Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (2 page)

It was all so different from just seven weeks earlier in 1511 when his birth was announced on New Year’s Day. His parents were King Henry VIII of England and his queen, Katherine of Aragon. He was their first living child. They were still young, the king not yet twenty, although Katherine was almost six years older, and both were delighted that the succession was now assured. The boy seemed healthy; there was every reason to believe that he would be joined by brothers and sisters in due course. Henry was so grateful, he rode to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, Norfolk, to give thanks, a journey of about two hundred miles. Bonfires were lit in the streets of London to celebrate the birth; free wine provided for some lucky revelers; the happy news proclaimed throughout the kingdom and to the royal courts of Europe. The child was christened Henry after his father and grandfather, the first Tudor monarch.

In the second week of February, Henry VIII and Katherine attended two days of magnificent jousts in the child’s honor at the palace of Westminster. The queen presided over the tournament serenely, secure in the knowledge that she had fulfilled her primary function as consort by producing a son. On the second day, she presented the prizes to the victors, including one to her husband, for Henry joined the lists as the gallant “Loyal Heart.” The chief nobles of the land were all there. No one imagined that the little prince would die just ten days later and would lie in a grave not far from the tiltyards.

Nor could anyone have known then that Henry and Katherine would become only too familiar with grief. The king at first tried to hide his sorrow and comfort the queen with thoughts of the family they would one day have, but despite her numerous pregnancies and no matter how many long hours she spent in prayer, Katherine only managed to give birth to one child who lived to grow up. And that was a girl, Princess Mary. What use was she in a masculine age when prowess on the battlefield could decide the success or ruin of a dynasty?

Henry understood this only too well. There was little he would not do to gain the son he needed. In the process, his country was changed forever and few of his subjects were untouched. And some were more affected than others. One of the knights who had jousted with the king on that carefree day and who later helped carry the body of the tiny child was Sir Thomas Boleyn, a courtier who was very much in favor with his sovereign. Thomas and his wife, Elizabeth Howard, had two daughters and a son. The girls’ names were Anne and Mary, and their brother was George. When the mourners entered Westminster Abbey on that raw February day, these children were playing with their attendants. So was the little girl, Jane Parker, who would one day marry George Boleyn. They grew up blissfully unaware that the direction of their lives and even their ultimate fate would be so determined by the death of a prince they had never seen. Those four children were not to know that one would become a queen, one would eventually lead a life of relative obscurity, three would face the headsman’s blade and that Jane’s reputation would become tarnished with tales of adultery, incest, and betrayal.

T
HE
E
ARLY
Y
EARS

CHAPTER
1

Childhood

I
T WAS TIME TO GO.
The horses shifted and stamped restlessly. They always seemed to know when a long journey was imminent. The carts were laden with fashionable clothes, domestic items, everything needed to make life comfortable. Servants and escorts were ready too. For Lord Morley’s daughter, Jane Parker, a new life was about to begin. She rode out toward London, leaving her family home at Great Hallingbury behind.

Until now, the Tudor mansion built by Lord Morley had been her world. The solid, red-bricked house replaced an earlier Morley dwelling that had nestled in the same Essex village for over three hundred years. It was huge, a magical place for giggling children to hide and play. Scattered among the richly carved oak furniture and plate inside the building were many reminders of Lord Morley’s mother, Alice Lovel. When she died in 1518, Alice made generous bequests to her son. Lord Morley could sleep in the bed of cloth of gold and tawny velvet she left him. He could sit in her “best chair,” which stood in the long gallery that Morley equipped with expensive linenfold paneling and tall, graceful windows. Alice’s gilt bowl emblazoned with her own coat of arms as well as that of her first husband’s was on display for all to see. An even older and more precious heirloom was the special cup with its gilt cover, which Alice said was “gotten” by her ancestors. That too was on view. One of the exquisitely embroidered wall hangings also came from her. Lord Morley had been allowed to choose whichever one he wanted from her estate. Everything fitted perfectly into his newly constructed home, which was one of the finest in the county. Its grounds were impressive too. If the weather was fine, Jane roamed happily outside in the carefully tended gardens, which stretched for over two acres. There was an orchard to provide apples, pears, and quinces for the quince marmalade that everyone loved. There was a pond surrounded by trees and stocked with fish. There was a long brick stable block and hay loft, so necessary for the Morley horses, surmounted by tall red Tudor chimneys. Whether Great Hallingbury (or Hallingbury Morley, as her father preferred to call it) was snuggling under thick snow or basking in the warm sunshine of a summer’s afternoon, the setting was idyllic, especially during those few precious years of childhood when time passes slowly and growing up seems so far away.

Just a short walk across the fields from the house was the parish church of St. Giles. It is still standing. Built largely of flint and limestone, and with a square bell tower, the church was small and intimate. The nave, forty-five feet long, with circular windows set deeply into the walls, led into the chancel through a round arch constructed of Roman bricks, for there had once been a Roman site here. It was probably in this pretty church, so much the heart of the village, that Jane was baptized. About the year 1505, the tiny girl was carried to the porch of St. Giles by her mother’s midwife. Lady Morley was not present as it was customary for mothers not to reenter society until they had been churched or purified about forty days after giving birth. With Jane’s godparents at her side, the midwife gently took her inside for the baptism itself. There, at the stone font, before the richly carved rood screen and amid the painted walls and brightly colored statues of saints, the baby was welcomed into the great Catholic fold. Lord and Lady Morley knew how important it was to have babies received into the protection of the church as quickly as possible after their birth. Life was unpredictable and diseases often struck without warning; they did not want their little daughter to fall into limbo, the dreadful nothingness that awaited the souls of unbaptized children. Everything, therefore, was correctly done. The priest blessed Jane with holy oil on her shoulders and chest, on her right hand and on her forehead. Salt was placed into her mouth so that she would be “freed from all uncleanness, and from all assault of spiritual wickedness.” She was dipped three times into the sacred water in the font. She was anointed with holy chrism. The godparents, whose names are lost to us, made their promises. They vowed to ensure that Jane’s mother and father kept her “from fire and water and other perils” and to be certain that she knew “the Pater noster, Ave and Creed, after the law of all holy church.” They told the priest the name chosen for her: she was christened Jane, possibly after her father’s sister, another Jane Parker. Family ties were always important.

As she rode away from these familiar surroundings, Jane knew just how important those ties were. She had every reason to feel pride in her lineage. Her father, Sir Henry Parker, Lord Morley, was a peer of the realm. He owned lands in Norfolk, Buckinghamshire, and Herefordshire as well as in Essex. He came from ancient stock. His ancestors had played their part in tumultuous events over the centuries, helping to quell the Peasants’ Revolt and fighting for king and country in the Hundred Years’ War against England’s traditional enemy, France. Yes, Jane could feel proud.

Of course, she knew it could all have been otherwise. The family lands and title came through Jane’s grandmother, Alice Lovel. Alice’s brother, a previous Lord Morley, died in Flanders fighting for Edward IV. However, while he had died a hero, he also died without children so his entire estate went to Alice. Girls sometimes had their uses. But Alice’s first marriage, to Sir William Parker, Jane’s grandfather, brought the family close to disaster: Sir William Parker fought on the wrong side at the Battle of Bosworth. He supported the doomed Richard III against Henry Tudor, the victorious Henry VII. Sir William survived the battle but the new king never really trusted him. His son, the young Henry Parker, the future Lord Morley and Jane’s father, was fortunate to have been brought up in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII’s mother.

Stern and formidable she might be, but Lady Margaret was loyal to those she took under her wing. She was particularly concerned that the little boy should receive what she felt was his due, especially when his mother remarried after Sir William’s death. Lady Margaret paid five hundred marks (just under four hundred pounds) to Alice’s new husband, Sir Edward Howard, to make sure that young Henry Parker kept some family land, presumably at Great Hallingbury. Sir Edward adhered to the bargain and also remembered his stepson in his will of 1512. He bequeathed the manor of Morley Hall in Norfolk to his wife, Alice, for her lifetime, after which it would pass to Jane’s father. The legacy did not come without conditions, however. In exchange, Morley was required to give land worth ten marks a year to the prior and convent of Ingham in Norfolk or forfeit Morley Hall to them. Morley was lucky that Alice and Sir Edward had no children to complicate the situation even more. Sir Edward had sired two bastards for whom he did his best to provide: he asked the king to choose one; the other was allocated to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Howard hoped their new guardians would be “good” lords to his sons, but as an extra safeguard he left the boys money to help them set “forth in the world.”

This did not, of course, affect Lord Morley or his inheritance. In fact, as far as Jane’s father was concerned, the Howard marriage, which might have proved so awkward, brought him both land and valuable connections at court. The Howards were a very influential family. Sir Edward’s father was the Duke of Norfolk, one of the leading men in the land, and Sir Edward’s sister, Elizabeth, had married Sir Thomas Boleyn. Sir Thomas was a rising star, an ideal companion to the gregarious Henry VIII, certainly a man it was advantageous to know. And he was a neighbor, for the Boleyns owned lands in Essex and Norfolk just like the Morleys. Being linked to the Boleyns brought more associations since Thomas had sisters who married into other Norfolk or Essex families. His sister Anne, for example, married Sir John Shelton, Alice married Sir Robert Clere, and Margaret married Sir John Sackville. The interrelationships were all very complicated but Lord Morley had every reason to believe that he and his family would gain from them. And Sir Thomas Boleyn had a son, George, who was more or less Jane’s age. Who knew what time might bring?

Certainly, as she rode to London, Jane understood that her destiny lay outside the confines of Great Hallingbury. Even while she enjoyed those brief years of childhood, Jane realized that they were but a preparation for the future—hers. Lord and Lady Morley took the upbringing of their children very seriously. It was their duty. Both boys and girls must be taught all that society demanded if they were to take their rightful place when the time came. Lord Morley had a love of learning that lasted all his life. Educated at Oxford himself, he wanted a stimulating and rigorous education for his son and heir, Henry. Expertise in the classics, though, was not something to encourage in his daughters. No husband would want a wife who was more knowledgeable than himself. And so Jane’s schooling was designed to fit her for the role of a wife and mother. She stayed at home in those early years, learning how to read and write, how to supervise servants and run a large household, and how to harness the healing properties of common herbs so that she could treat everyday ailments. Then, of course, there was needlework. Jane spent hours quietly sewing and perfecting convoluted yet delicate stitches. In this she was not alone; most wealthy women excelled in this pastime. Even Queen Katherine made shirts for her husband and thought nothing of mending them herself as a sign of her love. Jane’s favorite lessons, though, were perhaps music and dancing. A talented musician himself, the king delighted in everything musical. He reveled in the highly choreographed and glittering masques performed after supper at court. In these spectacular entertainments, favorite gentlemen strutted about in elaborate costumes, performing roles as holy pilgrims, mysterious strangers, or brave knights ready to rescue damsels in distress. The prettiest and most accomplished of the ladies always got the best parts. For Jane, it was as well to be ready. Opportunities to be on show before the entire court did not come easily, even for the daughter of a peer. Chances had to be seized.