Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Did Henry VIII Have An Affair With Anne Boleyn's Sister?

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

She was 'the Other Boleyn Girl' - Anne's sister, Mary, who supposedly had an affair with King Henry VIII. Such drama!What evidence is there that the two got betwixt the sheets together? How likely was it?!Joining Kate today is the historian and author, Estelle Paranque, to get to the heart of the these rumours.This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. This is betwixt the sheets. I am Kate Lister and you are you. I'm so glad that you're here. Thank you for stopping by.

Once again, I'll put kettle on. But before I do, I am going to have to warn you. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults, other adults about adulty things in an adult who are giving an age of old subjects, and you should be an adult too. Oh, God. Do you feel safer?

I feel safer. Right, let's get that brew going. Everyone knows that Henry VIII was knocking boots with Anne's sister Mary before their affair got going, don't they? They do. They made a whole film about it. The other Bollingal. And that was based on Philippa Gregory's novel of the same name. It is known.

Or is it? What if they weren't? What if that didn't happen? What is the evidence that we actually have for that? What if it's all Catholic propaganda? And Mary never did such a thing. Oh, what then? Well, today, we are going back to the Tudor Court

and we are going to attempt to tease out fact from fiction, or rather fact from friction, in this case. But what was Mary Bollin really about? Did she have an affair with Henry? Did she? Well, let's find out. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister.

If there is one Tudor family who had more than their fair share of drama, it was the Billin's. It was, I mean, could you even imagine knowing these people? What was their Christmas family newsletter like? Of course, we know all about Anne's rise and then her eventual fall from Grace. But what about Mary? What about her sister Mary? She was also knocking about the court.

And given that she was A, a female and B had a vagina, she would have caught the eye of our mate Henry the 8th and possibly another body part as well. But what evidence is there to the claim that they actually did? did have an affair. Who was Mary Berlin? What was her life like? How likely was it that she would have had an affair with the King? Well, joining me today is the always fabulous historian and author Estelle Perong, who isn't entirely sold on this Mary Henry affair idea. And she is going to help us pull apart some of the theories and apply historical rigour to these claims. So without further ado, let's get on with it. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheen.

It's only Estelle Perank. How are you doing? Hello Kate. I'm so happy to be here with you again. It's so much fun last time doing it. You are actually here by special request. I requested you to come back because I saw the podcast interview you did with the dashing Dan Snow, saw because it's now available on YouTube,

where you just very casually dropped a bomb that I thought, right, well, we're going to have a back on to talk about that. Because you were talking about Anbelin just in a few seconds. She just went, yeah, I don't think her sister Mary did have an affair with Henry the 8th. Boom. Absolute scenes. I know, like, it's crazy because everyone talk about it and everyone think that there is something. And, yeah, I think we need to dive into what we know. I think we need to dive into the sources.

Okay. Did you make films about this, Estelle? I know. I know the other film still, right? Oh, my God. I hate that movie. You hate that movie. Oh, no.

Oh my God I just feel like It was just a way to create this kind of Mary Bolin being the good girl The good Bolin And Anne Bolein being like the awful Strumpet Yeah you see what I mean

But first of all First of all before we dive into what I think And you're going to think it's crazy And I love crazy Bring on the crazy But please bear with me Okay Because everybody

I have a point of way Deserve judgment Okay No I love it No judgment Yeah it'll be you will be judging. And the thing is like, I'm not saying it never happened.

Okay, I'm not. And first, I'm going to go back to a few things. I'm going to go back to who was Mary Boland, because I think everyone needs to really understand. And also, the first thing that we got wrong about her and why it leads me to my conclusion where it's like, wait a minute, are we sure that she was? Henry Leith's mistress. So let's go back to who she was, right? All right. Let's do it. Okay. Thomas Bolin and Elizabeth Bolin had three children. It's we know. Anne Boleyn, Mary Belen, George Belen. I chose that order because I do not believe that Mary Berlin was the eldest daughter.

I'm glad you said that because I've often thought it's weird if she was. Exactly. I'm also like, so I mean, some instruments make like compelling argument of why. And again, I'm not saying that unless we have the birth certificate, obviously everyone is allowed to speculate. But for me, sending your second-born daughter to Austria and France, wanting her to receive an incredible education, wanting her to learn French to be taught in a certain way. And then your first-born daughter, well, you're like, I don't really care. That makes no sense to me.

And people are like, oh, that's because Thomas Berlin preferred Dan Boland, we have no evidence of that. We have evidence that they did get on really well. That doesn't mean she's the favorite. And I think it's just wrong. to assume it that way. So this is Thomas Berlin because it was Anne who got sent over to France to absorb court life and learn all this stuff and getting education. The whole time Mary is just back in England kicking up a heels going,

why not me, Daddy? That's the crux of this. Exactly. Like, I'm your first daughter, you know. And so what's very interesting is that because Anne was in Mechlam, when Mary Tudor, so Henry Bess sister was sent to France to marry Louis Xilver of France, which she didn't want to do. And Anne could not go back in time to England to then to go to France.

It was agreed that Mary would take her place in the household of Mary Tudor until Anne arrives in France. And so at some point you have the two sisters together in France. But we know that Mary Tudor, you know, her short reign as Queen of France doesn't last. We are the 12th is going to die. Francis I is going to become King of France. And his wife, Claude of France, going to become Queen of France. And then what I know for sure, Kate, okay?

There's lots of things that I don't know for sure. But what I know for sure is that Anne Boleyn stayed and Mary Boland didn't. Right. In France. Exactly. What I also knew, like people say that Mary stayed. So we're about like 15-15. And people said that she goes back to England in 1519.

I have no records of that. I have no records of two Boland girls from 15-15 to 15-19. there's only one Mademoiselle Bolin and it's Anne. So I assume that Mary Boland goes back with Mary Trudeau back to England and Anne stayed in France. Now, I don't know if you've heard that big kind of myth around Mary Boland that she was the whore of Francis I was. That she went through the French court like a bad kebab.

Yeah, I've heard that. What was she called the Great Whore, the English mayor? Yeah, the English mare, exactly. There's no evidence of it. Absolutely zero. Well, there is a letter that somebody wrote. Oh, yeah, but that letter is like from someone who just, you know, he hates the bullens. And it was years after the fact, right?

It's years and years after the fact. It's Venetian, is Italian and it's just like hating on the bolland faction, hating on the break with room. And so it's so easy for him to make that type of comment. But that's not a primary source. Not reliable. Now absolutely not reliable. And there is nothing in the French sources that says that Mary Berlin was the mistress

or had anything with Francis. And I don't even believe she stayed long enough to have anything with Francis I first. She goes back to England. So that's one thing, right? So we have already this woman. Zero contemporary evidence from the time that Mary Berlin was going like the clappers over in France. Zero. And in France, zero.

Right. And trust me, if there had been an English girl playing around, like, I mean, let's, we know the French, right? Like, gossip would have been like mental. Yes. Like, come on. Someone would have said something. I'm with you there. Okay.

Yeah. You've convinced me of that one. I even think that we would have our comments about it later on by Catherine Domenici and Elizabeth. You know, like we would have something that is much more convisible than this man. And would it have been quite shocking? Because I don't know how old she was, but I don't think she was very old. She was like 15, 16-ish at the time. Would that have been quite shocking for a well-to-do born English woman

to suddenly kick up her heels with the King of France? I personally don't think there is very little evidence when it comes to Francis the first approaching his wives, also his queen's household and ladies in waiting. He has enough women, right? He's a total womanizer. He's totally like partying and doing. all the things that he shouldn't be doing. He's not a great husband.

I'll give you that. You have to understand that Claude, his wife, the Queen of France, is saying usually, usually she's sometimes with her husband, but usually she's away. Oh. Right. I do not see how he would have had enough time anywhere to spend some time with the Boland girls and do anything with them.

And one of them, as I said, is for sure returning back to England because in the records there's only one Boland girl. Okay. Well argued, Estelle. Well argued. Right. Yeah. I think on that one, I think that one is kind of easy.

Yeah. Bear with me because it will help me make my case for the next one. We are ready and waiting. Here we go. So I give you a bit more context as well. Mary Berlin comes back and in 1520 she has an arranged marriage with William Carey. Okay. Now, that's where it becomes very interesting for me.

At the time, we have no rumors. When she's getting married to... There are no rumors at the time. Okay, which is marrying, was it William Carey? There's no connection with Henry VIII. No. He was at their wedding though, wasn't he? Yes, and he's giving them money.

That's all the proof I need, quite frankly. But there are two things. But Kate, like, I think it's interesting because people start, like, making assumptions here. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, right? I'm just saying, you need to bear with me in terms of it. Let's just go through the facts. And then let's try to understand them, okay? And there's a lot, obviously, of my interpretation of these facts, all right?

But bear with me. What we have here is a king that, let's not forget that Thomas Boland is very important now at court. And he has one of his daughters in France, or she used to be in France, and she's going to come back. The other one got a good match. She's married to William Carey. Carrie is someone that Henry Vieth himself really respect and really liked. So he worked for the king before. And now we have, as a term of evidence, of Henry Faith, giving lots of money to the couple.

There's a few. It does give lots of money to other people. Okay. Okay. So it's not an outlier. I mean, if you're just looking at that, for me, there's nothing truly shocking that he's favoring Thomas Boland and his family. And William Carey that he really liked and that had worked for him before and giving him money being there at their wedding. I do not see here any kind of problem.

What I know is that at that time when 1520, 1521, 22, 23, 24, 25, there is no big rumor. And I'm going to tell you why as well. There's no big rumor of him having Mary Bolin as his mistress. He has another mistress. Oh, it's Bessie, isn't it? Bessie Blund. Yeah, okay. And that woman is not married.

Interesting. And that is important as well. that people are just assuming do you really think it's easy to just, you have the choice of mistresses and you're going to choose a married woman? He wouldn't be the first, but I'll grant you it throws up some problems.

It wouldn't be the first, but like he has already one that is not married and is going to give him a son. Good point. Okay. When did Mary even arrive at the Tudor Cup before she got married? So that's the thing. It's like people say she comes back from France in 1519

and then, you know, in 1520, she married William Carey. So then she's kind of like part of the court life because William Carey is very much part of the Henry's court life. So she's got like a year or so before she gets married-ish. Yeah, okay. She had way more than that because she was in England way longer than that. She did not stay in France until 1519. She went back in 1515.

Okay. So she gets married. Bessie Plant is going to give a son to Henry in 1519. And then she's going to marry herself, you know, someone in 1515. And that's where it gets very interesting in many ways because people are saying that's at that moment that Henry Diff would have gone closer to Mary Boland. But again, I'm making the point of why would he have chased a married woman? Not unheard of, but it's not something that he did before. Does he do it with anybody else?

Is there any evidence with his behaviour about him chasing married women? No. Interesting. No. Also, I mean, I hate Henry Diaz, but I'm going to say it anyway. Gosh, it's so hard for me, guys. I told you how I was going to make you laugh today. He's a serial killer.

He's not a womanizer in the same. It's a low bar, everybody, but he's... Oh, dear. He's a serial killer, but he's not a womanizer. It came across so badly, but please, my mom. Oh, dear. But he's there with me here. What I'm saying is that, you know, when I talked about Francis I first,

and he's like, basically, he's screwing anything that he gets. Henry Theeth is not the same. He's oddly prudish, isn't he? He's not, I mean. But more than you'd think, more than this like womanizing, wenching, eating, like, raw, like, you know, cooked meat and all this kind of reputation he's got. When you actually get into it, he didn't have that many mystices. I mean, there's six wives and he's going to kill two of them and he's going to kill five more women. So, I mean, he's a horrible, horrible, he's a cycle.

He's a monster. He's a, he's a. he's a serial killer he's a he's a misogynistic bastard you know like okay the the podcast is not about him but but you get my point but he's not a womanizer okay and so i do not see why he would have been so interested in mary bowlen right there's nothing about mary in any records sorry to say that i'm sure i'm upsetting her now if she's a ghost or something that there's nothing very special about her like you see i don't see why he would have like you know created so much problems. For me, it makes absolutely no sense. Okay. Okay. Now, what's very interesting is the fact

that in 1527, so the evidence we have of the affair, it's in 1527. So remember, from 1520 or all these years that I mentioned before, there's nothing about it. But in 1527, there's no love letters, there's no rumours, there's no smoking gun. There's going to be a rumor. But that comes later on. That comes when it's tried to discredit Elizabeth I first. So it's much later on saying that actually he was the father of her cousin, right, Henry Kerry. So in 1527, he did something that gives the strongest claim to this affair between Mary Blaine and Henry. He's going to ask for a dispensation from the Pope to be able to marry Anne saying that he had known her sister in the flesh. Okay. See, that's quite a smoking gun. Yeah, but my case. Let me make my case first.

It's like, yes, please continue. You need to come to flow with me with this. I'm flowing with you, baby. Let's go. Right, tell me. When did you do the exact same thing, exactly at the same time? About 1527, he's also saying that the reason why he wants a divorce is because Kastonovaragan had slept with his brother. Oh, yeah.

So he wanted an annonement of his marriage. In my head, it is not far-fetched. And I know that some people are going to attack me about, come, come at me, it doesn't matter. I'm just saying, prove me wrong. Give me more evidence. Because so far the two evidence we have is him saying in 15 months, 27, actually, I have had sex with your sister at Mary. So I need dispensation.

Well, I think it's not too far fetch to think that he's already thinking about protecting himself. In case, it doesn't go well with Anne Boleyn. I'll be back with Estelle after the short break. Also, you're thinking that Mary was a backup? I'm thinking that he's thinking, I sounded like a nut. but come on, come on. Matter theories have been put forward with less evidence. Let's go for it. I'm thinking that he was thinking he's going to get off this marriage with Catherine of Erdogan thanks to this, the fact that she slept with, well, she didn't, but the fact that she might have

slept with his brother and a way for him to protect himself in case there's any problem with Anne in case he needs to get rid of her as well later on because she has the same problem as Catherine. He needs a thing. And so he uses the kind of same argument. And the reason I say that is because obviously, like, well, the dispensation is not going be granted because we know that the book can't grant it. But also, it's what we talk about evidence. For me, there's this. That's the only strong evidence that would actually, yes, you're right, convince us that, yes, maybe Mary was his mistress. But what I don't understand is, why did he wait for so long? Why is there exactly no record of when she was exactly his mistress? Why

was it not more specific about what time she was the mistress? Why is there no more rumors and discussion about it? And the rest that we have is much later on is on Elizabeth I first reign. And it's by Nicholas Sanders in 1574 that is making that claim that basically any bowling women are whores, right? Even discussion also Kate, isn't it crazy? I'm sorry, but I'm going to continue with this because I really believe in it. Like in a way, you know, it's not just Mary Boland.

Then there are rumors that actually Elizabeth. Bolin, the mother of Anne and Mary was also his mistress. Oh, I have heard that one. Yeah, but that's absolutely not true. No evidence, not nothing. And I think that he thought that maybe like this, he didn't want to put the dispensation on Elizabeth Boland, but more on Mary Boland.

So for Elizabeth Boland, there's absolutely no evidence. But you see how people are not understanding Henry. Henry was calculating. It is his reformation, not on a religious level, but on a political level on making money, being powerful, it's on him. The way he treats his women, the way he treated his wife, the way he thought about women. I mean, when you really look at it, the way he refused to arrange marriages for his daughters, the way he was so controlling. For me, it's not far-fetched to think that he

was trying to protect himself of, like, imagine the Pope would say yes, then the Catholic Church would recognize, obviously, the marriage, but then he would have a backup plan if, in case Anne does like, which she did, like Catherine, not giving him a, a melee and say, wait a minute, actually. And then you will have gone back and say, actually, I need an annulment. Because now I realize that though you've given me a dispensation for this, because I slept with a sister, I think that's now why we've been cursed. And so I need an another annulment.

I think that was the endgame. And why I think it's so close. Or why do I think that it is possible is because we have nothing else. Now, if tomorrow we find a true evidence of like exactly, we have. Henry giving money not to William Carey, but like also Mary directly. We have a letter that he says to Thomas Boland, you know, your daughter Mary is such a delight and I loved spending the night with her. Fine. Then I would, you know, I have no problem saying that she was a mistress. All I'm saying is that let's look at the evidence.

She was a married woman. We have no evidence of him going after married women. He gave money to William Carey. Of course he was going to give. William Carey was a very good courtier to him, very loyal. He really liked him. He also really liked Thomas Boland. I do not see any problem here. I don't see any evidence. But the only evidence we have this dispensation in 1527 is something that happened is exactly, he tries to do exact same thing to get an annulment for the dispensation he got before with Arthur and Catherine. And I think he's just trying to reproduce this situation for him to give him a backup plan in case anything was going quite badly with that. which in the end he wouldn't need, but that's another, obviously another story.

But do you see why? I think there's so little. I see, what you're saying is that he was already thinking about who brothers and sisters and husbands and wives all sleeping together because he had to argue why he shouldn't be allowed to marry, he didn't have to be married to Catherine anymore. It's because Catherine was married to his brother. And he got to dispensation for that. He brought the dispensate. But the thing is like, if he goes on record going, yeah, I did have sex with Mary,

so I should be allowed to marry her sister as well. I was like, is he lying to the Pope if he says that? If, like, would that be, he is? I do not think he would care. You don't think that he would. See, that's interesting. Okay. I don't think he would care at all. I mean, he has been telling porcupires to the Pope kind of the whole way through because he was going,

look, I need to divorce my wife because of spiritual matters. And then the Pope found a load of love letters that he'd written to Anne Boleyn and like talking about her tits and was like, I don't think this is a spiritual matter, Henry. Thank you very much. It's definitely not. So he's not above, he's not above lying to the Pope, is he? No, absolutely not.

And also, I'm saying, are we allowed to just say that this rhetoric around the bullying women? I just think that maybe we need to stop seeing these women, Marianne and Anne, as these halls of England, right? And that's my problem. I think it's just used and used and used against, then later on against Elizabeth I first, mostly, right?

It's like to tell her that all the women in a fact, family were whores, right? Where awful. Her lineage or bull in lineage is awful. And I'm just saying, hang on. Slow down. Who is saying? Who is saying that she was a mistress?

And even if she was, even if she was, like, I'm just wondering why we know so little about it. If you're right that Henry was kind of viewing the sister as a backup plan, could, and we are in speculation territory now, but we've passed that point a long time ago, so I'm going to keep going. Could that explain this kind of weird move that Mary does slightly later, where she gets married without the King's permission and without her sister's permission to a guy who is slightly below her station and kind of throws everyone this curveball that she just literally turns up and goes, oh, this is William Stafford over here, we've got married, sorry you forgot to tell anybody.

That's always a weird move that she did. Okay, so that's an interesting one because, like, I would not have necessarily, like, link the two together. I think the story with William Stafford and Mary Berlin, I would go with, this time I would go with, like, most historians people think is that obviously it must have been a love match. Did you think that in a way they would not get upset with her because they owed her or something? Like, you know, in a way that, you know, by letting Henry say that they had an affair, she was giving him a safety net in case everything was going wrong. And then he could go back and say, oh, yes, you gave me a dispensation. but actually I should get an annulment because actually we see again, I've been cursed again for sleeping with the same flesh and blood and my pot.

You know, like all of this that, you know, he tries to do with Catherine of Arrigan and Arthur. I don't know. I think it's, for me, I think it's here it's more Mary Berlin being in love with William Stafford and not wanting to let anyone tell her what to do. Oh, hang on a minute. So when you said that he said what he said so he could have a backup plan, you're not thinking that he wants to eventually marry Mary if the thing with Anne doesn't, work out. You're thinking that in case he wants

to divorce Anne, he's got something on record to say, I was knobbing the sister. Yeah. That makes a bit more sense now. Okay. Because it's easier as well, Kate. You know, think about it. The Pope is going to change again. So then he can always blame on the other Pope. It's what he did. It's actually what

he did with Arthur and Catherine. We have to understand. To get married to Catherine of Oregon, it got a dispensation saying that she was the wife of his brother. She promised that nothing happened. But then, but then,

then he goes back and he said, I should have an annulment because it's clear that Ashley, she lied to me. Something happened because we've been cursed. And, you know, it's in the Bible. If you sleep with your brother's wife, you will not have, I think it's children, but what he means here is sons.

And I think here, at the same time, he's thinking, oh my God, I need to protect myself. I don't have another brother for Anne. So what I'm going to stay. He's a slept with her sister. I'll get a dispensation for that. Why would he need a dispensation for that as well? Like, I have no clue.

Why would it be a problem anyway? I don't know. There would be no problem. And then say, oh, the Pope would give me the dispensation. Because he thought, we need to go back in 1527 when he does it. When you're back there, he thinks that the annulment is going to be given to him. The sack of Rome comes in May 1527. He doesn't understand quite clearly.

clearly how much shot the fifth is going to have control of the Pope. So he thinks that he's always had a good relationship. So he thinks it's an easy way for him to do it. Do you see I mean? I do. He also wants a protection. He wants to be able to get another annulment in case Andersen gave him sons. That's what I think.

That's what I think it's all about. Because what bugs me is that we have nothing else concrete. Okay, maybe I don't know if we have contemporary rumors in the 1520s. I don't know. We don't, as I said, we don't have a starting date and an end date for. We just say in the 1520s, Mary Berlin and Henry VIII were sleeping together. Okay, when? How?

So you're telling me that he was going to William Carey's house, screw his wife, give them money for that. So she's a whore. And everyone's happy. And no one mentions anything. And no one mentions everything. And there's no starting date and an end date. And also I go back to my first, first point, why does he need to do that with a married woman? It's true.

Bessieblin was not married when he was with her. Take me to Mary's second marriage then because I interrupted you and you're on a role there. William Staff, I just think it's more of a love story where she was like, she didn't want to take the risk of them saying he's not high enough for you. And so she just did what she wanted to do. Also, I think by that point you know, Mary Bollain was like, you know, of course. she gets banished and she's not, you know, and it's quite hard for her. But at the end of the day, in many ways it gives her protection to be away from all this madness anyway

because, you know, she does this is like in 1534. She gets married to William Stafford in 1534. And Anne Boleyn had given birth to a girl. Still getting pregnant, but you know, there's still the, oops, that's. And Mary Berlin's first husband, I forgot to even ask you about him. He's dead now, presumably. If she's married someone else. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's dead, yeah. He died, I think, late 15, 20s. I think he even dies before Henry made the claim that he had slept with Mary.

Interesting. Okay. So you think that she really did love William Stafford? Mary Berlin? Yeah, I think she did. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I wasn't there, but I just think that what are the other reason for her to marry under her status?

It was a dumb call and then she didn't even tell anyone about it and then obviously they got really mad and one of the surviving letters we have of hers is her writing to is it Thomas Cromwell going oh please let me back I won't do it again

and you're sort of reading through it and I've got to say I've never been in that situation so maybe she was just panicking when she was writing it but she doesn't come across as particularly bright in that letter Yeah I mean who does maybe it's just her emotions you know taking the best out of her

She seems very, very emotional. Very emotional. She's flirting with danger when she's writing it. Because she says something along the lines of like, oh, you know, we can't all be queen or something like that. It's like a weird, like she's alarmingly close to, well, treason if she's not careful. Exactly. But also, you know, I think that we love the idea that Mary Bullen was actually the first mistress, like the first Bullen mistress to Henry Vise.

And that Anne was the clever one for saying, uh, uh, uh, because how you treated my sister? No, I want to be quiet. You know, that's the whole, that's the whole kind of story, right? The story. Me, I would say that Anne could have said the same about Bessie Blunt. I don't think she would have used her sister. I think she would have said, well, you have a mistress. She gave you a son.

I don't want to be in that position. Yeah. Do you survey it? I don't think that we need, like, to pete the two sisters against one another. I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm not saying that Mary Blunt. I'm 100% sure that Maribolent was not. Henry Vess, mistress.

I'm saying I have a doubt And my reasons for it Is because of these three reasons The first one is He's not a womanizer And usually he didn't go after married women The second is like For the money evidence for me

It's not a real evidence And there are no other evidence At the time in the 1520s About Mary and Henry They're not even seen together Been sing together Did people know about Bessie? Yeah

Yeah, they did Okay And also he is elevated her. He gave her lots of, well, of course she gave a son, but you know, like he was obviously, and that's what people say, oh, but he was giving lots of money to the couple, but he was giving lots of money to his courtiers as well. So is it the couple or was it William Carey? Who knows? And then, and my third one is the fact that I found it very interesting that in 1527. He uses his brother as a way to get rid of Catherine. And I know he's smart. He's a smart serial

killer. He's thinking, okay, but what if Anne is not going to give me what I want? And then, you know, we're married, the Catholic Church, I will need something. And I think he's asking for a dispensation to protect himself again, to say, actually, we've been cursed. And also because the Pope is going to change, you can always say, but, you know, the former Pope, he didn't really know what he was doing. You're a better one.

And you know what I'm saying that now we've been cursed, we didn't have son. And I've just said, I slept with her sister. think it's the problem. My question is that I've never heard any problems about that. Like it would have been a problem if Arthur and Henry see, that's a problem because there are brothers. But Anne Boleyn and Mary, I do not see. That was the biblical verse, wasn't it, that he was citing. It's like, you shall not lay with your brother's wife. Wife. Not you shall not lay with the woman you're trying to knob sister. That's not in there. There's no, yeah, exactly. So I don't know why it was a dispensation. I think it's weird that he comes up with it in 1527. Obviously it happened

before. I don't know. I just, I'm just saying if it happened, if it's true, if Mary Bullen is the mistress of Henry the East, fine. I'm not, you know, I'm happy for people to prove to me la. Give me more evidence. I just need a bit more. I just need a bit more. Because then Nicholas Sanders, 1574 and it's a direct attack on. Yeah, he doesn't get. Well, he doesn't get saying this. He never, he never even met her, did he? The guy who called it

a big whore. No, but he said, like, there's always been rumors. You know, even used to Chapin, you know, He's so, how'd you said, you know, he attacks Anne Boleyn in most of his letters. Oh, he would have mentioned something, wouldn't he? Even I know Shrapu was an elite gossip. Yeah, and also, like, I don't have a huge record. I mean, I haven't gone through all his letters, like, you know, all of them. But on top of my head, I can't remember anything about Mary.

What happens to Mary, Bill and then? Just to round this off, because I often think, like, whatever she was up to, She was clearly at the centre of this, like kind of dragged into this court madness intrigue, even if she wasn't having an affair with Henry VIII. And then your sister gets accused of shagging your brother and then they both get executed. Isn't it crazy?

What do you do? Where do you go? Well, the truth is, like, we have so little records on Mary Berlin, right? Like, we have so little on her. And all we know is that obviously she lost our sister and her brother. But also before that, she was banished from court. She's, you know, the family doesn't really want to talk to her anymore. We have no records, as far as I know, of her going back to Hiva Castle, you know, her parents are going to die.

They don't last long. And Mary dies in 1543, I think. But there's no much record of her. She's not in Hiva Castle where she grew up with Anne. She's probably spent more time at Hiva Castle than Anne. There's little evidence regarding, like, what's happening. to her. However, we know that, obviously, she gives birth to Catherine Carey, who's married Sir Francis

Nullis, and she's going to have Lettis Nullis. And that side of the family is, in a way, doing, well, you call it doing well, being a bitrille, a bitch, but a lettuce-n-lis is a bitrower. But that side of family is very much favoured by Elizabeth I. Catherine Carey is in the household of Elizabeth I, and then obviously, lettis-nolice later on. So in a way she keeps quiet, she removes herself from everything. Get your head down. Yeah. I think it's quite probably very tragic the end of her life where she lost everyone, you know, a sister, her brother, then her mother, than her father. So there's not much,

but what we know is that her family obviously continues, right? I mean, that's from that side of the fact. It's through Mary Berlin that, you know, Diana like was, Prince Diana was, you know, a send it to you think so. I'll be back with Estelle after this short break. Does it change anything about our understanding of Henry the 8th and the Tudors if this affair didn't happen? I mean, you know, apart from the facts, like, you know, you might have to like rejig a few things, but like does it disrupt the narrative?

I'm just curious as to why you think we're so ready to believe it. I don't think it changes much if it happened or if it didn't happen. I think it just changed the storyline of having the bull and horse. So it gives a And also like Putting so much Ravory between the two sisters Which I don't

Again We don't have enough evidence For me to agree to that You see I mean like people were saying Oh they didn't like each other Or didn't get on I think people just love making Anbelin not liking anyone

Any women in her life You know like that's why She's also pitted against Jane Boland You know her sister-in-law And all of this And I think there's so little evidence Now again

And anyone listening to her I am not saying that Marybelain was not for sure, 100% sure, not Henry V's mistress. I'm just saying, do we know enough to be sure that she was? Well argued, Estelle. You have been marvellous to talk to. I'm sure that we'll have a lot of people doing a lot of thinking after this one.

And if they want to know where they can find you, where are you? Well, I'm on Instagram. Leave her alone. Don't physically seek her out. Be nice. Yeah, be nice. nice, even if you disagree with me. But I'm on Instagram and YouTube. I'm happy for

you to disagree with me. You know, I know a lot of people really believe in that affair. A lot of historians do. I'm just questioning, if I have missed anything that is so big, please let me know. But like, I do, could we just stop pitting against one of them, Mary

Berlin and Ann Berlin? You're just disrupting the narrative slightly. Just questioning it. Yeah, I'm questioning it. I'm questioning it. She's just got some questions. That all. I'm a lad. You have been marvellous to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me, Kate. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Estelle for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like with you and follow along whatever it is.

You get your podcasts. I know everybody always asks you to do that, but it does actually help. Coming up, we have got an episode on the truth about mythical women and another on the origins of Aphrodite, all come in your way. If you would like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheet,

The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.