By G. Poulett Scrope, Esq., M.P. 17 



Howard, Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshal ; his grandfather, 

 Sir GeoflPry Boleyn, who was Lord Mayor of London, had 

 espoused one of the daughters and coheirs of Lord Hastings. 

 He was himself a person eminent as a scholar and philosopher, 

 the friend of Erasmus, who at his desire wrote several 

 tracts.^ The ground of his high favour with Henry YIII. was, 

 probably, his being the father of the lovely Anna, who from the 

 moment of her appearance at Court as maid of honour to the 

 unhappy Queen Catherine, had excited the passion of the British 

 Sultan. Sir Thomas Bolejoi was himself commissioned to proceed 

 to Rome to obtain the sanction of the Pope to the annulling of the 

 marriage with the Queen, (where it is said he exhibited Protestant 

 tendencies by refusing to kiss the Pope's toe) ; and probably for his 

 ready acquiescence in the views and wishes of his Royal Master 

 was created by him Earl of Wiltshike, and likewise Earl of 

 Ormond in Ireland, December 8th, 1629. He had been elected 

 Knight of the Garter in 1524; he diedl538,five years after the eleva- 

 tion of his daughter to share the Throne of the Tyrant, and two 

 after her atrocious execution. Her brother George Boleyn Vis- 

 count Rochford, having been condemned at the same time, and 

 beheaded shortly after her, the Earldom of Wiltshire became 

 EXTINCT upon the death of his father. 



It does not appear that he or his family at any time held any 

 territorial property in the county. A cotemporary MS. document 

 in the British Museum, gives the following description of the 

 standard borne by him as Earl of "Wilts in the gorgeous ceremonies 

 of that time : " Per fcss sable and gules, both semee of Stafford 

 knots argent, differenced by a crescent gules. The device a swan 

 (derived from the Bohuns) wings endorsed argent, ducally gorged 

 and chained or. Motto, Humble et Loyall." Boleyn Earl of 

 Wiltshire bore for Arms, Or, a chevron gules, between three bulls' 

 heads sable. 



VII. Pauletts Eaubs of Wiltshire. 1550. 



The next (and last) revival of this dignity was in the person of 

 William Paulet first Baron St. John of Basing, created in the 



1 Strypo. c. 6. 



