Did Henry VIII Have An Affair With Anne Boleyn's Sister?
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
History Hit
4.8 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
She was 'the Other Boleyn Girl' - Anne's sister, Mary, who supposedly had an affair with King Henry VIII. Such drama!
What evidence is there that the two got betwixt the sheets together? How likely was it?!
Joining Kate today is the historian and author, Estelle Paranque, to get to the heart of the these rumours.
This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.
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Transcript
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| 0:22.6 | Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. This is betwixta sheets. I am Kate Lister, and you are you. I'm so glad that you're here. Thank you for stopping by. Once again, I'll put kettle on. But before I do, I am going to have to warn you. This is an adult podcast, spoken by adults, other adults, about adult things, and an adult who are waking arranged adult subjects, and you should be an adult too.. Oh god, do you feel safer? I feel safer. Right, let's get that brew going. |
| 0:24.6 | Everyone knows that Henry VIII was knocking boots with Anne's Sister Mary before their affair got going, |
| 0:34.6 | don't they? They do. They made a whole film about it. |
| 0:38.1 | The other Bollingale. |
| 0:39.2 | And that was based on Philippa Gregory's novel of the same name. |
| 0:42.3 | It is known. |
| 0:44.5 | Or is it? |
| 0:45.5 | What if they weren't? |
| 0:47.0 | What if that didn't happen? |
| 0:48.6 | What is the evidence that we actually have for that? |
| 0:51.4 | What if it's all Catholic propaganda and Mary never did such a thing? |
| 0:57.5 | Oh, what then? Well, today, we are going back to the Tudor Court and we are going to attempt to |
| 1:02.9 | tease out fact from fiction, or rather fact from friction, in this case. But what was Mary Berlin really |
| 1:10.7 | about? Did she have an affair with Henry? Did she? Well, let's find out. Thank you. Hello and welcome back to Petwigs the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. |
| 1:42.4 | If there is one Tudor family who had more than their fair share of drama, it was the Blynns. |
| 1:47.5 | It was, I mean, could you even imagine knowing these people? |
| 1:50.4 | What was their Christmas family newsletter like? |
| 1:53.0 | Of course, we know all about Anne's rise and then her eventual fall from Grace. |
| 1:56.9 | But what about Mary? |
| 1:58.6 | What about her sister Mary? |
| 2:00.7 | She was also knocking about the court, and and given that she was A, a female and B |
| 2:05.7 | had a vagina, she would have caught the eye of our mate Henry the 8th and possibly another body part as well. |
... |
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