Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (8 page)

CHAPTER
6

Kindness Captures a King

W
ITH
G
EORGE’S RING
gleaming upon her finger, Jane Boleyn reentered society as a wife. Her role and her status were dramatically altered. Now considered grown up, she was treated accordingly. A respectable matron, she no longer sat among the maidens in church. She even looked different: every morning her maid combed her hair in the accepted style of a married woman before carefully arranging it underneath the cap, or coif, that supported her headdress. And her future lay with the Boleyns, not the Parkers. She stayed in one of their houses, most likely at Rochford in Essex near her own parents at Great Hallingbury, or at Hever or at Blickling, estates she had every reason to believe would one day belong to her husband and over which she would preside as mistress. She did not expect to run any of them yet. A young bride would normally live with her in-laws for a while, to see at firsthand how the household was governed and gradually to acquire the furniture and goods she needed before the couple could set up on their own.

There is no record of exactly what wedding gifts Jane and George received, but we know that their property eventually included a vast quantity of silver. Among this there were six silver dishes, five of which are engraved with the letter
I
(which doubled for
J
) and one with a
B,
as well as another four, presumably of a different pattern or style, with a
B
on them. Conceivably, these were given then. And one guest probably had a rather dry sense of humor, for one book that George owned was a fifteenth-century manuscript that we know he acquired about this time and later passed on to his musician friend, Mark Smeaton. It was a copy of a satire on marriage.

Country life was not to last for George and Jane, however. Jane was quickly back amid the surroundings and people she knew so well, although this time she went to court as Mistress Boleyn whose husband was in the privy chamber, for the moment at least. As such, George was required to be available to serve the king on demand. After a whole month at Windsor, Henry spent much of the summer and autumn of 1525 hunting, going to and from palaces and houses in the southeast, rarely staying at any of them for very long. Some were very recently acquired and Henry was quick to make use of them, sizing up the building works he would order to bring them up to his exacting standards. Occasionally, the king was a guest at various monastic houses such as Reading and Dunstable. Sometimes he returned to the more luxurious surroundings of Windsor or Greenwich. Wherever he went, his ministers followed; pressing matters of state business never stopped. Since Henry expected his every comfort to be catered to at any hour, he needed servants and attendants on call at all times. Thus, there were always favorites from his privy chamber close at hand, men like William Carey, Mary Boleyn’s husband, or Henry Norris, a capable and ambitious young courtier whom Henry particularly liked and who was fast becoming a key player around the king. Then, of course, there was George.

The early months of Jane’s marriage were, therefore, far from dull. Visits to the Boleyn residences, as the wife of Thomas’s heir, were interspersed with joining George when it was his turn to be with Henry. She had it all, a young and dashing husband and the security of the Boleyn estates combined with proximity to the king, the source of fortune and advancement for George. Lord Morley could not have chosen better for his daughter. And she was now a member of a family already reaping rewards from their benevolent sovereign.

For she and George were not the only Boleyns at court. Still a respected diplomat with his ever-useful French, in his post as treasurer of the household Thomas was a frequent presence around the king, busily gathering lands, offices, and titles. Already a Knight of the Garter, he was made Viscount Rochford, a title that George would inherit. In fact, the day on which Thomas became Rochford was also highly significant for the king for it was then that his illegitimate son by Elizabeth Blount, Henry Fitzroy, was granted the earldom of Nottingham and then the even higher rank of duke. The title bestowed on the six-year-old, that of Duke of Richmond and Somerset, was portentous, because Henry VII had been Earl of Richmond before his victory over Richard III at Bosworth had elevated him to the throne, and an earlier Duke of Somerset had been a royal bastard who was later made legitimate. The boy’s investiture, at Henry’s palace of Bridewell, was lavish. Dressed as an earl, he was led into the chamber between the Earls of Arundel and Oxford to kneel at his father’s feet. Sir Thomas More read aloud the patent granting the child his earldom. No sooner had he received his new rank, than the boy left the room only to return in the ermine-trimmed robes of a duke, this time escorted by the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk. Once the additional grant was announced to the assembled company, a gold circlet was placed upon Fitzroy’s head, and a golden rod and other accoutrements of his new rank were handed to him. It is not surprising that Katherine, concerned for the future of her daughter, Mary, was alleged to be dismayed at the investiture; nor is her choice to commission a treatise on the obligations of marriage from Erasmus. Rumors abounded that Henry intended to groom the child for kingship. Henry was said to love Fitzroy, who had inherited his own skill in sports and physical pursuits although not his thirst for knowledge, “like his own soul.” Jane knew everything that happened on that day, either because she was present or from a firsthand account from Thomas. Not only was he there to collect his own honor, he is recorded as one of the witnesses for Fitzroy’s elevation. No doubt, Jane’s sister-in-law, Anne, also received a full account. If so, the time was coming when she would mull it over as she made a decision affecting her own future.

Despite his new title, however, Thomas was not in the privy chamber. William Carey was. There was every reason for Thomas to feel as pleased with his choice of son-in-law as Lord Morley was with his. While not of the highest rank, William came from a solid Wiltshire family and, through his mother, Eleanor Beaufort, was distantly related to the king. He was a pleasant young man, a sensible, pragmatic husband, willing to be accommodating to the ways of the world. A skillful jouster, a tennis player, a ready participant in the revels, Carey was a man after the king’s own heart. And, as the Boleyns realized, it was the king’s heart that they had to thank for bringing about advances in their circumstances: for Mary Carey became Henry’s mistress.

Quite when the king first focused his attention on Jane’s sister-in-law is uncertain. By the time of the Field of Cloth of Gold, Henry was no longer sleeping with Elizabeth Blount. Indeed, it seemed as though he had stopped doing so about the time that she became pregnant with his son, Henry Fitzroy. Once the delectable Elizabeth was safely married to Gilbert Tailboys, the son of a wealthy landowner, Henry’s eye probably lighted upon Mary. As a young girl, Mary had gone to France with Henry’s sister “to do service” for her when she married Louis, presumably coming home with her when Louis died. According to Louis’ successor, King Francis, Mary “did service” to male members of the court too, so much so that she earned herself a tarnished reputation as “una grandissima ribalda et infame sopre tutte.”
^*4
Whatever the truth about her morals, Henry was happy to be an honored guest at Mary’s wedding to William at Greenwich, giving an offering of six shillings and eight pence, and it was as a respectably married woman that she had sat with Jane in the stands watching the tourneys at the Field of Cloth of Gold.

By the time Mary and Jane had performed together at Château Vert, her affair with Henry was under way. Mary took her role of Kindness very literally. Although Jane was quite young at that stage, it is difficult to imagine that she was unaware of what was going on. In the claustrophobic Tudor court, where people lived in such close proximity, gossip flourished and keeping secrets was well nigh impossible. Jane had been brought up to guard her virtue, but to deny the king was an altogether different proposition. And she could see at firsthand what benefits such a liaison brought. The compliant William was the recipient of royal grant after royal grant. The annuity of fifty marks a year that he had been awarded earlier, no mean sum, paled into insignificance in the light of the manors and offices showered upon him by a grateful and contented monarch. Ironically, his haul included the keepership of the palace of Beaulieu in Essex, the former Boleyn property, where he was entrusted with the king’s wardrobe, as well as several other manors in the same area. Beaulieu was a perquisite worth having. While the keepers of some houses were allotted designated rooms within them and a house in the grounds, whoever got Beaulieu was allowed to live in it as if they owned it. And Henry’s gifts did not stop there. William and one of Henry’s pages, William West, were even given the joint wardship,
^*5
always a highly coveted and lucrative prize, of Thomas Sharpe of Canterbury. The pair were also allocated custody of Sharpe’s lands, which, since he was deemed to be an “idiot,” Sharpe would never be allowed to administer for himself. All mounted up most gratifyingly. Indeed, when William was assessed for a tax payment, the assessment was for one third more than that of Jane’s father and almost half that of Thomas Boleyn. William, no less ready to sacrifice his wife than Thomas was his daughter, had duly earned remuneration.

But life rarely stays the same for long. The Eltham Ordinances, Wolsey’s efforts at reform within the privy chamber, came to fruition and George lost his place. He was not named as one of the fifteen able to remain. As one of the six gentlemen waiters, William survived. So did Henry Norris. The grooms included William Brereton, who came from an influential Cheshire family, and young Francis Weston became the king’s page. George and Jane were acquainted with all of them. Why George was removed is unknown; perhaps Wolsey preferred to cut down the number of Boleyns in intimate, daily contact with Henry. However, George was still close enough. Among the list of names of those “assigned to have lodging in the king’s house when they repair to it” is “Mr. Boleyn” and his wife. Wolsey meticulously checked this register, ticking the names of those receiving this entitlement. George’s name is ticked in the cardinal’s hand. This is the same document that mentions that in addition to his own eighty pounds, presumably the money George had from his existing lands and grants, he was given an extra twenty pounds a year as a salary for his new post: Wolsey appointed him “one of the king’s cupbearers when the king dineth out.”

While it was a pity that George was no longer one of the privileged few with virtually unrestricted access to the king, it did not affect the lifestyle to which Jane was fast becoming accustomed. The ordinances were highly specific concerning the newly wedded pair. Jane and George were assured of a palace room “on the king’s side” in which to sleep and were probably fed at royal expense. William and Mary Carey were awarded the same perquisite, again, hardly surprisingly, on the “king’s side.” And, as “dineth out” meant every time Henry ate in state outside of his privy chamber, George retained a position of prominence. A current annual income of one hundred pounds, more than twice what Thomas Boleyn had once had to keep himself and his rapidly growing family, ensured relative affluence. With the king meeting most of their everyday expenditure, Jane and her husband could continue to indulge themselves in a few luxuries and enjoy the entertainments and exhilaration of life at the apex of society.

However, changes in the personnel of the privy chamber were matched by another change. Just as we do not know when Mary’s affair with Henry started, we do not know exactly when it ended, although it is certain that Mary became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Henry Carey. Whether the child’s father was the king or William remains a mystery. There were certainly rumors about his parentage. It is also true that much later he was treated generously by his cousin, Queen Elizabeth, who ennobled him as Lord Hunsdon, and that his grand tomb in Westminster Abbey, not far from the sanctuary, lavishly decorated in black, white, and gold and embellished with the Boleyn emblems of bulls and falcons, is fit for a prince. Wisely, Henry Carey always stayed silent on the matter. The king continued to hold Mary in some affection after the birth, but he desired her no more. So, as Thomas and Elizabeth gazed upon their first grandchild, and Jane and George upon their nephew, it seemed as though further Boleyn advances would have to come through their own efforts, as they had done before Mary had so conveniently slipped between the sheets of the king’s bed.

But Thomas had another daughter, and George another sister: Anne.

CHAPTER
7

The Falcon’s Rise