BOLBEG, a town of France, capital of a canton in the department of Lower Seine, 18 miles E.N.E. from Havre on the railway to Paris, which here passes over high embankments and a viaduct. It was burned almost to the ground in 1765, but is now a flourishing brick-built manufacturing town, well supplied with water-power by the Bolbec stream. The principal manufactures are cotton goods, woollen cloth, and leather; there are also linen factories and dye-works. Population in 1872, 9019.
BOLEYN, Anne, or, as the name is variously spelled, Bullen, Bouleyn, Boullan, or Boulain, queen of England, and second wife of Henry VIII., was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a distinguished politician, and Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the earl of Surrey, afterwards duke of Norfolk. Considerable obscurity rests over the date of her birth, which has been variously stated as 1501 and 1507; perhaps the earlier date is the more probable. She received a very careful education, and in 1514 became in maid-in-waiting to Mary Tudor, then the affianced bride of Louis XII. of France. She crossed to France in Mary's train, but did not return with her, having entered the service of Queen Claude, where she was celebrated for her beauty, talents, and accomplishments. The period of her return to England has been matter of dispute; some, following Herbert and others, would make the date about 1522, others 1527. It may be assumed with some confidence that she returned about the earlier date. About this time occurred her love affair with Percy, afterwards earl of Northumberland, which was broken off by Wolsey, acting apparently under the directions of the jealous king. Henry seems already to have begun to direct his affections towards the fair Boleyn, who was then one of the maids of honour attached to his consort, Katherine of Aragon. He advanced her family, but is said to have been repulsed by her when he made an offer of his love. In 1527, after some absence from the court, she seems to have returned, and Henry's attentions to her became more marked than before. His passion soon opened his eyes more clearly to the sin of his marriage with his deceased brother's wife, and the subject of the divorce began to be seriously discussed. Towards 1530 Anne Boleyn was accustomed to keep state almost as queen; in 1532 she was raised to the peerage with the title of marchioness of Pembroke, and accompanied Henry in his visit to France. On January 25, 1533, according to a contemporary report, her ambition was crowned by a private marriage with Henry. On the 12th of April she was openly proclaimed queen, and the marriage was again solemnized; and on the 8th of May the king's previous marriage was declared to have been null and void. The coronation took place on the 19th of May, and on the 7th September, a princess, the famous Elizabeth, was born.
Little is known of the new queen's married life. She to some extent favoured the Reformers, and countenanced the translation of the Bible. In January 1536 she gave birth to a prince, still-born. It is said that this mishap was occasioned by her suddenly becoming aware of Henry's attentions to Lady Jane Seymour. However this may be, Henry's superstitious fears seem to have been roused by the want of a male heir, and his fancy for Anne Boleyn had been replaced by a new passion. In April 1536 a committee sat privately to inquire into certain accusations of adultery against the queen. A special commission was called on the 24th April, and orders were issued for the arrest of the Viscount Rochford, the queen's brother, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Wm. Brereton, Sir Francis Weston, and Mark Smeton, all her alleged paramours. At the same time writs were issued for a new parliament. On the 2d May the queen was arrested and summoned before the privy council. Smeton, Norris, and Weston were afterwards examined, and of these Smeton confessed, though it was said under torture. Norris is thought to have made some admission, which, however, he afterwards withdrew. All three were committed to the Tower, to an apartment in which the queen was also consigned. Henry wrote to her, holding out hopes of pardon if she would be open and honest. Her reply, however, strongly affirms her innocence, and its general tone goes far in her favour. (The authenticity of the queen's letter has been doubted, though on slight grounds, by Mr Froude.) The juries of Middlesex and Kent, before whom proceedings opened, found true writs charging the queen with adultery, committed with the above-named Rochford, Brereton, Weston, Norris, and Smeton, and all with conspiring against the king's life. On the 12th May, Brereton, Norris, Weston, and Smeton were tried at Westminster, found guilty, and condemned. On the 15th Anne Boleyn and her brother were tried before twenty-seven peers, found guilty, and sentenced. On the 17th Smeton was hanged, the others beheaded. Their remarks on the scaffold were general, and can be interpreted fairly in neither way. Before the queen's execution she is said to have confessed to Cranmer some previous impediment which rendered her marriage with the king null and void, but what the confession was is absolutely unknown. On the 19th May she suffered death on Tower Green. On the next day Henry was married to Jane Seymour. Over the whole episode of Anne Boleyn's trial and execution the deepest obscurity rests. All traces of the evidence have vanished, and the conflicting judgments of historians, it must be confessed, seem generally to be determined by the bias of the individual writer.
See State Trials, where Burnet and the older writers are quoted; Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England; Miss Binger, Life of A. Boleyn; and the histories of Lingard and Froude.
BOLI, a town of Asiatic Turkey, in Anatolia, situated about 85 miles N.W. of Angora, on the Philios Chai, to the south of the Boli Dagh, in 31° 40′ E. long, and 40° 45′ N. lat. It is the capital of a sandjak and the seat of a governor, and contains a ruined castle and numerous mosques and baths, nowise remarkable in their structure. Cotton and leather are manufactured; the country around is fertile, and in the neighbourhood is a forest, from which Constantinople is largely supplied with wood. There are warm springs in the vicinity. Boli is built not far from what is regarded by Leake as the ruins of Hadrianopolis, where many marble fragments with Greek inscriptions are still found. The population is conjecturally stated at 10,000.
