Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford

Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (~1505 - February 13 1542) was the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn and lady-in-waiting to Catherine Howard, along with whom she was executed.

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. 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, Queen Anne, 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, but there is no apparent truth in the theory that her husband was a homosexual. In fact, he had a reputation as a noted womaniser - which might explain the marriage's miserable status. However, there was no justification for the savage act of betrayal she performed in 1536.

When Lord Rochford was arrested as one of Queen Anne's supposed lovers, it was Lady Rochford's sworn affidavit which helped convict him of incest and treason. There was no truth in these rumours, but they provided the mirage of legality which the Boleyns' enemies needed to send Lord Rochford to the block on May 17th. Queen Anne followed two days later, accused of witchcraft as well. What makes Lady Rochford's act of betrayal even more shocking is that she and Lord Rochford are said to have had a son together, a son who later became Dean of Lichfield under Queen Elizabeth I.

Following her husband's execution, Lady Rochford was later given a placement in the household of another of King Henry VIII's queens, Anne of Cleves, and it was she who questioned the Queen about the consummation, and therefore the validity, of her marriage to the King. She would later tesify in July 1540 to further the King's divorce from his fourth wife.

Following this divorce, she became a Lady of the Privy Chamber to yet another of Henry's wives, Catherine Howard. When the teenaged Queen grew bored with her ill-tempered, moody and repulsive husband, it was Lady Rochford who helped organised secret meetings between Queen Catherine and the handsome courtier Thomas Culpeper. It is not certain whether or not Catherine's relationship with Culpeper ever became a fully sexual affair.

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.

Lady Rochford 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.

Lady Rochford was executed immediately after Queen Catherine 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 Boleyn. 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 Queen Anne and Lord Rochford.

In fiction and history

Understandably, historians have not been kind to Lady Rochford. She is generally condemned for her role in assisting the attack on the Boleyns in 1536. The only historian to deny her role in this is Retha M. 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 simply too much evidence to suggest that Lady Rochford was actively involved in her husband's downfall to argue otherwise. 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 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 mentioned in Wendy J. Dunn's Dear Heart, How Like You This? which is based on the life of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, in which Wyatt and Lord Rochford discuss what it is to be unhappily married.

A larger role is given to Lady Rochford in Jean Plaidy's novel on Catherine Howard's story, Rose Without a Thorn. She also appears in the historical romance The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory which tells the story of Queen Anne and Lord Rochford's sister, Lady Mary Boleyn. The novel is not historically accurate, since it suggests that the two Boleyns were guilty of committing incest - but, even so, Lady Rochford's character is not a pleasant one.

Lady Rochford's character did not appear in the opulent 1969 Oscar-winner Anne of the Thousand Days, where Genevieve 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. The character was not historically accurate and she had no more than a few lines. Merle Oberon played Anne Boleyn and Binnie Barnes was Catherine Howard.

In the 1971 BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Lady Rochford was played by Sheila Burrell. She appeared in four episodes - those of Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. The Queens mentioned were played by Dorothy Tutin, Anne Stallybrass, Elvi Hale and Angela Pleasance. Lord Rochford was played by Jonathan Newth.

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.