The Anne Boleyn Collection II: Anne Boleyn & the Boleyn Family (35 page)

The Real Jane Boleyn

It is thought that Jane was born around 1505. Her father was Henry Parker, Lord Morley, a man who had been brought up in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mother. Jane's mother was Alice St John, daughter of Sir John St John, a prosperous and respected landowner. We know that Jane was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, we know that she played Constancy in the 1522 Chateau Vert masquerade and we know that a jointure was signed on the 4th October 1524, so it is thought that she married George Boleyn in late 1524 or early 1525. By this time, George Boleyn was a "flourishing, prosperous courtier"
⁹
so Jane was an important woman. Although it was unlikely that it was a love match, there is no reason to think that the marriage was unhappy or that George didn't want to marry her. Contrary to popular opinion, young men and women were not forced into marriage. A couple was only supposed to become betrothed, and then married, if they liked each other. This 'like' was supposed to turn into love as the couple got to know each other better.

In April 1533, Jane and George were granted the wardship of twelve year-old Edmund Sheffield, son and heir of the late Sir Robert Sheffield and his wife Jane Stanley, daughter of George Stanley, 9th Baron Strange. It was a lucrative grant because the couple would benefit from administering Edmund's inheritance (lands in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire) during his minority.
^10
11
Jane used some of her wealth to act as a patroness of education by supporting scholar William Foster in his studies at King's College, Cambridge.
¹²

Jane attended Anne Boleyn at her coronation in 1533 and she appears to have been close to Anne. Anne turned to Jane for help in 1534 when she wanted to get rid of a rival who had caught Henry's eye. This resulted in Jane being exiled from court for a time when the plan was discovered, but there is no evidence that this caused any trouble in the women's relationship. Anne felt close enough to Jane to confide in her about Henry's erratic sexual prowess, something that Jane then told George about. Anne must have trusted Jane to talk about such an intimate subject, and one that involved the King. The evidence, therefore, points to Jane being close to both Anne and George, rather than to her being an outsider and feeling jealous of the siblings' close relationship.

When George Boleyn was arrested in May 1536, far from abandoning her husband to his fate Jane sent a message to Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London. Although this message was damaged in the Ashburnam House fire of 1731, which affected the Cottonian Library, we know that she sent it to Kingston to give her husband, asking after George and promising him that she would "humbly [make] suit unto the king's highness for him."
¹³
We also know that George was grateful and that he replied saying that he wanted to "give her thanks".

Although some writers and historians portray Jane as being the star witness for the Crown in 1536, the evidence does not support this theory. Eustace Chapuys clearly states that there were no witnesses at the trials of George and Anne, and, as Julia Fox points out, "He had no reason to lie, every reason to gloat, if Anne's own sister-in-law had actually spoken out against her."
¹⁴
George Boleyn is recorded as saying "On the evidence of only one woman you are willing to believe this great evil of me, and on the basis of her allegations you are deciding my judgement."
¹⁵
Since the Crown's main piece of evidence was the Countess of Worcester's conversation with her brother regarding the Queen's inappropriate relationship with George, surely this was the "one woman" to whom George was referring? He could also have been referring to the letters of the late Lady Wingfield which were recorded by Judge John Spelman as disclosing evidence of Anne's "bawdery and lechery".
¹⁶
If George had been referring to Jane then wouldn't he have said "my wife" rather than "one woman"?

Jane's name is also not mentioned in Thomas Cromwell's reports on the case against Anne and the men, or in other contemporaneous reports. As I said earlier, the account of Jane's scaffold confession was a forgery and merchant Otwell Johnson, who was present at Jane's execution, mentioned no such confession in his account. It appears that all Jane was guilty of in 1536 was talking to George about Henry's sexual problems and telling the truth when she was interrogated.

Jane survived the falls of her husband and sister-in-law, but life was not easy for her and she ended up having to beg Cromwell for help. It was he who intervened to get her jointure money from Thomas Boleyn. Jane went on to serve three more queens: Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard, and it was, of course, her service to Catherine Howard that led to Jane being executed in February 1542. It appears that Jane foolishly helped Catherine Howard have secret assignations with Thomas Culpeper, a gentleman of Henry VIII's privy chamber. We have no way of knowing the full story of Jane's involvement in Catherine's relationship with Culpeper. It could be that she was simply carrying out the Queen's orders or it could be that she was being manipulated by Thomas Culpeper. I discussed the matter with Julia Fox, Jane's biographer, who believes that Jane was persuaded to help the couple once and then was on a slippery slope because she'd already committed misprision of treason. Having already incriminated herself, it got harder and harder to back out so, instead, she just carried on and ended up digging her own grave. Jane was on her own; she had no-one to turn to for help and advice – no husband and no Thomas Cromwell to act as a go-between with her and the King. What she did was reckless and foolish, but I cannot see how her actions prove that she was "a pathological meddler" or a "procuress".

We need to question and challenge the accepted depictions of Jane Boleyn, just as we have done with Anne Boleyn. We will never know the full truth about her, but there is no need to twist the evidence or fill in the blanks by making Jane out to be a monster. If Catherine Howard's story provokes sympathy, then surely her lady deserves some of it too.

Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, was executed on 13th February 1542 with Queen Catherine Howard within the Tower of London confines. She was laid to rest in the chancel area of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, at the Tower, alongside her mistress the Queen.

Notes and Sources

1 Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl.

2 Gregory, The Boleyn Inheritance.

3 Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, 77.

4 Herbert, The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth., 474.

5 Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, 144.

6 Baldwin Smith, Catherine Howard, 154.

7 Coote, The History of England, from the Earliest Dawn of Record to the Peace of MDCCLXXXIII.

8 Guy, "The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir - Sunday Times Review."

9 Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford.

10 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6 - 1533," n. 419.8.

11 Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, 115.

12 Ibid., 120.

13 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 798.

14 Fox, "Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford - A Guest Post."

15 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 331.

16 ed. Baker, The Reports of Sir John Spelman, 71.

22.
Mary Boleyn – One Big Boleyn Myth

Let me tell you a story…

Mary Boleyn was a classic English rose, taking after her mother's side of the family, whose innocence was wrecked by her father and sister. Not only was she used and abused by the French king, Francis I, and his cronies, she was pimped out to the English king and shown how to satisfy him by her sister, Anne. She was but a pawn in her family's hands.

After bearing the King two illegitimate children and losing her husband, William Carey, to sweating sickness, Mary finally found true love only to be banished from court by her spiteful sister, who was now queen and married to Mary's former love, Henry VIII. So cruel and ambitious was Mary's sister that she even stole Mary's son from her. Mary chose true love over ambition and was thus saved from the awful events of May 1536. Her forgiving nature and angelic disposition, however, led to her visiting the King and pleading for Anne's life. Unfortunately, Anne was not pardoned and was executed. However, Mary was able to steal Elizabeth from court and take her away from all the corruption there.

It's a fairy tale with glaring holes and blatant inaccuracies in it, but that's the version of Mary that some people believe in and it's the version of Mary promoted by books like Karen Harper's
The Last Boleyn
, Philippa Gregory's
The Other Boleyn Girl
and Hilary Mantel's
Wolf Hall
. But what do we actually know about Anne Boleyn's sister?

Not a lot.

Mary Boleyn came up in a conversation I was having with the late historian Eric Ives. Ives commented that what we knew about Mary Boleyn "could be written on the back of a postcard with room to spare", and he is right. Despite the fact that two biographies have been written about her, that she is the subject of countless online articles and the heroine of at least two novels, Mary is a puzzle. The biographies are full of theories about her and the facts are lacking; that's just the way it is. What we think we know about her is probably based on fiction or theory, rather than on hard fact. What we don't know about her could fill a book; what we do know would fit on that postcard mentioned by Eric Ives.

So, what are the cold hard facts about Mary Boleyn?

• • Mary was born in the late 15th/early 16th century. We don't even know her birthdate.
  
• • She was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn and Elizabeth Howard, sister of Queen Anne Boleyn and niece of the Duke of Norfolk. She had brothers named George, Thomas and Henry.
  
• • She served Mary Tudor in France in 1514 and was back in England by 4th February 1520, when she married William Carey, a member of the King's household. The King was present at the ceremony.
  ¹
  
• • Mary had some kind of relationship with Henry VIII in the 1520s. It is not known how long it lasted.
  
• • She played Kindness in the Chateau Vert pageant of March 1522.
  ²
  
• • Mary was pregnant at least three times and had two surviving children, Catherine and Henry Carey.
  
• • Her first husband, William Carey, died of sweating sickness on 22nd June 1528 and her sister, who was at that time involved with Henry VIII, was granted wardship of Henry Carey, Mary's son, in July 1528.
  ³
  Mary was a widow and this agreement helped to provide her son with an education. Anne neither adopted nor stole Mary's son; she simply provided for him.
  
• • Henry VIII intervened with Thomas Boleyn on Mary's behalf, prompting him to make provision for her at the end of June 1528.
  ⁴
  In December 1528, Henry assigned Mary an annuity of £100 (£32,000), which had once been paid to her husband.
  ⁵
  
• • Mary was at court at New Year 1532 and 1534. In 1532,
  ⁶
  "Mary Rocheford" gave Henry VIII a shirt with a blackwork collar and he gave her a piece of gilt plate. Her name also appears on the lists of New Year's gifts for 1534. The list for 1533 is missing.
  
• • Mary accompanied the King and Anne Boleyn on their trip to meet Francis I in Calais in October 1532.
  ⁷
  
• • Mary served Anne in 1533 and attended her at her coronation.
  ⁸
  
• • She married William Stafford in secret in 1534 and turned up at court pregnant in September 1534.
  ⁹
  This was when she was banished from court for marrying without Anne's permission and when her allowance was cut off by Thomas Boleyn. She was forced to write to Thomas Cromwell for financial help.
  
• • Her marriage to Stafford was a love match. In her letter to Cromwell, she wrote "I loved him as well as he did me… I had rather beg my bread with him than to be the greatest queen in Christendom."
  ¹⁰
  
• • Her husband, William Stafford, was one of the men chosen to meet Anne of Cleves at Calais in 1539,
  ¹¹
  and her daughter, Catherine Carey, was appointed as one of Anne of Cleves' ladies in November 1539.
  ¹²
  
• • Mary received her inheritance from her father and grandmother in 1543.
  ¹³
  
• • She died on the 19th July 1543, but it is not known where she was laid to rest. Alison Weir
  ¹⁴
  dates her death as the 19th July 1543 though Josephine Wilkinson chooses the 30th July
  ¹⁵
  and David Loades
  ¹⁶
  chooses to simply write "July 1543". Alison Weir cites John Horace Round, the 19th century historian and genealogist, as her source for the 19th July date of death; his account reads, "According to an inquisition taken at Mary's death (19th July, 1543)…",
  ¹⁷
  so it appears that he based the date on her inquisition post mortem.
  
• • Her children were favourites of Elizabeth I. Catherine Carey served Elizabeth I as one of her ladies of the bedchamber and the offices of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, included Privy councillor and Lord Chamberlain of the Household.