with Mark Smeaton. But if that was true, why take it out on his sister Anne?
Lady Rochford may have been jealous of Rochford's close bond with Anne. It was said she 'acted more out of envy than out of love towards the King'. Perhaps she resented Anne for her part in getting her sent to the Tower. Or maybe she could see that the Boleyns were on a headlong course to ruin, and thought it a good idea to get on the right side of the King. It was wise to distance herself from the Queen's party at this time. And Cromwell, the King's chief minister, might have put pressure on her to speak against Anne.
Thanks to his wife, Lord Rochford was beheaded in May 1536. Lady Rochford, a 'widow in black' with a face of woe, left court. Her husband's assets were seized by the Crown and given away, leaving her very poor. Even her rich court gowns had been taken. She was forced to beg for help. The King acted at once, forcing Lord Rochford's father to give her a bigger income.
Soon after that, Lady Rochford was brought back to court as a lady-in-waiting to the next queen, Jane Seymour. She stayed in favour with the King, and was to serve two of his later wives, Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard.
But in 1541, Lady Rochford became a party to treason. She rashly aided Katherine Howard's affair with Thomas Culpeper, helping them to meet in secret. She even let them use her own room at court. It was a stupid thing to do, and she was putting herself in grave danger. She has been called a meddler who got a sordid thrill from it all. Katherine Howard herself later accused Jane of having a 'wicked' mind. True or not, both acted like witless fools.
When Katherine's past came to light, she was put under guard with only Lady Rochford to wait on her. After the affair with Culpeper became known, Jane too was arrested. When Katherine went to Syon Abbey, Lady Rochford was sent to the Tower.
Some of the Queen's women told the council that Lady Rochford had been a party to a plot of the Queen's, and had passed on letters to Culpeper. They told how Lady Rochford had locked the King out that night, and how she had kept watch while Katherine and Culpeper brought each other to a climax. Then a letter from the Queen to her lover was found. 'Come to me when Lady Rochford be here,' she had written.
Lady Rochford was now seen as the chief cause of the Queen's folly. She, more than anyone, had good cause to know what became of people accused of treason. Quizzed by the council, she said she thought Culpeper had had sex with Queen Katherine. She told them that the affair had begun in the spring, and gave many details. She said that Katherine knew the risks she was taking. Culpeper, in turn, accused Lady Rochford of pressing him to love the Queen.
Back in her prison, 'that bawd Lady Rochford' was so scared of what might be done to her that, for a time, she was 'seized with raving madness'. The law did not permit mad persons to be put to death, but her 'fit of frenzy' did not save her. The King sent his doctors to treat her, and had an act act passed allowing him to put an insane traitor to death. In January 1542, Lady Rochford was found guilty of high treason, and she followed Katherine Howard to the block on 13 February 1542.
By the time Lady Rochford reached the scaffold, she was calm and ready to die. There was no sign of madness at her end. In her last speech, she spent a long time dwelling on her faults. She said that God had let her suffer this shameful doom, because she had helped to bring about her husband's death. 'I falsely accused him of loving his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn. For this I deserve to die. But I am guilty of no other crime.'
Jane, Lady Rochford, was buried, like most of the Tower's victims, in the royal chapel of St Peter. In 1876, experts dug up some of the graves, and some bones were found that they thought were hers. In fact, they were not her remains, and it is almost certain that the bones buried as 'Lady Rochford' were Anne Boleyn's.
Many years later, George Cavendish wrote that Lady Rochford's 'slander for ever shall be rife' and that she would be called the woman who craved vice. That is how she has gone down in history.
Chapter Six
Lady Jane Grey (1554) - The Nine-Days' Queen
A little over four hundred and fifty years ago, a girl of sixteen, Lady Jane Grey, was made Queen of England. She is famous because her reign was to last for only nine days, and she met a tragic end. She was the helpless victim of ruthless and greedy men. Of all the traitors of the Tower, her story is the saddest.
Jane was born in 1536, and perhaps named for Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII. Jane's mother, Frances Brandon, was Henry VIII's niece. Four years earlier, Frances had married Henry Grey, Lord Dorset. Jane was their eldest living child, but her sex was a bitter blow to her parents, who wanted a boy. Yet they knew she could be useful to them, for the royal blood of the Tudors ran in her veins.
In 1537, Jane Seymour died after giving Henry VIII the son he had long craved. The new prince was called Edward. For some years, Lady Jane Grey's parents plotted to marry her to him, and thus make her Queen of England in the future. That way, they could become a power in the land.
The Dorsets wanted Jane to be well taught. Their hopes of her were high. As soon as she was four, they arranged for her to have a tutor and be drilled in her lessons. They meant to make her a fit wife for a king. Jane was a clever child, very bright and able. Much was asked of her, but she did well in her studies, and grew to love her teachers.
Jane was a tiny girl, with fair, freckled skin and sandy red hair. She was plain rather than pretty, but that did not matter too much, because she was royal. All her life, her parents would look upon her as a pawn to be moved at their will. Worse still, they ill treated her badly in body and in spirit. They beat her and told her off for the slightest fault. They made her go hunting, which she hated. They dressed her in rich silks, but told her she would not go far on looks alone.
Two people brought some comfort to the young child. One was her kind nurse, Mrs Ellen. The other was her tutor, John Aylmer, who loved her and taught her to value learning for its own sake.
The happiest years of Jane's life were perhaps those she spent at court in the loving care of Henry VIII's sixth queen, Katherine Parr, who helped this clever and able child in her studies. Like John Aylmer, Katherine Parr was a staunch Protestant. Both of them may have inspired Jane to adopt the new faith, to which she stayed true all her life.
After Henry VIII died in 1547, his son Edward VI, then aged nine, became king and Jane went to live at Chelsea with the widowed Katherine Parr. Soon afterwards, Katherine married the charming and cunning Thomas, Lord Seymour, brother of the late Queen, Jane Seymour. Thomas Seymour now joined Lady Jane Grey's parents in plotting to marry her to the young King. He paid a lot of money to make her his ward, and told the Dorsets they would soon see their daughter Queen of England.
But Thomas Seymour had no power, and no way of bringing about the marriage. King Edward VI wanted to marry Mary, Queen of Scots, or a rich French princess. He was not interested in making Jane his wife.
Because King Edward was a child, England was then ruled by Thomas Seymour's brother, Lord Protector Somerset. Somerset found out about the plot to marry Jane to Edward, and was very angry with Seymour. Yet Jane was allowed to remain in Katherine Parr's household, and she must have been deeply upset when Katherine died in childbirth in 1548. Wearing a black gown, ten-year-old Jane acted as chief mourner when the Queen was buried at Sudeley Castle.
After that, she had to return home. Her parents wanted her brought up to be good, meek, sober and ready to obey them in all things, and she must have known what that meant. Her misery was clear to the famous tutor, Roger Ascham, who spoke with her at her family home when she was thirteen.
She told him, 'When I am with my father or mother, whether I speak, keep silent, sit, stand, eat, drink, be merry or sad, I must do it as perfectly as God made the world.' If she did not, she would be pinched, hit or worse. 'I think myself in hell,' she wept.
Under Edward VI, England had turned Protestant. The last years of the reign saw a growing gulf between Lady Jane Grey and the King's sister, Princess Mary, over matters of faith. Mary was a true Catholic, Jane a firm Protestant. In 1551, Jane visited Mary's house, New Hall in Essex, and there, in the chapel, saw a lady bow to the consecrated bread on the altar.
