Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (13 page)

It was really only a matter of time. Even for the once great cardinal, the odds stacked against him were too high. Not only had he failed the king, he had done so in the most spectacular fashion in the one area in which Henry would not accept defeat. And if it is true that Anne had vowed her revenge for the Percy incident all those years ago, as Cavendish asserted, her wish was granted in spades. First Wolsey lost the chancellorship. But the fight had not quite gone out of him: when the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk arrived at his London house to demand that he yield the great seal, he refused to hand it over until they brought written orders directly from Henry. Such defiance just postponed the inevitable, for they returned with such orders the following day, and Wolsey’s resistance could not go on. When confronted with charges of praemunire
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for his dealings with Rome, Wolsey pleaded guilty, knowing that he faced the penalty of permanent imprisonment and the confiscation of all the property and goods he had so painstakingly accumulated. After deliberating with his counselors, including Norfolk, Suffolk, and Thomas Boleyn, the king sent the disgraced and ailing man to Esher and finally to York to take up the pastoral duties he had neglected there. It was the end of an era.

But it was bonanza time again for the Boleyns. They soon secured a seat in Parliament for James, that dedicated Hebrew student, and a benefice in the diocese of Durham for George’s second uncle, William, ordained as a young man. And on the principle of family solidarity, a third uncle, Edward, would secure the wardship of John Appleyard, the only son and heir of Roger Appleyard, a Norfolk gentleman. As the husband of wealthy heiress Anne Tempest, Edward tended to stay out of mainstream Boleyn affairs to concentrate on his Norfolk and Yorkshire lands, but it was as well to toss him something from the treasure trove. The king gave Anne’s father, Thomas, the splendid Durham House, part of the assets of the bishopric of Durham, which Wolsey had lately exchanged for Winchester, adding to the profits Thomas was already raking in from other Durham lands Wolsey had once controlled. Sited close to the Strand, a stone’s throw from Charing Cross and Covent Garden, the house had gardens stretching down to the banks of the Thames. Over three hundred years old, it had a hall of regal proportions supported by tall marble pillars. As a fine London mansion, it could not have been bettered. George and Jane had profited from Wolsey’s troubles too. Realizing the danger he was in, the cardinal had hoped to win friends by arranging for George to receive an annuity of £200 from his lands as bishop of Winchester and another of two hundred marks (£133) from the Abbey of St. Albans. This was very serious money, and once Wolsey’s property was confiscated by Henry, things improved further for the Boleyns.

Not only did he lose everything, the new Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, informed Charles V, but as an extra humiliation Wolsey was forced to make lists of all his possessions down to the last kitchen pot. The extant records are certainly incredibly full and minutely detailed. Wolsey had denied himself nothing. His residences were awash with color, beauty, and items of superb craftsmanship. There were countless embroidered wall hangings, many of which the cardinal had bought from the executors of various nobles; there were silk table carpets; there were magnificent arras tapestries with real gold and silver thread. His numerous beds and voluminous quantities of bed linen too were of the very best quality. There were fifty-six pairs of blankets, pillow cases of black silk embossed with gold fleurs-de-lis, eighty-eight down pillows, 157 mattresses. Among the multitude of plate, we hear of eighteen gilt trenchers or serving plates; a gold salt adorned with pearls and precious stones; and a gold bowl decorated with rubies, diamonds, pearls, and a sapphire. It was all worth a king’s ransom. And, says Chapuys, the king could not wait to show it to the woman he wanted as his queen. When Henry apparently went to look at his spoils, finding them “much greater than he expected,” Anne and her mother, Elizabeth, accompanied him.

The rewards for the family went on and on. George, back in the privy chamber and sent on a diplomatic mission to France, was knighted in the autumn and was soon Viscount Rochford, making Jane a viscountess. He received this title, which made him George Rochford as well as George Boleyn, because his father needed it no more: Thomas became Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond. The investiture ceremony, at which Jane was almost certainly an honored guest, was lavish and occurred at Wolsey’s former palace of York Place,
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now in the king’s possession. With every month that passed, the Boleyns were obviously becoming more and more comfortably entrenched at court and within the king’s most intimate circle. Their leisure hours were often spent with him, whiling the time away in the open air or within the candlelit confines of the private apartments. They played bowls, they raced greyhounds, they competed at archery, they watched their coins spinning along in shovel-board. Each time they would bet on the result, with George winning sums as large as forty-five pounds and once fifty-eight pounds. Jane’s husband was particularly adept at cards, beating his sovereign at new and fashionable games like primero, in which each player was dealt four cards with each card being worth three times its face value.

As for Anne herself, Jane could only watch with astonishment as the gifts came almost by the cartload. Nothing was too much for Henry’s darling. Knowing her love of riding, the king sent her saddle after saddle, all of the finest workmanship and latest French fashion, with superb trimmings in black velvet fringed with silk and gold thread. Matching harnesses, reins, and girths soon followed, together with the very best accoutrements for her litter. And Henry certainly kept his jeweler busy. Again, Anne’s family could only be overwhelmed for her as the most exquisite jewels were delivered. It was almost as if he wanted to adorn her entire body with gold and precious stones: a golden girdle, bracelets of pearls and diamonds, diamond rings, diamonds for her hair, gold borders studded with diamonds and pearls for her sleeves, gold buttons, diamond buttons, brooches, the list was endless. Twenty pounds was authorized for her to redeem a jewel once owned by her sister. He even arranged for some of her books to be decorated in silver and gilt. Her finery extended to her dress where again costly materials, such as almost twenty yards of crimson satin at sixteen shillings per yard, were dispatched for her tailor to turn into breathtaking gowns.

The trouble was, of course, that while he could shower gifts on her, Anne was still Henry’s sweetheart, not his wife. Wolsey had fallen, the Boleyns were becoming increasingly paramount at court, Anne and her family were growing richer and richer, but Katherine was still in place. So were her supporters, from Bishop Fisher to Charles V. For the king, another route must be devised, different experts consulted. Henry’s relationship with Anne and the struggle for the divorce were about to move into a new phase and take a new direction.

CHAPTER
11

Almost There

I
T WAS
1532
AND
O
CTOBER,
not a good month for crossing the Channel. The winds, the storms, the mists were all unpredictable. A journey that could be as short as five hours in good weather could quickly become infinitely longer, with hours of debilitating seasickness only too common and fears of being driven into another port at best, or sinking at worst, being realized. No one would undertake such a voyage lightly, but Henry was determined to meet Francis again. For Jane, who had taken a similar trip back in 1520, this was an altogether different experience. Then she had been very young and unimportant. Now one of the royal party that gathered at Dover ready to embark, she was not only a married woman with her husband beside her, she was a viscountess and a member of the family that was influencing court politics and altering so much that back then she had thought firmly established. Times were changing.

A few moments’ reflection would have revealed to Jane just how much had happened already. Her own position, as the poised viscountess appreciated, had been immeasurably transformed; her status and responsibilities emphasized by her generous New Year’s gift to her king of two velvet and two satin caps, two of which were trimmed with gold buttons. Henry expected more than merely a token present from her, just as he did from her father, Lord Morley, who typically presented a book covered in purple satin, and from George and Thomas, whose offerings were more costly. No doubt after much deliberation, George gave two gilt “hyngers,” or daggers, on velvet girdles that Henry could hang around his slightly thickening waist, while Thomas’s carefully chosen gift of a black velvet box with a gold stylus for writing was yet more impressive, especially pleasing to a king who loved executive toys for his desk. This was the circle in which Jane now moved with ease and her marriage to the favorite’s brother enabled her to live in some style. George’s position in the privy chamber and his rank assured them of good rooms at court, but with Thomas’s acquisition of the impressive Durham House, there also was ample space for his son and daughter-in-law if they wished to stay there instead. With George such an active advocate of his sister’s cause, both in England and in France, Durham House had proved very useful.

So had York Place, another of Wolsey’s former residences close to the Thames. From the moment it had fallen into the king’s hands at Wolsey’s initial disgrace, Anne and Henry realized its practical value as a London palace and the king happily started to improve and extend it. Money was no object. Nearby houses were compulsorily purchased at a cost of over one thousand pounds so there was more space for the park, the gardens, and the new buildings. Land was drained, trees felled, stone bought from Caen and Reigate, and then there were glass and lead and oak rafters to be found. Seven pounds of candles were needed to provide light for those who labored at night to try to get the work finished. The shopping list was endless. Wolsey’s timber-framed gallery from Esher was transported as the nucleus of one of the new galleries that Henry ordered to be constructed, one of which he used to cross from the main palace into the park without getting wet. Then, of course, since Henry and Anne needed diversions, there were bowling alleys, tennis courts, a cockpit, and a tiltyard for jousting. The privy pier, Henry’s personal river landing stage, was redone and every room was brought up to the standard the king demanded. What Jane saw as she wandered through the tapestry hung rooms or through the gallery painted with scenes from Henry’s coronation was grandeur on a massive scale. Chapuys said that Anne particularly liked York Place as there were no apartments for Katherine. There were, however, quarters for her family as well as herself. Anne’s own paneled rooms were underneath the old library and therefore below those of the king. George’s rooms were rather special, with a window, perhaps looking out over the park, set with “a pair of garnets,” presumably small panes of ruby-colored glass. With such luxurious and convenient living space, it is no wonder that the house at Greenwich that the king had rented for the Rochfords for the last two years became redundant.

However, despite all the bustle and activity going on around her, Anne did not forget old friends. In a letter that is still extant but undated, Jane’s sister-in-law found the time to correspond with Lady Wingfield, a neighbor from Kent, in which she apologized for any past slight she might have unintentionally given. “And, madam,” she wrote, “though at all times I have not shewed the love that I bear you as much as it was indeed, yet now I trust that you shall well prove that I loved you a great deal more than I made fair for.” Indeed, other than her own mother, Anne knew of “no woman alive that I love better.” Whether Jane was privy to the contents of this ostensibly generous and gracious note is unlikely. If she was, she could not have dreamed how important it was later to become.

As she waited on the landing stage at Dover, warmly wrapped up against the chill of that autumn morning, Jane knew that some of the people who had made that earlier visit would not be there this time. William Carey’s loss had been a personal tragedy for the Boleyns, although, like Jane, Mary Carey was again one of the ladies accompanying Anne. Neither Mary nor William, however, had been major figures at the Field of Cloth of Gold. The dominant player then had been the great cardinal.

But within thirteen months of his spectacular fall, Wolsey had died at Leicester Abbey on his way to London to face trial, for Henry had finally turned completely against the man who had once been his friend. For the Boleyns and their allies, Wolsey was decidedly unlamented. Like Norfolk and Suffolk, Thomas and George, not to mention Anne, had always been worried that he might somehow wriggle back into royal favor. His arrest on charges of treason, ironically delivered by Anne’s former beau, Henry Percy, now Earl of Northumberland, had dealt with that. Jane heard how ill the cardinal had been on the journey south, passing “above fifty stools” in twenty-four hours, all of them “wondrous black.” And Wolsey was not the only one who did not travel to Dover ready for this latest voyage to Calais.