Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford: The Most Hated Woman in Tudor England?
Date: 01 November 2024
Author: Tracy BormanJane Boleyn, or Lady Rochford as she is better known, was the wife (and then widow) of George Boleyn. She served five of Henry VIII’s six wives, allegedly bringing down two of them – her sister-in-law Anne Boleyn and her mistress Catherine Howard – sealing her own fate in the process. She was executed at the Tower of London in February 1542, having been condemned for aiding and abetting Catherine’s infidelities.
But has history been fair to Jane? Or were the hostile accounts of her a product of Elizabeth I's later attempts to rehabilitate her mother? Here, Tracy Borman investigates whether Jane Boleyn deserves her notorious reputation.
2 May 1536. The whole of London is in shock after the arrest of Henry VIII’s notorious second wife, Anne Boleyn. She has been taken to the Tower on suspicion of adultery – which, in a queen, is treason.
A few days later, the city is rocked by another, even more scandalous revelation. It is said that the Queen had been so consumed with lust that she had even bedded her own brother, George. This latest accusation apparently rests upon the testimony of one woman: George’s wife, Jane Boleyn.
Image: Anne Boleyn, painted in around 1533-36. Jane Boleyn was Anne's sister-in-law through her husband George, and is often blamed for her downfall. © National Portrait Gallery, London
Before the Boleyns
Jane Parker’s early life
Jane Boleyn (née Parker) was the daughter of Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley, a gentleman usher to Henry VIII, and his wife Alice. No record of Jane’s birth survives but she began her court service in 1522, when she was probably about 14 years old. She joined the household of Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s first queen.
Like her future sister-in-law Anne, Jane took part in the Château Vert pageant in March 1522, playing the part of Constancy. This would prove fitting given she would serve – and survive – at court for longer than any of the Boleyns. A record of her belongings, including ‘white and gold hose for masking’, reveals a taste for fashion and rich apparel.
Jane’s marriage to George Boleyn
In 1526, Jane married George Boleyn, who was a rising star at court thanks to the King’s interest in his sister, Anne. Three years later, George was made Viscount Rochford.
Little is known of Jane and George’s relationship. Much has been attributed to the fact that they had no acknowledged children. A churchman called George Boleyn (d.1603) is sometimes thought to have been their son, but there is no evidence beyond the name to support this.
The couple’s apparent childlessness has led to the assumption that their marriage was dysfunctional or that George was gay. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that he was a serial philanderer whose ‘appetite was all women to devour’, as one contemporary put it.
Image: Jane Boleyn has been accused of betraying Anne and George by whispering to the King’s powerful chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, that they were embroiled in an incestuous affair. But there is no evidence to support this. © National Portrait Gallery, London
The rise and spectacular fall of a queen
After the King’s marriage to Anne Boleyn in January 1533, Jane became a lady of the bedchamber, one of the highest-ranking positions in the queen’s household. This was a high point of Jane’s career, but it was short-lived. Just three years later, Anne was arrested on trumped-up charges of adultery – charged with illicit affairs with her brother George and four other men.
Was Jane Boleyn a convenient scapegoat?
Jane has traditionally been implicated in Anne’s downfall. She was said to have been jealous of her husband’s closeness to his sister and was accused of betraying them both by whispering to the King’s powerful chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, that they were embroiled in an incestuous affair. Yet there is no reliable evidence to support this. In fact, Jane seems to have tried to petition the King on her husband’s behalf, and wrote to George during his imprisonment in the Tower.
The hostile accounts of Jane must be viewed through the lens of Elizabeth I, who was keen to rehabilitate her mother Anne Boleyn by casting the blame elsewhere. When it comes to the Boleyns, there has only been room in history for one heroine: Anne.
Widow of a traitor
Jane thrives in the Tudor court
Perhaps, too, the suspicion against Jane has come from the fact that she not only survived the Boleyns’ downfall, but thrived in its aftermath. In contrast to Anne and George’s father Thomas Boleyn, who spent the rest of his life in the political wilderness, Jane was back at court surprisingly quickly after Anne and George’s execution. A letter she wrote to Cromwell soon afterwards has led to the assumption that he safeguarded her position in reward for the information that brought down her sister-in-law.
Jane served as lady of the bedchamber to Henry VIII’s next three queens. She was present when Jane Seymour gave birth to the future Edward VI at Hampton Court in October 1537 and played a prominent role at the Queen’s funeral the following month. She was a vital witness in the King's attempt to secure a rapid annulment of his disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, providing testimony that it had not been consummated.
Serving Henry’s ‘rose without a thorn’, Catherine Howard
As Henry moved on to his fifth wife, Jane quickly became a close confidante of the woman who would prove to be her undoing. Catherine Howard, Anne’s cousin, was just a teenager when she married Henry VIII, who was more than 30 years her senior. The King was besotted with his ‘rose without a thorn’. But Catherine was not all she seemed: she had a scandalous past – and present.
Soon after becoming Queen, Catherine began an adulterous affair with one of her husband’s closest attendants, Thomas Culpeper. Jane seems to have colluded in, and even encouraged their liaisons. Culpeper later accused her of ‘having provoked him much to love the queen’.
For Jane, a woman who had served five of Henry’s queens and knew all too well the dangers of court, this seems entirely out of character. Perhaps she judged that the King, whose health had been deteriorating for a number of years, would soon die and so had her eye to the future. Or perhaps she thought the affair would remain a secret. Either way, it would prove a fatal mistake.
Image: Unknown woman engraved as Catherine Howard by Francesco Bartolozzi, after Hans Holbein the Younger. © National Portrait Gallery, London
Image: Memorial tablets to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula. © Historic Royal Palaces
Jane Boleyn is condemned to die
When the Queen’s adultery came to light in November 1541, Jane at first protested her ignorance but soon admitted the part she had played in it. She was swiftly condemned to die.
In her prison in the Tower, the courage and resilience that Jane had shown throughout her tumultuous life deserted her. She became so overcome with grief and fear that the King sent his own physicians to attend her. But this was no kindness on Henry’s part. A person who was judged insane could not be put to death; Henry was simply ensuring that Jane was well enough to be executed.
Jane Boleyn’s execution took place on 13 February 1542 on Tower Green, shortly after Queen Catherine’s. She made a conventional speech of confession and prayer for the King's welfare before kneeling to place her head on the block. She was buried in the nearby church of St Peter ad Vincula, alongside her royal mistress Catherine and former sister-in-law Anne.
Jane left behind little trace of a life lived at the very heart of royal power. There are no confirmed portraits of her and few letters. Her most enduring legacy is as one of Tudor history’s greatest villains – a legacy born more of Elizabethan propaganda and later dramatisations than of reality.
Tracy Borman
Chief Curator, Historic Royal Palaces
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