Hi, Steve,

>the song has been continuously in print

Not exactly. There's the stanza in Wager, nine stanzas in "The Pinder," and little more than fragments (or very brief versions) before the Massachusetts broadside. It would be more correct to say that "versions of the song occur very rarely before ca1815." And even then, "Tom Boleyn" seems to have been an uncommon song in extended form.

The oldest surviving text of the related, far more frequent "Bryan O'Lynn" seems to have appeared about 1783-83. The format is the same ("...said Bryan O'Lynn"), but it doesn't have much in common with the 1632 "Tom Boleyn" or with 19th century broadsides of "Bryan."