Are you looking at THOMAS AND GEORGE BOLEYN, father and brother of Anne Boleyn? In this week’s video from History Calling we take a look at these pictures created by famed artist, Hans Holbein the Younger, which depict two men from the court of Henry VIII and ask why have they been associated with the family of Anne Boleyn and do these identifications hold water?

We’ll look at the provenance of these Tudor portraits which have passed through the hands of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Henry FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel, John, Lord Lumley, then perhaps Henry, Prince of Wales, followed by his brother King Charles I. It then Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, King Charles II & finally the rest of the Kings and Queens of England from Charles onwards. They are now part of the Royal Collection of art and are held at Windsor Castle.

The picture supposed to be of George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, will be examined first. By showing you numerous versions of it held by archives and galleries including the Royal Collection Trust, the British Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as published versions of it dating back over 200 years, I will prove to you that this unidentified Tudor man is just that; unidentified. I will demonstrate that there is no reputable evidence that this image shows George (in fact there’s no evidence as to who it shows at all – it’s an art history mystery) and that this entire idea is a piece of pseudohistory, seemingly dreamt up in recent years by the internet and latched onto by many people who haven’t done any research on the topic.

The picture supposed to be of Sir Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond is more complicated as it does have a label on it identifying it as Ormond. However I will explain the history behind this title and the various men who held it during Henry’s reign to uncover the truth about who is shown in this image. This will include a discussion of how English and Irish titles work and which was considered better. I will also show you an undisputed picture of Sir Thomas Boleyn.

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LEARN MORE

Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (WileyBlackwell, 2005)
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Susan Bordo, The Creation of Anne Boleyn: In Search of the Tudors' Most Notorious Queen (One World Publications, 2014)
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Sarah Morris and Natalie Grueninger, In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn (2013)
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Antonia Fraser, The Six Wives Of Henry VIII (2nd edn, Phoenix, 2009) https://amzn.to/36IqD5r
David Starkey, Six Wives: the Queens of Henry VIII (Vintage, 2004)
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The Tudors, season 1
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The Tudors, season 3
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The Tudors, season 4
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Henry VIII and his Six Wives (2016 docudrama)
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Six Wives with Lucy Worsley (2016 docudrama)
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Henry VIII and his Six Wives (2016 docudrama): https://amzn.to/3gXU4GH
Six Wives with Lucy Worsley (2016 docudrama): https://amzn.to/3h7Qh8z (UK link) OR https://amzn.to/3xKuBGA (US link)

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