THE RISE OF THE SEYMOURS
The year 1535 was a momentous one for the Seymours. Jane continued in Anne’s household as lady-in-waiting, and hosted the royal couple at Wolf Hall on their summer progress. Within months, Henry’s intentions towards Jane became evident. He was deeply smitten and a faction quickly formed around her, like bees around their queen. Apart from her immediate family, an important ally was Sir Nicholas Carew, Anne Boleyn’s cousin, who did not share Anne’s religious views and actively agitated against her, all the while tutoring Jane in how to keep the king’s interest. Two other significant supporters were Francis Bryan, and, of course, Cromwell. The court watched as Henry wooed another lady-in-waiting in full view of his wife and ministers. While the king had considerable experience of such affairs, it is difficult to get a sense of Jane during this hasty courtship. Historians have used and perpetuated the contrast between Anne and Jane – striking, dark-haired, intelligent and passionate versus bland, pale, weak-chinned and shy – to explain why Henry may have made such a choice. The despatches of Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys are the source of detail about Anne Boleyn, but his communications from December 1536 through to November 1537 have disappeared from the archives, or perhaps they were destroyed, which means there is a lengthy gap in Chapuys’ reports, depriving us of his rich and rewarding perspectives of this period, and of Henry’s new queen.
Jane Rochford, returned to court in The Mirror And The Light, intimates to Cromwell that Jane is not as innocent as she appears, suggesting that she promoted friction and discord around her mistress, Anne Boleyn. Here, Mantel has Jane Rochford presenting the view of many historians who believe that, far from innocent, Jane and her faction contrived to present to the king a calm, rational and dignified foil to Anne’s increasingly irrational temper and hysteria. The Seymours actively plotted against Anne, and one example of the strategies they employed is the rather hasty change to their family crest, which was originally a peacock’s head and neck, its wings in mid-flight. But a humble woman like Jane could hardly have a proud peacock as her crest – the badge had to reflect the portrayal of Jane as meek and submissive. With a few brushstrokes, the peacock was transformed into a phoenix, the symbol of self-sacrifice.
Throughout the first months of 1536, Jane was coached carefully by her cousin, Nicholas Carew, and Cromwell may well have also played a part in instructing her. On one occasion, often recounted, Henry sent Jane a purse full of coins with a love letter, with the intention of making clear his intentions. Jane was likely forewarned and advised to make a rather theatrical display of the virtuous woman: she was careful not to open the letter but kissed it chastely, and then returned it unopened, begging the messenger to relay to the king that he might gift her when she had made an honourable match. It was a diplomatic way of extricating herself from a delicate situation: being propositioned by the king and spurning his advances.
Though Anne was never particularly popular, Jane was also not well-loved by the people to begin with. Many found Henry’s haste to take a new wife, while Anne’s head was still lying on the scaffold, objectionable. However, her deference and desire to reconcile Henry with his oldest child, Mary, and her appeal to Henry’s gentler nature, endeared her to many and demonstrated a kindness and generosity of spirit that many felt Anne had lacked.
OLD FAMILIES, NEW ORDER
The Tudor period marked the shift from medieval to early modern. The reign of Henry VII changed the centuries-old power dynamic of the king and his people; he was unable to trust the ancient, powerful and conservative families that had always dominated the country. His 14-year-long exile informed his view of ableness and aptitude in the people around him. He chose new courtiers and new advisors – new men to serve under his rule and to heal the war-torn country. Skill now trumped lineage. When Henry VIII came to the throne, his challenges tested even the most devoted of the conservatives: he had the best of the new men to serve his will, and a formidable one it proved to be. Henry’s subjects were required to support his marital and religious exploits: the usurpation of an anointed queen; the execution of two queen consorts; the king becoming Supreme Head of the Church in England; the execution of John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester; the repudiation of the legitimacy of both of his daughters; and the execution of some of his most loyal subjects.
Anne Boleyn’s reign had turned the country on its head, or in Wyatt’s words, ‘set the country in a roar’ but the accession of Jane Seymour, it was hoped, heralded a return to the first golden years of Henry’s reign, and if it didn’t, the old families were prepared to replace the king in order to facilitate the matter.
T
HE
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OLES
The Pole family came from modest beginnings and is often confused with the more illustrious, but unrelated, de la Pole family. The Poles had a tenuous link to the Tudors through Geoffrey Pole, a Buckinghamshire squire whose wife, Edith, was the half-sister of Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII’s mother. Following Richard III’s death at Bosworth, Henry Tudor brokered the marriage between Edith’s son Richard and Lady Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Clarence, niece of two Yorkist kings: Edward IV and Richard III, and the granddaughter of Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick. The mingling of Margaret’s Plantagenet and Yorkist blood cast a shadow over her family as rivals to Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne, and the marriage was necessary as a show of loyalty to
