Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (38 page)

The ladies of the privy chamber were not among the leaders of the procession. Gentlemen, squires, and knights went first, two by two, each of them carrying an unlit torch. They were followed by the children, ministers, and dean of the chapel, all of whom walked quietly without singing. The council and the lords spiritual and temporal came next, with officials of the king’s household and the queen’s household after them, and then several foreign ambassadors. Cromwell and Audley walked behind, with Norfolk and Cranmer behind them. The various items needed for the service, such as towels and basins, were solemnly carried by named members of the court. Sussex held two covered golden basins, Lord Montague at his side. Thomas held a taper of virgin wax, a towel around his neck, Essex bore the wonderful jeweled gold salt.

At last the key personages could be seen. Little Elizabeth, now four years old, carefully held the chrism. Because she was so young, Queen Jane’s brother, Viscount Beauchamp, assisted by Jane’s father, Lord Morley, carried her. And then came the most important baby in the land. Edward was in the Marchioness of Exeter’s arms, with Suffolk and her husband, the Marquess of Exeter, beside her, the child’s train borne by the Earl of Arundel and Lord William Howard. Edward’s nurse and the midwife entered at that point, walking proudly by Lord William. Gentlemen of the privy chamber held the beautifully embroidered canopy over Henry’s precious heir, with an escort of four more gentlemen holding wax tapers. None were due to be lit until after the ceremonies were completed within the main body of the chapel. Mary, in visible recognition of her place within the royal family, was appointed her half brother’s godmother so she had pride of place immediately after him, with Lady Kingston, Anne’s erstwhile jailer, supporting her train. Only after this long queue of people did the “ladies of honor” take their place in the line. So if Jane was there, that was her position, a far cry from the days of Queen Anne when she had been exalted beyond her rank.

The procession began at the prince’s “lodging,” wound through the council chamber to the king’s “great chamber” and into the hall, then the second court and then into the gallery, which led to the chapel itself. The floor was covered with rushes and special barriers draped with rich hangings were erected along the route for the time when the party moved into the open air.

At last everyone reached the chapel, passing through a specially erected porch that was covered in cloth of gold and had been thickly carpeted. Once inside, the congregation was greeted by a blaze of color and the gleam of gold. Arras adorned the walls, carpets were on the floor, the high altar was “richly garnished with stuff and plate.” The font was the focus of attention; no one could miss seeing it. Superbly crafted in silver and gilt, it stood on a carpeted platform, underneath a canopy, and within barriers draped with silken fabric and cloth of gold. Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cranmer, the young prince’s godfathers, waited beneath the canopy for his arrival. Standing with them were Sir John Russell, Sir Francis Bryan, Sir Nicholas Carew, and Sir Anthony Browne, deputed to remain in charge of the font until the end of the service. In case the child wanted attention before the ceremony, there was another cubicle close by, also carpeted, draped in costly material and heated by a pan of coals. Members of the household were assigned to each door or waited at set places within the chapel, prepared to perform their specifically assigned duties.

The service was traditional, just as it had been for Jane’s niece, Elizabeth, when she had been the king’s favored child. Those designated to hand out towels and basins, or uncover basins at the appropriate moment, did so as required. Edward was officially taken into the bosom of the church and, just like Elizabeth, was also confirmed. Once Garter King of Arms had proclaimed the baby’s name and titles, it was almost all over. Wine, wafers, and spiced delicacies were served to Mary and Elizabeth and to Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cranmer. Then it was the turn of the others, both those sufficiently favored by the king to be allowed inside the main body of the chapel, and those standing in the court nearby. For the former there was spiced wine to sip and sweetmeats to nibble, probably very welcome after the long ceremony, while those outside were simply handed sweet wine and bread.

Now, as the trumpets burst forth and the choristers raised their voices to the glory of God and their prince, the candles and tapers were lit, their flickering flames reflected in the golden ornaments of the church and highlighting the glowing colors of the hangings. And, in their original order, the huge train processed out, returning to the palace. It was quite a marathon for the trumpeters, who were expected to keep playing until Edward reached Queen Jane’s bedchamber. For the godparents, it had proved an expensive honor. None had dared be penny-pinching, as their generous gifts reveal. Mary presented a cup of gold, carried for her by the Earl of Essex; Thomas Boleyn held Cranmer’s offering of three bowls and two pots, all of silver and gilt; Sussex carried Norfolk’s gifts, which were exactly the same as those of the archbishop; and Suffolk’s silver and gilt flagons and pots were borne by Beauchamp.

Henry and Queen Jane were waiting for their son’s return and to formally receive the presents that had been transported from the chapel. For the king, this was the triumphant conclusion of so many years of hope and despair. He had a son and heir. It had taken three marriages, but he had achieved his dream. Queen Jane had every right to feel secure: she had succeeded where the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella had failed and her supplanter, Jane’s sister-in-law, Henry’s “own sweetheart,” had also disappointed. When her ladies gave her a minute account of every last detail that they had witnessed in the chapel that morning, Queen Jane could feel confident that the king would never put her aside. She would remain Henry’s wife and England’s queen until the day she died. And Viscountess Rochford would be with her.

CHAPTER
26

The Bitterness of Death

C
LAD IN BLACK,
with a white cloth covering her head and shoulders, Jane knelt in prayer during the solemn Mass. She was not alone but was just one of the ladies and gentlewomen of Queen Jane’s privy chamber, all of whom were dressed as she was and were undertaking the same somber task. It was almost the last thing they could do for their mistress, for they were all gathered around a huge hearse on which the body of the queen was lying. No one could quite believe it. The catastrophe had happened so swiftly.

There had been nothing to indicate that Queen Jane was within days of her death when she and Henry had received their infant son straight after the splendor of his christening. Henry was thrilled with the child, the visible sign that God had smiled on him after all those years of disappointment. The queen’s relatives had benefited from her reflected glory as Cromwell himself read out the letters patent creating Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford. That had been a very good day for the Seymours: the queen’s second brother, Thomas, was knighted by the king a few hours after Edward had joined the ranks of the peerage. Within the queen’s apartments, all had seemed well. Queen Jane had progressed normally; young Anne Basset had anticipated the delivery of a new dress for the queen’s churching. But the service of purification had never taken place.

Eight days after the christening, Queen Jane had become ill. Cromwell later blamed her women for neglecting her. They had, he said, “suffered her to take cold, and eat such things as her fantasy in sickness called for.” With experienced ladies such as Jane about her, his accusation seems far-fetched. However, from whatever cause, she had passed what the doctors, hastily summoned to treat her, called a “natural laxe,” a massive loosening of the bowels, probably, in her case, liberally laced with blood. Dr. Butts, now the king’s most trusted physician, assisted by Dr. George Owen, had done what he could as her ladies gently tended the weakening queen. For a while she had rallied, but it was a short respite. The night proved sleepless and fraught in her bedchamber as she had rapidly deteriorated. In the early morning on Wednesday, October 24, her attendants had called for her confessor; by 8 a.m. he had the priest ready to perform the last rites.

She had lingered throughout the day, gradually slipping away. This time there was no respite. We have no record of Henry’s visiting his dying wife but would not expect to find one. It was not the custom, and in any case, the king was always afraid of sickness, even in those he loved. Much though he had adored Anne, he had stayed miles away from her as she had burned with the sweat. So, like everyone else, he had waited as the hours slowly passed and Queen Jane’s strength ebbed, her chances of survival diminishing. Norfolk, worried about how Henry would react to the news that all were dreading, had scribbled a hurried note to Cromwell, begging him to return to Hampton Court instantly. The duke had written at 8 p.m. that evening, hoping that the minister could make it back by early morning on the following day. He was sure that Queen Jane would be dead by then, but Cromwell would be needed “to comfort our good master.” There was “no likelihood” that the queen could recover, Norfolk had said, signing the missive as from “the hand of your sorrowful friend.”

And Norfolk had been right. The queen had not recovered. She had been beyond the desperate efforts of Butts and Owen and the prayers offered up on her behalf. With her weeping ladies clustered at her side, one of them almost certainly Jane, the queen had died. She had enjoyed her new rank for less than eighteen months. When Henry had received the news, he had ordered Norfolk and Sir William Paulet, the treasurer of the household, to make the necessary arrangements for a state funeral and had then “retired to a solitary place to pass his sorrows.” Her death hit him hard, in its immediate aftermath at least. To accept that “the power of God ought to be esteemed all for the best” and that the queen was “fortunate to live the day to bring forth such a prince” was easy only in theory. “Divine Providence,” he wrote to Francis, “has mingled my joy with the bitterness of the death of her who brought me this happiness.”

For Jane too the death was bitter. She had worked hard to rehabilitate herself at court and carve out a career. A present of a gold tablet, probably a brooch, from Queen Jane as a New Year’s gift, proves how successful she had been, but as she knelt by the body of the dead queen, she knew that her own future was in doubt again. There would be no need for ladies of the privy chamber if there was no queen. However, such a problem had to be put from her mind for a while. At the moment all thoughts were focused on Queen Jane’s burial, and that could not be rushed.

Katherine had been buried at Peterborough with considerable pomp but Henry had been insistent that the ceremony should be commensurate only with her status as dowager princess of Wales. Jane Seymour was different. Although uncrowned, she had died a queen, and a queen moreover who had fulfilled her primary role of providing for the succession. In the king’s eyes, she warranted the full obsequies that he had denied Katherine. Henry consulted Norfolk and Paulet, who checked into exactly what had happened at the interment of Elizabeth of York, Henry’s own mother and the last reigning consort to die. He decided that Queen Jane would be buried at Windsor but there was much to do before she could be lowered into her tomb.

Thus it was that the queen’s embalmed body lay in state underneath a canopy within her chamber of presence. At the foot of the hearse on which she rested stood an altar. It was here that the queen’s chaplain said Mass, and it was here that Jane as a lady of the bedchamber, robed in black and with the white cloth over her head, knelt among those praying beside the corpse day and night.

But the queen’s body could not stay there forever. A week after her death, she began the first stage of her final journey. Her bier, covered by a golden pall with a silver cross on it, and with four noblemen holding the canopy to which four white banners portraying the Virgin Mary were fixed, was carried along the black-draped corridors and through the black-draped hall to the chapel, in a grim parody of the joyful procession for her baby’s christening. Jane was undoubtedly among the black-gowned and hooded women who, walking two by two, followed the corpse into the chapel for the first of the many prayers that were intoned that morning.

The queen lay in the chapel for eleven full days of ritual, during which the grieving ladies of her privy chamber took their turn in watching over her. Jane was still at the center of things when the day came for the dead queen to be conveyed to Windsor.

At the crack of dawn on Monday, November 12, Jane, robed in black, joined the other women and the most important figures of the land for a final requiem. Ironically, it was also a family reunion for Jane since Thomas Boleyn, Lord and Lady Morley, and Jane’s brother were all there. While the large congregation then went in to a welcome breakfast prepared for them by Henry’s cooks within the palace, a meal they would need because they faced a very long and tiring day, the queen’s body was carried from the chapel on to the chariot that would take her through the countryside to Windsor. Drawn by six horses with black trappings, the long chariot was draped in black velvet embellished with the royal arms; the canopy above it was also of black velvet, fringed with black silk and with a white satin cross on it. But the black theme ended abruptly at the coffin itself. Jane Seymour went to her grave as the queen she had become, for a wax effigy lay on her casket. The likeness was clothed in Queen Jane’s robes of state, with cloth of gold shoes and embroidered stockings. Upon the head, which rested on a gold pillow, shone a golden crown, a scepter glinted in the right hand, and rings of gold and precious stones adorned the fingers.