Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford

Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (c. 1505 – February 13 1542) was an English noblewoman who lived in the reign of Henry VIII. She was a sister-in-law of Henry's second wife Anne Boleyn and lady-in-waiting to his fifth wife Catherine Howard, with whom she was executed.

Early life and marriage

Born Jane Parker, she was the daughter of Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley and Alice St John (the eldest daughter of Sir John St John). She was born in Norfolk, England around the year 1505 and her family was wealthy, well-connected, politically active and respected members of the English upper-classes. Her father was an intellectual, with a great interest in culture and education. [ Julia Fox, "Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford," p. 120-1 (2007) ] She was sent to Court in her early teens, certainly before her fifteenth birthday, where she joined the household of the King Henry VIII's wife, Katherine of Aragon. She is recorded as having accompanied the royal party on the famous state visit to France in 1520, which was known as "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." [ Fox, "Jane Boleyn," pp. 16 - 20 ]

Nothing is recorded of Jane's appearance and there is no surviving portrait which can be identified as her. However, she must have been pretty, given that she was chosen to appear as one of the lead actresses/dancers in the prestigious "Château Vert" masquerade at Court in 1522, since it was inconceivable that any of the seven ladies cast as the seven leading female virtues would have been unattractive. Two of the other performers included Jane's future sisters-in-law, the Boleyn girls. [ Julia Fox, "Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford," p. 28 (2007) ] In late 1524 or early 1525, she was married to George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, the brother of Anne Boleyn, later the second queen of King Henry VIII. At this stage, however, Anne was unattached to the King, although she was already one of the leaders of fashionable society. One historian writes that Anne was "the perfect woman courtier... her carriage was graceful and her French clothes were pleasing and stylish; she danced with ease, had a pleasant singing voice, played the lute and several other musical instruments well, and spoke French fluently... A remarkable, intelligent, quick-witted young noblewoman... that first drew people into conversation with her and then amused and entertained them. In short, her energy and vitality made her the center of attention in any social gathering." [ R.M. Warnicke, "The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family politics at the court of Henry VIII," p. 59 (1989)] These first encounters with the more sophisticated and glamorous Anne helped create the legend that Jane instantly hated and resented her. However, if this was true, there were no signs of it at the time or for several years to come.

As a wedding present, the King gave Jane and George the manor of Grimston in Norfolk. [Alison Weir, "The Six Wives of Henry VIII," p.159] Since she was Viscountess Rochford through her marriage, she was usually known at Court (and by subsequent historians) as "Lady Rochford." As the Boleyn family's wealth and influence increased, the couple were given Beaulieu Palace as their chief residence, which George and Jane decorated with a lavish chapel, a tennis court, a bathroom with hot-and-cold running water, imported carpets, mahogany furniture and their own large collection of silverware. Their marital bed was draped in cloth of gold with a white satin canopy, linen quilts and a yellow counterpane. [ M.L. Bruce, "Anne Boleyn," p. 35 (1972); J. Fox, "Jane Boleyn," pp. 137-9. Technically speaking, Beaulieu Palace was never formally given as a gift to George and Jane Boleyn, unlike Grimston Manor. Beaulieu had initally belonged to the Boleyns as one of their country retreats (see Bruce, p. 33), before they sold it to the King who spent over £17,000 lavishly refurbishing and expanding it. In the early 1530s, it became the main residence of his eldest daughter Mary Tudor, but when she was disgraced and banished to Hatfield, George Boleyn was given the palace to live in, although the deeds were never formally signed over.]

Traditionally, George and Jane's marriage has been portrayed as an unhappy one. One modern historian has suggested that George was homosexual, thus explaining why the marriage was so miserable. [Professor R.M. Warnicke, "The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family politics at the court of Henry VIII," pp. 215 - 7 (1989)] In many novels and dramas based on this period, George is shown as being frequently and bisexually unfaithful to his wife, with a variety of lovers. [(Various spoilers') For example in P. Gregory's "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Boleyn Inheritance," George is involved in a long-term affair with Sir Francis Weston, with whom he is genuinely in love, as well as having countless female lovers; in B. Purdy's "Vengeance is Mine," George openly attempts to seduce Sir Francis Weston in front of Jane and she later spies on him having a sexual encounter with Mark Smeaton. In the Showtime series "The Tudors," George has several female lovers before his marriage, but afterwards starts a long-term but troubled liaison with Mark Smeaton.] British historian Alison Weir concludes that the marriage was unhappy, principally because of George, although she concludes that the exact nature of his sexuality is difficult to ascertain: - " [A] talented young man ... He was very good-looking and very promiscuous. In fact, according to George Cavendish, he lived in 'bestial' fashion, forcing widows, deflowering virgins... [and] it has been suggested he indulged in homosexuality activity too, but there is no evidence for this, although he may well have committed buggery with female partners..." [ Alison Weir, "Henry VIII: King and Court," p. 248 (2002) ] However, Jane's most recent biographer disagrees with both arguments and concludes that the exact nature of the marriage is unclear, but suggests that it was by no means unhappy. [ Julia Fox, "Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford," pp. 33-44 (2007)]

The exact nature of her friendship with her royal sister-in-law is not precisely clear either and there is absolutely no evidence on what she thought of her other sister-in-law, Mary Boleyn, who had been at Court with Jane since they were both teenagers. It is generally assumed that Jane was not overly fond of Anne, allegedly because of Jane's jealousy of her. Regardless, Jane plotted with her sister-in-law Anne Boleyn to banish one of the King's young unnamed mistresses from Court in 1534. When the King discovered her involvement, Lady Rochford was herself exiled for a few months.

After eleven years of marriage, George Boleyn was arrested in May 1536 and imprisoned in the Tower of London, accused of having had sexual intercourse with his sister, the queen. It was Jane's supposed testimony which helped convict him of incest and treason, stating that she believed that he and his sister Anne had been involved in a sexual relationship since the winter of 1535, thus strongly implying that George had been the biological father of a foetus Anne had miscarried early in 1536. There was no truth in these rumours, according to the vast majority of contemporary witnesses, but they provided the legal pretext which the Boleyns' enemies needed to send Lord Rochford to the block.

Jane's sensational testimony against her husband may have been an act of malice, possibly due to her jealousy of Anne. Certainly this was the conclusion formed at the time and for many generations afterwards. It forms the foundation of the storyline in the two modern novels based on Jane's life, "Vengeance is Mine" and "The Boleyn Inheritance", by Philippa Gregory, although the historical accuracy of these is in some doubt. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boleyn_Inheritance] In both novels, Jane's vicious resentment of Anne leads to her psychological disintegration - she is portrayed as being mentally deranged and obsessively jealous in "Vengeance is Mine" and almost sociopathically amoral in "The Boleyn Inheritance." In both, she is also presented as sexually voyeuristic and given to petty spying.

More seriously, subsequent generations of historians also believed that Jane's testimony against her husband and sister-in-law in 1536 was motivated by spite rather than any actual belief in their guilt, hence her generally unfavourable historical reputation. Within a generation, George Wyatt, whose father and aunts had known the Boleyns personally, described Jane as a "wicked wife, accuser of her own husband, even to the seeking of his own blood." ["The Papers of George Wyatt,' ed. D.M. Loades] A century later, an English historian asserted that the reason Jane had testified against them was based purely on her "inveterate hatred" of Queen Anne, which sprang from jealousy at Anne's superior social skills and George's preference for his sister's company to his wife's. [P. Heylin, "Affairs of Church and State in England during the Life and Reign of Queen Mary," pp. 91-3 (1660)] Georgian and Victorian histories pointed to Jane's own eventual violent death in 1542 to suggest that moral justice had triumphed because "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". [C. Coote, "The History of England, from the Earliest Dawn of Record to the Peace of MDCCLXXXIII," 9 vols., (1791-8)]

This negative view of Jane has been rejected by her only modern-day biographer, Julia Fox, who believes that Jane actually enjoyed a warm and supportive relationship with Queen Anne and that it was the terror of the palace coup against the Boleyns in 1536 that provoked Jane's testimony, which was twisted by her family's enemies anyway. On the fall of the Boleyns, Fox writes:-

"Jane Rochford found herself dragged into a maelstrom of intrigue, innuendo and speculation. For when Cromwell sent for Jane, he already had much of what he needed, not only to bring down Anne and her circle, but to make possible the king's marriage to Jane Seymour... The questions to Jane" [Rochford] "would have come thick and fast... Faced with such relentless, incessant questions, which she had no choice but to answer, Jane would have searched her memory for every tiny incident that occurred to her..." [But] "Jane had not been quick to tell tales, but she had buckled under the pressure of relentless questioning... And it was her weakness under interrogation that gave her future detractors - happy to find a scapegoat to exonerate the king from the heinous charge of callously killing his innocent wife - the ammunition to maintain that it was her evidence that had fooled Henry and destroyed Anne and George...". [Julia Fox, "Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford," pp. 190-1, 324 (2007)]

George Boleyn was beheaded on Tower Hill on May 17 1536 before a large crowd, his final speech was chiefly concerned with promoting his newfound Protestant faith. Four other men, one of them a commoner, were also executed alongside him, also accused of having been Anne's lovers. Only the commoner, a musician, had confessed and it was reported that he had been savagely tortured into doing so. [ David Starkey, "Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII," p. 569 (2004) ] (Members of the aristocracy and gentry could not legally be tortured.) Anne died two days later, beheaded by a French swordsman, within the walls of the Tower of London. Historian Julia Fox describes Anne's death as "her ultimate performance." [Fox, "Jane Boleyn," p. 205 ] Anne's poise and courage at the scaffold were much commented upon and public opinion in the weeks and months after often "made of Anne a persecuted heroine, bright with promise and goodness as a young woman, beautiful and elegant." [Carolly Erickson, "Mistress Anne," p. 259 (1984)] It is not known whether Jane witnessed the execution of either her husband or her sister-in-law, but the posthumous sympathy Anne aroused in many (particularly sentimentalists) meant that many of those linked to her fall were cast in the roles of villains. According to historian Julia Fox, this mindset explains how Jane's actions were construed as being those of a cruel and jealous intriguer. [ Fox, "Jane Boleyn," p. 324 ]

Whatever the truth of Jane's involvement in the fall of the Boleyns, or her feelings towards it, the immediate aftermath was very hard for her, both socially and financially. The lands which the Boleyns had built up during Anne Boleyn's reign and over the last four generations, including the titles Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormonde were to pass through the male line only, and thus were lost to the family with George's death. Jane continued to hold the title of Viscountess Rochford but without a son she could not really benefit from what remained of the Boleyn family fortune. (Modern rumours that George Boleyn, dean of Lichfield, a colourful character, was the child of Jane and George are now thought to be false.) [Fox, "Jane Boleyn," p. 214]

Later political intrigues

Following her husband's execution, Lady Rochford was absent from court for a time, during which she spent much of her time attempting to stabilise her financial position, which she did through negotiations with her father-in-law, father, but mainly with Thomas Cromwell, the king's chief minister. The Boleyns eventually allocated her the sizable annual pension of £100, precisely what they had given their eldest daughter Mary, when she had been widowed eight years earlier. [ Fox, "Jane Boleyn," p. 218 ] It was nowhere near the amount she had commanded when she had been sister-in-law to the queen-consort, but it was enough to finance a moderate upper-class lifestyle, essential for her return to life at Court, which was something Jane worked doggedly for throughout 1536 and 1537. It is unknown when she returned to court, but she was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Jane Seymour, which means she probably returned within a year of her husband's death. (Seymour died within eighteen months of becoming queen.) [ Fox, "Jane Boleyn," p. 219 ] As a viscountess, she was allowed to bring a number of her own servants with her, lodge in the palace, and be addressed as "Lady Rochford". Fine meals were provided for her every day from the budget of the queen's household. [ Fox, "Jane Boleyn," p. 228 ]

Following Jane Seymour's death, the King subsequently married a German princess, Anne of Cleves and Lady Rochford would later testify in July 1540 to aid the King's divorce from her, stating that his queen had confided in her that their marriage had never been consummated. This allowed the king to annul the marriage with Anne of Cleves and marry his teenage mistress, Catherine Howard.

Lady Rochford kept her post as lady-in-waiting to the new queen and exerted considerable influence over her, eventually becoming one of her favourites. When the teenaged queen grew bored with her aged and obese husband, it was Lady Rochford who helped organise secret meetings between Queen Catherine and the handsome courtier Thomas Culpepper. Catherine Howard later confessed to having been unchaste before her marriage, however there is some doubt as to whether or not Catherine's relationship with Culpepper was sexually consummated. The affair progressed with Lady Rochford's help throughout the royal tour of the North in 1541, but Queen Catherine's past was uncovered in the autumn and investigation was launched into her private life. At first, the queen was detained in her apartments and then eventually placed under house arrest at Syon Abbey, a disused convent far from Court. Her confidantes and favourites were questioned and their rooms searched; many of the servants and ladies-in-waiting recalled Lady Rochford's suspicious behaviour with Catherine and Culpepper, with the result that Jane was herself detained for questioning. Subsequently, a love letter from Catherine to Culpepper was discovered and it explicitly mentioned Jane's role in arranging their meetings. This was a crime of misprision of treason, which carried the death penalty in Tudor England. Jane was taken to the Tower of London and imprisoned there for several months, whilst the government decided how and when to proceed against the accused.

Downfall and execution

During her imprisonment in the Tower, she was interrogated for many months, but as she was an aristocrat she was not tortured. Under psychological pressure, however, she seems to have suffered a full nervous breakdown and by the beginning of 1542 was pronounced insane. [ A. Weir, "Henry VIII: King & Court," p. 455-6 (2002) ] Her 'fits of frenzy' meant that legally she could not stand trial for her role in facilitating the queen's adultery, but since he was determined to have her punished, the King implemented a law which allowed the execution of the insane. [ "Calendar of State Papers: Spanish" ] Jane was thus condemned to death by an Act of Attainder (that is, without trial) and the execution date was set for February 13 1542, the same day as Queen Catherine Howard's.

The Queen died first, apparently in a weak physical state, although she was not hysterical. Jane, who had been on the scaffold to watch the girl's death, then spoke before kneeling on the just-used scaffold. Despite her nervous collapse over the last five months, was calm and dignified and both women won mild posthumous approval for their behaviour. One eyewitness, a merchant named Ottwell Johnson wrote that their 'souls [must] be with God, for they made the most godly and Christian end.' ["Original Letters," ed. Ellis, 1st series II, pp. 128-9 (LP XVII, 106.) ] The French ambassador Marillac merely stated that Jane gave a 'long discourse'; Johnson says that she apologised for her 'many sins,' but neither man's accounts supports the later legend that she spoke at length about her late husband or sister-in-law. According to Alison Weir, the dead queen was not much more than seventeen at the time of her death and Jane was about thirty-six. [ Weir, "Henry VIII," p. 458 ]

The execution was carried out with a single blow of the axe and she was buried in the Tower of London alongside Catherine Howard, and very close to the bodies of Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn.

In fiction and media

Lady Rochford has appeared in numerous novels, especially those on Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. As noted earlier, "Vengeance Is Mine" by Brandy Purdy is written from Lady Rochford's viewpoint. She also features in Robin Maxwell's "The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn", Suzannah Dunn's "The Queen of Subtleties" and briefly in Margaret George's "The Autobiography of Henry VIII". Jane's character is also mentioned in Wendy J. Dunn's "Dear Heart, How Like You This?" which is based on the life of the poet Thomas Wyatt. Rochford is a minor character in "Sovereign," the third installment of C. J. Sansom's Shardlake series of murder mystery novels, set in 16th century England. A larger role is given to Lady Rochford in Jean Plaidy's novel "The Rose Without a Thorn." Jane appears in the historical novel "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory, which tells the story of her other sister-in-law, Mary Boleyn. One of its sequels is "The Boleyn Inheritance", which casts Lady Rochford as one of its lead characters and its central villain. It details the final three years of her life and her involvement with Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard.

In the 1971 BBC series "The Six Wives of Henry VIII", Lady Rochford was played by Sheila Burrell. She appeared in three episodes; those on Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Catherine Howard. She was presented as a cold and manipulative woman, whose main pleasures in life were social climbing and plotting.

In the 2003 British 2-part television drama "Henry VIII", Lady Rochford was played by British actress Kelly Hunter. She appeared opposite Helena Bonham Carter as Anne Boleyn, Ray Winstone as Henry VIII and Emily Blunt as Catherine Howard. In the film adaptation of Philippa Gregory's novel "The Other Boleyn Girl", Jane Boleyn (played by Juno Temple) was a minor character. In both these representations, Jane was shown as being a political tool in the hands of her husband's uncle, the duke of Norfolk, although the presentation of her in "The Other Boleyn Girl," was more sympathetic.

Jane is also represented on season two of the Showtime series "The Tudors," by actress Joanne King opposite Irish actor Padraic Delaney as her husband George. In this version, their marriage is miserable, with both of them being pressured into it by their parents and Jane finding it increasingly humiliating to put up with her husband's gay love affair with Mark Smeaton. They are shown frequently arguing and there is one incident of marital rape. However, Jane is not shown as hating Anne and so her betrayal of the Boleyns is motivated by the fact that her hatred of George is the greatest motivating force in her life at that time. As of yet, "The Tudors" has not progressed to the career of Catherine Howard.

References