Famous in Norfolk for his annual cursed journey across 12 of the county’s bridges, Sir Thomas Boleyn’s ghost also finds time for a yearly battle outside Blofield Church.
Sir Thomas, poor Anne Boleyn’s father, is one of the county’s hardest-working ghosts and is said to haunt many places in the county having been cursed for standing by as his daughter and son were executed on the orders of Henry VIII.
His ghost is said to drive the coach that delivers his daughter to Blickling Hall on the anniversary of her execution and after dropping her at the front doors at midnight, he is then forced to drive his spectral coach on a hellish journey around Norfolk.
Most accounts say he must attempt to cross 12 bridges between midnight and cockcrow, a frantic route which takes him from Blickling to Aylsham and then Burgh, Buxton, Coltishall, Mayton, Oxnead and Wroxham amongst others.
Some accounts claim the bridge number is 40, not 12 and that he is pursued on his route by hordes of screaming demons.
Norfolk-born Anne died two days after her brother George, her head severed expertly by a swordsman from Saint-Oer in France on Friday May 19 1536.
Although Sir Thomas did not die by executioner’s blade, many accounts of his ghost say that it is headless, or rather that his head is tucked under an arm as he rides.
The curse is said to be 1,000 years long, meaning it won’t be until 2536 that his debt is paid.
In addition to his doomed journey, Sir Thomas is also said to return to Blofield each year to take part in a duel with a fellow knight, Sir Thomas Paston.
The two ghosts battle fiercely with burning swords, watched carefully by Anne Boleyn from her coach, her headless horses champing at the bit to ride away into the night.
Battle is said to rage on the path that ran between St Andrew and St Peter’s Church in Blofield and St Michael’s at Braydeston.
The manor of Blofield was given to Thomas Paston in 1541 as a reward for good service by King Henry VIII – the son of Sir William and Bridget Paston (daughter of Henry Heydon and Anne Boleyn senior and the paternal aunt of the future Queen Anne Boleyn) and was born in 1517.
He was believed to have taught Princess Mary – Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon – how to play the virginal, a kind of harpsichord.
Anne Boleyn joined the English court in around 1522 when Mary was around six years old.
Initially, Anne was simply a maid-of-honour for Catherine, but by 1528, Henry had fallen in love with her and made it his intention to marry her.
Anne was crowned on June 1 1533 when she was six months pregnant: Mary refused to recognise her step-mother as queen or her baby Elizabeth as anything other than an illegitimate child of her father’s.
In 1536, Catherine died, Anne lost a baby son and within weeks the new queen had been convicted of adultery, incest and treason and executed within three weeks.
By the time Mary was 27, she would have known five step-mothers, but it was Anne Boleyn she hated most, and the feeling was mutual.
“Mary will be the cause of my death unless I get rid of her first,” Anne once said.
Before she was executed, and while imprisoned in the Tower of London, Anne wrote desperate letters begging for her father and worrying her mother would “die of sorrow” upon hearing of her and brother George’s death.
She received nothing but silence from her father. While his lack of action may seem callous to us, in truth there was nothing he could have done: King Henry was not for turning.
Thomas remained loyal to his King and was present at the christening of Henry’s son Edward with Jane Seymour. While Elizabeth died a year after her children, Thomas died three years later at the age of 62.
Henry VIII ordered masses to be said for Thomas’ soul.
Meanwhile, Sir Thomas Paston was knighted on September 30 1547 after campaigning alongside Henry VIII in France and helping in the capture of Boulogne.
The question remains why the pair might duel: was Paston defending Mary’s honour or his cousin?
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