George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford - Early Years and Family

Early Years and Family

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.

Like his father, it was understood that George would have a career as a courtier, politician and diplomat. The monarchy was the font of all patronage and potential wealth and it was only through service to the Royal Family that a family could hope to achieve or protect their greatness and social position. With this in mind, George was introduced to Henry VIII's court at the age of ten, when he attended the Christmas festivities of 1514–15. He attended an indoor melee with his father and acted in a mummery with his father, and the likes of the much older Charles Brandon and Nicholas Carew, who would later prove to be such enemies of the little boy (Brandon sat on the jury which tried him and Carew helped coach Jane Seymour on how best to win the king's heart). Thanks to his family's influence and the fact he obviously impressed Henry at an early age, he became one of the King's pageboys shortly afterwards.

Since learning was highly praised at Court and essential for a career as a diplomat, George received an excellent education, speaking fluent French together with some Italian and Latin. Although his two sisters were educated abroad (Mary from 1514 to 1519, Anne from the spring of 1513 to late 1521), George remained in England throughout his formative years. George's earliest biographer suggests that George may have spent time in France as a child when his father was on embassy from January 1519, and suggests this as a reason how George could speak such perfect French from a young age and as an explanation as to how Anne and George remained so close during their formative years. However, this is pure speculation. Whatever the case, there is a long-standing tradition that George attended the University of Oxford when he was not in attendance at Court, although he does not appear in any of the university's record — a relatively frequent occurrence in the period before the English Civil War, when few of the aristocrats who attended either technically matriculated or graduated.