Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/330

 admitted to great familiarity with Francis I, and was evidently quite at home in the language and manners of the French court. He himself does not appear to have been a witness of the interview, which took place in June 1520, though it had been arranged beforehand that he should go; but he was required to be present at the meeting of Henry VIII and the Emperor Charles V, which took place immediately afterwards, in July, at Gravelines (ib. iii. No. 906).

In May 1521 he was on the special commission for London, and also for Kent, before which the indictment was found against the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham (ib. No. 1284), In the autumn of that year, during the conferences held at Calais, in which Wolsey professed to mediate between the French and the imperialists, he was used as an agent in various communications with the latter, and was afterwards sent to the Emperor at Oudenarde, In May 1522 he was appointed to attend the king; at Canterbury on the emperor's arrival in England, and his name appears as a witness to one of the acts in connection with the treat of Windsor on 20 June. A little later in the same year he was sent with Dr. Sampson to the emperor in Spain in order to promote joint action in the war against France. He seems to have taken a French ship at sea on the voyage out, and made prisoners of some Breton merchants, who, being sent to England, received license to import 300 ‘waie’ of salt for their ransom (ib. No. 2729). In April 1523 he received letters of recall, and he returned in May following. A private letter, dated 28 April in this year, says that he received a writ of summons to parliament as a baron along with Sir William Sandys, Sir Maurice Berkeley, and Sir Nicholas Vaux (ib. No. 2982), but the writer was certainly misinformed. Not only was Boleyn still in Spain at the time the letter was written, but he is mentioned long afterwards by the same designation by which he had been styled for years before, viz. as knight for the royal body. It was on 16 June 1525 that he was first ennobled as Viscount Rochford, when the king's illegitimate son was created duke of Richmond; shortly before which he had a rather anxious duty as commissioner for the forced loan in the county of Kent to prevent the outbreak of disturbances.

There cannot be a doubt that not only his elevation to the peerage, but several earlier tokens of royal favour besides, were due to the fascination his daughter had begun to exercise over the king. Early in 1522 he filled the office of treasurer of the household, and he is so styled in a patent of 24 April in that year granting him the manor of Fobbing in Essex; On the 29th of the same month various offices about Tunbridge, Brasted, and Penshurst were granted to him and his son George in survivorship. On 1 Sept. 1523 the keepership of the park of Beskwood, of which he had before received a grant in reversion, was given to him and Sir John Byron in survivorship. It was, perhaps, about the same time that he received also the keepership of Thundersley Park in Essex, the grant of which is enrolled without date in the fifteenth year of Henry VIII (Calendar, iv. p. 125). In 1524 or 1525 he was made steward of the lordship of Swaffham in Norfolk {ib. p.568). Some correspondence that he had with Sir John Daunce is preserved, relating to the repairs of the manors of Tunbridge and Penshurst (ib. Nos, 1501, 1550, 1592). In December 1525 he was assessed for the subsidy at 800l. (ib. p. 1331), an income probably equal to about 10,000l. a year in our day. On 17 May 1527 he received a commission in conjunction with Clerk, bishop of Bath, and Sir Anthony Browne to go to France and take the oath of Francis I to the new treaty between him and Henry. He was one of the English noblemen who received pensions from Francis for promoting a good understanding between the two countries. He took his place in the parliament which met in November 1529, and on 8 Dec. he was created Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde (ib. Nos. 6043, 6085). The latter earldom had for many years been in dispute between him and Sir Piers Butler, who had actually borne the title; but the matter was referred to the king's arbitration, who, making Sir Piers an allotment out of the lands, compelled him to relinquish the title in favour of Boleyn (Calendar, ii, Nos. 1230, 1269, iv. 3728, 3937, 5097). On 24 Jan. 1530 he was appointed lord privy seal. The authority for the tent of this office had already been issued four days previously; at which time he received a commission along with Stokesley, afterwards bishop of London, and Lee, afterwards archbishop of York, to go to the Emperor Charles V, and explain to him the king's reasons for seeking a divorce from his aunt, Catherine of Arragon (ib. iv. 6111, 6154–5, 6163). The pope and the emperor at that time had met together at Bologna, and the ambassadors were further commissioned to treat with both of them, and with other potentates, for a general peace. But, of course, the main object was to counteract, as far as possible, the influence which the emperor would bring to bear upon the pope in favour of Catherine. The ambassadors, however, failed to impress the former with the justice