Sir William Carey (1495 – June 22 1527), was a courtier and favourite of King Henry VIII of England. He served the king as a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and Esquire of the Body to the King. His wife, Lady Mary Boleyn, is known to history as a mistress of King Henry VIII.

William Carey was the second son of Thomas Carey (1479-1536), of Chilton Foliat in Wiltshire, and his wife, Margaret Spencer.

In 1520, he was married to Mary Boleyn, daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard. Shortly after their marriage, Mary became the mistress of King Henry VIII. The Boleyns received grants of land, and Carey himself profited from his wife's unfaithfulness, being granted manors and estates by the King while it was in progress. Carey was also a noted art collector and he introduced the famed Dutch artist, Lucas van Horenbolte, to the Kingdom of England in the mid-1520s.

Anne Boleyn, Mary's younger sister, caught Henry's eye a year after his affair with Mary ended. Henry proposed marriage to her in 1527. William Carey did not live to enjoy his sister-in-law's prosperity, since he died of the sweating sickness in that same year. He died greatly in debt, and his wife was reduced to pawning her jewelery before Anne Boleyn arranged a small pension for her.

Sir William Carey and Mary Boleyn were the parents of two children:

:*Catherine Carey (c. 1524 - 15 January, 1568). Maid of Honour to Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. She was married to the Puritan, Sir Francis Knollys, Knight of the Garter. She was later lady-in-waiting to her cousin, Elizabeth I. One of her daughters, Lettice Knollys, became the second wife of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, the favourite of Elizabeth I.

:*Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (March 4 1526 - July 23, 1596). He was ennobled by Queen Elizabeth I just after her coronation. Knight of the Garter. Elizabeth offered Henry the Boleyn family title of earl of Ormonde, which he had long sought, when he was dying; but he refused the honour.

It has long been rumored that one or both of Mary Boleyn's children were fathered by the King and not Carey. Some historians, such as Alison Weir, now question whether Henry Carey (Mary's son) was actually fathered by the King .

One witness did note that Mary's son bore a resemblance to Henry VIII, but the witness in question was John Hales, vicar of Isleworth, who some ten years after the child was born remarked that he had met a 'young Master Carey,' who some monks believed was the king's bastard. There is no other contemporary evidence that Henry Carey was the king’s biological son and a close reading of the Letters and Papers (a collection of surviving documents from the period) clearly pinpoint Henry's birth in March 1526 - by which time the affair is believed to have ended.

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