Heirs of Ambition: The Making of the Boleyns
Dr Claire Martin
Claire Martin has been a historian and writer for ten years. She studied first at St Peter’s College, Oxford and later at Royal Holloway, University of London. She began working for the research agency behind the television series Who Do You Think You Are, while still studying full time and subsequently worked as a part-time teaching fellow at Royal Holloway University and Queen Mary’s University. She has carried out research for a number of London Livery Companies and others, including for fellow academics. Her new book on the Boleyn family was published in 2023.
About the event
From the fields of Norfolk to the royal court, via city commerce, local government, liberal education and numerous wedding bells, the Boleyns emerge as just one of the many newly prosperous and ambitious families seeking to make the best of the changing world. As they struggle upwards, England is visited by famine, plague, revolt and civil war – but also opportunity. While the Bolyn’s new-found wealth delivered power and status. They still lived in a violent world and life could be precarious, even for a queen. Thus from steady climb to bone-breaking fall, the Bolyn’s story is medieval life at its messy, prejudiced and unstable best.