Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford

by Julia Fox

  Thus, Jane Rochford found herself dragged into a maelstrom of intrigue, innuendo, and speculation. For when Cromwell sent for her, he already had much of what he needed not only to bring down Anne and her circle but also to make possible Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour, the woman Henry was positive was his ideal bride. A few more details were all that was required. The questions to Jane would have come thick and fast. There is no word-for-word transcript of what they were but the record of the trials of both Anne and George Boleyn give us a plethora of clues. How often did George and Anne meet? Who was present on those occasions? Were they ever totally alone? Did he ever go into her bedroom? Was she in bed at the time? Was he ever there alone with her? How did they behave when they were together? What did they talk about? Did either of them ever speak about the king? What did they say? How did they say it, respectfully or mockingly? Did they say it to each other or to someone else? If so, to whom? How often? When? Did Anne ever confide any intimate details about her sexual relationship with Henry to Jane? Had the queen conducted any love affairs with anyone else? Did she ever mention Harry Percy, now Earl of Northumberland? How did she behave with Norris? With Weston? With Brereton? With Page? With Wyatt? What was her demeanor with the other gentlemen of the court? What did she say about the Princess Dowager? About Lady Mary? About the Duke of Richmond?

  Faced with such relentless, incessant questions, which she had no choice but to answer, Jane would have searched her memory for every tiny incident she could think of. This was not the moment for bravado and anyway the arrests had been so sudden and unexpected that there was no time to separate out what testimony might be damaging, what could be twisted to become so, or what could only be innocuous no matter what the interpretation. By the end of the various sessions, Cromwell had what he wanted. All he had to do was to put together all the “facts” he had gleaned from all those whom he had interrogated and finalize the details on how the trials were to be conducted. Coincidentally, or some would say with considerable preliminary planning and foresight, commissions of Oyer and Terminer had been established on April 24 in Middlesex and Kent to look into serious criminal activity.*15 That, of course, would cover any cases of treason that might surface. On April 27, Parliament had been summoned, less than two weeks after it had been dissolved. That would be useful too. By May Day, then, the necessary apparatus was already in place, most of the ground prepared.

  There was still much work for the minister and the council to do before all was ready for the trials of such high-profile prisoners. Cromwell wanted a watertight case. In the meantime, Henry consoled himself with the solicitous Jane Seymour, sure that he was lucky to be alive, free from the clutches of the evil Anne. His children were lucky too. Chapuys informed Charles that when Richmond went to his father to wish him good night on the evening of Anne’s arrest, Henry “began to weep, saying that he and his sister, meaning the Princess Mary, were greatly bound to God for having escaped the hands of that accursed whore, who had determined to poison them.” As for the Boleyns, there was little they could do. Norfolk swiftly disassociated himself from his niece, as did the prudent Thomas from his son and daughter. Like Jane’s father, both Thomas and Norfolk could be expected to serve on the panel of peers that would be constituted to try them.

  Jane’s main concern was for her husband. She had not deserted him through all their years of marriage; she did not do so now. Neither a visit nor a personal letter would have been permitted so she tried a more circuitous route: she sent a message to Kingston for George. In a letter to Cromwell, part of a cache of damaged documents saved from a fire in 1731, Kingston reported what she said. She asked how George was and promised that she would “humbly [make] suit unto the king’s highness” for him. The message was gratefully received by the otherwise abandoned George, who wanted to “give her thanks.” The prospect of a petition to Henry, or perhaps the council, from his wife, obviously gave him comfort. He asked Kingston at what time he would see the council and wept. In one of the tantalizing fragments that survived the fire, he went on to say, “for I think I [may not] come forth till I come to my judgment,” presumably meaning that without Jane’s aid he knew that no one would listen to his case before his trial.

  Unfortunately, Jane’s chances of pleading with the king were slim. Access to the royal presence was virtually impossible. In any case, it was too late. The die was cast, and it was cast against the Boleyns. George was right. Only the formalities of the various trials stood between him and the block. Jane was about to become a widow.

  CHAPTER 22

  Death of the Falcon

  “MR. KINGSTON, shall I die without justice?” asked Anne shortly after her arrival at the Tower. His sanctimonious reply that “the poorest subject the King has, has justice” prompted merely her laughter. Jane, anxiously waiting for the trials to take place, did not hear this exchange. Had she done so, she could only have trusted that Kingston was right and Anne wrong. The fate of every Boleyn was at stake. Jane had once been sent from court but had otherwise reaped nothing but benefits from her marriage. She had attained a higher status than that of her own mother, she had moved among the most influential in the land, she had lived in unbridled luxury. Now her world was on a knife’s edge. The family to which she now belonged could be totally ruined, her husband condemned as a traitor, likely to die with his sister, the woman with whom Jane had shared confidences and who was currently branded a whore. Based on Cromwell’s questions, she had an uncomfortable knowledge of the almost unspeakable charges that George and Anne would face.

  For the whole of her life, Jane had been accustomed to revere her monarch. Whatever he decided had to be correct. He did not have to reveal his reasons but they were bound to be sound. Chronicler Edward Hall understood this concept perfectly when he stated that “the affairs of Princes be not ordained by the common people, nor were it convenient that all things were opened to them.” Cranmer, so very much one of Anne’s bishops, grasped this too. Shocked by the revelations about her, for he “had never better opinion of woman,” he accepted that Henry “would not have gone so far if she had not been culpable.” Neither man was emotionally involved, unlike Jane, who had to balance allegiance to her king with her loyalty to her husband. Nothing remains extant about her feelings at this time. For contemporary reporters, if not for those writing soon afterward, she was a bit player, hidden in the chorus as she had been so frequently over the years, someone who was always present but who was not the star. In any case, Jane had been born into a family who appreciated the advantages of silence. Her father was never prone to speak out and invite retribution, nor was she. Jane had become practiced in keeping her personal views private, like so many who surrounded the king, and the situation in which she found herself was not one in which it would be wise to break the habit of a lifetime. There was no queue to follow in the footsteps of Fisher and More. If Thomas dared not speak in his children’s defense, then neither did she. She had already said more than she would have wished.

  When the trials began, therefore, Jane could but watch and listen as the events unfolded and the revelations tumbled out. Prominent among the commissioners of Oyer and Terminer were Cromwell, who intended to keep a firm eye on all proceedings; Suffolk, getting older but still ambitious; and Norfolk, who had no intention of being pulled down by his sister’s errant offspring. Norfolk, indeed, was officially put in overall charge of the whole operation. Among the others were Sir John Spelman, who has left us his notes on what happened, and Sir John Baldwin, a lawyer whose business dealings were to be linked to Jane’s future security. They, with the rest, could be counted on to do their duty. With the preliminaries complete, the trial of the four commoners—Norris, Smeaton, Brereton, and Weston—began on Friday, May 12, in Westminster Hall, the site of Anne’s triumphant coronation dinner just three years earlier. Page and Wyatt were not charged; later they were released thoroughly frightened but unscathed. Wyatt never forgot his experience, however, a vivid stanza in one of his poems expressi
ng how deeply it had affected him:

  These bloody days have broken my heart;

  My lust, my youth did then depart,

  And blind desire of estate;

  Who hastes to climb seeks to revert:

  Of truth, circa Regna tonat.*16

  This was a sentiment with which Jane, desperately watching from the sidelines, would agree.

  Already greedy eyes were cast on the offices that would be there for the taking once the expected guilty verdicts were returned. The mysteriously compiled list of Boleyn grants would prove very handy but all of the prisoners had offices and lands worth fighting over. Richard Staverton rushed to put pen to paper, writing to Cromwell for his “remembrance” when the “various rooms in the parts” near him in Windsor became available. Staverton was keen to point out that he had fourteen children so was very interested in “the Little Park, the Park of Holy John, Perlam Park, and the room of the Black Rod in Windsor Castle.” Although Thomas More’s nephew, Staverton had fitted into the new regime fairly easily. He was not the only man with expectations. On the day before the first trial started, the abbot of Cirencester wrote to Cromwell confirming that he had promised the stewardship of the monastery at Cirencester, currently held by Norris, to Sir William Kingston “when it is void.” Kingston, of course, was the constable of the Tower, where Norris was incarcerated.

  Since the abbot referred to Cromwell’s previous correspondence on the subject, it would seem that the minister was confident of conviction. Jane’s chances of staying a wife rather than a widow appeared to be slim. To be certain that there were no slipups, Cromwell went further: some of the names on the juries are significant. Even in the early stages of these trials, Cromwell was remarkably thorough. Strictly speaking it was the role of the sheriffs to determine the composition of juries, but they were likely to be responsive to a quiet word from the minister. The commissions of Oyer and Terminer had been established for Kent and Middlesex, the counties in which the offenses were deemed to have been committed. In each county the grand juries,†17 which agreed that there was a case to answer, included those with a grievance against some or all of the defendants. A key figure on the jury register in Kent was Edmund Page, one of the two members of Parliament for Rochester. The second member had been Robert Fisher, the brother of the executed bishop. Robert had died the year before Anne fell, but as he and Page were both elected for the 1529 Parliament, they were probably fairly close colleagues rather than mere acquaintances. The two of them had even been in some trouble as they had opposed the act ending appeals to Rome, the same act that had driven a coach and horses through Katherine’s right to have her case heard in the Eternal City. Page’s sympathies would not lie with the Boleyns. In Middlesex, there was a yet more palpable hit, an even more significant name, that of Giles Heron, which leaps from the list. He was married to More’s daughter, Cecily. Boleyn involvement in the condemnation of Henry’s two most famous opponents would not be forgotten.

  A glance through the trial jury itself for the four commoners is equally revealing since Giles Alington was one of them. He too was linked to More, for he was the second husband of More’s stepdaughter, Alice, and she was particularly close to the former chancellor’s favorite daughter, Margaret Roper. In fact, no one in that jury was in the Boleyn camp; each man wanted to curry favor with the authorities or seek revenge. Sir William Kingston and Richard Staverton would soon enjoy the fruits of Norris’s offices. It all boded ill for Anne and George. As Jane waited for news, she knew that the fate of her husband and sister-in-law was largely dependent on the verdicts on the four men. If they were found guilty, then Anne and George were almost certainly doomed.

  For the nature of the charges could mean nothing less. “By sweet words, kisses, touches, and otherwise,” the queen had enticed Norris into her bed, it was alleged. They had intercourse several times, with some dates and places known and others not. She used similar techniques with Brereton, Weston, and Smeaton. Again, some specific times and venues were stated, with the phrase “and divers other days” also included. Because the men grew jealous of one another, so it was said, she gave them presents and promised to marry one of them once the king, whom she would never love “in her heart,” was dead. She went, therefore, straight from “frail and carnal lust” to planning murder. If true, this was undoubtedly treason, the king lucky to escape unharmed. It was all astonishing. But only Mark would plead guilty. The others steadfastly maintained their innocence. It availed them nothing. Once the jury obligingly returned guilty verdicts on them all, the mandatory sentence of death was imposed. The four men were led to the waiting barge for the short voyage back along the Thames to the Tower. They would emerge only to meet the executioner, and they knew that they would have very little time to prepare themselves. For the fortress’s chief officials, Constable Kingston, Sir Edmund Walsingham, the lieutenant, and Anthony Anthony, surveyor of the ordnance, there would be arrangements to be made. They would not take long.

  Once news of the judgment reached Jane, she knew that the odds against acquittal for the two principals were dramatically reduced. If the men were judged to have slept with Anne, the corollary was that she must have slept with them. She had, therefore, betrayed her husband and would deserve her fate. Despite her inherent faith in the king, Jane surely did not believe in Anne’s guilt. Even Chapuys, happy to disparage Anne if at all possible, thought that the four men had been “sentenced on mere presumption or on very slight grounds, without legal proof or valid confession.” Jane had known Anne for years. She had lived in claustrophobically close proximity to her, as had all of her ladies. That was how the court functioned. These women were constantly on hand to attend the queen’s slightest whim. To elude their vigilance and find suitable love nests would be no easy task. No, Jane, more than anyone, could appreciate that. Not, of course, that she would have the opportunity to say so. For the queen, the difficulty, as Anne said to Kingston, was how to prove herself innocent. All she could do was to deny any infidelity, unless there was a way to “open” her body to show her purity. Unfortunately for Anne, she only had words at her disposal. And she used them. When asking for the sacrament to be brought to her so that she could pray for mercy, she explained that she was eligible to do so. “For I am as clear from the Company of Man, as for Sin, as I am clear from you,” she affirmed to Kingston.

  When the time for her trial came, there were no more ramblings. She was the old spirited Anne once more, ready to defend herself. By then, she knew the full extent of the charges. Not only was she accused of adultery with the four courtiers and of conspiracy to murder the king, she was alleged to have had intercourse with her brother, George. For Henry, this was horrifyingly credible. He was overheard saying that he believed “that upwards of 100 gentlemen have had criminal connection with her.” Later, he went further, reportedly telling the bishop of Carlisle that he had had a premonition a little while ago and had written a tragedy about it all. A tragedy it was. The allegations of incest were astonishing and very graphic. Anne had tempted her brother, according to the indictment, “with her tongue in the said George’s mouth, and the said George’s tongue in hers, and also with kisses, presents, and jewels.” Then he, “despising the commands of God, and all human laws…violated and carnally knew the said Queen, his own sister.” If the trial of the four commoners had been sensational, this was spine tingling. It was no wonder that a shocked John Husee wrote to Honor Lisle, whose presents to the queen had, naturally, suddenly ceased, that he felt that every evil thing ever written against women “since Adam and Eve” was “verily nothing in comparison of that which hath been done and committed by Anne the Queen.” He was almost too ashamed “that any good woman should give ear” to her “abominable and detestable” offenses. Because of the line of Cromwell’s intense questioning, little of this was entirely unexpected by Jane. She had been allowed no choice but to “give ear.” And she knew all too well what the wily minister had dragged out of her.

  As was her rig
ht as Marquess of Pembroke, and a crowned queen, Anne would not be tried by jury but by a panel of peers. The same was true of George. This time, Jane had access to insider knowledge of every word said in their cases, for her father, Lord Morley, was among those who were to sit in judgment in what was undoubtedly the trial of the century. Thomas was excused, although as Earl of Wiltshire he would ordinarily have been present. Only a couple of days previously, he had sat with his fellow commissioners in Westminster Hall while Norris, Brereton, Weston, and Smeaton were tried but he was spared the sight of his own children as they fought to stay alive. Norfolk presided, all his family feeling rapidly dispelled. He had his own neck to protect. The Earl of Northumberland, Anne’s love in happier days, had no option but to be there too.