the current thinking of the vast majority of modern historians with only one notable exception. George and his sisters were probably born in Norfolk at his family's home of Blickling Hall. However, they spent most of their childhood at another of the family's homes, Hever Castle in Kent, which became their chief residence in 1505 when Thomas inherited the property from his father.
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