elegance of history blog: History geek, avid reader and art lover. Here you will find random bits of history, book reviews and musings on art, literature, manners, life, music and anything else that interests me.
Eric Ives once famously commented that everything we know about Mary Boleyn “could be written on the back of a postcard with room to spare”. So, basically, we know nothing. Only a few random facts historians have been painstakingly trying, for centuries, to stitch together. One of these facts is Mary’s relationship with King Francis
Over at the Anne Boleyn Files, Claire Ridgway discusses Henry VIII’s relationship with Mary Boleyn. To quote: It appears to have been a known fact that Henry VIII had slept with Anne’s sister, but this doesn’t help us to date the relationship in any way. Most historians date the relationship to the 1520s, beginning in
Mary Boleyn, Queen Anne’s sister, is assumed to have been the mistress of French King Francis I. But is this really true? Claire Ridgway questions this assumption. To quote: I have read many many books on Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Tudor history and when it comes to Mary Boleyn all but one of them has
