Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (51 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’m not sure quite how Jane Boleyn came into my life. She simply did. One moment I was considering a book on Henry VIII’s queens and the next those beguiling ladies were totally sidelined in favor of this woman, a pariah of Tudor history, whom no one had really considered before. I was hooked instantly. And the more I dug through the records, many ignored for centuries, the more obvious it was that Jane Boleyn’s story was not only just as gripping as those of the queens she had served but that she had been thoroughly maligned. She was no fairy godmother, but she was no wicked witch either. Forced to look out for herself in a man’s world, she so nearly succeeded.

No book of this type, however, is a solo effort. I could never have even started without access to the finest scholarship currently available on the reign of Henry VIII. Among that of the many giants of Tudor history, the work of Professor Eric Ives and Dr. David Starkey has proved invaluable. To them, in particular, I owe an immense debt. I also thank the Honorable Auriol Pakington for generous permission to cite family documents deposited in Worcester Record Office and Thomas Campbell of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for so kindly allowing me to read in typescript his excellent book on tapestries and cite his research. Christine Reynolds, assistant keeper of the muniments in the library, Westminster Abbey, showed considerable patience in answering my many requests for information concerning the Abbey layout in Tudor times and I am grateful to her. Thanks are also due to the staff of the London Library, the British Library, and the National Archives for their efficiency and expertise and to the archivists of the Essex Record Office for their exemplary courtesy and helpfulness.

And the list cannot stop there. Christy Fletcher, my agent, supported my desire to tell Jane’s story and gave me the confidence to attempt to do so. My editor, Susanna Porter, was unstinting with her time and advice, and I am grateful for her painstaking efforts to iron out so many crinkles in my manuscript. I must take full responsibility for those that remain. To Richard Guy who labored so hard to produce the family trees from my rough drafts, to Audrey Kimberley who read the finished work with an eagle eye, to Jessica Sharkey who so willingly translated pages and pages of Latin text for me, and to so many of my long-suffering friends who endured hours of discussion about Jane and her dilemmas, I offer my sincerest gratitude. The involvement and interest shown by my brother and sister-in-law went far beyond the call of family duty and I thank them both. But it is to my husband that I am most indebted. His assistance with the Notes and Bibliography has been crucial, and if I have gone any way toward redressing the balance, and removing any of the stigma attached to Jane’s name, it is because of his constant love, encouragement, and acceptance of her right to be a constant presence in our lives for over three years.

APPENDIX

The Likeness of Jane Boleyn

Among Holbein’s chalk drawings in the Royal Collection is a study of a young woman, just under half length. She looks straight toward the viewer. Her features are delicate, her soft eyes wide apart, her nose perhaps slightly retrousée, and her full lips form a perfect cupid’s bow. There is a suggestion of high cheekbones. Her hair is fastened beneath a flattering French hood, her dress modestly high-necked but with a V-shaped collarlike opening. Her fashionable full sleeves billow out from just above her elbow. She is a very pretty girl, anywhere from about seventeen to twenty-six or so years old. It is difficult to be precise. The drawing is inscribed
The Lady Parker.
There is no corresponding oil portrait extant.

The sitter’s identity has been disputed. Most experts suggest that she is Grace Newport, Jane’s brother’s first wife, although she could be Elizabeth Calthorpe, whom Sir Henry Parker married after Grace’s early death. However, one authority, G. S. Davies, has stated categorically that she is Jane.

It is tempting to believe him as that would provide the only likeness we have of her. The name is not necessarily an insuperable obstacle. Holbein did not inscribe them on the drawings himself. We do not know who did but many of the identifications were provided by John Cheke, who became tutor to the future Edward VI in 1544. Because he knew some, but not all, of the figures, some remain blank. Cheke was not always reliable, though, and a few are labeled incorrectly. It is tantalizing to speculate that Cheke was wrong in this instance and that this Lady Parker is in fact Jane. Lord Morley was drawn by Albrecht Dürer while in Germany on his sovereign’s business, so he was not averse to portraiture, and Jane’s marriage meant that she was closely connected to the royal circle. In such circumstances a sketch, perhaps followed by a lost portrait or, as is the case with several of the chalk drawings, not followed up at all, is credible.

Unfortunately, the girl in the picture is far more likely to be one of Sir Henry Parker’s wives, with Grace the favored candidate. Holbein’s first visit to England was between 1526 and 1528, the period in which he made the chalk drawings of the More family and produced the family group portrait. Those who employed him at this time, notably Archbishop Warham and Sir Henry Guildford, were very much art connoisseurs at a time when most of the wealthy still preferred tapestries and wall hangings. His second visit to England was not until 1531 or 1532, after which, some foreign excursions apart, he remained until his death in 1543. For Jane Rochford to be the girl in the drawing, it would make much more sense if she had been sketched on his first visit or early in the second, because only then was she about the right age. By the time Holbein was undertaking more regular court commissions, she was a more mature woman. Conversely, Grace, who was ten years younger than Jane, would have been too young during Holbein’s first visit to England but would fit neatly more or less anywhere after his return. And the color of the paper points to the second visit rather than the first: Holbein’s early drawings are on white paper, whereas he used pink-primed paper from the 1530s onward. As
The Lady Parker
is on pink-primed paper, she was, therefore, probably sketched on the second visit.

This still does not entirely rule out Jane as the sitter. The exact chronology of Holbein’s relationship with the royal court is uncertain. There are no confirmed Holbein likenesses of Anne Boleyn. He worked on the court festivities of 1527, and in 1533 produced the designs for one of the pageants that greeted Anne on her coronation. He was involved in planning an elaborate cradle intended for Henry and Anne’s first son, and he designed a table fountain that she presented to the king as a New Year’s gift in 1534. In spite of this, Holbein’s record as an established court artist, producing royal portraits, cannot definitely be traced back before the time of Jane Seymour. Then, of course, his work became the height of fashion; suddenly everyone who was anyone scrambled to commission him. Yet he had undertaken private work before then, so perhaps Jane was drawn between 1533 and 1536, although the costume that this Lady Parker is wearing hints at a later date. The main problem is that Jane had slipped out of favor once the Boleyns fell. Since she was also a widow, it is difficult to see who would have wanted a portrait of her after her husband’s death, especially one that shows her as a young girl.

Moreover, while the names on the chalk drawings can be entirely wrong, Jane was never Lady Parker. When Holbein first arrived, she had already been married to George Boleyn for over two years; she was Lady Rochford by the time the artist returned.

So, while there is always a chance that the girl who stares out at us is Jane, it is a very remote one indeed. We are almost certainly looking at Grace. Perhaps a picture of Jane will eventually surface, or maybe she will one day be identified from one of the handful of anonymous faces who still beguile us. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, the best impression we can have of Jane Rochford is Holbein’s drawings of an unknown woman in Tudor dress, which perhaps he wanted as costume illustrations. The woman is wearing the gable headdress; she has full-slashed sleeves with a little lace cuff, a pendant at her neck, and golden chains across her bodice. In one pose, she faces us, almost as though she has paused specially to do so; the back view shows her raising her hand as if to emphasize a point in an engrossing conversation. She is elegant, poised, and animated. It is not Jane, but it is the way she was.

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

A modified Harvard system is used in citing references to sources. Abbreviated citations of printed primary and secondary materials identify the works listed in the Bibliography, where full references are given. For example, Carley (2000) refers to J. P. Carley(2000),
The Libraries of King Henry VIII,
London; Carley (1989) refers to J. P. Carley (1989), “John Leland and the Foundations of the Royal Library: The Westminster Inventory of 1542,”
Bulletin of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 7,
pp. 13–22. Manuscripts are cited by the reference numbers used to request the documents in the archives and libraries. In citations, the following abbreviations are used:

Manuscripts preserved at National Archives are quoted by the call number there in use. The descriptions of the classes referred to are as follows: