William Boleyn

Sir William Boleyn, KB (1451 – 10 October 1505) of Blickling Hall in Norfolk and Hever Castle in Kent, was a wealthy and powerful landowner who served as Sheriff of Kent in 1489 and as Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1500. He was the father of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, whose daughter was Queen Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII.<ref>E.W. Ives, 'Anne (Anne Boleyn) (c.1500–1536), queen of England, second consort of Henry VIII', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography' (2004).</ref> Origins William Boleyn was born at Blickling Hall in Norfolk, the younger of the two sons of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn (1406–1463), a wealthy member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers who purchased the Blickling estate in 1452 and served as Lord Mayor of London in 1457–58. William's mother was Anne Hoo (c.1424-1484), the eldest child of Thomas Hoo, Baron Hoo and Hastings of Luton Hoo in Hertfordshire, and his only child by his first wife Elizabeth Wychingham, a daughter of Sir Nicholas Wychingham of Norfolk. Fraternal inheritance William's father died in 1463 when his estates were inherited by William's elder brother Thomas Boleyn, Esquire, of the City of London, of whom William became the heir apparent. Thomas died in 1471Will of Thomas Boleyn, 1471-72, in N.H. Nicolas (ed.), Testamenta Vetusta, 2 vols (Nichols and Son, London 1826), I, p. 322 (Google). The Register copy of the will (P.C.C., Wattys quire) shows will date 28 April, probate granted on 26 June (not January), 1471. and asked in his will to be buried beside his father in the Church of St Lawrence, Old Jewry in City of London, where their monumental inscriptions were recorded by John Weever in 1631. Thomas appointed his mother as his executor, instructing her to sell his manor of Ingham, Norfolk. William eventually succeeded to Blickling, Hever Castle, and other estates formerly held by his brother. Hoo inheritance In the mid-1440s Sir Thomas Hoo received the lordship of Hastings, the Garter, and his baronial title, and made his second marriage. He then secured his various manors to his own heirs and those of his younger half-brother, Thomas Hoo Esquire. Lord Hoo and Hastings died in 1455: his brother settled the manor and advowson of Mulbarton, Norfolk on Anne Hoo and her husband Geoffrey Boleyn, and when Anne died a widow in 1484 they descended to her son Sir William Boleyn, who presented to the joint rectory of Mulbarton-cum-Keningham in 1494, 1497 and 1500.