Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (39 page)

Once breakfast had ended, the solemn procession set out. The queen’s chariot was preceded by a long line of guards, household officers, officials, two hundred paupers sporting her coat of arms and clad in black robes with black hoods, then Cromwell and Audley, Cranmer in his full pontifical vestments, his cross carried before him by his chaplain, Norfolk, and the ambassadors, including Chapuys who, frustratingly, has not left us his own thoughts on the occasion. Just ahead of the chariot, heralds and gentlemen of the court, including Gregory Cromwell, the minister’s only son, so recently married to Queen Jane’s sister, held aloft banners of the saints, of the Virgin, of York, of Lancaster, and even one of the arms of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Thomas Boleyn, Suffolk, and Sussex were three of the six lords riding, three on each side, next to the chariot itself, closely followed by noblemen carrying six more banners.

Mary had been chosen by her father to be the chief mourner. Her horse, swathed in black velvet, accompanied her stepmother, with six ladies on horseback behind her. And then, clearly back in a place of honor, came Jane. Sitting with the Countess of Derby, Lady Carew, and Lady Margaret Grey, she rode in a black covered chariot drawn by six horses, each of which bore the royal escutcheons. Jane’s mother, Lady Morley, rode behind her daughter in a second group of horsewomen. Three further chariots were filled with other court ladies, including Lady Kingston and Anne Basset. Although there were more riders, Jane’s position in the first chariot was one of prominence. Widow of a convicted traitor she might still be, but she had successfully worked her way back into royal approval.

That approval was still more apparent when the procession arrived at Windsor. In fact, three Parkers were important in the ensuing rituals: Jane’s brother, Henry, helped bear the queen’s corpse from the chariot into the chapel, her father was one of the six peers who held the blue velvet canopy, fringed with blue and gold silk, over the body, and Jane was the second woman to enter after the queen. The first was Mary the chief mourner, there in place of the king since, by tradition, he did not attend. Jane was immediately behind the princess, for she had been selected to hold Mary’s long train. Seven noblewomen assisted her, but hers was the ultimate responsibility. When the
Dirige,
the mourning lament, drew to a close, the mourners returned to the castle where the king’s cooks had “prepared plenteously of all things necessary.” As they had not eaten since breakfast that morning over six hours earlier, the repast was bound to be well received. The queen’s interment, with all the appropriate ceremonies, took place the next day, but while we know that Thomas and Cromwell were there as Knights of the Garter, we do not know if Jane or any of her female companions were present with them.

With Queen Jane buried with the full panoply the state could provide, life for those left behind had to continue. Jane’s situation had changed yet again. While undoubtedly back in royal favor, she was also out of a job. Much would depend on whether the king decided to add a fourth wife to his growing tally and perhaps make another attempt at populating the nursery. Edward was a healthy baby, but though there were high hopes of his survival through the pitfalls of infancy, that could never be taken for granted. In those early years of Henry’s reign, when he had still been married to Queen Katherine, Prince Henry had sickened and died without much warning. Now he had Edward but only a second son would make the succession truly secure. And, for Jane, a new wife for the king might bring fresh opportunities.

Even before Queen Jane’s funeral, Norfolk had written to Cromwell describing a conversation he had just had with the grieving king. Norfolk had, he said, spoken “peradventure not wisely, but plainly.” Counseling Henry “to accept God’s pleasure in taking the Queen,” he had exhorted him to take comfort in his newborn heir, the “treasure sent to him and this realm.” But the duke had gone one stage further: he had “advised him to provide for a new wife.” Cromwell was also working on the king to the same purpose. He found that while Henry had taken the queen’s death “reasonably,” he was “little disposed to marry again.” Nonetheless, the minister said, some councilors “thought it meet…to urge him to it for the sake of his realm.” It might take a little while, but the chances were that the king would weaken. If he did, then Jane might well have a role in the bedchamber of the new queen. In the meantime, and totally unexpectedly, her fortunes took a slightly different turn.

CHAPTER
27

A Woman of Property

D
ESPITE THE EFFORTS
of his council to cajole him into another marriage following Queen Jane’s death, Henry was in no hurry to tread the matrimonial path once more. If he ventured on to it again, it would be at a time of his own choosing and only after exhaustive enquiries regarding the lucky bride had been undertaken by men he trusted. He had learned his lesson: such things should not be rushed. In the interim, he delighted in his son. The child was strong and happy, cared for by a carefully selected team led by Lady Margaret Bryan, Edward’s “lady mistress.” The prince was “in good health and merry,” Lady Bryan wrote to the king in one of her many letters. It was a pity, she continued, that Henry could not have seen his son the previous evening when “the minstrels played, and his Grace danced and played so wantonly that he could not stand still.” To have a healthy child, who had even inherited his own artistic interests, was music to the proud father’s ears, but it did not bring Jane any nearer to another post within the royal household. Perhaps, however, she would not need one.

Suddenly, and out of the blue, Thomas Boleyn had made overtures concerning her jointure. After her own initiative in eliciting Cromwell’s help, Jane had lived on the hundred pounds per annum her father-in-law had grudgingly allowed her. Combined with the perquisites of court service, this enabled her to live reasonably well, although not lavishly. She kept servants, she received and sent New Year’s gifts, she dressed according to prevailing diktats. Had George survived, of course, Jane’s lifestyle would have been far grander but at the very least she was managing to uphold the standards her birth and rank demanded.

It was probably confronting his own inescapable mortality that had made Thomas contemplate the future. In April 1538, Jane received the news that her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Boleyn, had died in London, very close to Anne’s former property of Baynard’s Castle. As a duke’s daughter and an earl’s wife, Elizabeth Boleyn was given a respectful and reverent funeral. Accompanied by the light from ceremonial torches, and with banners fixed to the black draped barge on which her body lay, Thomas’s dead wife was rowed along the Thames to Lambeth for interment. The couple had been married for almost forty years. Although he was well enough to come to court the next January, Thomas was now in his sixties and the infirmities of old age cannot have passed him by. He could rest more contentedly if he thought he had set his affairs in order.

That meant devising a property settlement, but Thomas’s dilemma was to determine what it should be. Because he had no son, his brother, James, was next in line to inherit most of the Boleyn lands. But Thomas had a daughter, Mary Carey, now Mary Stafford. She lived in her parents’ manor house at Rochford in Essex with her father’s blessing, his bitter response to her clandestine marriage to William Stafford quietly forgotten. After the executions of both George and Anne, she was his only remaining child, her son and daughter his only grandchildren. Other than via his siblings, not the same thing at all, his bloodline ran solely through Mary, and so it was to Mary and her descendants that Thomas wanted to bequeath whatever he could. What that really amounted to was the Ormond lands. They were his to bestow, providing Margaret Boleyn and his brother, William, agreed with his decisions. Neither should prove troublesome. Thomas had already gained control of his mother’s inheritance years earlier and even then she had been declared a “lunatic,” interspersing periods of lucidity with periods of insanity. There would be no problem in gaining her consent to anything. As for William, he was still content within the church, having spent his whole life safely shielded from the excitement, and the corresponding dangers, of the court. Although no gullible innocent, for he was not a Boleyn for nothing, he was likely to be amenable to some form of deal. Edward Boleyn, Thomas’s younger sibling, was uninvolved. However, as Thomas pondered his plans for posterity, he knew that there was one outstanding obstacle: his daughter-in-law, Jane.

Jane’s jointure provisions had included specified manors, Ormond manors. None had been handed over, as she knew only too well, and she had been given her hundred pounds every year in recompense. Her manors of Aylesbury and Bierton in Buckinghamshire suddenly became crucial. Thomas wanted to sell them. There is no record of precisely why he wanted ready money at that moment; perhaps he did not want to saddle his daughter Mary with his debts. But what Jane was soon to discover was that her particular manors were valuable and that Thomas had a willing cash buyer waiting in the wings: Sir John Baldwin, chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster. Baldwin, an acquaintance of Thomas’s from the trials of Fisher, More, and, more painfully, from that of the courtiers accused of sleeping with Anne, was a Buckinghamshire man, born and bred. He had inherited lands around Aylesbury and had bought up others whenever they came on the market. The Ormond estates would considerably expand his existing property portfolio in the area, all of which he would be able to leave his son, William, in the fullness of time. And he was prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege.

With his customary business acumen, therefore, Thomas opened negotiations with Jane. While she did not have outright ownership of the coveted manors, she did have a life interest. Thomas could not sell the lands without her consent. Jane’s father, a signatory of the original jointure, was also involved. Just as he had protected his daughter’s interests all those years ago, it was up to him to perform the same task for her now. However, Lord Morley had a few distractions. His mind was very much on his purchase of Markhall, an estate he had leased since 1521, and he had recently been engaged in sorting out problems connected with the jointure of Lady Katherine Edgecombe, his wife’s sister. Perhaps his attention was divided. And there was a major difference concerning the negotiations with the Boleyns this time: the very young, immature, and inexperienced girl who had stood at the altar in St. Giles with her bridegroom, her dreams intact, had grown up. And she had grown up in a merciless school. She had been widowed in the worst possible way, she had managed to recoup a proportion of her income through her own efforts, and by sheer determination, she had worked her way back into royal favor, gaining powerful support in the process. Jane, therefore, would not be an easy target. The deal would have to be worth taking.

The haggling took place over the spring and summer of 1538, the major indenture drawn up in October. The final price for the Buckinghamshire manors was fixed at the astronomical sum of twelve hundred pounds, which was to be handed over in four months’ time. However, while no doubt the dream purchaser as far as Thomas was concerned, Baldwin had a lawyer’s eye for detail. He was insistent that when he paid the money there should be no potential entanglements or disputes outstanding on his new acquisitions. He had no intention of facing debts or lawsuits in the future. One impediment could only be removed by the king. While the manors were held freehold, Henry retained certain feudal rights over them so his permission was vital for Thomas to sell them. Thomas did not envisage the king’s refusal and he was right: Henry acquiesced. It was with Jane, the key player, that there was a hitch.

For the deal to go ahead, both she and her father, who was coping with the transaction on her behalf, had to sign the deed. If she was to give up Aylesbury and Bierton, she wanted something in exchange. Thomas offered her the manor of Swavesey in Cambridgeshire, in theory not a bad swap.

Unfortunately, as far as Jane was concerned, there were catches in what at first sight seemed a very neat arrangement. Should Baldwin find that Aylesbury and Bierton did not in fact come to him unencumbered on the set date, or should Thomas, his mother, or Jane die before then, he would be able to stake a claim on Swavesey until everything was sorted out. As long as the preliminary paperwork had been meticulously completed that should not happen, but it was a potential cloud on Jane’s horizon since she was the youngest and least likely to die. As the survivor, she would then be left to pick up the pieces. And there was actually more than one cloud. Thomas did not really want Jane to have full possession of Swavesey. Maybe he hoped to pass it on to Mary and William Stafford sooner rather than later. It would come to them in the end, but only on Jane’s death and she could live for years. So Thomas suggested that Jane allow him to keep Swavesey for himself, to do with as he pleased, in exchange for a hundred marks (sixty-six pounds) a year, payable in two equal installments at the font of St. Paul’s in London. Since she was already receiving almost twice that sum from Thomas, the compensation he was offering her for not giving her the lands was simply not enough. And now she no longer wanted a money settlement: she wanted land instead if she was to give up Aylesbury.