However, it has been argued that her posthumous reputation is unjust and overlooks some important facts, making her a scapegoat for historians. The aim of the saga is to try to tell the story through Jane’s eyes. This first book aims to show how Jane was introduced to the intrigue of the Tudor court, a world that she would never quite escape. Her fellow lady-in-waiting, Anna Maria, is a fictional character.
Around the time that Jane Parker joined the court, there were contemporary rumours that the King did have an affair with a mystery lady only referred to as “Mistress Parker”. It hasn’t been confirmed who this lady was, but both Jane and her mother, Alice, have been put forward as possible candidates. Even though neither of the two women has been proven to be the mistress, at the same time, neither of them have been ruled out.
I don’t believe Jane ever had an affair with the King. Even though she would have been considered a young woman of child-bearing age at this time, I think it’s still very likely that she may have been seen as too young to be his mistress. However, I do believe that her mother Alice should not be ruled out.
The affair took place after the King’s affair with Elizabeth Blount and before his affair with Mary Boleyn, which was around the same time that Jane Parker joined his court. Also, the nature of court politics has to be taken into consideration, where women could be used as a way of helping their family to achieve court positions. This was later seen with Anne and Mary Boleyn, whose close involvement with the King gave many benefits to the Boleyn family. To get Jane into the court in the first place, the Parkers would have had to have found some edge over the other competing noble families, who also wanted their daughters in the court serving Catherine of Aragon.
Therefore, given the timing of Jane’s entry into the court and the nature of court politics, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that Alice had an affair with the King. Who knows what the Parkers would have resorted to in order to get a position for their daughter at court, even if this had meant Henry Parker, Lord Morley willingly allowing his own wife into the King’s bed.
After Jane’s execution in February 1542, even though her parents could not openly mourn her, there is evidence to show that they mourned for her in private. As a tribute to her daughter, her mother, Alice, made a donation towards the cost of the bells of the church of St. Giles at Great Hallingbury, Essex, where Jane had grown up. Her father, Henry Parker, on the other hand, presented a New Year gift in 1543 to the King.
Henry presented to the King a decorated manuscript describing the sacrifice of Polyxena, the daughter of Hecuba and Priam, at the fall of Troy. In the manuscript, the translation is accurate. However, the way in which Henry had described in particular Polyxena’s sacrifice does give an indication of Henry’s true feelings. He described Polyxena as offering her “neck” to Pyrrhus, Achilles’ son, “with a deep and constant heart” to “satisfy for another’s woman’s offence”, the other woman being either possibly Hecuba or Helen. However, crucially, it was Polyxena’s throat - not her neck – that was cut. When Jane was executed, she had followed Katherine Howard, who had been unfaithful to the King, to the scaffold and faced the axe with “constancy” as described by eyewitness, Ottwell Johnson. The way in which Henry had made this subtle change of word from “throat” to “neck” is definitely an unmistakable reference to his own daughter’s fate, who on the scaffold had also died with a “deeply constant heart” – or as Johnson described, with “constancy”, as a result of the offence of another woman, who in Jane’s case was Katherine Howard. There is no doubt that this Henry’s secret tribute to his daughter.
The development and deterioration of Jane’s relationships with Anne, Mary and George Boleyn are themes that I will explore in more detail in the next books.
Bibliography
The following books have been very helpful in helping me to write “The Lady Rochford Saga”:
“A Brief History of the Tudor Age” – Jasper Ridley, Robinson, 2002.
“Anne Boleyn” – Joanna Denny, Portrait, 2004.
“Anne Boleyn – Fatal Attractions” – G.W. Bernard, Yale, 2010.
“Anne Boleyn – Henry VIII’s Obsession” – Elizabeth Norton, Amberley Publishing Plc, 2008.
“Catherine of Aragon – Henry’s Spanish Queen” – Giles Tremlett, Faber and Faber Ltd, 2011.
“Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford” – Julia Fox, Phoenix, 2007.
“Katherine Howard – A Tudor Conspiracy” – Joanna Denny, Piatkus Books Ltd, 2008.
“Ladies In Waiting – From the Tudors to the Present Day” – Anne Somerset, Castle Books, 2004.
“Mary Boleyn – ‘The Great and Infamous Whore’” – Alison Weir, Jonathan Cape, 2011.
“Mary Tudor – England’s First Queen” – Anna Whitelock, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2009.
“Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII” – David Starkey, Vintage, 2003.
“The Lady in the Tower – The Fall of Anne Boleyn” – Alison Weir, Jonathan Cape, 2009.
“The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn” – Eric Ives, Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
“The Mistresses of Henry VIII” – Kelly Hart, The History Press, 2010.
“The Other Tudors: Henry VIII’s Mistresses and Bastards” – Philippa Jones, New Holland Publishers Ltd, 2009.
“Thomas Cromwell – The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII’s Most Notorious Minister” – Robert Hutchinson, Phoenix, 2007.
“Underground London: Travels Beneath the City Streets” – Stephen Smith, Abacus, 2007.
“Whitehall – The Street that Shaped a Nation” – Colin Brown, Pocket Books, 2009.
The Lady Rochford Saga Part 1: Into the Ranks of the Deceived Page 7