Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford

by Julia Fox

  Mary was just as intractable. Neither Henry nor Anne would allow her to remain a princess: only Elizabeth was that. And soon there would be a brother to join her in the royal nursery, his right to the throne confirmed by the recent Act of Succession hurriedly pushed through Parliament and requiring an oath of acceptance from everyone. Woe betide anyone who refused to affirm that. Indeed, among those in prison for such a refusal were Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. That, at least, was satisfying for the Boleyns, especially when Clement finally stirred himself to declare in favor of Katherine. Almost immediately after Elizabeth was born, Henry ordered that Mary should be notified that her household and allowance were to be reduced to correspond with her adjusted status. However, to persuade Mary to become “Lady Mary” proved well-nigh impossible; Jane’s sister-in-law was not the only determined female in the royal family.

  Jane knew both Katherine and Mary well. She had grown up with Katherine as queen. She had seen her resplendent at Henry’s side at the Field of Cloth of Gold and at so many court celebrations or state occasions, as she fulfilled her role as consort with the graciousness and majesty so natural in a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Like everyone else, Jane was aware of the queen’s raw anguish when she failed to give her husband the male heir he so craved. Herself a childless woman, Jane could empathize only too well. She had watched Mary develop from a little girl, who danced so prettily at court, worked at her studies, and was the pride of both her parents, into the young teenager whose world was suddenly destroyed and who was separated from the mother she loved. Yet any sympathies Jane had for Katherine or for Mary had to be suppressed. Her first loyalty had to lie with her husband and the family into which she had married. She had cast her lot in with them and had been very willing to accept the prizes that had resulted. Perhaps, though, she felt little pleasure at the harsh treatment meted out to the former queen and her daughter.

  Harsh treatment there certainly was. Katherine was moved from castle to castle, from country house to country house, anywhere but near the court or near Mary. It was upon Mary that Anne’s attention particularly fell, and she was supported by George and Thomas, quick to realize how dangerous Mary was to Boleyn ambition. Henry, furious that anyone, let alone his own child, could even contemplate disobedience to his legitimate orders, was fierce in his support. “She is my death and I am hers,” Anne was reputed to have said about Mary, “so I will take care that she shall not laugh at me after my death.” As so often in the past, the Boleyns worked together. They began by securing the appointment of Lady Anne Shelton, Thomas’s sister, to replace the decidedly partisan Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, as Mary’s governess. The Countess of Salisbury, once a confidante of Katherine, had never liked Anne; it was better for the Boleyns if Mary was removed from her influence. From now onward, there would be a Boleyn in constant attendance upon the former princess. For Jane, Lady Shelton’s was another familiar face: her sister, Margaret Parker, was married to Lady Shelton’s son and would bear him five children, and Lady Shelton’s husband, Sir John, was a friend of Jane’s father. Chatting about ordinary domestic family matters, should she and Jane meet, would provide a welcome relief for the new and frequently harassed governess. Coping with the recalcitrant Mary, now seventeen, was no easy task.

  No one really knew how best to handle the ex-princess. Jane would have heard many a discussion among George, Thomas, and Anne on the vexed subject. George and Anne were keen to press as hard as possible to force Mary to conform to the new Boleyn regime. Together with Norfolk, George castigated Lady Shelton, already doing her best to control Mary, for being too lenient. “She ought to deal with her,” they said, “as a regular bastard that she was.” An exasperated Anne suggested similar methods. If Mary persisted in calling herself a princess, Lady Shelton should “box her ears as a cursed bastard,” she ordered. Fortunately for Mary, Lady Shelton, while quite willing to be a reliable spy, was not wantonly vindictive or cruel and was prepared to treat her only with “respect and honor.”

  Because of her own privileged position, Jane knew what was happening to Mary, but so did the rest of the court, not all of whom were enthusiastic Boleyn supporters. For anyone to take up Mary’s cause openly was suicidal, especially since speaking publicly against Henry’s current marital situation was by now against the law, but mutterings in dark corners were another matter. Even the eagle-eyed Cromwell could not be everywhere. Mary’s humiliation intensified when she was required to join Elizabeth’s household rather than have her own, which meant that Anne’s child always took precedence as the only true, legitimate princess. Stories spread of Mary’s evasions to avoid taking second place to her despised half sister. Whenever Elizabeth was carried anywhere publicly, Mary would not “walk by the side of her,” Chapuys informed the emperor. Somehow, she managed to be “in front of her or behind.” News of Mary’s property being confiscated or of the girl’s being bundled into a carriage with Lady Shelton and threatened when the former princess refused to accompany Elizabeth on a move to a new residence shocked many susceptibilities. Maybe even Jane’s.

  Whether Jane actually met Mary at this time is unknown but it is quite plausible. Whenever Anne visited Elizabeth, Jane may well have been one of the ladies accompanying her. A glimpse of Mary, then, could easily have occurred. In the early months, at least, Anne hoped that her stepdaughter would see sense. Kindness had once captured a king; it might be worth trying it on a princess. On one journey to Elizabeth, she sent a message to Mary “requesting her to visit and honor her as queen which she was.” If Mary would only do so, Anne promised to plead with Henry on her behalf so that she would regain “the good favor and pleasure of the king, her father” and be “treated as well or perhaps better than she had ever been.” Mary’s tart answer bordered on recklessness. She knew of no other queen than her mother, she said, but “should the king’s mistress…do her the favor she spoke of, and intercede with the king, her father, she would certainly be most grateful to her.” Jane may not have been with Anne when Mary’s reply was received but doubtless she heard her furious response. The queen would, she vowed, “put down that proud Spanish blood” and do her “worst.” It was war. The situation was fraught but Jane’s place had to be with the Boleyns.

  In any case, Jane and George benefited considerably from Mary’s disgrace. When the princess was bundled unceremoniously out of the royal palace of Beaulieu in Essex, the house was simply handed over to George. This was an amazing coup. While George had been granted keeper’s rights to the palace before, they were of a much more limited extent than this very special benefaction. It was not a gift, of course, but in the fullness of time anything was possible. The moment he got it, George began to move in his household and some of his furniture. Beaulieu was less than twenty miles from Jane’s family seat at Great Hallingbury, so her new home was not only in an area with which she was familiar, it was also ideally situated for occasional visits to her parents and brother, and since George had recently acquired a comfortable litter, she could do so in considerable style. George was even more delighted. To receive such a prize was a resounding signal of Henry’s approval. But it was symbolic too: the old Ormond residence was in Boleyn hands again. However, it was the old Ormond residence with a significant difference, for Henry had spent about seventeen thousand pounds in a massive building program to upgrade it in accordance with his own exacting standards. The highly experienced William Bolton, prior of St. Bartholomew’s in Smithfield, who had a great interest in architecture and who had already worked for Wolsey at Hampton Court and on Margaret Beaufort’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, had been entrusted with the work there, so it was bound to be particularly fine. Jane and George really did have a palace to live in, and not one they needed to share. This one was just for them.

  Although they were both likely to have been to Beaulieu as part of the court, they saw it with fresh eyes now. The lovely brick house nestled in acres of well-kept parkland. They entered through an arched doorway betwee
n the two sides of the gatehouse, above which was fixed the carved stone arms of the king, pronouncing his authority and majesty. With a quick glance upward at the tall, sweeping glass windows on the first floor of the gatehouse, they passed into the inner court around which the main wings of the palace were arranged. There was everything they could possibly want in a residence.

  The chapel, with its hangings, glass windows, and two organs, was on the left of the quadrangle. With the soul so well catered for, the body was not neglected, for behind the chapel was an indoor tennis court, which would have appealed to George, always such a keen sportsman.

  The other side of the house was just as impressive. The great hall was huge and the kitchens, pantry, and bakehouse were served by fresh water from a newly installed supply with lead cisterns for the waste. Jane and George could live in regal style, although daring to use the king’s flower-decorated bathroom, complete with hot and cold running water, was probably a presumption too far even for the Boleyns.

  When they first arrived to see their wonderful new acquisition, George and Jane could make use of some of the myriad soft furnishings, carpets, wooden tables, stools, and cupboards that were stored there. They could sit on the leather chair “painted with the story of Venus,” listening to musicians playing the lute and virginals, while the “clock with a bell” marked the passage of time. They could read some of the many books, such as Caesar’s Commentaries, so conveniently left about. And “great coffers bound with iron” came in handy to safeguard their ever-increasing stock of valuables.

  But most of all, George and Jane used their own furniture. Jane had grown up among the Parker plate but now she possessed her own. She and George could dine from silver platters and silver dishes, emblazoned with the Rochford arms coupled with those of the king, in a room lit by candles held in their own candlesticks. They could drink from silver and gilt goblets. They had magnificent engraved gilt bowls, great gilt trenchers, and gilt pots. They could use their own intricately worked tablecloth trimmed and fringed with gold thread and with the letters G and B proudly displayed at each end. Their wealth was on show everywhere Jane looked.

  And, on those nights when she and George slept together as man and wife, they could snuggle up behind red and white damask curtains in their superb bed, lying on a soft feather mattress, their heads resting on pillows of down. The painted and gilded wooden bedstead was draped in cloth of gold, its white satin canopy embroidered in tawny cloth of gold embellished with “Rochford knots” and bordered with yellow and white silk fringe. Linen quilts filled with wool and a luxurious yellow counterpane lined with yellow buckram ensured that they would not be cold even in the depths of winter.

  All that was needed for complete security until every Boleyn’s dying day was for Anne to give birth to a prince. And for a while, Anne’s pregnancy seemed to be going well. Henry ordered an elaborate silver cradle from his goldsmith, Cornelius Hayes, together with swaddling clothes and bedding of white satin and cloth of gold. George was told to ask for the postponement of a projected meeting with the queen of Navarre, Francis’s sister. Anne was “so far gone with child,” he was to say, that “she could not cross the sea with the king.” Nor could Henry go without her for “she would be deprived of his Highness’s presence when it was most necessary.” Then, quite suddenly, we read no more in the documents about the baby. Anne had miscarried.

  THE WINDS OF CHANGE

  CHAPTER 17

  The King’s Displeasure

  ONE DAUGHTER, one miscarriage: no amount of spin or propaganda could convert such blatant failure into success. For Henry, it was achingly familiar; he had been here before. For the Boleyns, it could spell disaster. So far, they had all done remarkably well by backing Anne but that in itself courted danger. Should she fall, they would fall with her. And the fall could be catastrophic. No one who risked the king’s displeasure was safe, even those who seemed untouchable. Jane’s memories of Buckingham’s death may have faded as the years passed, but he could not be forgotten, and Wolsey’s pathetic demise was yet more recent. Jane knew that she could have far more serious concerns than a mere reduction in her collection of extravagant clothes, jeweled sleeves, and silk masking stockings if the unthinkable happened. But it did not. Henry’s love for Anne burned as brightly as ever, and while it did, the Boleyns were still at her side.

  Not only was the king committed to his wife, he was determined to make sure that everyone else was as well. As Jane watched, the bloodbath began. Opposition, real or suspected, was about to be rooted out across the land, from the teeming streets of London to the smallest hamlet in Cornwall or the tiniest village in Yorkshire. As far as Henry was concerned, his people should be grateful to him. He had saved himself from an adulterous marriage, them from the usurped power of the pope, a man who was no more than the bishop of Rome; and, Henry stated, only he himself would deliver the true gospel to all his subjects. He was a David, he was a Solomon; above all, he was right. The Boleyns agreed with him; or at least, Anne, George, and Thomas did and the rest of the family acquiesced. As did most of the population. Cromwell made sure of that. With acts on the statute book making it treason to deny that the succession rested in Henry’s issue by Anne and, a little later, to deny that the king was head of the church, Cromwell was equipped with a full arsenal of ammunition. He used it.

  Unaffected by respect for gender, he embarked on the first of a series of high-profile prosecutions with that of a woman: Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent. Her fame had developed some time before he chose to act. It had all started when as a young servant girl, she had suddenly succumbed to a mysterious sickness, in the course of which she had visions of “heaven, hell, purgatory, and the state of souls departed.” Her recovery had been as dramatic as the onset of her illness. During one of her trances, voices had told her to go to the Church of Our Lady of Court in the village of Street in Kent. Once there, she had lain in front of a statue of the virgin. Then the miracle had begun. “Her face was wonderfully disfigured,” the spectators had said, “her tongue hanging out, and her eyes being in a manner plucked out, and laid upon her cheeks.” Eventually, she “came to herself again, and was perfectly whole.” The bystanders had been convinced that God had cured her. The trouble was that once the Holy Maid had become a nun at the convent of St. Sepulchre in Canterbury, not only had her visions and trances continued, but she also gained the additional power of prophecy. And her prophecies had been uncomfortably linked to the consequences of Henry’s likely second marriage. He would die within six months “in a plague of unheard-of severity,” she had said, if he really did marry Anne; indeed, she had seen the place in hell that was already reserved for him.

  Elizabeth Barton had become the talk of the court. There is no proof that Jane met her, but she would have known all about her, for her fame spread. She was fashionable and she seemed genuine. There was even a book written about her. Despite the fact of Henry’s obvious survival beyond the six months that she had foretold, there were plenty prepared to listen to what else she had to say. And she was voluble. She maintained that Wolsey had ascended into heaven through her penance, she knew when the king would die, she knew that she would “receive the crown of martyrdom,” she knew about angels and popes and abbots, and she knew about “a golden letter” written by Mary Magdalene. It was heady stuff and it had to be stopped.

  Stopped it was. Cranmer questioned her, Cromwell interrogated her. Between them, they managed to extract a confession that she had “never had a vision in her life, but feigned them all.” It could not, of course, be allowed to end there. Cranmer might well tell Henry that people were delighted that Barton’s calumnies had been exposed but the difficulty was that she had passed them on. Cromwell set about discovering who had listened. His detective work caused panic. Particularly satisfying to the Boleyns was that one of the prominent courtiers exposed for taking too much interest in the ramblings of Elizabeth Barton was the Marchioness of Exeter, one of Katherine’s supporters. The marchione
ss was forced to write a groveling letter of apology to Henry. She was, she said abjectly, “the most sorrowful and heavy creature alive” since she had “been so unfortunate as to offend the king and his laws, or be in danger of his indignation or displeasure.” She was sufficiently desperate to point out that she was only a woman, “whose fragility and brittleness is easily seduced and brought to abusion and light belief.” “I will receive my Maker,” she wrote to Cromwell, “that I never offended” the king, “even in thought; but if I have offended through simplicity and lack of knowledge, I submit myself, accepting his gracious pardon.” The marchioness was lucky: she escaped with humiliation and a considerable fright rather than a grim sojourn in the Tower as the headsman sharpened his ax.

  Barton and her immediate circle were not so lucky. Jane knew precisely what had happened to them because George, Thomas, and her father could give her a firsthand account. All three were summoned to the Parliament, which passed the Acts of Attainder against the nun and her alleged accomplices, thereby condemning them to death. While an Act of Attainder meant that evidence was simply presented to Parliament so that the government avoided the need for an open trial with the unpredictability of a jury verdict, the sentence would still be carried out publicly. Gawping crowds, accustomed to the carnage of such things, but curious to see a nun and five members of the clergy executed, watched them drawn from the Tower to Tyburn, one of London’s most notorious execution sites. There, they were granted the relatively merciful end of hanging and beheading. The government could have insisted that they suffer an infinitely slower and more painful death usually accorded to traitors.