The Boleyn Women by Elizabeth Norton

Author:Elizabeth Norton [Norton, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, England, Historical, Nonfiction, Retail, Royalty
Amazon: B00EYGSIAK
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2013-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

10

PRINCESS MARY & THE QUEEN’S AUNTS

As the queen, Anne was placed in charge of arranging the household of her daughter, Princess Elizabeth, as well as the arrangements made for the care of her teenage stepdaughter, Princess Mary. Understandably, when it was decided that the two girls were to share the same household, Anne was determined that it should be headed by those loyal to her, appointing her mother’s half-sister, Margaret, Lady Bryan, as Elizabeth’s lady mistress and her father’s two sisters, Anne Boleyn, Lady Shelton, and Alice Boleyn, Lady Clere, as its chief female officers. Her uncle, Sir John Shelton, was appointed as steward of the household, something that meant he was in charge of their domestic guard.1

The elder Anne Boleyn was the sister of Sir Thomas Boleyn. She married a Norfolk neighbour, Sir John Shelton, whose family was closely connected with her own. The family was a prosperous and well-respected one, with at least one member of every generation knighted since a Ralph de Shelton fought for Edward III at the Battle of Crecy.2 They had lived at Shelton in Norfolk, which is now a small village, since at least the early thirteenth century, taking their surname from the manor.3 As prominent Norfolk families, the Boleyns, Sheltons and Cleres were highly interconnected and the marriage was arranged to complement that of her sister, Alice, to Sir Robert Clere. Sir John Shelton was prominent in the county, serving as sheriff before their marriage, which took place in 1512 when John was in his mid-thirties and Anne some years younger.4 The couple settled at Shelton Hall, which survives today as a ruin.5 In Lady Shelton’s time it was a grand building surrounded by a high, towered wall and a moat.

Towards the end of his life Sir John Shelton commissioned fine stained-glass windows for the chancel at Shelton Church. The windows survive today and depict John’s parents, as well as John and Anne at three stages in their lives. The earliest chronologically shows the couple kneeling in church facing each other on separate panes of glass. John is depicted as a long haired, heavy-featured and well-built young man, dressed in a fine robe of red, a long furred collar and hanging sleeves. Anne is dressed stylishly for the end of the fifteenth century, wearing a tight-fitting red dress with hanging sleeves and a black hood with a veil. Her dress is low-cut and her features youthful and more delicate than her husband’s.

In the second depiction chronologically, the couple again face towards each other but on separate panes. Both kneel in church with open prayer books before them. Sir John looks older in this image, with long fair hair and a heavy beard. Beneath his heraldic mantle he wears armour, suggesting that he was depicted at around the time of his marriage in 1512, when England was at war with France. Anne also looks more mature, with a serene expression. Beneath a long heraldic mantle displaying the Boleyn family arms and bull motif, she wears a fine green dress, decorated with gold.

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