Mary Boleyn (1500-19 July 1543) was the sister of Queen Anne Boleyn and one of the mistresses of King Henry VIII.
Biography[]
Mary Boleyn was born in Blickling Hall, Norfolk, England in 1500, the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire and Elizabeth Howard, and the sister of Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn. Mary Boleyn's father was a successful diplomat, and the family stayed in France for several years; from 1515 to 1519, she was a mistress of King Francis I of France. When King Henry VIII of England visited Calais in 1520 to sign a peace treaty, King Francis pointed Mary and Anne out to him, and King Henry had a brief affair with Mary. However, he later fell more in love with her sister, who would become Queen in 1533 after Henry divorced Queen Catherine of Aragon and remarried to Anne. Boleyn would marry in 1520 and in 1534, and she was banished from the royal court for marrying a person below her station. She died in obscurity in 1543.