How missing Boleyn portrait was snatched back from France in audacious swoop

Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne, King Henry VIII’s second wife It is a tale of art theft, aristocracy and adventure that reads like the pages of a crime thriller – but the story behind the return of the stolen portrait of Mary Boleyn is much stranger than fiction. The painting of Henry VIII’s mistress is safely back with her family. But it took years of detective work – culminating in a young family member being dispatched to Paris on the Eurostar with a wad of cash to buy it back. At the centre of the audacious mission is Ann Henning Jocelyn, a writer, historian and wife of Robert Jocelyn, 10th Earl of Roden – a descendant of Mary – who made it her goal to bring the portrait home. The 400-year-old painting was snatched in a horrific robbery in 1990. Ann’s father-in-law, the 9th Earl of Roden, was attacked in his home in County Down by a vicious gang of thieves. Precious heirlooms were stolen, including the portrait, believed to be the earliest known picture of Mary Boleyn, sister of King Henry VIII’s second wife Anne. Anne was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, and the infamous monarch’s second wife. She was beheaded after being falsely accused of adultery, incest and treason. The 10th Earl of Roden descends from Lord Hunsdon, Mary Boleyn’s son, believed to have been fathered by Henry VIII. A fictionalised account of her story was told by The Crown creator Peter Morgan in the 2008 film The Other Boleyn Girl and starred Scarlett Johansson as Mary. King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn Over time the family recovered many of the items taken in the raid, but the portrait of Mary was lost for two decades. Ann, 75, who married her husband after he invited her to use his home in Ireland as a place to write, explained: ‘It was stolen in an aggravated robbery at the family home in County Down in February 1990, when my 80-year-old father-in-law was attacked by a gang of masked raiders and left tied up. ‘He would have died if he hadn’t been found by a neighbour. ‘Most of the stolen items, estimated to be worth at least £1million, were in due course recovered. But the portrait of Mary was lost until we traced it to Paris in 2010.’ They sent a young member of the family – who has asked not to be identified – to the French capital to negotiate the return of Mary. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Ann, who has written about her husband’s ancestors, was determined to reunite the portrait with two others, one of Anne Boleyn and Mary’s son. And so began the next chapter in their incredible story. She spotted an image of the stolen picture in a book on the sisters. Ann, who lives in the west of Ireland, said: ‘We missed Mary, because we had a group of three, Lord Hunsdon, Mary’s son, Mary and Anne. The three portraits had their place in our home, which is like a museum. ‘Everything in the house was made for the family hundreds of years ago, including the pictures.’ Trending Ann revealed the remarkable tale during an interview about her new play The Sphere Of Light, based on her book of the same name, which uncovers secrets of the Boleyn sisters. It premieres next month at Hever Castle in Kent – the Boleyn family’s former home. Ann discovered the painting was still in circulation when she spotted it in the book. She recalled: ‘Alison Weir wrote a biography on Mary and I immediately read it, as I’ve read everything that’s been published about the Boleyns for the past 20 or 30 years. ‘There I saw our picture and it said ‘in a private collection’. ‘I got on to Alison and said, ‘Please tell us who has this’. She’d got the details from a gallery who didn’t realise it had been stolen – they thought we still had it.’ Ann then looked at the ArtLoss Register, a private database of stolen art, which revealed it was up for sale at a Paris auction. She explained: ‘The register had a good system whereby they search all the existing auction houses in the world, regularly. ‘We contacted the auction house and they immediately withdrew the picture. They said it belonged to an eminent cosmetic surgeon. ‘So I contacted him and he told us that it was, by law, his picture because he had bought it in good faith – and under French law it belonged to him. ‘So we said we were willing to buy it back at the reserve price he put in at the auction. He then realised how anxious we were to get the picture back and upped the price to a level we couldn’t afford.’ Their pleas were ignored, so in desperation they sent the young family member to his Paris office with an undisclosed sum of cash. Hever Castle will stage Ann Henning Jocelyn’s play Ann said: ‘They walked into the surgery and put the wad of bank notes down. There was Mary sitting on the wall, watching them. ‘The doctor said, ‘Oh no, no, no, I want more. I want a better price than that’. So they took out a handful of coins and said, ‘I was holding on to this for my lunch but you can have it as well’.’ Then somehow the Frenchman weakened. Ann recalls: ‘He said, ‘All right you can have the picture’. ‘The surgeon took the money and a black bag was produced. The person we sent then had to walk about in Paris, very hungry, for the rest of the day carrying Mary in the bin bag waiting for the Eurostar to go back to London.’ Once back in the UK the picture was taken to Christie’s art auction house to have it dated and checked for authenticity.