Elizabeth Howard Boleyn (1480-1538) - Find a Grave Memorial

English Aristocracy. She is remembered as the mother of Anne Boleyn, who became the ill-fated 2nd wife of English King Henry VIII, and the maternal grandmother of Anne's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I of England. She was born around 1480, the older of the two daughters of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk and his first wife Elizabeth Tilney. When she was a young girl, her family managed to survive the fall of their patron, King Richard III, who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in August 1485 and supplanted by the victor, King Henry VII. She became a part of the Royal Court and it was while she was at Court, that she married Thomas Boleyn, an ambitious young courtier, around 1498. Through her marriage, she held the titles of Countess of Wiltshire, Countess of Ormond and Viscountess Rochford. She was a lady-in-waiting at the royal court; first to Elizabeth of York, the wife of King Henry VII of England and then to Catherine of Aragon, King Henry VIII's first wife. In 1519 her daughters, Anne and Mary, were living in the French royal court as ladies-in-waiting to the French Queen consort Claude, the first wife of King Francis I. In contrast to Mary, her daughter Anne, is thought to have had a close relationship with her mother. She had been in charge of her children's early education and she had taught them music and religion, as well as arithmetic, embroidery, the family genealogy, good manners, household management, reading, and writing. In 1525 King Henry VIII fell in love with Anne, and she became her protective chaperone. She accompanied Anne to Court, since Anne was attempting to avoid a sexual relationship with the King. She travelled with Anne to view York Place after the fall of the Boleyn family's great political opponent, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, an intrigue which had given Anne her first real taste of political power. After Anne and King Henry VIII were married in 1533, she remained in her daughter's household throughout her time as queen consort. She sided with the rest of the family when her daughter Mary was banished in 1535 for eloping with a commoner, William Stafford. The following year, the family was overtaken by a much greater scandal as Anne, and her only living son George, the 2nd Viscount Rochford, were executed on fabricated charges of treason, adultery and incest. Her husband and her brother Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, provided no help to Anne or George. Following the family's disgrace, she retired with her husband to their home at Hever Castle, Kent where she died at the age of 57 or 58, only two years after her two younger children were executed, and her husband died the following year.

Bio by: William Bjornstad