Was Mary Boleyn really “the pretty one”, or is that just fiction?
I’m Claire Ridgway, historian and author, and today I’m pulling apart the myths to ask what we can actually say about Mary’s appearance.

In this podcast you’ll learn:

• Where our assumptions on Mary come from.
• How a 17th-century portrait type has been re-identified as Mary Boleyn using dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), provenance, and family inscriptions.
• Why ermine doesn’t disqualify the sitter (and what William Carey’s status means).
• What Mary’s children’s portraits (Catherine & Henry Carey) do, and don’t, tell us.

No line-by-line Tudor description survives. But wood science + Carey/Wharton family links + studio copies by Remigius van Leemput point to a fair/light-complexioned Mary with hazel-to-light-br ...