On this day in Tudor history, 3rd April 1538, Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire, died at Baynard’s Castle in London, the home of Hugh Faringdon, the Abbot of Reading.
Elizabeth was about sixty-two years of age when she died, and her death came just less than two years after the executions of her daughter and son, Queen Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.
You can find out more about her death, her funeral on 7th April 1538, and her resting place in the video below, and I've also added my video on 10 facts about her.
Also on this day in Tudor history...
She was the mother of a most remarkable woman, Queen Anne Boleyn, and lost her and her youngest child George because of a merciless and ruthless monarch, how she must have grieved and no doubt longed for death herself the moment they were both executed, what did Henry V111 feel when he heard of the death of his former mother in law, did he feel some semblance of remorse maybe? He had ruined her family’s lives, Elizabeth was in residence at Baynard’s Castle not far from Lambeth where she was buried in the Howard family crypt, she had been ill for some time as Anne whilst in the Tower had expressed concern for her, this was the normal feelings of concern a child would feel for a parent when something awful had occurred, but we are told she had a bad cough then, and this last fatal illness where we are told she suffered from another cough was to cause her demise we can suppose, there probably was other factors involved but she could have had influenza or maybe something more sinister such as TB, which was rampant in the sixteenth century, her husband must have been at court and we do not know how he felt when he also heard his wife had died, he had probably loved her, he must have mourned deeply they had lost four children and quite possibly Elizabeth may have suffered a miscarriage in the early years of their marriage, all he had known was now lost to him, all Thomas Boleyn had left was his unobtrusive eldest daughter Mary but hopefully in his twilight years in the bosom of her family, he found some quiet contentment.