Geoffrey Boleyn

Sir Geoffrey Boleyn (1406–1463) was a London merchant who served as Lord Mayor of London. He purchased the manor of Blickling in Norfolk from Sir John Fastolf in 1452, and Hever Castle in Kent in 1462.[2]

Canting arms of Boleyn: Argent, a chevron gules between three bull's heads afrontée sable. Sir Geoffrey Boleyn quartered the arms of Bracton (Azure, three mullets and a chief dauncettée or)[1]

Origins
Hever Castle in Kent, purchased by Sir Geoffrey Boleyn in 1452
Blickling Hall in Norfolk, purchased by Sir Geoffrey Boleyn in 1462

He was the son of Geoffrey Boleyn (d. 1440) of Salle in Norfolk (son of Thomas Boleyn (d. 1411) of Salle and his wife Agnes[3]), whose monumental brass survives in Salle Church, by his wife Alice Bracton, daughter and heiress[4] of Sir John Bracton of Norfolk.

Siblings

Sir Geoffrey Boleyn had four brothers and four sisters, as is apparent from now lost evidence on his father's surviving monumental brass in Salle Church, which before 1730 included subsidiary brasses depicting two groups of mourners, namely five sons and four daughters (now lost).[5][6] The principal figures of Geoffrey and his wife survive but the mourner groups went missing after 1730.[7] The figures depicted include:

Career

He went to the City of London where he was apprenticed to a hatter and became a Freeman of the City of London city through the Worshipful Company of Hatters in 1428. In 1429 he transferred to a grander livery company, the Worshipful Company of Mercers. Having served as a Sheriff of London in 1446–47, as a Member of Parliament for the City of London in February 1449, and as an alderman from 1452 (Castle Baynard ward , 1452–57, Bassishaw ward 1457–63),[13] he was elected as Master of the Mercers' Company for the year 1454.[14] He served as Lord Mayor of London in 1457–58 and was knighted[15] by King Henry VI.[2] In 1461 he and "Geffray Feldyng" headed the list of contributors towards a prest of 500 marks granted to the king by the fellowship of the Mercers for the Earl of Warwick to go into the North.[16]

Marriage and issue

He married Anne Hoo (1424–1484), the only child and heiress of Thomas Hoo, Baron Hoo and Hastings (c.1396–1455) (a Knight of the Garter) and Elizabeth Wychingham. They had two sons and five daughters:

Death & burial

He died in 1463 and was buried in the Church of St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London.[2] His will was proved in July 1463.[21]

Minor relatives
  • Simon, parochial chaplain of Salle, Norfolk died 3 August 1482.
  • James of Gunthorpe, Norfolk, died 1493 (executor to Simon's will).
  • Thomas of Gunthorpe, Norfolk (executor to Simon's will).
  • Joan, named in her brother Simon's will. She married (1) Alan Roos of Salle (died 1463): he was receiver of rents for the Salle properties of Margaret Paston (née Mauteby, d. 1484).[22] Alan was son of Thomas Roos (who died 12 October 1440[23]), a prosperous merchant who built the north transept chapel and who, like the Boleyns of Salle, was a member of the Guild of the Holy Trinity of Coventry.[24][25] She married (2) Robert Aldrych, who died in 1474.

Historian Elizabeth Norton describes the Geoffrey Boleyn who died in 1440 as their great-uncle.[26]

References
  1. 'Coat of arms of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, Lord Mayor of London, 1457', in B. Burke, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; comprising a registry of armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time, (Harrison and Sons, London 1884), p.96.
  2. Weir 1991, p. 145.
  3. The Boleyn Women, Elizabeth Norton (Stroud: Amberley, 2013)
  4. Heiress as Boleyn quartered her arms, per Burke
  5. W. Langley and E. Parsons, Salle, The Story of a Norfolk Parish, its Church, Manors and People, (Jarrold & Sons Ltd., Norwich 1937), p.42.
  6. F. Blomefield and C. Parkin, An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk VIII (William Miller, London 1808), p.275.
  7. S. Badham, 'Geoffrey Boleyn, 1440, and wife Alice, Salle, Norfolk' Monumental Brass Society, Brass of the Month, May 2011.
  8. W. Rye (ed.), The Visitacion of Norffolk Harleian Society XXXII (London 1891), pp. 51-53 (Brampton), at p. 52.
  9. Blomefield and Parkin, Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, VI (William Miller, London 1807), pp. 386-89.
  10. Rye, Visitacion of Norffolk, p. 52.
  11. 'Thomas Boleyn' in J. Venn, Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College (Cambridge University Press 1901), III, p. 18.
  12. "Engravings of Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk ", by John Sell Cotman and Samuel Rush Meyrick, volume I p.23
  13. A. B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III to 1912 (Corporation of the City of London, 1913), II, p. 10.
  14. L. Lyell & F. D. Watney (eds), Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company 1453–1527 (Cambridge University Press 1936), p. 42.
  15. D. Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (HarperCollins, 2003), p. 257.
  16. Lyell and Watney, Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company, p. 54.
  17. Richardson 2004, pp. 178–179.
  18. E. W. Ives, 'Anne (Anne Boleyn) (c. 1500–1536), queen of England, second consort of Henry VIII', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP 2004). Online edition (2008) (subscription required).
  19. Moreton 2004.
  20. C. E. Moreton, 'Heydon, Sir Henry (d. 1504), lawyer', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP 2004). Online edition (2008) (subscription required).
  21. Will of Geffray Boleyn, Mercer and Alderman of Saint Lawrence Jewry, City of London (P.C.C. 1463 (Godyn)).
  22. Langley and Parsons, Salle, The Story of a Norfolk Parish, p.149.
  23. Blomefield and Parkin, Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, VIII, p.275.
  24. An amalgamation of the Guilds of St Mary, St John and St Catherine.
  25. J.D.Tracy and M. Ragnow, Religion and the Early Modern State, views from Russia, China, and the West (Cambridge University Press 2004), p.326.
  26. E. Norton, The Boleyn Women (Amberley Publishing 2013), chapter 1.

Sources
  • Cokayne, George Edward (1949). The Complete Peerage, edited by Geoffrey H. White. XI. London: St. Catherine Press. p. 51.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Cokayne, George Edward (1945). The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday. X. London: St. Catherine Press. pp. 137–142.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Hughes, Jonathan (2007). "Boleyn, Thomas, earl of Wiltshire and earl of Ormond (1476/7–1539), courtier and nobleman". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2795.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Richardson, Douglas (2004). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.). Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company Inc. ISBN 978-0-8063-1750-2. Retrieved 17 March 2011.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. p. 145. ISBN 9781446449097.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  1. Elizabeth Norton, 2013. The Boleyn Women, Amberley Publishing
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