1529: Envoy to a meeting of Charles, Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Clement VII, to seek support for the divorce of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragonperhaps not the best person to send when Henry planned to marry Thomas's own daughter Anne. This was followed by another envoy to France.In between, he sacrificed the members of his family to win favour from King Henry VIII: He garnered honours by letting the King dally with his elder daughter Mary, then marry his younger daughter Anne. Boleyn's ambition was so considerable that rumor had it that he had even allowed his own wife to have an affair with the King, but these rumours have been disproved by modern historians.
Boleyn was invested as a Knight of the Garter (KG) in 1523[2] and was created Viscount Rochford in the Peerage of England in 1525, and Earl of Ormonde in the Peerage of Ireland in 1527, the former title referring to his estate at Rochford in Essex and the latter being chosen due to his descent from the 7th Earl of Ormonde, who had died in 1515. He was finally created Earl of Wiltshire in the Peerage of England on 8 December 1529, probably due to his daughter Anne's relationship with the King. His only surviving son, George, Viscount Rochford, predeceased him, and consequently all these titles became extinct upon his death (although the use of the Viscountcy continued until the execution in 1542 of his son's widow, Jane, Viscountess Rochford, after she was implicated in the fall of Catherine Howard, the King's fifth wife).
Boleyn was appointed Lord Privy Seal in 1530. In 1532, his daughter Anne was also raised to the Peerage, being created Marquess of Pembroke in her own right, and in 1533 she married the King, becoming Queen Consort of England. Wiltshire acquiesced in her judicial murder and that of her brother Lord Rochford when the King discarded her in favor of Jane Seymour. At this point he was replaced as Lord Privy Seal and was then in disgrace until his death a couple of years later.
[edit] In popular culture
Thomas Boleyn has been portrayed by Sir Michael Hordern in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), by Benjamin Whitrow in Henry VIII, and by Jack Shepherd and Mark Rylance in the 2003 and 2008 film versions of The Other Boleyn Girl, respectively. The 2007 Showtime series The Tudors has Nick Dunning in the role depicting him as impetuous and devious, constantly working to curry favour for his family.
[edit] Styles and honours
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