Anne Boleyn, the second Queen of Henry VIII, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, afterwards Earl of Wiltshire, and Lady Elizabeth Howard. Anne was ... the maternal niece of Henry's courtier-statesman, the Duke of Norfolk. She spent some years at the French Court, before 1522, when she first seems to have attracted the notice of King Henry. Her elder sister, Mary, was, for a short time, the King's mistress at about that date. Anne was sought in marriage by the heir of the Percys and was perhaps privately contracted to him. By 1525, however, the King was secretly courting her.