by Julia Fox
Three hundred years after the event, historians still debate the causes of Cromwell’s spectacular end. Perhaps his enemies combined to destroy him, perhaps the king blamed him for the failure of the Cleves marriage, perhaps Henry was simply tired of him or wanted to move on to alternative policies. Stories abounded then as they do today. All Jane could comprehend was that the man who had helped her now needed help himself. He would not get it. No one ever wanted to be associated with those in Cromwell’s position: treason could be catching. Even Archbishop Cranmer, who sometimes signed his letters to Cromwell “Your own ever assured,” dared not defend him. “I loved him as my friend, for so I took him to be,” he wrote to the king, “but I chiefly loved him for the love which I thought I saw him bear ever towards your grace.” The archbishop acknowledged that he had been wrong. “But now, if he be a traitor, I am sorry that ever I loved him or trusted him, and I am very glad that his treason is discovered in time,” he continued, “but…who shall your grace trust hereafter, if you might not trust him?” Cranmer could only “pray God continually night and day, to send such a counselor in his place whom your grace may trust, and who for all his qualities can and will serve your grace like to him, and that will have so much solicitude and care to preserve your grace from all dangers as I ever thought he had.”
Cromwell would leave his prison only to walk to the block on Tower Hill, found guilty by Act of Attainder, but not before his useful testimony on Henry’s reaction to the Cleves marriage was demanded and willingly given. Perhaps he thought frankness and cooperation might save his life, as it had for Geoffrey Pole, but he should have known his master better than that. He was not Geoffrey Pole; he had too many enemies and too many rivals. Despite his pitiful pleas for mercy, “prostrate at your majesty’s feet,” as he wrote to the king, Henry did not lift a finger to save him.
While the distraught minister lay in the Tower awaiting his fate, Anne’s marriage was drawing to its close. Jane’s response to the minister’s end is undocumented, but it would be. As Morley’s daughter, she appreciated the value of silence. Four years before, she been dragged into the repercussions of a fall equally as dramatic and sudden as Cromwell’s, and one that had touched her more closely. She had survived that; she would definitely survive this. But she would also look to the future, her future. It did not lie with Anne of Cleves. It lay at Blickling, if she wanted it to, or at court, if the king so decided. That decision was to end his union with Anne and marry the delectable Catherine Howard. Jane could not help Cromwell but she could, and did, help her king during the ensuing annulment proceedings he instituted.
Together with two other senior ladies of the bedchamber, her aunt, Lady Katherine Edgecombe, and the Countess of Rutland, Jane related during the legal process an odd conversation that they had all had with the queen that summer. When they had joked about the possibility of a new prince, Anne’s response had kindled Jane’s retort that she thought the queen was “still maid indeed.” Not so, said the queen, who had proceeded to tell them innocently that since the king kissed her night and morning she could be no virgin. She had seemed astonished to hear from the countess that more was needed before there would be a Duke of York. Perhaps the basic facts of life had passed her by, perhaps not. Even her ladies were bewildered that Anne could be so ignorant. And at least one, the countess, must have been aware before this June banter that all was not well, for Cromwell had suggested that her husband, Anne’s chamberlain, should advise the queen to try to make herself more attractive to Henry and seduce him into a little more exertion within the privacy of the marital bed.
Whatever the real extent of Anne’s understanding of her conjugal duties, the ladies’ testimony was gold dust for Henry’s case. The women confirmed his own assertion of nonconsummation, one that was also supported by the evidence of the frantically squirming Cromwell, a series of Henry’s councilors, and Drs. Butts and Chambers. Dr. Butts was quick to assert that while the king was physically unable to copulate with Anne, he was perfectly capable of doing so with any other woman. Henry had, after all, recently had two “wet dreams.”
Convocation’s assent was needed for Henry to be granted his freedom. The bench of bishops met at St. Peter’s, Westminster, in early July to consider the matter. Sitting in the octagonal Chapter House, surrounded by medieval wall paintings still glowing with color and life, and with their feet firmly planted on the tiled floor, the churchmen listened to every last salacious detail of the royal couple’s embarrassing sexual relationship. They moved on to debate the knotty problem of Anne’s precontract with the Duke of Lorraine’s son, an issue that the king persisted in believing unresolved. If he was right, it was a further nail in the coffin of his marriage. Convocation decided that he was. So, with Henry’s original unwillingness to wed Anne also brought into the equation, Convocation was quite ready to declare in his favor. The marriage was null and void, both parties free to marry elsewhere. Covos, the emperor’s principal secretary, could not resist a smile. “A very good joke of the king of England again divorcing his queen,” he wrote. “Not in vain does he pretend and assume spiritual superiority that he may at will decide upon matrimonial cases whenever he himself is concerned.”
Jane’s testimony had been useful. She was useful again, for Henry was only one of the two parties involved in the case. Anne’s consent was required too. The queen was stunned when she had been asked to move away from her husband to Richmond Palace, ostensibly as a safeguard against disease. Once there, and with Jane and her other ladies at her side since their responsibilities were not yet over, she had been visited by members of the council who explained Henry’s misgivings about the marriage and the need for Convocation to look into it. They took an interpreter with them to ensure there would be no misunderstandings. Anne soon realized that she had little choice but to accept and then, when informed by Sir Richard Rich, Suffolk, and other councilors that the marriage was annulled, she had to agree to that as well. Her initial reluctance was partly overcome by the king’s offer of two palaces, Richmond and Bletchingley; jewels; and his promise to treat her as his sister with all the privileges that status conferred. Her verbal acquiescence deemed insufficient, Anne “freely signed certain letters of consent to the said divorce.” One of the witnesses to her signature was Jane; there were some people left upon whom the king could rely. All that remained for Anne was to settle into her new role. Choosing to stay in England, where she was to spend the rest of her life, the former queen returned to Henry “the ring delivered unto her at their pretended marriage, desiring that it might be broken into pieces as a thing which she knew of no force or value.”
That ring was indeed worthless, representing a wedding that the king preferred to forget. Now all he wanted was to lavish rings, necklaces, furs, and his precious person on his beloved Catherine Howard. For Jane, this was very good news. With her erstwhile companion as her queen, and that queen needing her own ladies of the bedchamber, there should be a place for her. And that place would be back in the heart of the action, within the court that was, despite everything, her true home.
THE PATH TO THE BLOCK
CHAPTER 29
The King’s Jewel
YET ANOTHER NEW CHAPTER in Jane’s life began on July 28, 1540. On that day, the bungling executioner hacked Thomas Cromwell’s head from his body and the king, “being solicited by his Council,” married Catherine Howard, his “jewel for womanhood.” Catherine’s precise age is not recorded, but she was probably about eighteen or so, almost certainly less than twenty. Himself forty-nine, Henry was thankful to have won her and was convinced that he had found true happiness at long last. He was not to know just how brief that happiness was to be.
For little Catherine, the former lady in waiting, as she dined under a cloth of estate and was prayed for as queen, a glittering future beckoned. It was all very exciting, and very unexpected. Although she was a Howard, and therefore of good marriage potential, her father, Lord Edmund, was a younger son and frequently so fi
nancially stretched that he did not dare leave his house for fear of being accosted by his creditors. At best, young Catherine might have found herself the wife of a minor noble. She could never have dreamed of a husband such as the one she had netted. It was almost too good to be true. Her uncle Norfolk, regarded by the French ambassador as “the author” of the union, was bound to be pleased that another Howard was in Henry’s bed, especially one who was presumed to be committed to the old faith.
Catherine’s unexpected elevation was also a bonus for Jane. With the death of Cromwell, she had lost her protector and was now alone again, just as she had been at George’s death. But this time her situation was different: she had Blickling, she had rents coming in, she had status at court, and she was a respectable lady of the bedchamber. She had been useful to her king in helping him extricate himself from the unwelcome embraces of Anne of Cleves, so any debt Jane owed him for consenting to the settlement of her jointure had been paid. She had proved her worth and had fought her way back to prominence. There was no reason for her to believe that she would need a defender any longer. And she had already served alongside Catherine, so the queen was not some unknown foreign princess. She was even a sort of relation, since her father and George’s mother, Elizabeth Boleyn, had been siblings. Yes, the future looked promising for Viscountess Rochford as well.
It was true that Catherine could be difficult. One of her ladies, Mrs. Dorothy Josselyn, writing to her brother, John Gates, certainly found her so. “The Queen’s work troubles me so much and yet I fear I shall scant content her Grace,” she complained. She was not the only one to feel the full force of Catherine’s displeasure. Mary had a similar experience when the queen decided to exert her authority by interfering in her stepdaughter’s household. According to Chapuys, “The Princess did not treat her with the same respect as her two predecessors,” so Catherine punished her by taking away two of her maids. Only when Mary “found means to conciliate her” was the issue resolved and Catherine appeased. After that initial contretemps, in which the queen could claim victory, the two women rubbed along fairly amicably. Wisely, Mary sent Catherine a present for the New Year, “at which her father was pleased,” and with the queen’s gracious consent Mary was soon allowed to reside at court. She and Jane would have met on state occasions, or perhaps within the privy apartments, so their old acquaintance could be renewed.
Should Jane ever need to understand how best to please Catherine, she could follow Mary’s method, or she could emulate Anne of Cleves’s superlative behavioral exemplar. When Henry allowed Anne to visit the court, as he had promised he would, her first encounter with her supplanter might well have been sticky. That it was not was because Anne’s technique was faultless. When admitted to Catherine’s presence, Anne fell onto her knees before her ex-attendant and treated her with all the respect and deference that the diminutive queen now regarded as her due. Catherine, satisfied by Anne’s calculated display of self-abasement, “showed her the utmost kindness.” Anne was invited to supper with Henry and Catherine, and once the king had retired his two wives “danced together, and next day all three dined together.” Rounding off the highly successful visit, Catherine then gave Anne the two dogs and the ring that Henry had just given her. As her ladies probably knew, however, Catherine was to remain wary of her husband’s relationship with the German princess.
Jane was lucky. She and Catherine hit it off, so much so that it was to Jane that the queen turned when she wanted a confidante, and it was to be on Jane that she most relied. Since Henry was so besotted with Catherine, Jane might be excused for considering that she had acquired a post for life. In a way, she had. The king found Catherine enchanting. He could scarcely keep his hands off her even in public, much to the French ambassador’s amusement. “The King is so amorous of her that he cannot treat her well enough and caresses her more than he did the others,” Marillac wrote. Jane had been here before, back in those heady days when nothing had been too good or too costly for Anne Boleyn, so seeing myriad flashing stones purchased to adorn the king’s own jewel also brought back the past. There were countless brooches dotted with diamonds, rubies, and pearls; there were gold chains, gold girdles, and decorated rosaries; there was a little gold purse “enameled red, containing eight diamonds, set in goldsmith’s work.” When Catherine had chosen her motto, “No Other Wish Than His,” she could not have envisaged that Henry’s wish was to give her so much. If Jane was used to splendor, she was also used to the French fashions that Catherine reintroduced. Queen Jane’s severe, unflattering gable hoods were decidedly banished, probably to the relief of Anne Basset, who had held on to her post in the privy chamber, and who had never looked her best in them.
For Jane, then, life seemed to have turned full circle. She had managed to build up an array of possessions once more, perhaps not quite so many as she would have owned by now had Anne remained on the throne, but an impressive collection nonetheless. She tended to wear black, the accepted color for the ladies of the bedchamber, and had gowns in damask and satin. Her nightgown was black taffeta; her skirts velvet or satin. She had jewelry too, nothing like Catherine’s, of course, but of considerable value in its own right. She had a “fair brooch black enameled with six small diamonds,” and she had a brooch with an agate as well as a gold brooch on which there was an “antique” (classical) head. She had a diamond cross from which three pearls were suspended, she had pearls, she had rubies and a “flower with a ruby and a great emerald with a pearl pendant,” she had red cornelian bracelets. She had silver flagons, a silver and gilt salt, and a silver-gilt ewer. And somehow she had inveigled Henry into returning her wonderful wooden bed, with its Rochford knots and yellow and white silk furnishings. She now had red and white damask curtains as well as yellow and white sarcenet ones to go around it. There were pillows filled with down for her head and woolen quilts to keep her warm in the long winters. If she still shivered, there was also a counterpane of yellow sarcenet that was quilted and lined.
She was still a widow, of course, but her jointure gains had made her more eligible. Only in her thirties, there was always the chance that her marital status might change. Anything was possible. If it did not, or if the consequences of her first marriage had made her value her independence too much to relinquish it for the uncertainties of matrimony, she had a good career in her own right. Blickling was a peaceful retreat if she needed to escape the pressures of the court for a respite, and would offer a permanent bolt-hole for whenever she wanted to retire, but Jane was not yet ready to do that. Despite its dangers, its backbiting and intrigue, the court retained its allure, especially with Henry so devoted to his pretty little bride, and she increasingly devoted to her trustworthy lady of the bedchamber. Proximity to power was addictive.
All that was missing to complete the king’s domestic happiness, and to ensure a permanent a residence at court for Jane, was the news that Catherine was pregnant. The impotence that he had endured with Anne of Cleves now a distant memory, Henry entertained hopes that Catherine would produce a Duke of York. Then the succession would be completely secure. Rumors of her pregnancy abounded, with Marillac’s reporting in the spring of 1541 that Henry intended to have her crowned as a reward and that preparations for a coronation were already in hand. “The young lords and gentlemen of this Court are practicing daily for the jousts and tournaments to be then made,” he said. It was not to be, or not on that occasion anyway, but Catherine and her ladies all grasped that Henry would never discard her if she could give him the spare heir he craved. In time, perhaps, with stamina on his part and courage on hers, his wish might be granted.
Maybe they did make a slightly incongruous couple, however: he, tall, stout, and almost fifty; she, less than half his age and size. Catherine was brimming with vitality and exuberance while Henry was starting to feel his years. He had grown much fatter with the passage of time, so dragging his vast frame around was becoming a chore. The handsome young king that Jane remembered from the Field of Cloth of
Gold had a waist measurement of thirty-five inches. When she saw him now, his waist was fast approaching the fifty-four inches we have recorded for 1545 and he was in almost constant pain from horribly ulcerated legs. Sometimes the sores oozed pus, in which case he usually felt a little better, but sometimes they closed up and the pain almost drove him mad. “For ten or twelve days the humors which had no outlet were like to have stifled him, so that he was sometime without speaking, black in the face, and in great danger,” a French envoy had written in 1538. Then, Henry had recovered but he was constantly terrified that the wounds would close again and that he would be in the same condition as before; once this had happened, and he had had to undergo the agony of having them reopened. This was not the image that he wanted to portray to the youthful Catherine. He wanted her to view him simply as a man in his prime. Already, however, stairs were becoming awkward for him. When Sir John Russell, with whom the king and queen stayed, undertook building works in preparation for their visit to his Buckinghamshire mansion, he arranged for a special state bed, complete with cloth of gold and silver hangings and with Henry’s arms upon it, to be placed in the “lower chamber” allocated to the king. Fortunately, Henry was usually able to ride and hunt but sometimes he resorted to enclosing deer and watching greyhounds tear them to pieces rather than expending his precious energy in chasing them. He had discovered more pleasurable ways of utilizing that energy, especially if he was to impregnate his jewel of womanhood.