Mary Boleyn
sister of English queen consort Anne Boleyn
Years: 1499 - 1543
Mary Boleyn (c. 1499/1500 –June 19, 1543) is the sister of English queen consort Anne Boleyn and a member of the Boleyn family, which enjoys considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII of England.
Mary is one of the mistresses of Henry VIII, from a period of roughly 1521 to 1526.
It has been rumored that she bore two of the king's children, though Henry does not acknowledge either of them as he had acknowledged Henry FitzRoy, his son by another mistress, Elizabeth Blount.
Mary is also rumored to have been a mistress of Henry VIII's rival, King Francis I of France, for some period between 1515 and 1519.
She is the maternal aunt of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Mary Boleyn is married twice: in 1520 to William Carey, and again, secretly, in 1534, to William Stafford, a soldier from a good family but with few prospects.
This secret marriage to a man considered beneath her station angers both Henry VIII and her sister, Queen Anne, and results in Mary's banishment from the royal court.
She spends the remainder of her life in obscurity, dying seven years after Anne's execution.
