Geoffrey Boleyn

Hever Castle

Blickling Hall as it is today

Geoffrey Boleyn was the son of Geoffrey Boleyn (d. 1440) yeoman of Salle, Norfolk, and his wife Alice, daughter of Sir John Bracton, a Norfolk knight; and he was grandson of Thomas Boleyn (d. 1411) of Salle and his wife Agnes.[1]

Geoffrey went to London, was apprenticed to a hatter, and became a freeman of the city through the Hatter's Company in 1428. In 1429 he transferred to a grander livery company, the Mercers' Company. Having served as a Sheriff of London in 1446–47, as Member of Parliament for the city in 1449, and as alderman from 1452 (Castle Baynard, 1452–57, Bassishaw 1457–63),[2] he was chosen Master of the Mercers' Company for the year 1454.[3]

He was Lord Mayor of London in 1457–58, and was knighted[4] by King Henry VI.[5] In 1461 he and Geffray Feldyng headed the list of contributors towards a prest of 500 marks granted to the King by the fellowship of the Mercers for the Earl of Warwick to go into the North.[6] He purchased the manor of Blickling in Norfolk from Sir John Fastolf in 1452, and Hever Castle in Kent in 1462.[5]

He was buried in the church of St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London.[5] His will was proved in July 1463.[7]

Groups of five sons and four daughters were presented as mourners on the memorial brasses of the elder Geoffrey and Alice his wife, and were still in situ in Salle's parish church in 1730.[8][9] The principal figures and inscription still remain, but the mourner groups have gone.[10]

• William Boleyn (died 1427).[11] William settled in Lincolnshire and was progenitor of the Lincolnshire branch of the family.[12] The antiquary William Stukeley was a descendant on his mother's side.[13]
• John Boleyn.[14]
• Thomas Boleyn (died 1472), prebendary of St. Stephen's, Westminster, precentor and sub-dean of Wells Cathedral, Master of Gonville Hall, Cambridge, and Master of the College of All Saints, Maidstone, Kent.[15] He was executor to Geoffrey's will.
• one unknown brother.
• Cecily Boleyn (1408–26 June 1458),[16] died unmarried at Blickling.
• three unknown sisters.

Boleyn married Anne Hoo (1424–1484) (only child of the first marriage of Thomas Hoo (later Baron Hoo and Hastings, d. 13 February 1455), to Elizabeth Wychingham), by whom he had two sons and five daughters:

• Sir Thomas Boleyn (d. 1471/2).
• Sir William Boleyn (1451–1505), mercer, who married Margaret Butler, daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond.[17] William and Margaret were the parents of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, father of Queen Anne Boleyn.[18]
• Isabella (1434–85) who married William Cheney (1444-1487).
• Alice Boleyn b. abt.1438 d. abt. 1480 m. Sir John Fortescue of Punsborne, Hatfield, Herts d. 1500.
• Anne Boleyn (born c. 1440), second daughter, who married Sir Henry Heydon (d. 1504),[19] by whom she had eight children. She died c. 1509.[20]
• Cecily Boleyn b. abt. 1442.
• Elizabeth Boleyn b. abt. 1459.

Burke gives the arms as: "Argent, a chevron gules,between three bulls heads couped Sable, quarterly with arms of Bracton, Azure, three mullets, a chief dauncette or."[21]

• Simon, parochial chaplain of Salle, Norfolk died 3 August 1482.
• James of Gunthorpe, Norfolk, died 1493 (executor to Simon's will).
• Thomas of Gunthorpe, Norfolk (executor to Simon's will).
• Joan, named in her brother Simon's will. She married (1) Alan Roos of Salle (died 1463): he was receiver of rents for the Salle properties of Margaret Paston (née Mauteby, d. 1484).[22] Alan was son of Thomas Roos (who died 12 October 1440[23]), a prosperous merchant who built the north transept chapel and who, like the Boleyns of Salle, was a member of the Guild of the Holy Trinity of Coventry.[24][25] She married (2) Robert Aldrych, who died in 1474.

Historian Elizabeth Norton describes the Geoffrey Boleyn who died in 1440 as their great-uncle.[26]

• Cokayne, George Edward (1949). The Complete Peerage, edited by Geoffrey H. White. XI. London: St. Catherine Press. p. 51.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1945). The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday. X. London: St. Catherine Press. pp. 137–142.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Hughes, Jonathan (2007). "Boleyn, Thomas, earl of Wiltshire and earl of Ormond (1476/7–1539), courtier and nobleman". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2795.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Richardson, Douglas (2004). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.). Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company Inc. ISBN 978-0-8063-1750-2. Retrieved 17 March 2011.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. p. 145. ISBN 9781446449097.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Memorial brasses to Sir Geoffrey's mother and father (1440): Jmc4-Church Explorer (flickr)
• http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/BoleynTree.html
• Lundy, Darryl (7 February 2013). "Sir Geoffrey Boleyn". The Peerage.com. p. 326 § 3252. Retrieved 2 May 2008.
• "Royal Berkshire History". Retrieved 2 May 2008.(unstable, 22 Sep 2017)
• Boleyn pedigree: History of Gonville and Caius College
• Will of Geffray Boleyn, Mercer and Alderman of Saint Lawrence Jewry, City of London