by Julia Fox
An event was scheduled for every stop, most rich in symbolism that would have been very clear to Anne. Sometimes children performed for her, as they did at Fenchurch Street when they read to her in English and in French, or at St. Paul’s where two hundred boys recited poetry, a performance that the expectant Anne “highly commended.” Sometimes the street fountains ran with wine rather than water, as at Cheapside and Fleet Street. Sometimes she was entertained by music, as she was at St. Martin’s Church where the choir sang ballads in her praise. At the intricately carved Eleanor Cross, the city aldermen presented her with a gold purse containing well over six hundred pounds, a sum large enough to satisfy even the king, and which Anne “thankfully accepted with many goodly words.” And everywhere there were elaborately staged tableaux to amuse her. The merchants of the Steelyard outdid themselves with their “costly and marvelous cunning pageant,” designed by Holbein, which featured Mount Olympus complete with gods, muses and music, and a fountain from which wine flowed. Her falcon badge provided inspiration for the merchants at the Leadenhall. In their offering, an angel crowned a little white falcon with a golden crown, while St. Anne watched with her children and grandchildren, one of whom made a pretty speech to the queen reminding her “of the fruitfulness of St. Anne and her generation, trusting that like fruit should come of her.” In another pageant the goddesses Athena, Juno, and Venus gave her the gifts of wisdom, wealth, and happiness and in yet another there were three “ladies richly clothed” whose scroll referred to the joy she would bring to the people by bearing the king’s son.
At last the long afternoon drew to its close as Anne reached Westminster Hall. She was carried in her litter toward the middle of the huge tapestry-hung chamber to where her chair stood underneath a gold, silk-fringed cloth of estate similar in size to that of the king’s. Jane was with her as servants brought her wines and tempting spiced delicacies. Anne graciously passed them to her ladies, before thanking Peacock and the other officials for everything they had done to make the day so special. Only when they had been dismissed could she rest a little “with a few ladies.” In the privacy of Anne’s apartments, they could discuss every detail of an extraordinary day.
For it had not all been perfect. The juxtaposing of Henry’s and Anne’s initials was unfortunate: the HA HA, the universal sound of laughter, that they formed was spotted by some of the more hostile elements of the crowd who did just that and literally burst out laughing. Then, Anne noticed those who refused to take off their caps as she passed, which she took as a blatant insult. Her female jester made light of it. “I think you have all scurvy heads, and dare not uncover,” she said, but it was a slight nonetheless. Clearly, not everyone was as delighted as the Boleyn family by Anne’s changed status. Then there were the absentees. Katherine’s champion, Bishop Fisher, was, thankfully for the Boleyns, safely imprisoned. They did not want that particular specter at the feast. A couple of others, however, should have been prepared to attend the ceremonies. Henry’s sister, Mary, the French queen who had married the Duke of Suffolk, was gravely ill so she could be forgiven, but Sir Thomas More, who had no such reason, could not.
Even so, as night fell and Jane’s servants helped her remove her magnificent gown, she knew that all had been worth waiting for. Anne was not the only person whose life had been transformed. And tomorrow was the coronation. Jane’s future could only get better.
CHAPTER 13
The Falcon Crowned
JANE’S GENTLEWOMEN woke her early next morning. There was much to do if she was to be ready to accompany her sister-in-law to the ceremony that would form the culmination of all that the Boleyns had schemed for over so many years. In the river pageant, in the investiture of the new Knights of the Bath, in the entry into the city, Anne had been exhibited as Henry’s wife and his queen, but it would be only after she had undergone the religious rituals of the coronation that Anne’s status would be properly confirmed. Then the falcon would be queen indeed. With the king’s son growing in her womb and the crown of England on her head, Anne would be impregnable. Or so the family hoped.
Jane’s servants were not the only ones to be up and about at first light. All over London, officials and courtiers were roused by their attendants so that they too could take their places and honor Anne yet again. It was another busy day for Sir Stephen Peacock, the lord mayor. Once dressed in his crimson velvet robes and with his golden chain gleaming around his neck, he joined the aldermen and other city officials at 7 a.m. to be rowed by barge to Westminster Hall. The lofty stone building, its exterior adorned with the stone statues of ancient kings,*11 was the starting point for the short procession to St. Peter’s Church, the great Abbey of Westminster. There, close to the resting place of Henry’s little son, Cranmer would crown Henry’s wife. So, in the huge chamber, beneath the wonderful vaulted wooden ceiling and flying buttresses of carved angels that are still there today, Peacock and his companions waited for Anne.
She appeared over an hour later, her ladies with her. She wore deep purple and crimson velvet, her robes edged with ermine, her thick, dark hair confined under a jeweled coif, and she had a circlet of precious stones sparkling on her head. This time her train was carried by the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. Jane was with Anne, in her own opulent crimson velvet gown, and she held her gold coronet, a symbol of her rank, in her hand. She followed as Anne walked to the middle of the hall and stood underneath her cloth of estate, while her entourage gradually gathered. Soon the hall teemed with people. The musicians of the King’s Chapel, the monks of Westminster, and the abbots and bishops were the first to arrive to escort her into the Abbey church, but within a little while everyone was in their appointed position and the ceremony could begin. The procession was led by the gentlemen, the esquires, and the knights. They preceded the aldermen, the judges, and the Knights of the Bath, Jane’s brother in their midst. Lord Morley and his fellow barons came next, with the viscounts, earls, marquesses, and dukes behind them. Thomas strode purposefully among the other earls: it was a day for him to savor. In the next group came More’s successor, Lord Audley, Peacock, a dozen or so abbots, Archbishop Lee, and the bishops of London, Winchester, Lincoln, Bath, and St. Asaph’s. Anne’s entrance was the climax of the cavalcade. With her ladies behind her, she walked along the specially laid blue striped carpet through the West Gate into St. Peter’s. As she did so, the monks and Henry’s musicians sang solemnly. Her crown was carried reverently by the Earl of Oxford; the Earl of Arundel carried her rod and scepter; and four lords held her canopy over her. Even had she been born royal, as Katherine had been, Henry could not have ordered anything grander than this.
Jane stood close by as Anne moved toward her throne between the choir and the altar. The brand new chair was “covered with rich cloth of tissue and fringed with gold,” its pummels also gilded. It was sited on a raised platform with steps draped in richly embroidered cloth. The new queen was in full view. Anne paused a little and then Cranmer led her to the altar. There she prostrated herself while the archbishop sang prayers over her in consecration. When she rose, Anne was anointed with holy oil on her forehead and breast, a fine white linen coif on her head so that the oil was not tainted by unwarranted contact with her hair, and then she was gently dried with a cotton cloth. All the while, an embellished canopy was held over her.
From the Boleyn perspective, the next part of the sacred ritual was the most significant, for Anne was crowned in nothing less than St. Edward’s Chair itself. This special chair, which never left the confines of the Abbey, was used only for the coronation of England’s monarchs; it was not usual for a consort to sit on the seat of kings. Anne may well have been the first woman to do so. She had already outdone her rival: Katherine had been crowned with Henry but she had sat on a small throne, not on the saint’s chair. Nor had the former queen been crowned with St. Edward’s Crown, for this was worn only by ruling monarchs, not their wives. Uniquely, it was this glittering relic, which one day would grace her red-haired daughter
, that Cranmer placed on Anne’s head. With the royal scepter in her right hand and the ivory rod in her left, she was now every inch the queen. All eyes upon her, she sat while the choir’s voices rose to the heavens in a glorious Te Deum.
Only then did Cranmer remove the heavy crown, replacing it with a much lighter one that had been specifically made for her. She returned to her throne for the holy Mass. Jane, with the other ladies, knelt on Anne’s right, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk knelt behind her, and the leading lords knelt on the queen’s left as the familiar words began. Anne went back to the altar, gave an offering, and after further prayers, knelt to receive the sacrament. She was allowed a few moments’ rest and a little refreshment and then Thomas stepped proudly forward to support his daughter’s right hand while Lord Talbot took her left. Jane, now wearing her coronet, followed her sister-in-law as she processed back to Westminster Hall, a fanfare of trumpets bursting forth “marvelously freshly” around her.
It was all a triumph. Everything had gone according to plan and in conformity with custom and tradition. Henry could not but be delighted. At one point, he had considered a double coronation with Anne, even rewriting the coronation oath to encompass his new ideas on his rights as Head of the Church, but nothing had come of it. Instead, the king having no wish to deflect glory from his beloved wife, it was all Anne’s day. And it was not over yet. A richly decorated Westminster Hall was the venue for a magnificent banquet at which the new queen presided. Henry’s musicians played softly by the windows as Jane took her seat in a position of honor on the table reserved solely for the ladies of the court. From there, she had an uninterrupted view of everything. So did Henry. Having weathered so many storms to reach this point, he could not resist savoring every moment of his wife’s success. With the ambassadors from France and Venice, he watched from a small side room with a perfect view of the hall. Chapuys was not invited.
Anne, wearing her lighter crown, sat on Henry’s own marble throne quite apart from everyone else. Her cloth of estate was in place over her, as befitted an anointed queen. She was in the middle of the central table, with Cranmer at a suitably respectful distance on her right. The Countess of Worcester and the widowed Countess of Oxford stood on either side of her, ready to hold up a linen cloth to shield her should she want “to spit or do otherwise at her pleasure” while two gentlewomen crouched under the table at the queen’s feet ready to perform any other task for her, maintaining a convention that stretched back over the centuries. No one else was allowed anywhere near Anne, unless it was to serve her food and wine, although the current Earl of Oxford was deputed to stand behind her, between the archbishop and the widowed countess. The queen’s dais, twelve steps high, was railed off from the other guests below.
Jane’s table, which was about eight yards long, was one of four set at right angles to the queen’s platform. If she turned round, she could see Peacock, with his aldermen, city officials, and wealthy merchants, happily ensconced at the table immediately behind hers, in front of the stone walls of the massive hall. Her mother was further down Jane’s table, with the wives of other key nobles and courtiers. Again, it was a family occasion for Jane. Lord Morley, perhaps with a proud eye on his son, who was now Sir Henry and wearing his Knight of the Bath robes, sat at the next table along, sharing it with judges like Sir John Spelman and leading churchmen. Near Archbishop Lee was Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Gardiner was well known to the Boleyns. Although an ally over the divorce, his presentation of Convocation’s case when the clergy were forced to submit to royal control left a question mark in Boleyn minds over the depth of his allegiance. And even as Jane glanced along the serried rows of guests as they tucked into the thirty or so courses with which they were presented, she knew that many were there out of pragmatism rather than true loyalty to her sister-in-law’s cause.
A quick look at the Duke of Suffolk would have reinforced that thought. In his role as high steward, he was in charge of much that was going on. He certainly looked the part. In embroidered crimson velvet robes, his doublet glistening with lustrous pearls, and with a tall white rod in his hand, he rode around the hall mounted on a charger draped in crimson velvet. He and Lord William Howard, also opulently clad and also on horseback, escorted in the first course with much flourish and “rode often times about the hall, cheering the lords, ladies, and the mayor and his brethren.” But how far Suffolk could be trusted was another matter. Getting rid of Wolsey was one thing; playing second fiddle to the Boleyns, another. His ambition and acquisitiveness were common knowledge. Anne’s vice-chamberlain, Sir Edward Baynton, today resplendent in his new red robes, wrote as much to George. “My lord of Suffolk,” he said, “is loath to let fall a noble unless he took up a royal for it.” Already he had squabbled with Norfolk, his rival in East Anglia, and had been forced by the king to give up his office of earl marshal to him. There was no love lost there.
Still, Suffolk was performing well. There was no concrete reason to suspect him. The host of guests seemed to be enjoying the whole spectacle. Sir Edward Seymour, one of the king’s esquires of the body, whose family came from Wiltshire, served Cranmer most competently. Jane could spot her cousin, Sir John St. John, among those gentlemen who laughingly assisted with serving others in the hall. Young Sir Francis Weston, a recent recruit to the king’s privy chamber who had just been invested with her brother, sat with his fellow Knights of the Bath as yet more and more dishes were brought forward by the army of attendants on duty that day, every course announced triumphantly by the trumpeters and musicians.
Anne’s resilience was admirable. She was on show the entire time and never faltered. As the feast drew to its close, the servants brought thin sweet wafers and spiced wine, and the queen rose. Jane and everyone else rose with her, standing silently while Anne washed her hands and dried them on special napkins. The Earl of Sussex handed her a final dish of sweetmeats, carefully arranged on a plate of solid gold. He was followed by Peacock, who presented her with a golden cup filled with wine, his last duty of the long day. Anne thanked him once more, before giving him the precious cup as a gift, as was expected. With everyone still on their feet, she left the hall, her canopy again carried by four lords. Her oarsmen waited, the waters of the Thames lapping against the side of her barge. They had one more task to undertake before they too could go back and tell their families all they had seen. Anne was helped aboard her vessel, perhaps with Jane at her side, for she needed her ladies with her. The queen was rowed the short distance along the river to where Henry was waiting at Wolsey’s York Place. The tiltyards were already being prepared for tourneys the next morning but for a while there was time for rest.
For Jane too it had been a very tiring few days. No doubt it had been good to catch up with Parker news and gossip, but Great Hallingbury was becoming more of a distant memory as the years passed. Jane’s world was the court now, her horizons had expanded, her place was assured. Where the Boleyns went, so did she.
CHAPTER 14
Long May We Reign
IT WAS OVER. Ambassadors wrote copious accounts of what they had seen. Suffolk had the chance to hurry home to the bedside of his dying wife. Londoners carefully took down the banners and the hangings that they had used to decorate their streets. Sir Stephen Peacock returned to his normal duties and so did the aldermen and the merchants. They wanted to start making money again; coronations were expensive events and Henry had demanded substantial contributions from all of them. Subjects who had come to the city to become knights, or because the king had demanded their attendance, went back to their estates. All had their stories to tell. Jane and the Boleyns, however, hoped that the coronation marked not an end but a beginning.
So far, the whole family had profited. Uncle James was slotted in as Anne’s chancellor, Mary was at court with her sister, and Thomas’s influence around his royal son-in-law remained strong. George’s frequent absences on diplomatic missions to France meant that Jane saw less of him than usual but he too was an imp
ortant player at court. By now, he was involved in Parliament and he had joined his father in the Privy Council so was busy even when he was in England. Chapuys, who often mentioned meeting the “Lady’s brother” when he went to court to see the king, remarked on how conversation sometimes stopped when the ever-watchful George came over to him. All were aware of his diligence in his sister’s cause. And such devotion continued to bring rewards to him and to his wife. A prize had fallen into their laps a couple of months before Cranmer had placed St. Edward’s Crown on Anne’s dark locks: they had been granted the wardship of Edmund Sheffield. Son of Sir Robert Sheffield and his wife, Lord Strange’s daughter, also a Jane, and a distant relation of the king, the little boy was heir to his father’s lands, which were mainly in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. Perhaps the Rochfords had a quiet chuckle at how fitting an acquisition the child was for them: his grandfather had once been in great trouble with Cardinal Wolsey, whose head, he had said, “ought to be as red as his coat.” When given into the hands of George and Jane, the child was about twelve, a highly convenient age. As yet, they had no children of their own but both were still young. Should Jane give birth to a daughter in the future, there would be a rich husband waiting in the wings. There was nothing wrong with being prepared. After all, if the lofty Duke of Suffolk had been willing to pay Henry more than two thousand pounds for the heiress, Katherine Willoughby, clearly with an eye to marrying her off to his own son, there was no reason why they should not follow his utilitarian example. In the meantime, they could enjoy the fruits gleaned from administering Edmund’s inheritance. The possession of a wardship was a matter of pride for Jane and George, confirmation of their place in the king’s affections and of their status. Money was certainly plentiful. George had enough spare cash to send a servant to Calais with twenty marks simply to purchase hawks for the hawking he so much enjoyed, the first of several errands of this kind.