Mary Boleyn (c. 1499 - July 19, 1543) was a member of the famous aristocratic Boleyn family, which enjoyed considerable influence during the early part of the 16th century. Mary was one of the mistresses of King Henry VIII of England and also, allegedly, of his rival, King Francis I of France. She was married twice and most historians believe she was the elder sister of Queen Anne Boleyn. Some still claim that she may have been the younger sister, though her children, and Anne's daughter, believed Mary to be the elder.

Mary was born either at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, or at Hever Castle, Kent. She was the daughter of a wealthy diplomat, Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard. There is no concrete evidence about when she was born, but it was clearly sometime between 1499 and 1508. Most historians now favour an earlier date of about 1499. There is firm documentary evidence to suggest that she was also the eldest of the three Boleyn children. The evidence suggests that the surviving Boleyns believed Mary had been the eldest child; in 1597, her grandson – Lord Hunsdon – claimed the title of “earl of Ormonde,” on the grounds that he was the Boleyns’ legitimate heir. According to the strict rules of aristocratic inheritance, if Anne had been the elder sister, the title would have belonged to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth - since a title descended down the eldest female line in the absence of a surviving male line.

It was once believed that it was Mary who started her education abroad and spent time as a companion to Archduchess Margaret of Austria but it is now clear that it was her younger sister, Anne. Mary was kept in England for most of her childhood. It was not until 1514, when she was about fifteen, that she was sent abroad. Her father secured her a place as maid-of-honour to the king’s sister, Princess Mary Tudor, who was moving to Paris to marry King Louis XII of France. After a few weeks in Paris, many of the Queen's English maids were ordered to leave but Mary Boleyn was permitted to remain, probably because of her father's connections as the new English ambassador. Even when Mary Tudor left France after her husband’s death on January 1, 1515, Mary Boleyn stayed in the court of the new king and queen, Francis I of France and Claude of France.

Mary was joined in Paris by her father, Sir Thomas, and her younger sister, Anne, who had been studying in the Netherlands for the last year. While serving in France, Mary allegedly became mistress to King Francis I, who later on in his life described her as "a great whore, the most infamous of all". After her relationship with Francis ended, Mary supposedly later embarked on several affairs, which eventually would lead to her dismissal and her being sent back to England. Some historians have questioned if these stories of Mary’s promiscuity have been greatly exaggerated, but it is generally agreed that they were at least partially true.

Mary’s parents and sister were said to have been mortified by her actions and were greatly relieved when they could ship her back to England in 1519. She was given the job of lady-in-waiting to the English queen, Catherine of Aragon, for the last ten years of her marriage to Henry VIII.

A year after her return to England, Mary was married to Sir William Carey on February 4, 1520, a wealthy and well-connected courtier, who had found favour with the king. Henry VIII was a guest at the couple's wedding ceremony. It may have been some time shortly after the marriage that he began an affair with Mary. The confusion over when the liaison started is due to several factors. First, the exact dates as to how long the affair lasted are unknown. Secondly, it was never made public and Mary never enjoyed the kind of fame, wealth and power which belonged to mistresses in foreign countries – like France. During the affair or sometime after it ended, it was rumored that one or both of Mary's children were 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.

Mary's sister, Anne, returned to England in 1522, achieving considerable popularity at court. The sisters were not particularly close and Anne moved in different social circles. Henry would later fall in love with Anne.

Although Mary was alleged to have been more attractive than her sister, it was Anne who seemed to have been more ambitious. She refused to become the king’s mistress, probably less for reasons of virtue than cleverness and ambition. Anne knew that it was Henry's character to want what he couldn't have and since Anne was shrewd enough not to give in to his sexual advances, he wanted her. By the middle of 1527, Henry was determined to marry her. Anne accepted his proposal and thus became the “other woman” in the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

A year later, when Mary's husband died during an outbreak of the sweats, Henry VIII granted Anne Boleyn the wardship of her nephew, young Henry Carey. It was a custom amongst the English aristocracy to place one’s children in the care of wealthier relatives and one which was much needed in Mary's case, since her husband's death had landed her with considerable debts which only her sister could ease. Anne arranged for Mary's son to be educated at a respectable Cistercian monastery. Mary's father showed no intention of helping her in the financial plight resulting from her husband's death. It was only Anne's intercession on the part of her sister that secured Mary an annual pension of £100.

When Anne went to Calais with Henry VIII on a state visit in 1532, Mary was one of her companions. Anne was crowned Queen on June 1, 1533 and gave birth to her first daughter (who would later become Queen Elizabeth I) that autumn. In 1534, Mary secretly married William Stafford, a commoner with no rank and small income. Due to this fact, historians largely suspect this to be a true love match - there is no other reason she would marry so far beneath her social class. When this was discovered, her family disowned her for marrying beneath her station, and the couple was banished from the Court by Queen Anne.

Her financial circumstances became so desperate that Mary was reduced to begging the King’s adviser Thomas Cromwell to speak to Henry on her behalf. Henry, however, was indifferent to her plight. So, Mary asked Cromwell to speak to her father, her uncle, and her brother, but to no avail. Surprisingly, it was Anne who relented first. She sent Mary a magnificent golden cup and some money, but she still refused to receive her back at court. This partial reconciliation was the closest the two sisters ever came again, since they did not meet between 1534 and Anne's death in 1536.

Mary's life between 1534 and her sister's execution on May 19 1536 is difficult to trace. She did not visit her mother, nor did she visit her sister Anne when the latter was imprisoned in the Tower of London. She also made no attempts to visit their brother George, also condemned to death on charges of treason. There is also no evidence that she wrote to them. Like their uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, she may have thought it wise to avoid association with her now disgraced relatives.

Mary and her husband remained outcasts living in retirement at Rochford in Essex. After Anne’s execution, their mother retired from the royal court, dying in seclusion just over a year after the executions. Sir Thomas died the following year. After her parents' death, Mary inherited some of the Boleyn properties in Essex. She seems to have lived out the rest of her days in anonymity and relative comfort with her husband, who predeceased her. She died in her early forties, a relatively young age, even by the standards of the time, on July 19, 1543.

Her marriage to Sir William Carey (1495-June 22 1529) resulted in the birth 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 and later made a 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.

Her marriage to Sir William Stafford (d. May 5, 1556) resulted in the birth of a son, who was considered to have been born in 1535 and to have died in 1545. There may also have been a daughter, named Anne. This, however, is still open to speculation.

Mary Boleyn is a distant ancestor of many notables including Winston Churchill, P G Wodehouse, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Sarah, Duchess of York.

Mary appeared in the 1969 movie "Anne of the Thousand Days", where she is presented as pregnant, dejected and bitter. She was played in that movie by Valerie Gearon, opposite Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn, Richard Burton as Henry VIII and William Squire as Thomas Boleyn.

A fictionalised form of her character also features prominently in the novels The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell, I, Elizabeth by Rosalind Miles, The Rose of Hever by Maureen Peters, The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy, Mistress Anne by Norah Lofts, Anne Boleyn by Evelyn Anthony, Dear Heart, How Like You This? by Wendy J. Dunn, and Young Royals: Doomed Queen Anne by Carolyn Meyer. She was the central character in Karen Harper's novel, The Last Boleyn, which is a sympathetic adaptation of Mary's life from earliest childhood until her sister's death. Mary is also the central subject of The Other Boleyn Girl (2002), an award-winning novel by Philippa Gregory.

The Other Boleyn Girl was made into a BBC television drama in January, 2003, starring Natascha McElhone as Mary, Jodhi May as Anne Boleyn, Jared Harris as Henry VIII and Steven Mackintosh as George Boleyn. As of 2006, a Hollywood version of the book is being produced, with Scarlett Johansson playing Mary, Eric Bana as the king and Natalie Portman as Anne.

Perdita Weeks portrayed Mary in the Showtime original drama series The Tudors.

*The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn by Eric Ives (2004) *Anne Boleyn: A new life of England's tragic queen by Joanna Denny (2004) *Divorced Beheaded Survived: A Feminist reinterpretation of the wives of Henry VIII by Karen Lindsey (1995) *The Wives of Henry VIII by Lady Antonia Fraser (1992) *The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir (1991) *Anne Boleyn by Marie-Louise Bruce (1972)

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