The Stately Homes of England

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt; S. C. Hall

HEVER CASTLE was originally the stronghold of the family of De Hevre, said to have been of Norman extraction, one of whom, William De Hevre, is stated to have had license from King Edward III. to embattle this his manor-house. His daughters and co-heiresses inherited the estates, and through them, by marriage, they were conveyed to the families of Cobham and Brocas, the former of whom, having obtained the whole by purchase, sold it to Sir Geoffrey Bullen, or Boleyn, in which family it remained until it was seized by the Crown.

The family of Boleyn, or Bullen, traces from Sir Thomas Bullen, Knt., of Blickling and Saul, in Norfolk, and Joan, his wife, daughter and heiress of Sir John Bracton, Knt. The grandson of Sir Thomas was Sir Geoffrey Bullen, the purchaser of Hever Castle and other estates of the De Hevre family. Sir Geoffrey “was a wealthy mercer in London, as also Lord Mayor of that city in 37 Henry VI., and, having married Anne, eldest daughter and co-heiress to John, Baron Hoo and Hastings, by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Nicholas Wichingham, he had issue, Sir William Bullen, Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King Richard III.” Sir William married Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond (third brother to James, Earl of Wiltshire), and by her had, with other issue, a son, Thomas Bullen, afterwards created Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond.

This Thomas Bullen, or Boleyn, whose career, and that of his unfortunate daughter, Queen Anne Boleyn, are so intimately woven into the history of our country, was, in 1496, in arms with his father for suppressing the Cornish rebellion; and, under Henry VIII., “being one of the knights of the king’s body, was, jointly with Sir Henry Wyat, Knt., constituted governor of the Castle of Norwich. In the following year he was one of the ambassadors to the Emperor Maximilian, touching a war with France, and soon after was sole governor of Norwich Castle.”

In the eleventh year of this sovereign’s reign “he arranged the famous interview of King Henry VIII. and Francis I. between Guisnes and Ardres, and in the thirteenth year was accredited ambassador to the latter. The next year, being treasurer of the King’s household, he was sent ambassador to Spain, to advise with King Charles upon some proceedings in order to the war with France.” In 1525, with a view to further the suit of the monarch to his daughter Anne, Sir Thomas Bullen was created Baron and Viscount Rochfort, and afterwards successively Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond, a Knight of the Garter, and Lord Privy Seal. “He subscribed the articles against Cardinal Wolsey in 21 Henry VIII., and soon after was sent again ambassador to the Emperor Charles V.”

This Sir Thomas Bullen, afterwards, as we have shown, created Baron Rochfort, Viscount Rochfort, Earl of Ormond, and Earl of Wiltshire, married Elizabeth daughter of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and by her had issue one son—George, commonly called Viscount Rochfort, but summoned as Baron Rochfort during the lifetime of his father—and two daughters, Anne and Mary. Lord Rochfort married Jane, daughter of Henry Parker, Earl of Morley. He was beheaded during the lifetime of his father, and left no issue. Of the daughters, the Lady Anne Bullen, who was created Marchioness of Pembroke, became second queen to King Henry VIII.; and the Lady Mary Bullen, married, first, William Cary, Esquire of the Body to King Henry VIII., and brother of Sir John Cary of Plashley, one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber to the same monarch; and, secondly, Sir William Stafford, Knt. The husband of this lady, William Cary, was the son of Thomas Cary, of Chilton Foliat, in Wiltshire (son of Sir William Cary, of Cockington, Devon, Knt.—who was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury—by his second wife, Alice, daughter of Sir Baldwin Fulford), by his wife, Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Robert Spencer, of Spencer Combe, by the Lady Eleanor Beaufort, daughter of Edmund, and sister and co-heiress of Henry, Duke of Somerset. Lady Mary Bullen had, by her first husband, William Cary, a daughter, Catherine, married to Sir Francis Knollys, K.G.; and a son, Sir Henry Cary, Knt., who was created Baron Hunsdon at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, and from whom descended the Barons Hunsdon and Earls of Dover and Monmouth; while from his brother, Sir John Cary, of Plashley, Knt., by his wife, Joyce, sister of Sir Anthony Denny, king’s remembrancer, are descended the Viscounts Falkland.

Entrance Gateway, with Portcullis.

Anne Boleyn, or Bullen, was born at Hever in or about the year 1507; and in 1514, when only seven years of age, was appointed one of the maids of honour to the King’s sister—who had then just been married to Louis XII. of France—and was allowed to remain with her when her other English attendants were unceremoniously sent out of the country. On the Queen’s second marriage with Brandon, Anne Boleyn was left under the powerful protection of the new queen, Claude, wife of Francis I. She was thus brought up at the French Court. When war was declared against France in 1522, at which time her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was ambassador to that country, it is thought she was brought back to England by him, and, shortly afterwards, was appointed one of the maids of honour to Queen Catherine, wife of Henry VIII., and was thus brought under the notice of that detestable and profligate monarch. She had not been long at Court when, it is said by Cavendish, a strong and mutual attachment sprang up between her and the young Lord Percy, son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland, who made her an offer of marriage, and was accepted. At this time she was only sixteen years of age. The match, however, was not destined to be made, for the King “had already turned his admiring eyes in the same direction, and, jealous of the rivalry of a subject, he caused the lovers to be parted through the agency of Cardinal Wolsey, in whose household Percy had been educated; and that young nobleman, probably under compulsion, married, in 1523, a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury.” Anne, on being thus compulsorily separated from her young and fond lover, was removed to Hever. Here, within a few weeks, she heard of the marriage of her accepted lover, and, with feelings which can well be imagined, kept herself secluded.

To Hever the King repaired on a visit, but probably suspecting the cause of his arrival, Anne, under the pretext of sickness, kept closely to her chamber, which she did not leave until after his departure. “But this reserve was more likely to animate than daunt a royal lover; and Henry, for the purpose of restoring the reluctant lady to court, and bringing her within the sphere of his solicitations,” created her father Baron and Viscount Rochfort, and gave him the important post of Treasurer of the Royal Household. He also surrounded himself with her relatives and friends. Among those who were his chief companions were her father, Thomas, Viscount Rochfort; her brother George; her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk; her cousin, Sir Francis Bryan; her near relative and admirer, Sir Henry Norris; her intimate friend, Sir William Compton; and the King’s old favourite, the Duke of Suffolk—a lively but dissolute society, not one of whom showed any high regard for marriage vows, or treated their infringement as anything but a jest. “Suffolk,” says Mr. Brewer, “had been betrothed to one lady; then married another; then abandoned her, on the plea of his previous contract, for the lady whom he had in the first instance rejected. Norfolk lived with his duchess on the most scandalous terms. Sir William Compton had been cited in the Ecclesiastical Court for living in open adultery with a married woman. The fate of Norris and George Boleyn is too well known to require comment. Sir Francis Bryan, the chief companion in the King’s amusements, and the minister of his pleasures, was pointed out by common fame as more dissolute than all the rest.” Sir Thomas Wyatt, though married, wore her miniature round his neck, and sang of her love. Still, however, Henry’s suit, which was dishonourable even to one so depraved and lost to honour as he was, was unprosperous when made; and she is said by an old writer, and one not favourable to her, to have replied firmly to the King, “Your wife I cannot be, both in respect of my own unworthiness, and also because you have a queen already; and your mistress I will not be.” Foiled in his attempt to gain her by any other means, the unscrupulous monarch now began seriously to set himself to the task of obtaining a divorce from Queen Catherine, who had been his wife for seventeen years, in order that he might replace her by Anne Boleyn. The history of these proceedings is a part of the history of the kingdom, and need not be here detailed. It is, however, a tradition of Hever that when the King came “a wooing” he sounded his bugle in the distance, that his lady-love might know of his approach. The divorce being obtained, Anne Boleyn, having previously been married to the King, became “indeed a queen;” and having given birth to two children—Queen Elizabeth and a still-born son—was arrested on a false and disgraceful charge, and was beheaded, to make room for a new queen in the person of one of her own maids of honour, Jane Seymour.