Palace of Beaulieu

The Palace of Beaulieu is a former Royal Palace in Boreham, Essex, England, north-east of Chelmsford. The property is currently occupied by New Hall School.

The estate on which it was built – the manor of Walhfare in Boreham – was granted to the Canons of Waltham Abbey in 1062. After various changes of possession, it was granted by the Crown to Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond in 1491. By this time, it had a house called New Hall.

In 1516, New Hall was sold by Thomas Boleyn to King Henry VIII for £1,000. The king rebuilt the house in brick at a cost of £17,000. He gave his new palace the name Beaulieu, meaning "beautiful place" in French. The name expressed Henry's desire for fine things, though the name change did not outlast the century.

On July 23, 1527, Henry's court arrived at Beaulieu on his summer progress, staying, unusually, for over a month in the company of a large number of nobles and their wives, including Anne Boleyn's father who had been created Viscount Rochford, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Marquess of Exeter, the Earls of Oxford, Essex, and Rutland, and Viscount Fitzwalter. It was here that Henry devised a scheme to allow him to cohabit with his intended successor of Queen Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, by obtaining a Papal bull to allow him to commit bigamy. This plan was dropped when Cardinal Wolsey discovered the plan, though Pope Clement VII did, in fact, issue a bull to the same effect that December.

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