Jane is a liar. She gave evidence at George and Anne's trial to save the "Boleyn inheritance" (the lands, titles and wealth that George and Anne had built up), she betrays Anne of Cleves and then, when Catherine Howard falls, Jane feigns madness to try and save herself from execution.
Jane is also portrayed as a jealous and lustful woman. She tells of how "jealousy and lust brought me so low that it was my pleasure, a wicked sinful pleasure, to feel his touch on me and think of him touching her", and she talks about how she got a kick out of imagining George with his sister, Anne. This part of her character leads to her being the chief instigator of the affair between Catherine Howard and Thomas Culpeper. It is Jane who tells Culpeper that Catherine wants him, and who offers to let him into Catherine's privy chamber to talk to her while she chaperones them. When the couple do meet, Jane is a voyeur. She watches them make love and is "aroused with stolen lust."
There really is nothing to like about Jane's character in Gregory's books and it is little wonder that those who read them feel that she got her comeuppance when she was beheaded in February 1542.
Jane of The Tudors
The Jane of The Tudors series is very similar to Philippa Gregory's Jane, but because Jane is a victim of George's cruelty, the viewer can be more forgiving of her betraying the Boleyns and giving false evidence. Her statement is portrayed as an act of revenge against a wicked husband.
Later in the series, we also see Jane acting as the go-between between Catherine Howard and Culpeper. She arranges meetings between them, acts as a look out and encourages their affair. Culpeper accuses her of acting like a madam in a brothel, and it's quite an apt description. Jane is also Culpeper's lover. Although Culpeper is attracted to Catherine, he sleeps with Jane first after getting her rather tipsy on wine and then seems to use Jane as a way of getting to Catherine. Jane doesn't seem particularly bothered by this because she can derive sexual pleasure from watching Catherine and Culpeper through the keyhole.
When word comes out about Catherine's affair with Culpeper, Jane is imprisoned in the Tower of London and there she goes insane. Gregory's Jane feigns madness, but the Jane of The Tudors really is mad; we see her smearing excrement on the walls and completely losing it.
The Jane Boleyn of Non-fiction
But it's not just fiction in which Jane is portrayed badly. In the "Author's Notes" section of The Boleyn Inheritance, Philippa Gregory explains that her Jane Boleyn was "drawn from history" and that "few novelists would dare to invent such a horror as she seems to have been." She goes on to say that Jane's "jealousy and a determination to preserve her inheritance" led to her giving evidence against George and Anne, and that her evidence against Anne of Cleves could have led to Anne being beheaded. Gregory also states that Jane encouraged Catherine and Culpeper "fully understanding the fatal danger to the young queen." A horror indeed, if we are to believe Gregory.
In The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, Alison Weir writes how "most sources agree that the only evidence for incest would rest upon the testimony of Jane Parker, Lady Rochford."3 Weir cites the corroborating sources as:
• Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury - The 17th century biographer who described Jane "as the 'particular instrument' in the ruin of her husband and his sister",4 basing his account on contemporary evidence: namely Anthony Anthony's lost journal.
• Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador.
• An anonymous Portuguese account.
• The writings of Lancelot de Carles, secretary to the French ambassador.
• Jane's execution confession.
Weir goes on to describe Jane's jealousy of the close relationship between George and Anne, the unhappiness of her marriage to George, the possibility that George had "subjected Jane to sexual practices that outraged her"5 and her resentfulness towards Anne over her banishment from court after she plotted with Anne to remove a lady from court, a lady who had caught the King's eye. These reasons, along with her father Lord Morley's sympathy with the Lady Mary, could, Weir theorises, have led to Jane's betrayal of the Boleyns.
Lacey Baldwin Smith, Catherine Howard's biographer, says of Jane: "the lady was a pathological meddler, with most of the instincts of a procuress who achieves a vicarious pleasure from arranging assignations"6 and C.Coote said "the infamous lady Rochford… justly deserved her fate for the concern which she had in bringing Anne Boleyn, as well as her own husband, to the block."7 Perhaps the general public can be forgiven for judging Jane harshly, I suppose, when historians do too.
The Evidence
But did Jane Boleyn actually betray George and Anne?
No, I don't believe so; and I am not alone in thinking this way. Historian Julia Fox argues against this fallacy in her book on Jane, calling Jane "a scapegoat", and Fox's husband, historian John Guy, in a review of Alison Weir's The Lady in the Tower, points out the following problems with the sources Alison Weir uses to build her case against Jane.8 He states:
• That Lord Herbert of Cherbury was not quoting from the lost chronicle of Anthony Anthony, as Weir states, but actually quoting from his very own book.
• That Chapuys never named Jane as the witness against George and Anne
• That the Portuguese source also did not name Jane, it simply said "that person"
• That Lancelot de Carles was talking about Lady Worcester, not Jane Boleyn
• That Jane's execution confession did not exist, it was a forgery and the work of Gregorio Leti, a man known for making up stories and inventing sources
As for an unhappy marriage; well, a childless marriage is not necessarily an unhappy one. When we combine the points that John Guy makes with the fact that we have no evidence that Jane and George's marriage was unhappy, or that George was homosexual or bisexual, then we have to question these depictions of Jane. There is also no evidence that she was jealous, that she spied through keyholes, that she plotted with the Duke of Norfolk or that she slept with Thomas Culpeper; all of those claims are pure fantasy and belong only in fiction. Just as Anne and George have been maligned by fiction and history, Jane has been made into a monster and a scapegoat; "the bawd", "the infamous Lady Rochford"; and it just isn't fair or correct.
The Real Jane Boleyn
It is thought that Jane was born around 1505. Her father was Henry Parker, Lord Morley, a man who had been brought up in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mother. Jane's mother was Alice St John, daughter of Sir John St John, a prosperous and respected landowner. We know that Jane was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, we know that she played Constancy in the 1522 Chateau Vert masquerade and we know that a jointure was signed on the 4th October 1524, so it is thought that she married George Boleyn in late 1524 or early 1525. By this time, George Boleyn was a "flourishing, prosperous courtier"9 so Jane was an important woman. Although it was unlikely that it was a love match, there is no reason to think that the marriage was unhappy or that George didn't want to marry her. Contrary to popular opinion, young men and women were not forced into marriage. A couple was only supposed to become betrothed, and then married, if they liked each other. This 'like' was supposed to turn into love as the couple got to know each other better.
In April 1533, Jane and George were granted the wardship of twelve year-old Edmund Sheffield, son and heir of the late Sir Robert Sheffield and his wife Jane Stanley, daughter of George Stanley, 9th Baron Strange. It was a lucrative grant because the couple would benefit from administering Edmund's inheritance (lands in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire) during his minority.10 11 Jane used some of her wealth to act as a patroness of education by supporting scholar William Foster in his studies at King's College, Cambridge.12
Jane attended Anne Boleyn at her coronation in 1533 and she appears to have been close to Anne. Anne turned to Jane for help in 1534 when she wanted to get rid of a rival who had caught Henry's eye. This resulted in Jane being exiled from court for a time when the plan was discovered, but there is no evidence that this
caused any trouble in the women's relationship. Anne felt close enough to Jane to confide in her about Henry's erratic sexual prowess, something that Jane then told George about. Anne must have trusted Jane to talk about such an intimate subject, and one that involved the King. The evidence, therefore, points to Jane being close to both Anne and George, rather than to her being an outsider and feeling jealous of the siblings' close relationship.
When George Boleyn was arrested in May 1536, far from abandoning her husband to his fate Jane sent a message to Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London. Although this message was damaged in the Ashburnam House fire of 1731, which affected the Cottonian Library, we know that she sent it to Kingston to give her husband, asking after George and promising him that she would "humbly [make] suit unto the king's highness for him."13 We also know that George was grateful and that he replied saying that he wanted to "give her thanks".
Although some writers and historians portray Jane as being the star witness for the Crown in 1536, the evidence does not support this theory. Eustace Chapuys clearly states that there were no witnesses at the trials of George and Anne, and, as Julia Fox points out, "He had no reason to lie, every reason to gloat, if Anne's own sister-in-law had actually spoken out against her."14 George Boleyn is recorded as saying "On the evidence of only one woman you are willing to believe this great evil of me, and on the basis of her allegations you are deciding my judgement."15 Since the Crown's main piece of evidence was the Countess of Worcester's conversation with her brother regarding the Queen's inappropriate relationship with George, surely this was the "one woman" to whom George was referring? He could also have been referring to the letters of the late Lady Wingfield which were recorded by Judge John Spelman as disclosing evidence of Anne's "bawdery and lechery".16 If George had been referring to Jane then wouldn't he have said "my wife" rather than "one woman"?
Jane's name is also not mentioned in Thomas Cromwell's reports on the case against Anne and the men, or in other contemporaneous reports. As I said earlier, the account of Jane's scaffold confession was a forgery and merchant Otwell Johnson, who was present at Jane's execution, mentioned no such confession in his account. It appears that all Jane was guilty of in 1536 was talking to George about Henry's sexual problems and telling the truth when she was interrogated.
Jane survived the falls of her husband and sister-in-law, but life was not easy for her and she ended up having to beg Cromwell for help. It was he who intervened to get her jointure money from Thomas Boleyn. Jane went on to serve three more queens: Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard, and it was, of course, her service to Catherine Howard that led to Jane being executed in February 1542. It appears that Jane foolishly helped Catherine Howard have secret assignations with Thomas Culpeper, a gentleman of Henry VIII's privy chamber. We have no way of knowing the full story of Jane's involvement in Catherine's relationship with Culpeper. It could be that she was simply carrying out the Queen's orders or it could be that she was being manipulated by Thomas Culpeper. I discussed the matter with Julia Fox, Jane's biographer, who believes that Jane was persuaded to help the couple once and then was on a slippery slope because she'd already committed misprision of treason. Having already incriminated herself, it got harder and harder to back out so, instead, she just carried on and ended up digging her own grave. Jane was on her own; she had no-one to turn to for help and advice – no husband and no Thomas Cromwell to act as a go-between with her and the King. What she did was reckless and foolish, but I cannot see how her actions prove that she was "a pathological meddler" or a "procuress".
We need to question and challenge the accepted depictions of Jane Boleyn, just as we have done with Anne Boleyn. We will never know the full truth about her, but there is no need to twist the evidence or fill in the blanks by making Jane out to be a monster. If Catherine Howard's story provokes sympathy, then surely her lady deserves some of it too.
Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, was executed on 13th February 1542 with Queen Catherine Howard within the Tower of London confines. She was laid to rest in the chancel area of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, at the Tower, alongside her mistress the Queen.
Notes and Sources
1 Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl.
2 Gregory, The Boleyn Inheritance.
3 Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, 77.
4 Herbert, The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth., 474.
5 Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, 144.
6 Baldwin Smith, Catherine Howard, 154.
7 Coote, The History of England, from the Earliest Dawn of Record to the Peace of MDCCLXXXIII.
8 Guy, "The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir - Sunday Times Review."
9 Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford.
10 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6 - 1533," n. 419.8.
11 Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, 115.
12 Ibid., 120.
13 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 798.
14 Fox, "Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford - A Guest Post."
15 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 331.
16 ed. Baker, The Reports of Sir John Spelman, 71.
22. Mary Boleyn – One Big Boleyn Myth
Let me tell you a story…
Mary Boleyn was a classic English rose, taking after her mother's side of the family, whose innocence was wrecked by her father and sister. Not only was she used and abused by the French king, Francis I, and his cronies, she was pimped out to the English king and shown how to satisfy him by her sister, Anne. She was but a pawn in her family's hands.
After bearing the King two illegitimate children and losing her husband, William Carey, to sweating sickness, Mary finally found true love only to be banished from court by her spiteful sister, who was now queen and married to Mary's former love, Henry VIII. So cruel and ambitious was Mary's sister that she even stole Mary's son from her. Mary chose true love over ambition and was thus saved from the awful events of May 1536. Her forgiving nature and angelic disposition, however, led to her visiting the King and pleading for Anne's life. Unfortunately, Anne was not pardoned and was executed. However, Mary was able to steal Elizabeth from court and take her away from all the corruption there.
It's a fairy tale with glaring holes and blatant inaccuracies in it, but that's the version of Mary that some people believe in and it's the version of Mary promoted by books like Karen Harper's The Last Boleyn, Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. But what do we actually know about Anne Boleyn's sister?
Not a lot.
Mary Boleyn came up in a conversation I was having with the late historian Eric Ives. Ives commented that what we knew about Mary Boleyn "could be written on the back of a postcard with room to spare", and he is right. Despite the fact that two biographies have been written about her, that she is the subject of countless online articles and the heroine of at least two novels, Mary is a puzzle. The biographies are full of theories about her and the facts are lacking; that's just the way it is. What we think we know about her is probably based on fiction or theory, rather than on hard fact. What we don't know about her could fill a book; what we do know would fit on that postcard mentioned by Eric Ives.
So, what are the cold hard facts about Mary Boleyn?
• Mary was born in the late 15th/early 16th century. We don't even know her birthdate.
• She was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn and Elizabeth Howard, sister of Queen Anne Boleyn and niece of the Duke of Norfolk. She had brothers named George, Thomas and Henry.
• She served Mary Tudor in France in 1514 and was back in England by 4th February 1520, when she married William Carey, a member of the King's household. The King was present at the ceremony.1
• Mary had some kind of relationship with Henry VIII in the 1520s. It is not known how long it las
ted.
• She played Kindness in the Chateau Vert pageant of March 1522.2
• Mary was pregnant at least three times and had two surviving children, Catherine and Henry Carey.
• Her first husband, William Carey, died of sweating sickness on 22nd June 1528 and her sister, who was at that time involved with Henry VIII, was granted wardship of Henry Carey, Mary's son, in July 1528.3 Mary was a widow and this agreement helped to provide her son with an education. Anne neither adopted nor stole Mary's son; she simply provided for him.
• Henry VIII intervened with Thomas Boleyn on Mary's behalf, prompting him to make provision for her at the end of June 1528.4 In December 1528, Henry assigned Mary an annuity of £100 (£32,000), which had once been paid to her husband.5
• Mary was at court at New Year 1532 and 1534. In 1532,6 "Mary Rocheford" gave Henry VIII a shirt with a blackwork collar and he gave her a piece of gilt plate. Her name also appears on the lists of New Year's gifts for 1534. The list for 1533 is missing.
• Mary accompanied the King and Anne Boleyn on their trip to meet Francis I in Calais in October 1532.7
• Mary served Anne in 1533 and attended her at her coronation.8
• She married William Stafford in secret in 1534 and turned up at court pregnant in September 1534.9 This was when she was banished from court for marrying without Anne's permission and when her allowance was cut off by Thomas Boleyn. She was forced to write to Thomas Cromwell for financial help.
• Her marriage to Stafford was a love match. In her letter to Cromwell, she wrote "I loved him as well as he did me… I had rather beg my bread with him than to be the greatest queen in Christendom."10
The Anne Boleyn Collection II: Anne Boleyn & the Boleyn Family Page 23