georgebolevn

[georgebolevn]

closed for @jancboleyn, post the private execution of elizabeth talbot; george's quarters.

A chance encounter in the corridors, ten years ago, might have been all that George or Jane saw of one another in the whole of a day. So vast at times was the divide enforced upon them as they tried to keep ahold of their tenuous position within Hampton Court that he often dreamt more often of his wife than he looked at her. It was never enough to subdue his passion for her or his reliance upon her, but George Boleyn looks back at those days and finds himself glad, now, that they are nothing more than a memory. He'd greatly prefer to keep it that way. He wants to ask her what she thought of those days, if the weight of them bore down upon her as they did him (and what a mockery of her senses and mind would that be, to ask, because of course it did), if she missed the press of his mouth to the junction of soft skin between shoulder and neck as much as he missed her own warm hands against his chest.

These are the follies of young men. George is not that man any longer. But he hungers, near ravenous, at times, for a chance to go back to the beginning of their union with what he knows now tucked close to his heart, to treat her as a newly wedded husband should've. He remembers being nervous. Uncertain. Tentatively excited, to have known Jane before they ever wed, to have grown up alongside her and know that they would continue to grow together. These are the follies of young men, George is not that man any longer, and that, in the end, is why he doesn't ask. Rather, he places two hands at her waist, looking at her with an expression somewhere between contemplative and devoted. "Try not to think of me as too much of a fool for what I am about to say to you, dear heart," he warns. The exhaustion of the day comes to settle, at last, across his shoulders.

His thumbs make small circles for want of anything to do, a self-assuring sort of motion that allows him to distract from the humiliation of being seen even in the presence of, perhaps, the one person who well and truly knows him. "But I have missed you. I've been unable to think of little else, save seeing you, having you here." George Boleyn is above all else an orator. A poet, if pressed, but someone a man who knows how to speak above all else. George gives her a rueful look, accompanied by the grin a love-struck fool, though what falls from his lips is nearer to sombre. "All day I've thought of what I should say to you, and now I struggle to find the right words as to why it is though my own thoughts are convinced you aren't with me now. As if you might disappear from beneath my touch." No longer do they face the threat of living under Henry's rule, held within the claws of suspicion and paranoia. Still, George wakes, sometimes, in the middle of the night, worried he might hear that Jane has been exiled, Anne arrested, the world falling apart at the seams all over again. "I suppose," he laughs, "that you have rendered me voiceless."

#jane 001 #jancboleyn #:thumbsupcat:

[georgebolevn]

In his year as Lord Protector, George had witnessed pieces of England turn their cheek in detestation at the thought of William on the throne. No, not even William. Anyone bearing the name of Boleyn would've been detested, which is why he's put so much into ensuring there are no other options. What a convoluted and haptic time that had been, he thinks, now, when he'd lived on very little sleep, frantic and half-mad, covered by a carefully composed mask. Henry's death had been, and remains, a gift to the Boleyn family, handed down to them by the grace of a righteous and just God who has seen their suffering and sought to reward them for it. What has unfolded in the aftermath, George thinks, is His reminder to them: don't be too proud. Don't assume that what I've given you is yours to keep.

This has proven true, he believes, in light of the execution of not just Elizabeth Talbot's compatriots and allies but the Lady Talbot herself. That, and William's outburst not long afterwards, Elizabeth's own tempestuousness let loose with little to keep it in check ⸻ or so the gossip says, and George isn't always sure if he should be inclined to believe gossip... It has him turning clever eyes back to his children, his own flesh and blood, in wonder and fear alike. When Annemarie enters, it isn't with wonder or fear that he looks upon his daughter, caught up in the grasp of the thoughts which had possessed him before, but with affection beyond words. It's a love he feels for the both of them that is often left unexpressed in the public eye, beyond a settled hand on their shoulders or a scarce word of praise.

"Daughter," he greets, only to pause. His better thoughts have come in instances of movement, pacing a room or a hall, going somewhere, doing something. George 'rounds the corner of the desk and settles in his own chair, leaning back to mock an image of respite and relaxation. "Unless you can tell me how best to find your brother a match he might stay with, or tell me what you might know of the Lady Isobel Percy, then I'm afraid you're of no help to me." His scorn can hardly be concealed. There it is again, that oncoming headache which has waged war on the nerves since Lady Talbot's death. He'd do anything to be rid of it, now. He doesn't really mean that Annemarie would be of no help, but it's easier to speak plainly amongst family than it is friends.

& @georgebolevn

To be a Boleyn was a privilege. To be a Boleyn was to be set a step above the rest, for God had shown his favor to those who bore the name and He continued to do so. To be a Boleyn was to possess a cunning mind, a quick wit, and a proclivity for getting exactly what one wanted. There were few who understood such a calling, to serve one's family so devoutly that none could come between them. Why settle for good when greatness was just around the corner? Annemarie had learned all of this at her father's knee, and though her marriage had tied her to the house of Devereux, the heart that beat within her chest would always be Boleyn.

The king, the dowager queen, the princess, her mother, her brother...all were dear to her, as family should be; however, there was no Boleyn more important to Annemarie than her father. It was his praise that she craved, his approval that she required, and his trust that she treasured. If there was one man who knew the value of a woman's mind it had to be George, who had witnessed his own sister's rise to unfathomable heights, changing the history of England for good. Annemarie could only aspire to be half as great as her aunt, one of her namesakes, a formidable and admirable woman if ever there was one.

Yet, matters were rarely simple. Every move was carefully calculated, every plan formulated for the perfect result; at least, that was what her father was known for. The latest executions did not go off without a hitch, however, and Annemarie knew that the Earl was less than pleased. She entered his study in the early afternoon to find him out of seat, eyes narrowed in though. "You will wear a hole in the floor with your pacing, Father," she commented drily, settling into a chair across from his, a great carved wooden desk between them. "Is there something I can do to settle your mind?"

#annemarie 001 #annemarieboleyn

[georgebolevn]

So close in time were Anne and George when they entered the world that it was not uncommon for the two of them, within the brackets of their own bloodline, to be associated as two parts of one whole. It was never there's Mary, there's Anne, there's George; it was, instead, there's Mary, there's Anne-and-George. That union has remained, perhaps, alongside his marriage to Jane (and in some ways encouraged by it, through Jane's stalwart closeness and companionship to Anne even in exile), one of the few constants in his life. It's nigh on impossible, even at one-and-fifty, to consider himself anything less than a part of Anne, an extended and bloodied limb which grasps the executioner's axe tightly enough to send an ice-chilled ache up the arm. A world in which he is breathing and his sister is not is, to George, no world at all. Incomprehensible to the greatest extent. So when she receives him, dotes on him so, it's with the feeling that he has successfully achieved that which his father tasked him when he was a boy, to protect her in equal measure as he might protect the Boleyn name.

It goes without saying that George has, in many ways, extended himself beyond protector, now to the point of excess. He's turned himself into something else for the dowager queen's purposes; he is as much her dog as he is her brother, and he obeys each oblique command as easily as he obeys his body's demand that he breathes. Sit, she declares, leading him to his seat, in all nicety, her hands upon his shoulders, as she had when they were children, and George sits. With the marked interest of a hound looking upon its master does he regard his sister as she speaks, although there's a certain gentleness to the corners of his eyes and the set of his brow that he dare not allow others to see. He sees it in her face, too, beneath that veil of connivance and contemplation in their efforts to plot out their next move upon the board. The game of Hampton Court is one that asks patience of its players. Here they are now, some three decades off of their original installment in Court and still alive, still breathing. Let it be said, then, that the Boleyns know how to wait. Let it be said, then, that the Boleyns know how best not to choke.

This, of course, Anne knows as much as him. He folds his hands, glances downwards, a sweet hum on his lips, the closest he'll get to a laugh. "Richard is one-and-thirty; William and Elizabeth are not. I had thought by giving him enough time, the urgency to find someone might encourage him along, but..." He waves his hand, almost dismissive, but the undercurrent remains: it's my own fault. "Perhaps we should be upon them now as our father had been upon us." Urging, hungry, all-too-happy to put his kin into the den of snakes and lions of Court and see if they came out whole, with a name for themselves in tow. "I do wonder, at times, if they possess our clarity of vision, our appetite. If we did not coddle them, under the circumstances in which they were raised." He sighs, and it almost plays at beleaguered, even knowing what his answer to that might be. "Would you have me say outright what I most want?" A bloody proposition (to remove all other threats to the throne, as rumored) sits at the tip of his tongue, but some plans are better left to lurch in the dark, to unfold at hand. Their position is precarious as it is. He'd not risk it if the wrong person were to hear.

@georgebolevn

Location: Anne's quarters 

    The keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded by a sharp breathing of eastern winds; the sky, relieved of its burdens, lay naked and pale. Through the window, Anne took stock of the polar splendour of the sun -a sphere, white as a world of ice. It was not late when Anne received her brother; with urgency and pleasure, it was her custom to take her immediate possession of him, as he entered a room. She at once made George her property, led him to the seat of her choice, and softly showered round him honeyed words of commendation -- this strong man, this titan of a figure, seemed to take delight in wholly yielding himself to this domination; potent, in familial love. George was an instrument of immutable terror; Anne was glad she was not afraid of him. That indeed, close in his presence, she felt no terror at all; for upon the demanding chords of his heart, his exuberance to gibbet an enemy, she was able to furnish him with a needle-flush of such accommodating affection and civility as a could be mustered. When her faculties began to struggle themselves free, and her time of fulfilment came; his sternness became kindness, the light changed in his eyes from a spark to a beam - though George did not parade this civility and affection in public view, and merely afforded it surplus in seclusion. 

George, in all things worldly, was in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in his hottest pursuits, calm and considerate in his endeavours of gain; he marked his charms as those which cultivated and elevated, rather than those of men who depressed and deteriorated. "George," Anne began, "I know you find me soft and overly indulgent in gossamer happiness, in regards to Richard; but my nephew has behaved like a king. By and by, he has received the court with a calm, grand-manner; only in the begetting of a wife, does he tempt me towards displeasure. But do William and Elizabeth then, share equally in failure?" Never was there a more undisguised schemer than George Boleyn; elaborately contrived plots, and forthwith indulgence in explanatory boats of their precision -  Anne knew not, if she was more amused or enthralled, by his campaigns. She suffered this fluttering inconsistency in character; it was her certain manner to be half-adoring, half-worshiping her brother, like some apostle. The laurels of victory gracefully shadowed his temples, dark hair rewarded in hints of silver; for Anne, he had moved heaven and earth till he found her a place. 

"I am bound to recall a time in which our father instructed me to become useful; I think of him now, as I am afforded a pedestal to be either admired, or reviled. Forgotten? The Boleyn's shall never be forgotten - but how should we be remembered? It is this, dear brother, which charges me now with much potency." 

#anne 001 #semperanneboleyn

[georgebolevn]

closed for @boleynsrex, post the private execution of elizabeth talbot.

William offers clemency to the Lady Talbot before she loses her head in the providence of a private execution, with only a handful of eyes to witness the scene. This decision is taken by the courtiers as a good one. It does, George will admit, soothe the torrential tide of confusion, alarm, and anxiety, if only some. Conversation turns, quietly, from the matter of gore to that of a rising star. Isobel Percy had gently convinced his nephew into showing the left hand of mercy, and now her name sits on the lips of more people than it ever had before. He's not entirely pleased with the outcome, for several reasons, but the first on the list is the beleaguered mood that has overcome the King. Much like the talk of Lady Percy, it doesn't take long for word to reach him that the son of Henry is not so unlike father, if the temperament strikes him at the right time.

There had been, for some time, the thought that William would take more after his own uncle than he ever would his father. In youth he'd looked quite remarkably like George, but with time that had changed, and he'd come into his own as a Tudor. Whatever goodwill Henry had imbued to his own name as a young man slipped right between his fingers as he aged into a more irascible monster. George is of the opinion that it's that which killed him as much as it ever was the wishbone that so fortunately lodged in his gullet. George had made so many efforts to guide William, however tacitly, from resembling his father too much as a young man. Now, fixing his nephew with a cool-tempered stare, wine in hand for himself and for William (offered to William first, of course) he has to question whether or not those efforts were successful.

There are a thousand questions he could ask. Clever man that he is, he chooses, perhaps, the least productive of them all. They'll work their way around to that, eventually. The boundaries between them now could be considered murky, if not as devoted as they've always been: is he to play the stern advisor, here, or the beloved uncle? There's the slightest arch to George's brow and a mercurial sort of curve to his mouth ⸻ that same mouth as his sister's, as William's, as Elizabeth's. "My King," he begins, casting his eyes about the room before returning to William, "when I was called I'd been expecting to see some grand display of fury. Another head, perhaps." Five had rolled, in total, and none of them were enough to satiate George's appetite. Getting rid of a handful of snakes did not eviscerate the nest completely. The servant delivering the summons had been quite nervous, shoulders trembling. It didn't take a mastermind to put together what had occurred. He looks for the trembling rage in the set of his nephew's shoulders, as he had so often searched for in Henry's. "I'd hear the cause of your outbursts. If not me, then your lady mother. But letting this continue, unchecked, without retinue, is not wise as it stands."

#william 001 #boleynsrex

[georgebolevn]

closed for @kismctt, post the private execution of elizabeth talbot.

When he summons the Lady Dudley to his office, the late hour is entirely intentional. The afternoon sun and its accompanying beams of light filter through the window, casting the room in a warmer pallor than most might associate with that of a man like him. The door is shut behind her. The quill with which he's been doing very little over the last hour is placed aside, to be given further consideration once the conversation he intends to have with her has concluded. When he looks up, it's with a veil of warmth in the draw of his brow, his eyes, the pull of his mouth. An entirely put-upon show, just for her, intending to gentle her into where he needs her to be in order for this to work.

The act of selecting spies is not straightforward in nature in a place like this, where the walls writhe under the hot breath of gossip passed from its attendees' mouths. From the top of the tree to the very roots, the flesh of each apple that falls has a chance to spread sickly-sweet rumors. George has determined that every one in three pieces of chatter has enough merit to call for concern; to determine which of the three is most appropriate to attend to, the right hand with the best-equipped touch must be employed, without risking giving anything of importance up. Maids and younger ladies of the court, alongside servants desperate for even a scrap of something kind in their lives, he finds, are best for this purpose. At his age, he's discovered he can often intimidate them on account of the fact he might remind them of the foreboding shadow of their own fathers, and often all that's needed is a little praise, or a little push.

It's with this in mind that he approaches ⸻ with enough space between them to allow for the existence of warmth without necessitating any actual contact. His voice is gentle, almost cajoling, underwritten with a faint trace of what might be understood as genuine apology. "Lady Dudley; thank you for coming to see me with such short forewarning." She is the sister of Robert Dudley, and while he has little suspicion that the man would involve his own flesh and blood with the contrivances of what his other birds in his niece's household murmur of, George has been surprised before.

Had her palms begun to sweat, when he called for her? Did her heartbeat quicken behind her ribs? Did her mouth grow dry? He searches for these signs now but doesn't prescribe anything to the set of her brow or the color in her cheeks. Not yet. "But there's something I need to speak to you of, which has borne its weight upon me for some time." He gestures to the chair closest to Kismet, a clear instruction for her to sit. George, himself, does not. He looms, instead, the way he had when his own children were young and in need of having one thing or another made clear. "I need you to understand, in no uncertain terms, that what I tell you now must remain between us."

#kismet 001 #kismctt #^ ^ <3

[georgebolevn]

closed for @richardofrochford, post the private execution of elizabeth talbot.

To the credit that George is willing to afford her ⸻ which is to say very little, Elizabeth Talbot is beheaded with far less fanfare or upset than that of her co-conspirators; aided, he thinks, whether he likes it or not, by the fact that it's not done in front of a crowd, with the wind to sway the executioner's hold. When it's done, in that small room, a handful of the other lords surrounding him, he files it away into a long-running list of deaths that can be categorized as quick, clean, and decisive. No ghost of Elizabeth Talbot will haunt the halls of Hampton Court, further assured by the mercy which their beloved king gives her. He takes the time to swear her name to memory, along with the names of of Margery, George, Arthur, and Walter Hallows. He'll carry them with him, now, until his work is done, and he can go to his grave assured that the name of Boleyn faces no threat of sedition, or treason. Only then will George allow himself to let them all go, each and every one of them.

It's with this ( perhaps, some might say, impossible ) goal in mind that he summons his only son to his side, not long after Elizabeth's head is summarily removed from her neck. He had hoped, at the turn of thirty years, that Richard would be willing to cast aside his boyhood dalliances with his eyes set towards the future, well-steeped in the knowledge of what would some day be asked of him, what he might be required to do. In that small room, with Elizabeth waiting to die with anxious breath and the rest of them watching, George had seen something else in his son's face, unnamable, perhaps unspeakable. Long gone are the days when George could make excuses for his son's cavalier attitude towards the life that he is living. With Elizabeth Talbot's name just behind his teeth, waiting for the day he can at last let her go, George gestures for Richard to take a seat. The doors to George's office had closed behind Richard the minute he'd crossed the threshold.

"Do you remember, when you were a boy, the way you trailed after me as a gosling might its mother?" He asks, with the sort of consternation a parent takes towards their child when a question they ask is intended to be rhetorical. There's a beat, as George adjusts the the cuff of his sleeve. "You were curious to a fault. A charmer, too, and unabashed about it. I had no doubt that you were wholeheartedly mine, and by extension, your grandfather's." He glances upwards, at Richard's face, careful to study the lines of his jaw, his eyes, his nose ⸻ looking for that marked Boleyn blood. "You aren't a boy any longer, Richard." His tone has changed, now, into something far more grave. "So I'd ask you why you continue to act as one."

#richard 001 #first post and i'm sweating! #richardofrochford #death tw #violence tw #just to be safe!

[georgebolevn]

“[V]iolence does not consist so much in injuring and annihilating persons as in interrupting their continuity, making them play roles in which they no longer recognize themselves, making them betray not only commitments but their own substance, making them carry out actions that will destroy every possibility for action.”

— Emmanuel Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (translated by Alphonso Lingis)

#!!! #musings.

[georgebolevn]

Emily LaBarge, from her essay The Schedule of Loss, as featured in Granta Magazine

#musings. #!!

[georgebolevn]

Black Sails S1 | James Flint

#vis. #😵🥴💫

[georgebolevn]

GEORGE BOLEYN, LORD WILTSHIRE. written by jules (she/her) for BLOODYDAYSHQ.

navigation / musings

BULLET POINTS

name: george boleyn.

moniker: the fervent.

age / date of birth.: 51, born 1497.

status / rank: earl of wiltshire, (former) lord protector.

country of origin: england.

place of birth: blickling hall, norfolk.

birth order: youngest brother of his two sisters.

mother and father: thomas boleyn, first earl of wiltshire (father), elizabeth howard (mother).

siblings: anne boleyn, queen dowager, mary carey nee boleyn, chief lady of the dowager's bedchamber.

children: richard boleyn, biscount of rochfort (son), countess of essex (daughter).

gender, pronouns: cis man, he/him.

sexuality: bisexual, biromantic.

horoscope: scorpio / leo / taurus.

virtues: ambitious, calculating, proud.

vices: shrewd, overzealous, uncharitable.

marital status: married, to jane boleyn, countess of wiltshire

religion: protestant.

allies: william iii, the boleyn faction, those allied with the boleyns.

adversaries: anyone against whatever the fuck it is george / the boleyn faction are up to, at any given time, but especially the seymours and courtenays.

BIOGRAPHY / TIMELINE*

+ 1508. birth to thomas boleyn and elizabeth howard, the third surviving child of their three children, in blicking hall, norfolk.

+ 1523. the ambition of thomas boleyn drives george to familiarize himself with the workings of the court for the first time; he is marked immediately as a charismatic young man with plenty of political suave and potential, something george will quickly learn to take advantage of.

+ 1524. marriage to jane parker.

+ 1528. birth of his son, richard boleyn, by jane boleyn nee parker.

+ 1530. birth of his daughter, countess of essex, by jane boleyn nee parker.

+ 1532. anne boleyn and henry viii are privately married. george fully ingrains himself into the royal household, staying as closely to his sister as he can while mind his own family.

+ 1537. seymour subterfuge.

+ 1538. as tensions grow between the boleyn faction and those who would claim anne's children to be illegitimate, george cleverly pulls strings wherever possible and bloodies his hands to remove any opposition who challenge william's claim to the throne. his reputation changes from that of a cunning if not charismatic man to someone far more cruel.

+ 1545, 1546. a warrant for anne's arrest is signed. george nearly tears himself and those closest to him to pieces during this time. when anne is released, he conspires with her and other members of the boleyn faction to see thomas cromwell ousted from the good graces of henry viii.

+ 1557. henry viii dies. william is put on the throne. george is instated as lord protector.

+ 1558. execution of the earl of devon. george urges william to take a severe hand to not just hugh courtenay, but to anyone who dares question his rule or openly professes vitriol for the dowager queen. rumors begin to spread of george's desire — and, perhaps, very real ambitions — to remove any royal persons from the line of succession that aren't william or elizabeth.

+ 1559. present day. anne is married to thomas wyatt. it's becoming clear that those rumors of george's bloody-mindedness are, perhaps, not rumors at all.

written biography tbd.

*dates subject to change / adjust / be removed where required.

#pinned.