Mary Boleyn
Portrait of Mary Boleyn
Spouse(s)	Sir William Carey, Aldenham Sir William Stafford, of Chebsey
Issue Catherine Knollys, Lady Knollys Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon Anne Stafford Edward Stafford
Noble family	Boleyn
Father	Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
Mother	Lady Elizabeth Howard
Born	c. 1499/1500 Blickling Hall, Norfolk
Died	19 July 1543 (aged 43-44)

Mary Boleyn (c. 1499/1500 – 19 July 1543), was the sister of English Queen consort Anne Boleyn and a member of the Boleyn family, which enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII of England. Some historians claim she was Anne's younger sister, but her children believed Mary was the elder sister, as do most historians today.

Mary was one of the mistresses of Henry VIII. It has been alleged that she bore two of the King's children, though Henry did not acknowledge either of them as he did with Henry Fitzroy, his son by Bessie Blount. Mary was also rumoured to have been a mistress of Henry VIII's rival, King Francis I of France.^[1] She was also the maternal aunt of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Mary Boleyn married twice: first to Sir William Carey, whom she wed in 1520, and second to Sir William Stafford, a soldier. This latter marriage to a man so far beneath her station angered King Henry and her sister, Queen Anne, and resulted in Mary's banishment from the royal court in 1534. She spent the remainder of her life in obscurity.

Early life[link]

Mary was probably born at the family seat in Blickling Hall, Norfolk and grew up at Hever Castle, Kent.^[2] She was the daughter of a wealthy diplomat and courtier, Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Countess of Wiltshire, the eldest daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk.

There is no concrete evidence of her exact date of birth, but it was sometime between 1499 and 1508. Most historians suggest that she was also the eldest of the three Boleyn children who survived infancy.^[3] The evidence suggests that the surviving Boleyns believed Mary to have been the eldest child; in 1597, her grandson, Lord Hunsdon, claimed the title of "Earl of Ormond" on the grounds that he was the Boleyns’ legitimate heir. According to the strict rules of aristocratic inheritance, if Anne had been the elder sister, the title would have belonged to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, since a title descended through the eldest female line in the absence of a male line. However, Queen Elizabeth was said to have offered Henry, Mary's son, the title as he was dying, but he declined it. If Mary was the eldest Boleyn, Henry would have inherited the title upon his grandfather's death without the need to claim it.^[4] There is more evidence to suggest that she was older than Anne.^[5] Furthermore, she was married off first on 4 February 1520, and by tradition an elder daughter would be married before her younger sister. In 1532, when Anne was made marquess of Pembroke, she was referred to as "one of the daughters of Thomas Boleyn." Were she the eldest, that would likely have been mentioned. Either way, most historians now accept Mary as the eldest child, placing her birth some time in 1499.^[6]

Mary was brought up along with her brother George and her sister Anne by a French governess at Hever Castle in Kent. She was given a conventional good education deemed essential for young ladies of her rank and status at the time. These were the essentials in arithmetic, her family genealogy, grammar, history, reading, spelling, and writing. Mary learned feminine accomplishments such as dancing, embroidery, good manners, household management, music, needlework, and singing, and games such as cards and chess. She was also taught archery, falconry, horseback riding, and hunting.^[7]

It is possible Mary began her education abroad and spent time as a companion to Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. However it is believed that it was Anne who was chosen to go to the court of the Archduchess.^[8] Mary was kept in England for most of her childhood. She was sent abroad in 1514 around the age of fifteen when her father secured her a place as maid-of-honour to the King’s sister, Princess Mary, who was going to Paris to marry King Louis XII of France. After a few weeks, many of the Queen's English maids were sent away but Mary Boleyn was allowed to stay, probably because her father was the new English ambassador to France. Even when Queen Mary left France after she was widowed on 1 January 1515, Mary Boleyn remained, joining the court of Louis's successor, Francois I and his queen consort Claude.^[9]

Royal affair in France[link]

Mary was joined in Paris by her father, Sir Thomas, and also her sister, Anne, who had been studying in the Netherlands for the last year. Mary supposedly embarked on several affairs, including one with King Francis himself.^[10] Although some historians believe that the reports of her sexual affairs are exaggerated, the French king referred to her as "The English Mare" and as "una grandissima ribalda, infame sopra tutte" ("a great slag, infamous above all").^[10][11][12]

She returned to England in 1519, where she was appointed a maid-of-honour to Catherine of Aragon, the Queen consort of Henry VIII.^[13]

Royal mistress[link]

Soon after her return, Mary was married to William Carey, a wealthy and influential courtier, on 4 February 1520, and Henry VIII was a guest at the couple's wedding.^[14] At some point, Henry and Mary began an affair, and although the timing is unclear, some say it began in 1521.^[15] The affair was never publicised, and Mary never enjoyed the fame, wealth and power that acknowledged mistresses in France and other countries sometimes had.^[16] The affair is believed to have ended prior to the birth of Mary's second child, Henry Carey, in March 1526, and thought to have lasted for five years.^[15][17] Her first child, Catherine, was born in 1524.

During the affair or sometime after, it was rumoured that one or both of Mary's children were fathered by the king.^[18][19] One witness noted that Mary's son, Henry Carey, bore a resemblance to Henry VIII.^[15] John Hale, Vicar of Isleworth, some ten years after the child was born, remarked that he had met a 'young Master Carey' who was the king's purported bastard child.^[15] No other contemporary evidence exists to support the argument that Henry was the king’s biological son.

Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon, had been briefly married to Henry's elder brother Arthur, but Arthur had died just a few months into the marriage, when he was a little over fifteen years old. Henry later used that as the justification for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine, on the grounds that her marriage to Arthur (assuming it was consummated) created an affinity between Henry and Catherine. When Mary became Henry's mistress, a similar affinity was created between Henry and Anne, according to some interpretations of church law. In 1527, during his initial attempts to obtain a papal annulment of his marriage to Catherine, Henry also requested a dispensation to marry his mistress' sister.^[20]

Sister’s rise to power[link]

Mary's sister, Anne, returned to England in January 1522; she soon joined the royal court as one of Queen Catherine's Maids-of-Honour. Anne achieved considerable popularity at court, although the sisters are not thought to have been particularly close and they moved in different social circles.

Although Mary was alleged to have been more attractive than her sister, Anne seems to have been more ambitious and intelligent. When the king took an interest in Anne, she refused to become his mistress, being shrewd enough to wait and not give in to his sexual advances until it was the most advantageous.^[21] By the middle of 1527, Henry was determined to marry her. This gave him further incentive to seek the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. A year later, when Mary's husband died during an outbreak of sweating sickness, Henry granted Anne Boleyn the wardship of her nephew, Henry Carey. Mary's husband had left her with considerable debts, and Anne arranged for Henry to be educated at a respectable Cistercian monastery. Anne interceded to secure Mary an annual pension of £100.^[22]

Second marriage[link]

In 1532, when Anne accompanied Henry to Calais on a state visit to France, Mary was one of her companions. Anne was crowned queen on 1 June 1533 and gave birth to her daughter (later to become Queen Elizabeth I) on 7 September. In 1534, Mary secretly married soldier William Stafford. Because Stafford was a commoner with a small income, some believe their union to have been a love match.^[23] When the marriage was discovered, Anne was furious, and the Boleyn family disowned Mary, probably for marrying without the king's permission and marrying beneath her station. The couple was banished from the royal court.

Mary's financial circumstances became so desperate that she was reduced to begging the King’s adviser Thomas Cromwell to speak to Henry and Anne on her behalf. She admitted that she might have chosen 'a greater man of birth and a higher', but never one that should have loved her so well, nor a more honest man. And she went on, 'I had rather beg my bread with him than to be the greatest queen in Christendom. And I believe verily ... he would not forsake me to be a king.' Henry, however, seems to have been indifferent to her plight; so, Mary asked Cromwell to speak to her father, her uncle, and her brother, but to no avail. It was Anne who relented, sending Mary a magnificent golden cup and some money, but still refusing to receive her at court. This partial reconciliation was the closest the two sisters came to, since it is not thought that they met after Mary's court exile.

Mary's life between 1534 and her sister's execution on 19 May 1536 is difficult to trace. There is no record of her visiting her parents, nor did she visit her sister Anne or her brother George when the latter was imprisoned in the Tower of London. There is also no evidence that she sent correspondence. Like their uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke to Norfolk, she may have thought it wise to avoid association with her now-disgraced relatives.

Mary and her husband remained social outcasts, living in retirement at Rochford Hall in Essex, which was owned by the Boleyns. After Anne’s execution, their mother retired from the royal court, dying in seclusion just two years later. Her father, Thomas, died the following year. After the deaths of her parents, Mary inherited some property in Essex. She seems to have lived out the rest of her days in obscurity and relative comfort with her second husband. She died in her early forties, on 19 July 1543.

Issue[link]

Her marriage to Sir William Carey (1500 – 22 June 1528) resulted in the birth of two children (however, there were rumours^[24][25] that King Henry VIII was the biological father):

• Catherine Carey (1524 – 15 January 1569). Maid-of-Honour to both Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard, she married a Puritan, Sir Francis Knollys, Knight of the Garter, by whom she had issue. She later became Chief Lady of the Bedchamber to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. One of her daughters, Lettice Knollys, became the second wife of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, the favourite of Elizabeth I.
• Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (4 March 1526 – 23 July 1596). He was ennobled by Queen Elizabeth I shortly after her coronation, and later made a Knight of the Garter. When he was dying, Elizabeth offered Henry the Boleyn family title of Earl of Ormond, which he had long sought, but he declined. He was married to Anne Morgan, by whom he had issue.

Mary's marriage to Sir William Stafford (d. 5 May 1556) resulted in the birth of two children:

• Anne Stafford (?–?), probably named in honour of Mary's sister, Queen Anne Boleyn.
• Edward Stafford (1535–1545).

Depictions in fiction[link]

Mary was depicted in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days, and was played by Valerie Gearon.

A fictionalised form of her character also features prominently in the novels The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell, I, Elizabeth by Rosalind Miles, The Rose of Hever by Maureen Peters, The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy, Mistress Anne by Norah Lofts, The Concubine by Norah Lofts, Anne Boleyn by Evelyn Anthony, Dear Heart, How Like You This? by Wendy J. Dunn, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Brief Gaudy Hour by Margaret Campbell Barnes, and Young Royals: Doomed Queen Anne by Carolyn Meyer.

Mary has been the central character in three novels based on her life: Court Cadenza (later published under the title The Tudor Sisters) by British author Aileen Armitage, Karen Harper's The Last Boleyn, and The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Gregory later nominated Mary as her personal heroine in an interview to the BBC History Magazine. Her novel was a bestseller and spawned five other books in the same series. However, it was controversial, especially with historians who found the work inaccurate in regards to historical events and individual characterizations.

The Other Boleyn Girl was made into a BBC television drama in January 2003, starring Natascha McElhone as Mary and Jodhi May as Anne. A Hollywood film version of the book was released in February 2008, with Scarlett Johansson as Mary and Natalie Portman as Anne.

Non-fiction[link]

Mary is also the subject of three non-fiction books, The Mistress of Kings by Alison Weir, The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart and Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII's Mistress by Josephine Wilkinson.^[26]

Styles[link]

• Mistress Mary Boleyn (1499–1520)
• Lady Carey (1520–1529)
• Lady Carey; Lady Mary Carey (1529–1532)
• Lady Mary Stafford (1532–1543)

Mary Boleyn became Lady Carey upon her marriage to Sir William Carey in 1520. She then became Lady Mary Carey when her father was granted the titles of Earl of Ormond and Earl of Wiltshire.

Ancestry[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Weir, Alison. (2011). Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings. Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-52133-0
• Wilkinson, Josephine. (2010). Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII's Favorite Mistress. Amberley. ISBN 978-1-84868-525-3
• Harper, Karen. (2006). The Last Boleyn: A Novel. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-307-23790-3
• Lofts, Norah. (1979). Anne Boleyn. Coward
• Gregory, Philippa. (2003). The Other Boleyn Girl. Touchstone. ISBN 0-7432-2744-1
• Adair, Anne. (2011). Mary Boleyn: Sister to Queen Anne Boleyn and Sister in Law to King Henry VIII. Webster's Digital Services. ISBN 978-1-241-00378-4
• Denny, Joanna. (2004). Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81540-9
• Fraser, Antonia. (1992). The Wives of Henry VIII. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-14-013293-9
• Bruce, Marie-Louise. (1972). Anne Boleyn
• Hart, Kelly. (2009). The Mistresses of Henry VIII The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5852-6
• Ives, Eric.(2004). The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-3463-7
• Lindsey, Karen. (1995). Divorced Beheaded Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-201-40823-2
• Weir, Alison.(1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-3683-1

Anne Boleyn
Later copy of an original portrait, which was painted c.1534.
Queen consort of England
Tenure	28 May 1533 – 17 May 1536
Coronation	1 June 1533
Spouse	Henry VIII of England
among others... Issue
Elizabeth I of England
House	House of Tudor (by marriage)
Father	Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
Mother	Lady Elizabeth Howard
Born	c.1501[1] Blickling Hall/ Hever Castle, England
Died	19 May 1536(1536-05-19) (aged 34-35) Tower of London
Signature
Religion	Anglican, formerly Roman Catholic [2]

Anne Boleyn ( /ˈbʊlɪn/, /bəˈlɪn/ or /bʊˈlɪn/);^[3][4] c.1501^[5] – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right.^[6] Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Claude of France. She returned to England in early 1522, in order to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; however, the marriage plans ended in failure and she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's queen consort, Catherine of Aragon.

Early in 1523 there was a secret betrothal between Anne and Henry Percy, son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland. However, in January of 1524 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey broke the betrothal, Anne was sent back home to Hever Castle, and Percy was married to Lady Mary Talbot, to whom he had been betrothed since adolescence. In February/March 1526 Henry VIII began his pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress as her sister Mary had. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church in England began. In 1532, Henry granted her the Marquesate of Pembroke.

Henry and Anne married on 25 January 1533, when Anne was 32 or 33. On 23 May 1533 Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne's marriage to be good and valid. Shortly afterwards, the Pope decreed sentences of excommunication against Henry and Cranmer. As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and Rome took place and the Church of England was brought under the King's control. Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I of England. To Henry's displeasure, however, she failed to produce a male heir. Henry was not totally discouraged, for he said that he loved Elizabeth and that a son would surely follow. Three miscarriages followed, however, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour.

Henry had Anne investigated for high treason in April 1536. On 2 May she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was tried before a jury of peers - which included Henry Percy, her former betrothed and her own uncle, Thomas Howard - and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later. Modern historians view the charges against her, which included adultery and incest, as unconvincing. Following the coronation of her daughter, Elizabeth, as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe.^[7] Over the centuries, she has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. As a result, she has retained her hold on the popular imagination. Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had",^[8] since she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to divorce Catherine of Aragon, and declare his independence from Rome.

Early years[link]

Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, later Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Boleyn was a respected diplomat with a gift for languages; he was also a favourite of Henry VII of England, who sent him on many diplomatic missions abroad. Anne and her siblings grew up at Hever Castle in Kent. A lack of parish records from the period has made it impossible to establish Anne's date of birth. Contemporary evidence is contradictory, with several dates having been put forward by various historians. An Italian, writing in 1600, suggested that she had been born in 1499, while Sir Thomas More's son-in-law, William Roper, indicated a much later date of 1512. However her birth was most likely sometime between 1501 and 1507. As with Anne herself, it is uncertain when her two siblings were born, but it seems clear that her sister Mary was older than Anne. Mary's children clearly believed their mother had been the elder sister.^[9] Most historians now agree that Mary was born in 1499. Mary's grandson claimed the Ormonde title in 1596 on the basis she was the elder daughter, which Elizabeth I accepted.^[10][11] Also, Mary was married first, and by custom, the eldest daughter would be married before the younger.^{[citation needed]} Their brother George was born some time around 1504.^[12][13]

Anne's sister Mary Boleyn

The academic debate about Anne's birth date focuses on two key dates: 1501 and 1507. Eric Ives, a British historian and legal expert, advocates the 1501 date, while Retha Warnicke, an American scholar who has also written a biography of Anne, prefers 1507. The key piece of surviving written evidence is a letter Anne wrote sometime in 1514.^[14] She wrote it in French to her father, who was still living in England while Anne was completing her education at Mechelen, in the contemporary Netherlands, now Belgium. Ives argues that the style of the letter and its mature handwriting prove that Anne must have been about thirteen at the time of its composition, while Warnicke argues that the numerous misspellings and grammar errors show that the letter was written by a child. In Ives's view this would also be around the minimum age that a girl could be a Maid of Honour, as Anne was to the regent^{[citation needed]}, Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. This is supported by claims by a chronicler from the late 16th century, who wrote that Anne was twenty when she returned from France.^[15] These findings are contested by Warnicke in several books and articles, but the evidence does not conclusively support either date.^[16]

There are two independent contemporary sources for the 1507 date. Author Gareth Russell wrote a summary of the evidence and relates that Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, wrote her memoirs shortly before her death in 1612; in it the former lady in waiting and confident to Queen Mary I of England wrote of Anne Boleyn "She was convicted and condemned and was not yet twenty-nine years of age." William Camden wrote a history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England and was granted access to the private papers of Lord Burghley and to the state archives. In that history, in the chapter dealing with Elizabeth's early life, he records in the margin that Anne was born in MCVII.^[17]

Anne's great-grandparents included a Lord Mayor of London, a duke, an earl, two aristocratic ladies, and a knight. One of them, Geoffrey Boleyn, had been a mercer and wool merchant before becoming Lord Mayor.^[18][19] The Boleyn family originally came from Blickling in Norfolk, fifteen miles north of Norwich.^[18] At the time of Anne's birth, the Boleyn family was considered one of the most respected in the English aristocracy. Among her relatives, she numbered the Howards, one of the pre-eminent families in the land; and one of her ancestors included King Edward I of England. According to Eric Ives, she was certainly of more noble birth than Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's three other English wives.^[20] The spelling of the Boleyn name was variable. Sometimes it was written as Bullen, hence the bull heads which formed part of her family arms.^[21] At the court of Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands, Anne is listed as Boullan. ^[11] From there she signed the letter to her father as Anna de Boullan.^[22] She is also referred to as "Anna Bolina" (which is Latin); that name is in most portraits of her.^[22]

Anne's early education was typical for women of her class. Her academic education was limited to arithmetic, her family genealogy, grammar, history, reading, spelling, and writing. She developed domestic skills such as dancing, embroidery, good manners, household management, music, needlework, and singing. Anne learned to play games, such as cards, chess, and dice. She was also taught archery, falconry, horseback riding, and hunting.

Netherlands and France[link]

Claude of France, queen consort of Francis I. Anne served as her maid of honour for nearly seven years

Anne's father continued his diplomatic career under Henry VIII. In Europe Thomas Boleyn's charm won many admirers, including Archduchess Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. During this period, she ruled the Netherlands on her father's behalf and was so impressed with Boleyn that she offered his daughter Anne a place in her household. Ordinarily, a girl had to be twelve years old to have such an honour, but Anne may have been younger, as the Archduchess affectionately referred to her as "la petite Boulin [sic]".^[23] Anne made a good impression in the Netherlands with her manners and studiousness, Margaret reported that she was well spoken and pleasant for her young age ("son josne eaige").^[24] and told Sir Thomas Boleyn that his daughter was "so presentable and so pleasant, considering her youthful age, that I am more beholden to you for sending her to me, than you to me" (E.W. Ives, op.cit.). Anne stayed with Margaret from spring 1513 until her father arranged for her to attend Henry VIII's sister, Mary Tudor, Queen of France, for Mary's marriage to Louis XII of France in October 1514.

In France Anne was a maid of honour to Queen Mary, and then to 15-year-old Queen Claude of France, with whom she stayed nearly seven years.^[25][26] In the Queen's household she completed her study of French and developed interests in fashion and religious philosophy. She also acquired knowledge of French culture and etiquette.^[27] Though all knowledge about Anne's experiences in the French court are conjecture, even Eric Ives, in his latest edition of the biography, conjectures that she was likely to have made the acquaintance of King Francis I's sister, Marguerite de Navarre, a patron of humanists and reformers. Marguerite de Navarre was also an author in her own right, and her works include elements of Christian mysticism and reform that, but for her protection as the French king's beloved sister, verged on heresy. She or her circle may have encouraged Anne's interest in reform, as well as in poetry and literature.^[26] Anne's education in France proved itself in later years, inspiring many new trends among the ladies and courtiers of England, and it may have been instrumental in pressing their King toward the culture-shattering contretemps with the Papacy itself. Eric Ives's latest version of his biography hypothesizes that Anne may have had evangelist conviction and a strong spiritual inner life. William Forrest, author of a contemporary poem about Catherine of Aragon, complimented Anne's "passing excellent" skill as a dancer. "Here", he wrote, "was [a] fresh young damsel, that could trip and go."^[28]

Anne exerted a powerful charm on those who met her, though opinions differed on her attractiveness. The Venetian diarist Marino Sanuto, who saw Anne when Henry VIII met Francis I at Calais in October 1532, described her as "not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised... eyes, which are black and beautiful".^[29] Simon Grynée wrote to Martin Bucer in September 1531 that Anne was "young, good-looking, of a rather dark complexion". Lancelot de Carles called her "beautiful with an elegant figure", and a Venetian in Paris in 1528 also reported that she was said to be beautiful.^[30] The most influential description of Anne,^[31] but also the least reliable, was written by the Catholic propagandist and polemicist Nicholas Sanders in 1586, half a century after Anne's death: "Anne Boleyn was rather tall of stature, with black hair, and an oval face of a sallow complexion, as if troubled with jaundice. It is said she had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on her right hand six fingers. There was a large wen under her chin, and therefore to hide its ugliness she wore a high dress covering her throat... She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth".^[32] Sanders held Anne responsible for Henry VIII's rejection of the Catholic church, and writing fifty years after her death, was keen to demonize her. Sanders's description contributed to what biographer Eric Ives calls the "monster legend" of Anne Boleyn.^[33] Though his details were fictitious, they have formed the basis for references to Anne's appearance even in some modern textbooks.^[34]