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In 1536, there were two Anne Boleyns in the Tower of London.

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One was a queen who helped to inspire the English Reformation and stood accused of treason.

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The other was the aunt whose testimony may have helped to convict her.

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Find out who the Other Anne Boleyn was, in this week’s episode of Footnoting History!

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Hi! And welcome to Footnoting History – I’m your host, Kristin, and today we will be visiting the

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always dramatic and ever entertaining court of the Tudors – the family that ruled England from

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1485 to 1603, beginning with Henry VII and ending with his granddaughter Elizabeth I.

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The Tudors are perhaps best well known for the reign of Henry VIII, the king who broke with

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the Catholic Church and married a string of six women. He did some other stuff, too, between

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1509 and 1547 when he reigned, but those are the highlights that history best remembers him for.

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It’s Henry’s second wife, who is either credited or blamed – depending on your perspective – for

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the break with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church – then as now – did not allow for divorce,

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which was why Henry originally tried to convince the pope to let him out of Marriage Number One

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and grant him an annulment – or a decision that looked back at the beginning of the

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marriage and determined that it had never been valid in the first place.

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Henry maybe did not expect to come up against any real friction with his request. He was pretty

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used to getting what he wanted, but he had also asked the pope for a special favor years before,

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when he wanted to marry Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess who was his brother’s widow.

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This made Catherine technically off-limits, but Henry was convincing, and the pope granted him

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a special dispensation, or an exception to the rule. Henry and Catherine were married in 1509

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and were – by many reports, pretty happy for 16 years – but for the fact that they had only

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one living child, a daughter named Mary Tudor. Historians do disagree about when exactly Henry

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decided to set aside his first wife, Catharine of Aragon, but around 1525, he became obsessed

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with one of her Ladies in Waiting, Anne Boleyn, and she became either the excuse (or the impetus)

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behind Henry parting ways with Rome and establishing the Reformed Church of England.

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Things ultimately did not end well for this Anne Boleyn. In 1536, she found herself

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the unfortunate guest of honor at a fancy execution by sword in the Tower of London.

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She was accused of adultery with multiple men, incest with her brother,

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and plotting the death of the king. You know, normal stuff. There is good reason to believe that not having a son

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and getting on some important court figure’s bad sides should also be included in that list,

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even if neither were part of the official indictment. Anne Boleyn’s case was extraordinary

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at the time – never before had a Queen of England faced the death penalty and never before had one

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been accused and convicted of such outrageous charges. This Anne Boleyn was a legend in her

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own time, but there was another Anne Boleyn who was caught up in all this matrimonial

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and religious turmoil – and she played a crucial role in the unfolding drama of the doomed Queen.

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This Anne Boleyn was Queen Anne Boleyn’s paternal aunt. She was the younger sister of Sir Thomas

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Boleyn, who was the queen’s father. And she was born in the Boleyn family home of Blickling Hall

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in Norfolk, sometime around 1483, making her about 50 years old when her niece became queen in 1533.

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Blickling Hall, if you were to visit it today – or if you were to visit the Footnoting History

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website for this episode – looks much like it did when it was renovated in 1616, and so,

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not very much like it did in the later 15th century.

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The Boleyns bought the estate in 1452 from a man named Sir John Fastolf, and both Anne

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Boleyns were born in the 15th-century brick manor house that once occupied the site.

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Not much is known about her early life at Blickling, but in 1503, Lady Anne married

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Sir John Shelton making her Lady Anne Shelton. In preparation for her career as an upper-class

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Tudor wife, Lady Shelton would have been educated in matters considered appropriate to her gender

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and necessary to the running of a large household – things like managing servants

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and ordering the proper provisions and just generally making her husband’s life as

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comfortable as possible. This meant that Lady Anne had to be able to both read and write.

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We do know that Lady Anne was literate, making her exceptional amongst the Tudor population

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in general, but rather conventional for her a woman of her social class.

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Her husband, Sir John, was the sheriff of both Norfolk and Suffolk, which are counties in East

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Anglia. Sherrifs were justices of the peace, who were in charge of collecting revenue,

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presiding over shire courts, and for proclaiming royal statutes and delivering royal writs.

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They were officers of the king who had to be reappointed every now and again.

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But by the later 1400s, they were outsourcing a lot of the actual work.

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They didn’t earn a formal salary – they were supposed to be rich enough not to need it

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and so not be tempted to skim off the top of the money they were in charge of collecting

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But there were still plenty of opportunities to benefit. Sir John was evidently good enough at his

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job that he was rewarded by being made a knight of the Bath at Henry VIII's coronation in 1509.

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In 1509, Henry was still enamored with his Spanish princess,

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and Lady Shelton had only eight years before, in 1501, become a likely namesake for her

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brand-new niece, the daughter of her brother Thomas, a little girl … also named Anne.

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Sir and Lady Shelton would have six children together, beginning around 1503 with their

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son John. In 1528 the couple sat for the famous painter Hans Holbein. There is something of a gap

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in detail about our knowledge about Lady Shelton’s life, between 1503 when she married Sir John

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and when she shows up at the Tudor Court. But in 1533, at the influence of either her niece,

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who was then queen, or her brother, who was a court favorite because her niece was queen,

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the Sheltons were put in charge of Mary Tudor’s household at Hatfield House.

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This was a plumb job, depending on how you looked at it because Princess Mary had recently

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been demoted. When her mother’s marriage was declared invalid in 1533, she was re-classified

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as a bastard, and her baby sister Elizabeth, Queen Anne’s daughter, took her place in the

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succession. Mary would not recognize her father’s marriage to Queen Anne, and as a result, was on

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bad terms with them both. She insisted loudly and often that she was still the True Princess

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and her mother was her Father’s True Wife … and she did not make the Sheltons jobs very easy.

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And maybe she shouldn’t have. Many reports from the time describe Mary having to wait on her

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little sister like a servant and generally just being treated poorly when once she was doted upon.

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It was Lady Shelton who was specifically tasked with putting Mary in line,

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and the means were often brusque. At best.

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Lady Shelton was told by her niece, the Queen, to give Mary “a good banging on the ears,

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like the cursed bastard she was” and when Lady Shelton treated the former Princess with “too much

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respect and kindness” Queen Anne’s brother, Lord Rochford, and Lady Shelton’s brother, Sir Thomas,

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scolded her for it. Lady Shelton responded that even if Mary were a bastard, she still deserved

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to be treated with respect and kindness. Thomas Boleyn and his son – and King Henry – disagreed.

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Details about what “too much respect and kindness” looked like are not included, but Lady Shelton did

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step it up a notch by locking Mary in her room and nailing the windows shut when visitors came over.

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This definitely doesn’t make Lady Shelton look good, but some historians think she was just doing

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the girl a hard favor. In 1534, it was punishable by death not to recognize Henry and Anne’s

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marriage, and Henry had taken to calling his eldest daughter “his worst enemy.” Lady Shelton

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reportedly cried when she thought about the real trouble Mary could be in, if she failed to keep

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her royal charge in line. Lady Shelton might also have worried for herself, and for her family.

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Henry’s temper was, even in 1534, notorious. Even so, it is hard to massage good intentions

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into the reports that Lady Shelton physically shook Mary, and when Mary fell sick in 1535,

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that she told her she hoped she’d die. There is some suspicion that Lady Shelton hoped Mary

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would die a little too much – so much so that she poisoned her. When Mary first became ill, Lady

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Shelton hired an apothecary – a sort of pre-modern pharmacist – to come and treat her. This was not

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unusual. However, Mary claimed the pills Lady Shelton’s apothecary gave her made her even

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sicker, and both she and her longtime supporter, imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, claimed that

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it was deliberate. Lady Shelton never admitted to any such a thing, and Mary saw her alleged

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actions as an extension of her evil-step mother, Queen Anne, who Mary had no doubt wanted her dead.

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There were a few times that Queen Anne made overtures of peace to Mary, one of which directly

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involved Lady Shelton. Soon after Catherine of Aragon died in 1536, Lady Shelton sent Mary a

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message that if only Mary would obey the king by recognizing Anne as his queen, Mary would

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“find Anne a second mother.” This did not go over well with the grieving and angry Mary Tudor,

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who said that she would “obey her father as far as honor and conscience allowed,” which was a

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pretty sick Tudor burn, the implication of which was that her honor and conscious would not allow

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her to recognize her father’s second wife. Queen Anne responded by writing a letter to Lady Shelton

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that was left deliberately for Mary to find. Queen Anne told Mary by way of Lady Shelton that all

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efforts to be nice to Mary were off: she was fed up, the king was fed up and Mary was on her own.

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Good luck with that, was the gist of the message. Mary read the letter, copied it and replaced it,

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and took the original one to her ally Eustace Chapuys.

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At this point, Queen Anne was pregnant, and had things worked out,

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she would have given birth to a son who would have unquestionably replaced both

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Mary – and Elizabeth – in the succession. As the mother to the long-awaited male heir,

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Queen Anne’s position would have been untouchable. As it turned out … she was not. Lady Shelton

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seemed to sense this and started to shift her allegiance more strongly in Mary’s direction.

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There is no word as to what exactly her husband, Sir John, was doing all this time,

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but Lady Shelton started ignoring the Queen’s orders and doing Mary forbidden favors,

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like arranging for one of Chapuys’ servants to visit Mary, while she, Lady Shelton, chaperoned.

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Henry was not pleased with his queen by the spring of 1536,

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but it is a matter of some debate how displeased he was and whether he was

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behind the investigation which led to the arrest of Queen Anne and her alleged stable of lovers.

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But when Henry took Lady Shelton’s daughter and Queen Anne’s cousin as a mistress in 1535,

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it was just business as usual for him. He had mistresses when he was married to Catherine,

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and he acted just the same when he was married to Anne. Mary Shelton also sometimes called Madge,

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didn’t last long in the king’s affections, but was rumored to be a contender for Queen

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when the position was once again vacant in 1537 after the death of Henry’s third wife,

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Jane Seymour. (It was probably lucky for Madge that one didn’t work out again.) In 1535,

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Queen Anne maybe brought her young cousin to Henry’s attention, perhaps thinking that Madge

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would at least be in her corner, but the affair wasn’t long. Henry’s attention continued to rove

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and Queen Anne couldn’t swallow her jealousy, even if Madge were her cousin.

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When the dust settled, Madge was shifted over to Sir Henry Norris and the two became engaged.

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It was a conversation with Sir Henry Norris and about Madge Shelton that

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ignited a series of events that would culminate with both Anne Boleyns in the Tower of London.

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Norris and Madge were engaged, but apparently Norris was dragging his feet. Queen Anne, maybe

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playing the game of courtly love too hard and taking the flirtation it required a bit too far,

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called Norris over to her one afternoon and poked him about his long engagement. She said

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that the reason he hesitated in marrying Madge was because he really had feelings for her. “You

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look for dead men’s shoes,” she reportedly said, “for if aught should come to the King but good,

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you would look to have me.” Tudor translation: You are hoping the king will die so that you can

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marry me. These turned out to be fatal words – for both Queen Anne and Sir Henry Norris.

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Lady Shelton’s daughter, Madge, was also linked to another of Queen Anne’s alleged lovers,

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Sir Francis Weston. In another conversation that turned out in retrospect to be pretty stupid,

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Queen Anne accused Weston of coming to her apartments to flirt with her cousin.

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He replied, that the woman he loved was neither Madge nor his wife, and that he came not

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to see Madge, but rather the Queen herself. Lady Anne Shelton perhaps watched all this and did not

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much care for it. But in any event, the rumor of the conversation was well known at Court.

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Lady Shelton also had a son named John, who was married to a woman named Margery Parker.

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Margery Parker was the sister of Jane Parker, Lady Rochford. Jane was married to Queen Anne’s

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brother and Lady Shelton’s nephew, George, Lord Rochford. I know, so: Lady Shelton’s son, John,

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was married to a woman who was sisters with the woman married to her nephew.

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This is potentially really important to the story because George, Lord Rochford was accused – by

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his wife, a woman who was Lady Shelton’s in-law – of incest with Queen Anne. Almost all historians

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think that there was nothing to this charge of incest. It was a slam dunk for the prosecution,

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something so taboo and offensive that of course they’d get a conviction. But we really don’t know

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how many people at the time believed that it was true, and we do not know what Lady Shelton thought of it

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personally. The accusation alone may well have been enough to rouse a sense of family outrage.

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Whatever it was – whether it was her niece falling out of favor, the treatment of her daughter,

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her son’s connection to the Parker family, or all of these things – Lady Shelton was

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involved in the events leading up to her niece’s conviction and eventual execution. We don’t know

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a whole lot about the initial investigations conducted by Thomas Cromwell in April of 1536,

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only that the first accusers were: a woman named Elizabeth Browne, who was the Countess

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of Worcester; someone else named Nan Cobham, who has not been positively identified, and “one maid

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more,” who never gets named at all. All were close to the Queen and her court. As Cromwell continued

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to build his case, he used spies (because every good Tudor used spies) to find out what was being

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said and done in the Queen’s apartments. If Lady Shelton was not directly involved at this stage,

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it’s safe to say she was probably at least approached or knew someone that was involved. By

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the time things were wrapping up at the end of April, “many other witnesses” were questioned.

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It was enough to arrest five men, including Queen Anne’s brother … and Queen Anne herself.

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On the afternoon of May 2, 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn was arrested in her apartments at Greenwich Palace

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and taken by barge to the Tower, which was about 6 miles away on the River Thames.

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At the time, she was not allowed to change her clothes or pack a bag, and none of the ladies

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serving in her household were allowed to accompany her. Historians now believe that when Anne

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arrived at the Tower, she entered through what was known as the Court Gate at the Byward Tower,

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not the famous water steps of the so-called “Traitors’ Gate,” sorry to all those who

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have taken a Tower of London tour and were told otherwise. But you did take a Tower of

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London tour, you went in the same way that Queen Anne did … if that makes you feel at all better.

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When Anne got there, she was greeted by the constable of the Tower, Sir William Kingston,

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and he took her not to a dungeon – to the Queen’s great relief – but to the royal apartments that

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were renovated for her coronation just a few years before. Waiting for Queen Anne in those royal

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apartments was a crew of women who were supposed to take care of her during her imprisonment,

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one of whom was Lady Shelton. They were joined by a few others who were probably not

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very sympathetic to the Queen’s situation, including the wife of the Tower Constable,

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Lady Mary Kingston who had served in Catharine of Aragon’s court and who was supposed to report

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back to her husband everything that went on during the Queen’s dismal, albeit swanky, imprisonment.

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Surviving sources describe a woman named Margaret Dymoke Coffin (yes, Coffin),

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who was married to one of Henry’s court favorites, being specifically tasked to get the Queen to talk

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about that problematic conversation with Henry Norris about dead men’s shoes. Coffin also got

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the Queen to talk about the conversation with Francis Weston about Madge Shelton.

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There was probably a lot more that Queen Anne said that was relayed through her female servants in

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the Tower. Only those who were deemed to be cooperative got the job in the first place.

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Historians are rather united in believing that all these women were involved in spying on the Queen.

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Cromwell was still working on building an iron-clad case and no chances were being taken.

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In a letter to Cromwell written around May 7, Sir Kingston relayed that Queen Anne complained

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about these unsympathetic women. She said she thought the King was doing her a great unkindness

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by surrounding her with “such … as I never loved.” If, in 1533, Queen Anne considered her aunt,

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Lady Shelton, a friend she could trust to deal with a foe like the Princess Mary,

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she no longer felt that way in 1536. On May 15th, Queen Anne was tried in the

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Tower of London, in a building called the King’s Hall. 27 Peers of the Realm, including her old

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love-interest Henry Percy, sat in judgment; and her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, presided.

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When Queen Anne was brought into the courtroom, she was accompanied by “her young ladies,” who are

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not named, as well as Lady Kingston and the wife of her younger uncle, Elizabeth Wood, Lady Boleyn.

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The Queen didn’t have a defense lawyer, and there were no witnesses called (that was not

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how cases of treason in Tudor England worked). The case proceeded with the Attorney General

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laying out all the accusations and evidence. And I wish I could tell you what exactly that was.

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We don’t know all the details of the evidence presented. The witness

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depositions and the statements of most of the men accused with the Queen have not survived.

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Some historians believe that the evidence was suppressed. Some think it never existed

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at all. Others think that Tudor England was only just starting to keep records like this,

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and history can be an arbitrary conservator of documents under the best of circumstances.

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It is highly possible that Lady Shelton gave testimony to Thomas Cromwell at the end of April,

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and it was read – along with others – and we just no longer have it.

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In this respect, the record is silent. People who attended the trial did, however, report that

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the Queen defended herself ably. She was witty and cool, and it made no difference whatsoever.

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When the sentence was pronounced, Queen Anne rose from her chair,

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curtseyed, and was escorted back to her rooms by Sir and Lady Kingston and Lady Elizabeth Boleyn.

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When they got there, she was attended by “two ladies …which came in with her at the first.”

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It’s not very likely that one of these “young ladies” was Lady Shelton, who would have been

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considered pretty old at 53, and who was not included in the “young ladies” described as

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serving Anne immediately after her arrest. People who wrote about Queen Anne’s execution, on the

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19th of May, said she had “four young ladies” with her to the end, but no one bothered to write down

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their names, so we don’t know who they were. But Lady Shelton was definitely not one of them. She

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had been dismissed of her grim duty a few days before and was not at the Tower that morning.

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Things returned to a relative – although probably weird – status quo for the Sheltons after the

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execution. The Sheltons were back in charge of the king’s daughters household, but now it was

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the Lady Elizabeth had been demoted from Princess to bastard. During the summer of 1536, they were

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living in Hunson, and Elizabeth’s governess was complaining that Sir John was basically

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still acting and treating the little girl like a Princess, letting her eat at “the board of

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estate,” which is probably what most 3 year olds who’ve been told they’re a princess want to do.

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It may also have been what the king wanted the Sheltons to do. Between 1536 and 1541, Henry was

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hard at work, dissolving the many Catholic monasteries and convents of his kingdom and

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either reassigning the wealth that was associated with them, or putting it directly into the royal

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treasury. In November of 1538, he granted the Sheltons the site of a dissolved Benedictine

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convent at Carrow, which was near Norwich, and this estate became the Shelton family seat.

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Sir John Shelton died in 1539 at the age of 62 and is buried in St. Mary’s Church, Norfolk,

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which is about 30 miles from Carrow. Local legend holds that Sir John once hid the Princess

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Elizabeth in this same church’s tower, when she was under threat during the reign of Mary Tudor.

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Lady Anne Boleyn Shelton died in 1556 at the age of 73. Her final resting place is unclear,

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but she may also be buried at St. Mary’s Church, along with her husband.

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The church, which was begun by an ancestor of the Shelton family in the mid-1400s,

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still has some stained glass windows from the 15th and 16th centuries.

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In the eastern window, a man and a woman are kneeling in prayer and facing one another.

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They are Sir John Shelton – and his wife, Lady Shelton, the Other Anne Boleyn.

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This has been Footnoting History. If you like the podcast, be sure to visit our website

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