Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (17 page)

Jane stood close by as Anne moved toward her throne between the choir and the altar. The brand new chair was “covered with rich cloth of tissue and fringed with gold,” its pummels also gilded. It was sited on a raised platform with steps draped in richly embroidered cloth. The new queen was in full view. Anne paused a little and then Cranmer led her to the altar. There she prostrated herself while the archbishop sang prayers over her in consecration. When she rose, Anne was anointed with holy oil on her forehead and breast, a fine white linen coif on her head so that the oil was not tainted by unwarranted contact with her hair, and then she was gently dried with a cotton cloth. All the while, an embellished canopy was held over her.

From the Boleyn perspective, the next part of the sacred ritual was the most significant, for Anne was crowned in nothing less than St. Edward’s Chair itself. This special chair, which never left the confines of the Abbey, was used only for the coronation of England’s monarchs; it was not usual for a consort to sit on the seat of kings. Anne may well have been the first woman to do so. She had already outdone her rival: Katherine had been crowned with Henry but she had sat on a small throne, not on the saint’s chair. Nor had the former queen been crowned with St. Edward’s Crown, for this was worn only by ruling monarchs, not their wives. Uniquely, it was this glittering relic, which one day would grace her red-haired daughter, that Cranmer placed on Anne’s head. With the royal scepter in her right hand and the ivory rod in her left, she was now every inch the queen. All eyes upon her, she sat while the choir’s voices rose to the heavens in a glorious Te Deum.

Only then did Cranmer remove the heavy crown, replacing it with a much lighter one that had been specifically made for her. She returned to her throne for the holy Mass. Jane, with the other ladies, knelt on Anne’s right, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk knelt behind her, and the leading lords knelt on the queen’s left as the familiar words began. Anne went back to the altar, gave an offering, and after further prayers, knelt to receive the sacrament. She was allowed a few moments’ rest and a little refreshment and then Thomas stepped proudly forward to support his daughter’s right hand while Lord Talbot took her left. Jane, now wearing her coronet, followed her sister-in-law as she processed back to Westminster Hall, a fanfare of trumpets bursting forth “marvelously freshly” around her.

It was all a triumph. Everything had gone according to plan and in conformity with custom and tradition. Henry could not but be delighted. At one point, he had considered a double coronation with Anne, even rewriting the coronation oath to encompass his new ideas on his rights as Head of the Church, but nothing had come of it. Instead, the king having no wish to deflect glory from his beloved wife, it was all Anne’s day. And it was not over yet. A richly decorated Westminster Hall was the venue for a magnificent banquet at which the new queen presided. Henry’s musicians played softly by the windows as Jane took her seat in a position of honor on the table reserved solely for the ladies of the court. From there, she had an uninterrupted view of everything. So did Henry. Having weathered so many storms to reach this point, he could not resist savoring every moment of his wife’s success. With the ambassadors from France and Venice, he watched from a small side room with a perfect view of the hall. Chapuys was not invited.

Anne, wearing her lighter crown, sat on Henry’s own marble throne quite apart from everyone else. Her cloth of estate was in place over her, as befitted an anointed queen. She was in the middle of the central table, with Cranmer at a suitably respectful distance on her right. The Countess of Worcester and the widowed Countess of Oxford stood on either side of her, ready to hold up a linen cloth to shield her should she want “to spit or do otherwise at her pleasure” while two gentlewomen crouched under the table at the queen’s feet ready to perform any other task for her, maintaining a convention that stretched back over the centuries. No one else was allowed anywhere near Anne, unless it was to serve her food and wine, although the current Earl of Oxford was deputed to stand behind her, between the archbishop and the widowed countess. The queen’s dais, twelve steps high, was railed off from the other guests below.

Jane’s table, which was about eight yards long, was one of four set at right angles to the queen’s platform. If she turned round, she could see Peacock, with his aldermen, city officials, and wealthy merchants, happily ensconced at the table immediately behind hers, in front of the stone walls of the massive hall. Her mother was further down Jane’s table, with the wives of other key nobles and courtiers. Again, it was a family occasion for Jane. Lord Morley, perhaps with a proud eye on his son, who was now Sir Henry and wearing his Knight of the Bath robes, sat at the next table along, sharing it with judges like Sir John Spelman and leading churchmen. Near Archbishop Lee was Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Gardiner was well known to the Boleyns. Although an ally over the divorce, his presentation of Convocation’s case when the clergy were forced to submit to royal control left a question mark in Boleyn minds over the depth of his allegiance. And even as Jane glanced along the serried rows of guests as they tucked into the thirty or so courses with which they were presented, she knew that many were there out of pragmatism rather than true loyalty to her sister-in-law’s cause.

A quick look at the Duke of Suffolk would have reinforced that thought. In his role as high steward, he was in charge of much that was going on. He certainly looked the part. In embroidered crimson velvet robes, his doublet glistening with lustrous pearls, and with a tall white rod in his hand, he rode around the hall mounted on a charger draped in crimson velvet. He and Lord William Howard, also opulently clad and also on horseback, escorted in the first course with much flourish and “rode often times about the hall, cheering the lords, ladies, and the mayor and his brethren.” But how far Suffolk could be trusted was another matter. Getting rid of Wolsey was one thing; playing second fiddle to the Boleyns, another. His ambition and acquisitiveness were common knowledge. Anne’s vice-chamberlain, Sir Edward Baynton, today resplendent in his new red robes, wrote as much to George. “My lord of Suffolk,” he said, “is loath to let fall a noble unless he took up a royal for it.” Already he had squabbled with Norfolk, his rival in East Anglia, and had been forced by the king to give up his office of earl marshal to him. There was no love lost there.

Still, Suffolk was performing well. There was no concrete reason to suspect him. The host of guests seemed to be enjoying the whole spectacle. Sir Edward Seymour, one of the king’s esquires of the body, whose family came from Wiltshire, served Cranmer most competently. Jane could spot her cousin, Sir John St. John, among those gentlemen who laughingly assisted with serving others in the hall. Young Sir Francis Weston, a recent recruit to the king’s privy chamber who had just been invested with her brother, sat with his fellow Knights of the Bath as yet more and more dishes were brought forward by the army of attendants on duty that day, every course announced triumphantly by the trumpeters and musicians.

Anne’s resilience was admirable. She was on show the entire time and never faltered. As the feast drew to its close, the servants brought thin sweet wafers and spiced wine, and the queen rose. Jane and everyone else rose with her, standing silently while Anne washed her hands and dried them on special napkins. The Earl of Sussex handed her a final dish of sweetmeats, carefully arranged on a plate of solid gold. He was followed by Peacock, who presented her with a golden cup filled with wine, his last duty of the long day. Anne thanked him once more, before giving him the precious cup as a gift, as was expected. With everyone still on their feet, she left the hall, her canopy again carried by four lords. Her oarsmen waited, the waters of the Thames lapping against the side of her barge. They had one more task to undertake before they too could go back and tell their families all they had seen. Anne was helped aboard her vessel, perhaps with Jane at her side, for she needed her ladies with her. The queen was rowed the short distance along the river to where Henry was waiting at Wolsey’s York Place. The tiltyards were already being prepared for tourneys the next morning but for a while there was time for rest.

For Jane too it had been a very tiring few days. No doubt it had been good to catch up with Parker news and gossip, but Great Hallingbury was becoming more of a distant memory as the years passed. Jane’s world was the court now, her horizons had expanded, her place was assured. Where the Boleyns went, so did she.

CHAPTER
14

Long May We Reign

I
T WAS OVER.
Ambassadors wrote copious accounts of what they had seen. Suffolk had the chance to hurry home to the bedside of his dying wife. Londoners carefully took down the banners and the hangings that they had used to decorate their streets. Sir Stephen Peacock returned to his normal duties and so did the aldermen and the merchants. They wanted to start making money again; coronations were expensive events and Henry had demanded substantial contributions from all of them. Subjects who had come to the city to become knights, or because the king had demanded their attendance, went back to their estates. All had their stories to tell. Jane and the Boleyns, however, hoped that the coronation marked not an end but a beginning.

So far, the whole family had profited. Uncle James was slotted in as Anne’s chancellor, Mary was at court with her sister, and Thomas’s influence around his royal son-in-law remained strong. George’s frequent absences on diplomatic missions to France meant that Jane saw less of him than usual but he too was an important player at court. By now, he was involved in Parliament and he had joined his father in the Privy Council so was busy even when he was in England. Chapuys, who often mentioned meeting the “Lady’s brother” when he went to court to see the king, remarked on how conversation sometimes stopped when the ever-watchful George came over to him. All were aware of his diligence in his sister’s cause. And such devotion continued to bring rewards to him and to his wife. A prize had fallen into their laps a couple of months before Cranmer had placed St. Edward’s Crown on Anne’s dark locks: they had been granted the wardship of Edmund Sheffield. Son of Sir Robert Sheffield and his wife, Lord Strange’s daughter, also a Jane, and a distant relation of the king, the little boy was heir to his father’s lands, which were mainly in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. Perhaps the Rochfords had a quiet chuckle at how fitting an acquisition the child was for them: his grandfather had once been in great trouble with Cardinal Wolsey, whose head, he had said, “ought to be as red as his coat.” When given into the hands of George and Jane, the child was about twelve, a highly convenient age. As yet, they had no children of their own but both were still young. Should Jane give birth to a daughter in the future, there would be a rich husband waiting in the wings. There was nothing wrong with being prepared. After all, if the lofty Duke of Suffolk had been willing to pay Henry more than two thousand pounds for the heiress, Katherine Willoughby, clearly with an eye to marrying her off to his own son, there was no reason why they should not follow his utilitarian example. In the meantime, they could enjoy the fruits gleaned from administering Edmund’s inheritance. The possession of a wardship was a matter of pride for Jane and George, confirmation of their place in the king’s affections and of their status. Money was certainly plentiful. George had enough spare cash to send a servant to Calais with twenty marks simply to purchase hawks for the hawking he so much enjoyed, the first of several errands of this kind.

As for Anne, the gifts continued to flow. Francis gave her a “fine rich litter with three mules,” much to Chapuys’ contempt. She needed more furniture for her privy chamber so Lord Windsor, keeper of Henry’s great wardrobe, sent her several elaborate chairs, two of which had gilt and enamel pommels and were covered in cloth of gold. Her initials and arms were engraved on the royal plate. She was bedecked in Katherine’s jewels and flaunted them at every opportunity. And although Anne was extremely wealthy by virtue of her investiture as Marquess of Pembroke, Henry quickly set about ensuring her a suitable jointure. To add insult to injury, the lands chosen were those allocated to Katherine when she had married Arthur, the transfer confirmed by an act of Parliament. The jointure increased Anne’s fortune considerably. Assuming that she received everything once granted to her predecessor, she gained a huge boost from specified rents and hundreds of acres of land in Essex, Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Herefordshire, and Lincolnshire. She now owned castles scattered around the country, including Fotheringhay, destined to be the place where her daughter was to eventually execute Mary, Queen of Scots. She was given Baynard’s Castle in London, with its fairy-tale towers and turrets and useful river front position, as a further residence. She was even given the rights over the “dragging of mussels” in Essex. Then, never one to hold back, Anne astounded Chapuys by cajoling Henry into asking Katherine to send her an exquisite cloth she had brought from Spain as a christening robe for the babies she had expected to have. Katherine’s answer must have infuriated the Boleyns. “God forbid that I should ever be so badly advised as to give help, assistance, or favor, directly or indirectly, in a case so horrible and abominable as this,” was the heartfelt response of the outraged queen. For once, Anne did not get her way, certainly hardening her heart against both Katherine and Princess Mary.