Jane Boleyn (Lady Rochford)

Jane Parker, the daughter of Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley, was born in about 1505. Her father was gentleman usher to Henry VIII, and in about 1522, joined the household of Catherine of Aragon. (1) Soon afterwards it was rumoured that Henry was romantically involved with a woman with the name "Mistress Parker". Kelly Hart, the author of The Mistresses of Henry VIII (2009) has speculated that this was Jane Parker. (2)

In 1524 Jane married George Boleyn, the son of Thomas Boleyn. He had received an excellent education and inherited his father's talent for languages and was fluent in Latin and French. He was also an accomplished poet and translator and developed a strong interest in religious and political theory. "All this marked him out from the run-of-the-mill English gentleman of the day, who was more at home with the sword than the pen." (3)

As a wedding present, Henry VIII granted George the manor of Grimston in Norfolk. (4) In December 1529, Thomas Boleyn was created Earl of Wiltshire and George was now known as Viscount Rochford. Jane was given the title Lady Rochford. (5)

Lady Rochford's sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn married the King in January 1533. Jane was appointed as lady of the Queen's bedchamber. According to a statement later made in court, Anne told Jane that after a few months of marriage, that the King was incapable of making love to her and he had neither "skill or virility". (6)

Jane Boleyn (Lady Rochford)

Alison Weir the author of The Six Wives of Henry VIII (2007) points out: "Henry's desire for her (Anne Boleyn) had cooled, leaving him susceptible to the charms of younger women. Anne had bitterly resented Henry's last affair, and had conspired with her sister-in-law Lady Rochford to have the girl removed from court, but the King found out and banished Lady Rochford instead." (7) Kelly Hart adds that this took place in October 1534 and it was "Henry who was in charge." (8)

In April 1536, a Flemish musician in royal service named Mark Smeaton was arrested and interrogated at the house of Thomas Cromwell. He eventually broke down and confessed to having a sexual relationship with Queen Anne. David Loades has suggested that the story was "certainly fictitious, and probably a fantasy produced by psychological pressure". (9)

Peter Ackroyd, the author of Tudors (2012) believes that Smeaton was tortured on the rack. (10) This is based on the evidence provided by George Constantyne he was "grievously racked for almost four hours". (11) Cromwell now had the evidence he needed. It seems that Smeaton had told him that Henry Norris had been Anne Boleyn's lover. Norris was also imprisoned in the Tower of London. (12) Norris refused to confess. So did Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton, a Groom of the King's Privy Chamber, who were also accused of this offence. (13)

Thomas Cromwell took this opportunity to destroy George Boleyn. He had always been close to his sister and in the circumstances it was not difficult to suggest to Henry that an incestuous relationship had existed. George was arrested on 2nd May, 1536, and taken to the Tower of London. David Loades has argued: "Both self control and a sense of proportion seem to have been completely abandoned, and for the time being Henry would believe any evil that he was told, however farfetched." (14)

Execution of George Boleyn

On 12th May, Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, as High Steward of England, presided over the trial of Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William Brereton and Mark Smeaton at Westminster Hall. (15) Except for Smeaton they all pleaded not guilty to all charges. Thomas Cromwell made sure that a reliable jury was empanelled, consisting almost entirely of known enemies of the Boleyns. "These were not difficult to find, and they were all substantial men, with much to gain or lose by their behaviour in such a conspicuous theatre". (16)

Few details survive of the proceedings. Witnesses were called and several spoke of Anne Boleyn's alleged sexual activity. One witness said that there was "never such a whore in the realm". At the end of the trial the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the four men were condemned by Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley to be drawn, hanged, castrated and quartered. Eustace Chapuys claimed that Brereton was "condemned on a presumption, not by proof or valid confession, and without any witnesses." (17)

George Boleyn and Anne Boleyn were tried two days later in the Great Hall of the Tower of London. In Anne's case the verdict already pronounced against her accomplices made the outcome inevitable. She was charged, not only with a whole list of adulterous relationships going back to the autumn of 1533, but also with poisoning Catherine of Aragon, "afflicting Henry with actual bodily harm, and conspiring his death." (18)

George Boleyn was charged with having sexual relations with his sister at Westminster on 5th November 1535. However, records show she was with Henry on that day in Windsor Castle. Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, was one of the witnesses for the prosecution. She claimed that there was "undue familiarity" between brother and sister and her husband was "always in his sister's room". Jane claimed that it was possible they were lovers. George replied that "on the evidence of only one woman, you are willing to believe this great evil of me". (19)

Boleyn was also accused of being the father of the deformed child born in late January or early February, 1536. (20) This was a serious matter because in Tudor times Christians believed that a deformed child was God's way of punishing parents for committing serious sins. Henry VIII feared that people might think that the Pope Clement VII was right when he claimed that God was angry because Henry had divorced Catherine and married Anne. (21)

George and Anne Boleyn were both found guilty of all charges. Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, who presided over the trial left it to the King to decide whether Anne should be beheaded or burned alive. Between sentence and execution, neither admitted guilt. Anne declared herself ready to die because she had unwittingly incurred the King's displeasure, but grieved, as Eustace Chapuys reported, for the innocent men who were also to die on her account." (22)

On 17th May, 1536, George Boleyn and the other four condemned men were executed on Tower Hill, their sentences commuted from being hung, drawn and quartered. Boleyn exercised the condemned man's privilege of addressing the large crowd which always gathered for public executions. "Masters all, I am come hither not to preach and make a sermon but to die, as the law hath found me, and to the law I submit me." (23)

Lady Rochford experienced financial difficulties after the death of her husband. After writing to Thomas Cromwell she was allowed to return to the Royal Court and was the lady of the bedchamber to Jane Seymour and bore Princess Mary's train at Seymour's funeral on 12th November 1537. (24)

Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves on 6th January 1540. Lady Rochford became one of her lady of the bedchamber. Henry complained bitterly about his wedding night. Henry told Thomas Heneage that he disliked the "looseness of her breasts" and was not able to do "what a man should do to his wife". Henry later claimed that he doubted Anne's virginity, because she had the fuller figure that he expected a married woman to have, rather than the slimmer one of a maiden. (25)

Lady Rochford asked Queen Anne about her relationship with her husband. It became clear that she had not received any sex education. "When the King comes to bed he kisses me and taketh me by the hand, and biddeth me good night... In the morning he kisses me, and biddeth me, farewell. Is not this enough?" She enquired innocently." Further questioning revealled that she was completely unaware of what had been expected of her. (26)

Queen Catherine Howard

Henry VIII married Catherine Howard on 8th August 1540 at Hampton Court. The historian David Starkey, has attempted to explain the reasons for the marriage: "Physically repelled by Anne of Cleves, and humiliated by his sexual failure with her, he sought and found consolation from Catherine. We can also guess that sex, which had been impossible with Anne, was easy with her. And it was easy because she made it easy. Henry, lost in pleasure, never seems to have asked himself how she obtained such skill. Instead, he attributed it all to love and his own recovered youth." (27)

Once again Lady Rochford became the Queen's lady of the bedchamber. In June 1541 Henry VIII took Queen Catherine on a tour of the Northern counties. Although he had been power for 32 years he had not visited this part of England that made up a third of his kingdom. Lady Rochford went with the royal party. Progress was slow as it was a very wet summer. Charles de Marillac reported that "the roads leading to the North... have been flooded and the carts and baggage could not proceed without great difficulty." (28) The Court lingered in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire for most of July.

They did not reach Lincoln until 9th August. The royal couple stayed at the Bishop of Lincoln's little manor house at Lyddington. It was at this time that Lady Rochford became very involved in Catherine's indiscretions. Catherine knew Thomas Culpeper, was in the area and she wrote him a letter: "Master Culpeper, I heartily recommend me unto you... I never longed so much for thing as I do to see you and to speak with you... It makes my heart to die to think what fortune I have that I cannot be always in your company... Come when my Lady Rochford is here, for that I shall be best at leisure to be at your commandment... Yours as long as life endures." (29)

Catherine's biographer, Retha M. Warnicke, has argued: "It is possible, however, to put a different interpretation upon Catherine's letter, that its emotional tone was fuelled less by sexual ardour than by the desperation of a young woman who was seeking to placate an aggressive, dangerous suitor, one who, moreover, as a member of the privy chamber had close contact with the king. The promise she mentioned could have concerned the Dereham affair. Culpeper, it may be suggested, had established some form of threatening control over the queen's life, and although he - as he admitted - was seeking sexual satisfaction with her, Catherine was trying to ensure his silence through a misguided attempt at appeasement." (30) Jasper Ridley claims that Catherine met Culpeper in Lady Rochford's room in the middle of the night, while Henry was sleeping off the effects of his usual large supper. (31)

Arrest of Lady Rochford

Henry VIII and his party visited York before retuning to London. He arrived back at Hampton Court on 29th October. While the King had been away Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had been contacted by John Lascelles. He told him a story that came from his sister, Mary Hall, who had worked as a maid at Chesworth House. She claimed that while in her early teens Catherine had "fornicated" with Henry Manox, Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper. (32)

Cranmer had never approved Henry's marriage to Catherine. He did not personally dislike her but he was a strong opponent of her grandfather, Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. If Lascelles's story was true, it gave him the opportunity to discredit her supporters, the powerful Catholic faction. With her out of the way Cranmer would be able to put forward the name of a bride who like Anne Boleyn favoured religious reform. (33)

Cranmer had a meeting with Mary Hall. She told him that when she heard about Catherine's relationship with Manox in 1536 she went to see him and warned him of his behaviour. Manox replied: "Hold thy peace, woman! I know her well enough. My designs are of a dishonest kind, and from the liberties the young lady has allowed me, I doubt not of being able to effect my purpose. She hath said to me that I shall have her maidenhead, though it be painful to her, not doubting but I will be good to her hereafter." Hall then told of Catherine's relationship with Dereham. She claimed that for "a hundred nights or more" he had "crept into the ladies dormitory and climbed, dressed in doublet and hose" into Catherine's bed. (34)

On 2nd November, 1541, Archbishop Cranmer, presented a written statement of the allegations to Henry VIII. Cranmer wrote that Queen Catherine had been accused by Hall of "dissolute living before her marriage with Francis Dereham, and that was not secret, but many knew it." (35) Henry reacted with disbelief and told Cranmer that he did not think there was any foundation in these malicious accusations; nevertheless, Cranmer was to investigate the matter more thoroughly. "You are not to desist until you have got to the bottom of the pot." (36) Henry told Thomas Wriothesley that "he could not believe it to be true, and yet, the accusation having once been made, he could be satisfied till the certainty hereof was known; but he could not, in any wise, that in the inquisition any spark of scandal should arise against the Queen." (37)

During the investigations it became clear that Lady Rochford had arranged for Catherine Howard to meet Thomas Culpeper. The KIng now gave instructions that both women should be confined together. Eustace Chapuys told Charles de Marillac that the Queen was refusing to eat or drink anything, and that she did not cease from weeping and crying "like a madwoman, so that they must take away things by which she might hasten her death". (38)

Thomas Wriothesley interviewed the Queen's servants. Katherine Tylney and Margaret Morton both gave evidence that Thomas Culpeper met the Queen in Lady Rochford's chamber. Morton testified that while at Pontefract Castle in August 1541, Lady Rochford locked the room from inside after both Catherine and Culpeper went inside. Morton also said that she "never mistrusted the Queen until at Hatfield I saw her look out of her chamber window on Master Culpeper, after such sort that I thought there was love between them". On another occasion the Queen was in her closet with Culpeper for five or six hours, and Morton thought "for certain they had passed out" (a Tudor euphemism for orgasm). (39)

Lady Rochford was interviewed in some depth. She had previously given evidence against her husband, George Boleyn, and sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn. She claimed that at first Catherine rejected the advances of Culpeper. She quoted her as saying: "Will this never end?" and asking Lady Rochford to "bid him desire no more to trouble me, or send to me." But Culpeper had been persistent, and eventually the Queen had admitted him into her chamber in private. Lady Rochford was asked to stand guard in case the King came. Rochford added that she was convinced that Culpeper had been sexually intimate "considering all things that she hath heard and seen between them". (40)

Antonia Fraser, the author of The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1992), is highly critical of the evidence provided by Lady Rochford: "Lady Rochford attempted to paint herself as an innocent bystander who had somehow been at the other end of the room where the Queen was meeting Culpeper, without knowing what was going on. Catherine on the other hand reversed the image and described a woman, like Eve, who had persistently tempted her with seductive notions of dalliance; while Culpeper too took the line that Lady Rochford had 'provoked' him into a clandestine relationship with the Queen... Once again, as with the technicalities of the Queen's adultery, absolute truth - and thus relative blame - is impossible to establish." (41)

The trial of Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham began on 1st December, 1541 in Westminster Hall. Dereham was charged with "presumptive treason" and of having led the Queen into "an abominable, base, carnal, voluptuous and licentious life". He was accused of joining the Queen's service with "ill intent". It was claimed that Dereham once told William Damport that he was sure he might still marry the Queen if the King were dead. Under the 1534 Treason Act, it was illegal to predict the death of the King. (42)

Culpeper was accused of having criminal intercourse with the Queen on 29th August 1541 at Pontefract, and at other times, before and after that date. During the trial Culpeper changed his plea to guilty. Dereham continued to plead his innocence but both men were found guilty. Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, sentenced them to be drawn on hurdles to Tyburn "and there hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled, and, they still living, their bowels burnt; the bodies then to be beheaded and quartered". (43)

Execution on Tower Green

The Act of Attainder was passed by Parliament on 6th February 1542. Catherine Howard and Lady Rochford were both sentenced to death and loss of goods and lands. Henry went into the House of Commons and thanked them "for that they took his sorrow to be theirs". Chapuys told Charles V that Henry had "never been so merry since first hearing of the Queen's misconduct. (44)

On 10th February 1542, officials arrived at the Abbey of Syon to take Catherine to the Tower of London. As soon as she learned what they had come for, she became hysterical and had to be dragged to the waiting barge. On her journey to the Tower she passed under London Bridge, where the rotting heads of Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were still being displayed. The Constable of the Tower, Sir John Gage, reported that over the next couple of days Catherine "weeps, cries and torments herself miserably without ceasing". (45)

At seven o'clock on Monday, 13th February, 1542, Catherine was taken to Tower Green. Gage reported that she was so weak with crying that she could hardly stand or speak. Before her execution she said she merited a hundred deaths and prayed for her husband. According to one witness Catherine said she "desired all Christian people to take regard unto her worthy and just punishment". The executioner severed her head in a single blow. (46)

Lady Rochford followed her to the block. Eustace Chapuys reported that she was "in a frenzy" brought on by the sight of Catherine's "blood-soaked remains being wrapped in a black blanket by her sobbing ladies". It was reported that she made an speech where she called for the preservation of the King before she placed her head "on a block still wet and slippery with her mistress's blood." (47)

Primary Sources

(1) Antonia Fraser, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1992)

Lady Rochford attempted to paint herself as an innocent bystander who had somehow been at the other end of the room where the Queen was meeting Culpeper, without knowing what was going on. Catherine on the other hand reversed the image and described a woman, like Eve, who had persistently tempted her with seductive notions of dalliance; while Culpeper too took the line that Lady Rochford had 'provoked' him into a clandestine relationship with the Queen... Once again, as with the technicalities of the Queen's adultery, absolute truth - and thus relative blame - is impossible to establish.