William Stafford

William Stafford was an English gentleman who secretly married Mary Boleyn after the death of her first husband. The match was socially unequal and made without the permission of Mary’s family, leading to the couple’s exclusion from court. Their marriage nevertheless endured, and Stafford later served in military and administrative roles during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I.

Stafford appears in novels about Mary and Anne Boleyn, most notably Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl. He is often portrayed as the affectionate alternative to court ambition, although the surviving record provides only limited evidence about the emotional character of the marriage.

Alison Weir’s The Boleyn Secret places William Stafford within a narrative shaped by family, marriage and personal loyalty, court politics and dynastic power, and crime, espionage and covert power.