Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford

by Julia Fox

  So, with her marital status unchanged, Jane had to think about her next step. She had a definite choice: calm tranquillity at Blickling or the excitement of the court. The house that Jane inherited at Blickling is no longer there. All that remains is one chimney, which has been incorporated into the grand Jacobean mansion that replaced it shortly after James died, but the site, nestling in the gentle Norfolk countryside, is of course the same. It is pretty, but remote, a far cry from the noise and bustle of Henry’s palaces. And it was to Henry’s world that Jane was addicted. However, unless the king married again, there was no real place for her there. Without a husband in whose wake she could follow like a dutiful wife, the only chance for a lucrative return to court was if the king gave way to his council and there was a new queen for her to serve. That is precisely what happened.

  CHAPTER 28

  A Question of Trust

  WITH BLICKLING NOW HERS, Jane could relax. Those anxious years following George’s death were surely over. By dint of hard-nosed bargaining, she had money and property in her own right for the first time in her life. She had come of age. But for Jane, a creature of the court, the rumor that Henry was seeking a new wife was welcome. Blickling was all very well but she needed more than the peaceful existence it offered. Henry wanted a change too. His mourning for Queen Jane was not prolonged; a dutiful son of the church, he accepted that to wallow in grief was tantamount to challenging the will of God. There was still a world to enjoy, and in that world was a potential fourth wife. The French ambassador Marillac noticed Henry’s demeanor. “The king, who in some former years has been solitary and pensive,” he wrote, “now gives himself up to amusement, going to play every night upon the Thames, with harps, chanters, and all kinds of music and pastime…all his people think this a sign of his desire to marry if he should find an agreeable match.”

  And an agreeable match was found. With her mind set on a return to the privy chamber, Jane was agog for news of the identity of her new mistress. It took a while to narrow down the field. Henry had no pretty English girl waiting patiently this time, Queen Jane’s death having caught him unawares. Gossip about potential candidates intensified. Many bets were on the fetching young widow Christina of Milan, especially once Holbein’s portrait of her was seen. Even in her black mourning clothes, with a tight-fitting cap covering her hair and her hands demurely linked across her stomach, there was a hint of promise in her eyes, a suspicion of a smile about her lips. She would make a worthy wife for any man. Henry certainly thought so, but disappointingly, nothing resulted from diplomatic overtures. Nothing came of any other candidate either. Then, with the pope’s punishment of excommunication, threatened for ages, finally coming into effect, and with Charles and Francis becoming friendlier and friendlier, meeting for discussions and parting “with much love and affection,” the more complex international situation made everyone at court increasingly jittery. No one liked the idea of standing alone against the combined might of Spain, the Habsburg Empire, and France, especially with Henry’s nephew, James V of Scotland, never trustworthy, prowling on the northern border. In this tense period, Henry’s choice of the Duke of Cleves’s sister, Anne, came as a relief. Alliance with the German duchy made perfect sense. Jane had been here before: some years earlier, George had been involved in negotiations with the Schmalkaldic League, the union of German Protestant princes. Any plans Henry may have had then had failed to materialize, but the current political landscape necessitated drastic measures.

  Henry wanted this marriage and he wanted it fast, as soon as all the preliminaries could be sorted out. Allies were always valuable, particularly since he felt vulnerable at home too. There seemed to be almost constant plotting. No one knew whether the person with whom they were chatting and laughing in the tapestried corridors and paneled rooms of the royal palaces was really a traitor, planning for foreign invasion or the murder of the king.

  One particularly involved plot had recently been uncovered. The king’s once-favored choice for the archbishopric of York, Reginald Pole, who now lived in exile, had betrayed him, happy to encourage a foreign-led invasion to restore traditional Catholicism. It had been Pole’s relatives and their friends who paid the price. Lord Montague, one of the cardinal’s brothers, together with the Marquess of Exeter and Sir Edward Neville, had been arrested, put in the Tower, and brought to trial for treason. Their servants and acquaintances had been thoroughly interrogated but the most damning evidence had come from Pole’s second brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole, who was also arrested. He had almost fallen over himself in his eagerness to dredge up every communication his fellow prisoners had ever had with Reginald, together with any apparently incriminating remarks or ambiguous conversational nuances that he could remember. What was particularly staggering was the alleged involvement of Mary’s much-respected former governess, the elderly Countess of Salisbury, Richard III’s niece and mother of the Poles. Jane knew everyone implicated, from those on the fringes like the Marchioness of Exeter, never a Boleyn friend, who was questioned yet again, to the countess herself. Jane was also in a position to have insider knowledge of the various trials because her father, gaining further unwelcome experience in such matters, had been on the panel of peers who heard the cases against Montague and Exeter and, unsurprisingly, had found them guilty. Both, together with Neville, had been executed. The bewildered and bereaved elderly countess was still in her prison cell, a death sentence hovering over her, while the king magnanimously pardoned her son Geoffrey for providing such useful information. For those with a sound instinct for self-preservation, coming clean sometimes worked. The whole episode was terrifying but at least the king had escaped harm, so his loyal subjects could sleep more easily in their beds. Yet with traitors lurking behind every door, it was so difficult to be confident in the loyalty of anyone.

  The death or capture of the conspirators, though, meant that such unpleasantness could be put aside and the focus of attention could pass to the new queen and what she might be like. The bare facts were that she was twenty-four years old and was certainly a Catholic, for Cleves was not a Protestant state despite its links with states that were. The bonus was that she was supposed to be beautiful. Henry had ordered stringent checks on her appearance, such things mattering to him very much. After all, he was the one most affected; he was the one who would have to put his neck into a “great yoke.” And all reports were favorable. Those who saw her, including Henry’s envoys and some of his own councilors, praised her good looks. One went so far as to assert that she excelled the beauteous Christina “as the golden sun did the silver moon.” Keen to see for himself, Henry sent Holbein to the court of Cleves just to check. The artist’s finished portrait pleased him. Looking intently at the canvas, the king saw a young woman rather than a young girl, with soft eyes, a slightly wide nose, and a delicate mouth. Carefully nurtured by her mother, she was said to be virtuous, a good needlewoman, moderate in diet, and gentle of temper. So far, so good. It was true that she spoke only German and was no musician but no doubt both drawbacks could be remedied. He could not wait to see her. Neither could the ladies designated to attend her.

  The sooner the arrangements were made, therefore, the better. Cromwell and the council did their bit: a marriage treaty was agreed, the dowry largely waived as the duke was far from wealthy, and a niggling worry that Anne had been engaged to the son of the Duke of Lorraine soothed. With these details tended to, Anne set out for England. She came via Calais, where she was fulsomely greeted. Jane was not there but could have received the latest information from Anne Basset, who was to join her in the royal household, and whose mother, Honor Lisle, was the wife of the Lord Deputy of Calais. The queen would be “good and gentle to serve and please,” Anne Basset heard. If that was correct, life within the private apartments would be enjoyable.

  We do not know the precise date of Jane’s appointment as a lady of the privy chamber but once installed she was likely to come across several old friends and acquaintances. Her mother�
�s sister, Katherine, recently widowed by the death of Sir Piers Edgecombe, would be there, and so would young Katherine Carey, Mary Stafford’s daughter. Baynton was back in his usual role of vice-chamberlain and his wife, Isabel, in the privy chamber. There were to be new people too, including Norfolk’s niece, Catherine Howard, coincidentally Isabel Baynton’s half sister. Perhaps the missing faces would not be noticed.

  Delayed for a while in Calais by bad weather, Anne of Cleves arrived in Dover at the very end of December 1539. Elaborate plans had been drawn up for her official reception, Cromwell working overtime to make sure nothing could go wrong. He covered everything, from providing “ready money for provisions” at Dover to appointing “an honest man that can speak the languages to attend” with him. Jane’s father was not the only one to appreciate the importance of back-watching. Suffolk and his duchess were the leading nobles designated by the king to meet Anne but since Jane’s name is not on the Dover list it is unlikely that she was among those ladies deputed for the first major round of introductions. However, since formal welcomes had been set up at various stages along Anne’s route to Greenwich, and there was naturally the ubiquitous river display, Jane may well have been included in one of those ceremonies.

  But what Jane could not be sure of was the king’s reaction to his affianced bride. Indeed, even those who were there on what was to be a crucial encounter gave different versions. Officially, Henry was scheduled to see Anne for the first time at Blackheath, a large open space just to the south of Greenwich, but mindful of the etiquette due to foreign brides, and with his curiosity and anticipation getting the better of him with each minute that passed, he decided to visit her, incognito, at Rochester Castle in Kent way before she reached the outskirts of the capital. His intention was to give her a New Year’s gift on January 1. He was sure that she would recognize him despite his disguise and that the happy couple would be so entranced with each other that after their wedding they would live in connubial bliss ever after.

  The fairy-tale plan backfired. Henry turned up in the late afternoon to find Anne engrossed in watching bull-baiting through the window. She took little notice when a group of six gentlemen, wearing cloaks and hoods, came into the room. She took still less notice when one of them, a tall, profoundly corpulent stranger, approached her, kissed her, and offered her a present. Polite thanks, rather than instant recognition and protestations of love, was all the recompense he got. She was more interested in the bull-baiting. There was nothing for the incredulous king, totally unused to being “regarded…little,” to do but go outside, throw off his disguise, and reenter as himself. It was not a good start.

  While Jane was not there to witness this initial disappointment, she would come to know just how deeply disillusioned Henry actually was. Although few at the Rochester meeting realized the full extent of the king’s dismay, with some accounts stressing how amicable had been the whole occasion, the truth was that he had been horrified by his first sight of his intended wife. Later his closest aides reported their master’s reaction. Russell, the lord admiral, said how Henry was “marvelously astonished and abashed” by Anne’s lack of physical charms, an interpretation shared by Sir Anthony Browne, who observed that when Henry went to kiss Anne there was “on his countenance, a discontentment and misliking of her person.” While all was sweetness and smiles in public, for the king was only too aware of the rapprochement between Charles and Francis and was fearful of “making a ruffle in the world and driving her brother into the Emperor and the French king’s hands,” Henry was not slow to speak about his woes in private. “I see nothing in this woman as men report of her, and I marvel that wise men would make such report as they have done,” said the reluctant bridegroom. “Alas, whom should men trust?” he complained. “I promise you I see no such thing in her as hath been showed unto me of her, and am ashamed that men hath praised her as they have done, and I like her not.” He could hardly have been more plain. “What remedy?” he pleaded with Cromwell. In desperation, Cromwell suggested that she had “a queenly manner.” That was not enough. It was not a “queenly manner” that Henry was after.

  The situation rapidly deteriorated. Instead of the king’s feelings abating as he found deeper qualities to admire in Anne, all he could see was that he would have to marry, and sleep with, a woman he was finding increasingly repulsive. While Jane and the other ladies tried to break through the language barrier and get to know her, Henry started clutching at straws to find a way out. Anne’s alleged precontract with the Duke of Lorraine’s son was the obvious exit route. He could say that he dared not marry a woman who was already engaged. Having offended God with his first marriage, his conscience would not permit him to repeat his offense. It was worth a try. Anne’s brother could hardly object if a genuine impediment existed. Unfortunately, the king had to relinquish his grasp of that particular straw. While the Cleves envoys could not produce the original documents concerning the alleged betrothal, they assured Henry that no obstacle existed to their union and Anne herself affirmed this on oath. There was no instant escape. Marriage it had to be.

  The January wedding was a quiet one at Greenwich, the king pensive and resigned. “If it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing,” he told Cromwell plaintively. Anne’s ladies, probably including the “strange maidens” she had brought from her native duchy, helped her to dress that morning with special care, the usual jokes and laughter probably understood whatever languages were spoken. With her long auburn hair flowing loosely around her shoulders, a coronet of precious stones and pearls on her head, and wearing a dazzling gown of cloth of silver embroidered with glittering jewels, Anne of Cleves became Henry’s wife. The ceremony over, the newly married couple paraded through the court, Anne’s ladies walking sedately behind her. Unfortunately, we have no record of whether Jane was one of them.

  Whether she was or was not present on Anne’s wedding day, Jane was certainly present within the bedchamber in the weeks that followed, and it was to be there that the next stage in the king’s marital saga was played out. With the marital service completed, the celebratory meal eaten, and the festivities ended, Anne was undressed to await her husband. There could be no witnesses to what ensued next. In fact, if Henry is to be believed, there was nothing to witness. He could not do anything. To an anxious Cromwell, who dared to ask him next day how he “liked the queen,” the king’s response was stark: “Surely, my Lord, as ye know, I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse.” Henry convinced himself that Anne’s “belly and breasts” indicated that “she was no maid.” Once he had touched them, he “had neither will nor courage to prove the rest.” The king therefore “left her as good a maid as he found her.” His aversion continued, although nothing if not heroic, he admitted to having a couple of futile attempts at consummation.

  Only those very intimately connected with Anne and Henry knew about the lack of activity in the bedchamber. In public, a contented and united front was maintained. Jane, no stranger to river processions, would have had the opportunity to fit in yet another one a month or so after the royal wedding, as she is likely to have been one of the attendants who accompanied Anne when the king and queen moved from Greenwich to Westminster. Just as they had with Anne Boleyn, the London merchants prepared to welcome their queen into the city. The barges were decorated, their pennants flying in the breeze, the mayor and his officials donned their very best robes, their polished golden chains gleaming on their breasts, and the Tower gunners, still with Anthony Anthony in charge of the ordnance, fired off a thousand shots in salute, making a “noise like thunder.” Anne and Henry traveled in separate barges, hers no doubt the one that had once been owned by both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, while Jane was one of the ladies in the barge immediately behind that of their mistress.

  When May came around, Jane had another sense of déjà vu, as the May Day jousts began once more. Just like her former namesake, Queen Anne
was there in a place of honor. Although for her there was to be no imminent arrest or execution, the event was destined to be her farewell appearance as queen. It was the traditional extravaganza, with challengers in white velvet facing defenders who were equally richly dressed. The young bucks of the court acquitted themselves with customary bravado; Queen Jane’s brother, Thomas Seymour, took part; so did Cromwell’s son, Gregory; Norfolk’s son, the Earl of Surrey; and Thomas Culpepper, a rising star in the king’s privy chamber. Gregory Cromwell had every reason to feel especially satisfied since his father had just been created Earl of Essex and he was his sole heir. The days of the jousts passed happily enough, with Anne and her ladies being entertained one evening to a wonderful banquet overflowing with “all delicious meats and drinks,” each course introduced by a drum roll, and all eaten to the sounds of music and minstrels. Since the venue was Durham Place, with its lingering echoes of Anne and George, the event conveyed an acute sense of nostalgia for Jane Rochford.

  It was also Anne’s swan song. Within the queen’s privy apartments, those ladies with a grip on current developments had started to realize that their king had found a new love, and it was not his queen. One of their own number, Catherine Howard, petite, pretty, and appealing, had ensnared the besotted monarch and stirred his slumbering libido. There was no chance of his consummating his union with Anne now. Indeed, he had given up on that weeks ago, although for appearance’s sake, he still sometimes slept by her side, for part of the night at least. It was simply, as Jane was to discover, that nothing else happened.

  Everything came to a head in June 1540, a mere six months or so after Anne of Cleves had become Henry’s wife and when Henry had become more confident that the fragile reconciliation between Charles and Francis had reached its inevitable end. Jane, who had watched the fall of two queens, was about to see, and to contribute to, that of a third. But first there was another fall, one that must have taken Jane as much by surprise as it did so many others. On June 10, Cromwell was arrested as he walked into a meeting of the Privy Council at Westminster. In a surreal scene, Norfolk tore the St. George emblem from Cromwell’s neck as Southampton rushed to unbuckle the garter from his leg, between them stripping the minister of the most visible symbols of his meteoric rise from commoner to membership of the exclusive ranks of the Knights of the Garter. Then the man who had seemed more powerful than all of the council put together was bundled out of a side door into a waiting boat and incarcerated in the Tower, the fortress to which he had sent so many others in his heyday. He was charged with treason and heresy, surely his worst nightmare.