Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford
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Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (~1505–February 13, 1542) was an English noblewoman who lived in the reign of Henry VIII. She was a sister-in-law of Henry's second wife Anne Boleyn and lady-in-waiting to his fifth wife Catherine Howard, with whom she was executed.
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[edit] Early life and marriage
Born Jane Parker, she was the daughter of Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley and Alice St John (the eldest daughter of Sir John St John), both from old English families with Roman Catholic tendencies. She was born in Norfolk in England. Sometime around 1524, she was married to George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, the brother of Lady Anne Boleyn, later the second queen of King Henry VIII.
Lady Rochford's relationship with her Boleyn in-laws was not easy. She plotted with her sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn, to banish one of the King's mistresses from Court in 1535. When the King discovered her involvement, Lady Rochford was exiled for a few months instead.
Lady Rochford's marriage was particularly unhappy. It has been suggested by one modern historian that this may have been caused by her husband being a homosexual. However, this idea has been rejected by most other experts, who have highlighted alternative contemporary evidence which indicates that George Boleyn had a reputation as a noted womaniser, which might explain the marriage's miserable status. There is a strong possibility that the marriage did produce one son, however, who later became Dean of Lichfield. The documentary evidence for this is scarce and it may be that the Dean was the son of a Boleyn cousin.
George Boleyn was arrested in May 1536 and imprisoned in the Tower of London, accused of sleeping with his sister, the queen. It was Lady Rochford's sworn affidavit which helped convict him of incest and treason, stating that she believed that he and his sister Anne had been involved in a sexual relationship since the winter of 1535. There was no proof in these rumours, but they provided the legal pretext which the Boleyns' enemies needed to send Lord Rochford to the block on May 17th. Queen Anne followed two days later, accused of witchcraft, treason and adultery with four other men as well. She and George both protested their innocence before their deaths and Lady Rochford's involvement in their destruction earned her a notorious reputation.
[edit] Later political intrigues
Following her husband's execution, Lady Rochford was absent from court until she gained a place in the household of another of the king's wives, Anne of Cleves. Lady Rochford would later testify in July 1540 to aid the King's divorce from her, stating that the queen had confided in her that their marriage had never been consummated. This allowed the king to annul the marriage with Anne of Cleves and marry his then-mistress, Catherine Howard.
Lady Rochford then became Lady of the Privy Chamber to the new queen and she exerted considerable influence over her. When the teenaged Queen grew bored with her husband, it was Lady Rochford who helped organise secret meetings between Queen Catherine and the handsome courtier Thomas Culpepper. Catherine Howard was most certainly unchaste before her marriage, however, while it is believed that Catherine's relationship with Culpepper became an adulterous affair there is no factual evidence for this.
[edit] Downfall and execution
When the King began his progress to the North of England in June 1541, Queen Catherine and Lady Rochford's indiscretions could no longer be hidden from the rest of the court. Protestant courtiers unearthed enough evidence to prove that the Queen had not been a virgin when she married the King in 1540, and they later discovered a love letter she had written Culpeper which mentioned Lady Rochford as their go-between.
She was arrested and taken to the Tower of London, where she was interrogated for many months, but as an aristocrat she was not tortured. Under the psychological pressure, she lost her sanity. The King had to order a new law which allowed the execution of the insane in order to have her condemned to death.
She was executed immediately after the Queen on 13 February 1542, by a skilled axe-man. According to reliable sources she confessed before her death, "God has permitted me to suffer this shameful doom as punishment for having contributed to my husband's death. I falsely accused him of loving in an incestuous manner, his sister, Queen Anne. For this I deserve to die." She was buried in the Tower of London along with Catherine Howard, and very close to the bodies of Anne Boleyn and Lord Rochford.
[edit] In fiction and history
Understandably, historians have been highly critical of Lady Rochford. She is generally condemned for her role in assisting the attack on the Boleyns in 1536. The only historian to question her role in this is Retha Warnicke, author of The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. However, much of what Warnicke has said over the events of 1536 is either disputed or disproved. There is an enormous amount of evidence to suggest that Lady Rochford was actively involved in her husband's downfall and her treachery is explored in Eric Ives's biographies of Queen Anne, published in 1986 and 2004; Joanna Denny's 2004 biography of Queen Anne and many older historical texts on the Queen's life.
In fiction, Lady Rochford has appeared in numerous novels, especially those on Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. She features in Robin Maxwell's The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, Suzannah Dunn's The Queen of Subtleties and briefly in Margaret George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII. Jane's character is also mentioned in Wendy J. Dunn's Dear Heart, How Like You This? which is based on the life of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. She is a minor character in Sovereign, the third installment of C.J. Sansom's Shardlake series, set in 16th century England. A larger role is given to Lady Rochford in Jean Plaidy's novel The Rose Without a Thorn.
She appears in the historical romance The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory which tells the story of her other sister-in-law, Mary Boleyn. One of the sequels to The Other Boleyn Girl, is "The Boleyn Inheritance", which casts Lady Rochford as its lead character and details the final three years of her life and her role in the careers of Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard.
Lady Rochford's character did not appear in the opulent 1969 Oscar-winner Anne of the Thousand Days, where Geneviève Bujold played Anne Boleyn and Richard Burton played King Henry VIII. Neither did her character appear in the 1973 movie Henry VIII and his Six Wives. She did appear, briefly, in the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII, where she was played by Judy Kelly.
In the 1971 BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Lady Rochford was played by Sheila Burrell. She appeared in four episodes - those on Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard.
In the British 2-part television drama Henry VIII in 2003, Lady Rochford was played by British actress, Kelly Hunter. She appeared opposite Helena Bonham Carter as Anne Boleyn, Emily Blunt as Catherine Howard and Dominic Maffian as George Boleyn.
She did not appear in the BBC's adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl in 2003, though a character is credited as Jane Parker - her maiden name- played by Zoe Waites. In the 2007 remake of the book, she is played by Juno Temple and is credited as 'Jane Parker'.
