Speaker 1: One quick bit of housekeeping before we begin. I am
Speaker 1: so so excited that in twenty twenty seven I will
Speaker 1: be partnering with Common Ground Pilgrimages again to lead a
Speaker 1: Pride and Prejudice pilgrimage in England. If you've been a
Speaker 1: longtime listener of the show, you're probably used to be
Speaker 1: talking about these, but they are honestly my favorite thing
Speaker 1: in the world. We pick a book and for a
Speaker 1: week just gather a group of like, smart, wonderful people
Speaker 1: together to talk about the book and go on long
Speaker 1: walks in the English countryside. And I could not be
Speaker 1: more thrilled that the next book I'm doing is Pride
Speaker 1: and Prejudice. So if you're at all interested in joining
Speaker 1: with us, I think we still have Depending on when
Speaker 1: this episode comes out, a few slots available google Common
Speaker 1: Ground Pilgrimages, Danish worts Pride and Prejudice.
Speaker 2: It'll come up.
Speaker 1: I have so much fun doing it, and it also
Speaker 1: makes the trip so special if podcast listeners and members
Speaker 1: of the Noble family are also coming along, So take
Speaker 1: a look at that.
Speaker 2: Let's get into the episode.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener discretion advised. In fifteen
Speaker 1: forty two, Lady Rochford, lady in waiting to multiple queens
Speaker 1: and sister in law to one, was awaiting a trial
Speaker 1: during which she would almost certainly be convicted of high treason. Certainly,
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth was determined for her to be
Speaker 1: found guilty and executed. But there was one problem. During
Speaker 1: Lady Rochford's interrogation, she suffered a nervous breakdown and, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better phrase, went insane.
Speaker 2: She had quote fits.
Speaker 1: Of frenzy and lost her connection with reality. Now this,
Speaker 1: of course was a problem for Lady Rochford. No one
Speaker 1: wants to go mad, But it was also a problem
Speaker 1: for Henry the Eighth because it wouldn't be legal for
Speaker 1: him to try and execute someone who was not mentally fit.
Speaker 1: And so Lady Rochford was brought from her imprisonment at
Speaker 1: the Tower of London to the home of Lady Russell,
Speaker 1: the wife of the Lord Admiral, in order to try
Speaker 1: to nurse her back to health and sanity, for the
Speaker 1: goal of expediting her execution. But Henry wasn't content to wait.
Speaker 1: A bill was passed allowing the execution of the insane,
Speaker 1: and Jane was duly convicted by an act of attainder.
Speaker 1: When Jane, Lady Rochford was told of her impending death,
Speaker 1: it seems her sanity returned to her. Maybe the lady
Speaker 1: had been faking it, trying to get a reprieve or
Speaker 1: postpone her death sentence, or maybe the shock of the
Speaker 1: end arriving jolted her back into her right mind. But
Speaker 1: it didn't matter, mad Or saying Lady Rochford was going
Speaker 1: to the scaffold. Lady Rochford was born Jane Parker, but
Speaker 1: most people are probably more familiar with her married name,
Speaker 1: Jane Bolin. She was married to George Bolin, the brother
Speaker 1: of Anne, the brother who incidentally was convicted of incest
Speaker 1: with his sister before they were both beheaded. If you
Speaker 1: are a frequent reader of Tudor era literature or watcher
Speaker 1: of historical dramas, you probably know Lady Rochford as a villainous,
Speaker 1: a jealous social climbing shrew who testified against her own
Speaker 1: husband in a vindictive attempt to take down her hated
Speaker 1: sister in law. Tracy Borman, chief historian at Historic Royal
Speaker 1: Palaces has characterized her as quote the most hated woman
Speaker 1: in Tudor, England, but the truth about Jane Boln, Lady
Speaker 1: Rochford is unsurprisingly more complicated, and modern scholarship has shed
Speaker 1: new light on Jane's terrible reputation and whether or not
Speaker 1: she was responsible for the downfall of Anne Boleyn. She
Speaker 1: was certainly more involved in the downfall of another queen
Speaker 1: and cousin, Katherine Howard. Jane Boln would eventually lose her
Speaker 1: own head, and two of the five queens she served
Speaker 1: under suffered the same fate. The question, then, is how
Speaker 1: much was really Jane's fault. I'm Danish Schwartz and this
Speaker 1: is noble blood. Jane Bolin was born Jane Parker, a
Speaker 1: well connected girl from a good family. Her father was
Speaker 1: a baron and her mother was the great granddaughter of
Speaker 1: Margaret Beauchamp, the maternal grandmother of Henry the Seventh. Though
Speaker 1: unfortunately a paucity of records means we don't know exactly
Speaker 1: when Jane was born, her early life reads as though
Speaker 1: she's a bit of the forest gump of Tudor England,
Speaker 1: appearing at the most famous events in Henry the eighth's reign.
Speaker 1: When Jane was a young woman, she joined the household
Speaker 1: of Catherine of Aragon, and she was with the court
Speaker 1: in fifteen twenty when they journeyed to France for the
Speaker 1: field of the Cloth of Gold, when Henry had a
Speaker 1: famous meeting with the King of France. Two years later,
Speaker 1: Jane appeared again at a pivotal moment in history at
Speaker 1: the famous Mask performance at York Palace, a performance of
Speaker 1: the Chateau Verre, which consisted of a giant imitation castle
Speaker 1: covered in green foil and some of the most beautiful
Speaker 1: women in court playing virtues that needed to be rescued
Speaker 1: by crusading knights. Jane, one of the performers, portrayed Constancy,
Speaker 1: alongside her future sisters in law Mary Bolin Kindness and
Speaker 1: Anne Bolin fittingly perseverance. A few years later, as the
Speaker 1: Bolins continued to rise at court, Jane married the Bolan brother, George.
Speaker 1: It was a fitting match, with George's sister favored by
Speaker 1: the king, obviously not yet queen, but certainly being paid
Speaker 1: special attention to the Bolan family star was on the rise.
Speaker 1: George was given the sinisterly named Grimstone Manor as a
Speaker 1: wedding gift, and a few years after they were married,
Speaker 1: Jane became not just Jane Bolin but also the Viscountess Rochford.
Speaker 2: Why was the.
Speaker 1: Bolin star on the rise? Well, I assume you probably
Speaker 1: know this story. First, Henry had had an affair with
Speaker 1: Mary Bolin, actually the married Mary Carrie, but when given
Speaker 1: what he wanted, he lost interest fairly quickly, and then
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth became enchanted by dark, quick witted,
Speaker 1: charming Anne. As he fell deeper in love, he became
Speaker 1: more frustrated that his decades long marriage with Catherine of
Speaker 1: Arragon hadn't produced any male heirs, and he became more
Speaker 1: convinced that that was God's way of showing him that
Speaker 1: the marriage had actually been invalid the entire time. Henry
Speaker 1: began his maneuvers to do whatever he could to get
Speaker 1: thee to annul his first marriage so that he could
Speaker 1: marry Anne. In the meantime, the king showed the Bolens
Speaker 1: whatever favor he could. They were given the luxurious palace
Speaker 1: of Bullieu, which had hot and cold running water. As
Speaker 1: if the symbolism couldn't be more obvious with regards to
Speaker 1: the changing of fortunes. The palace had formerly belonged to Mary,
Speaker 1: Henry's daughter by Catherine of Aragon. She Mary was banished
Speaker 1: to less luxurious digs, and the Bolins swept into place.
Speaker 1: A lot of our information with what was happening with
Speaker 1: Jane at this point is filling in whatever gaps we
Speaker 1: can with our best educated guesses. The conventional wisdom is
Speaker 1: that Jane and George had a poisonous, unhappy marriage, that
Speaker 1: Jane was jealous and bitter toward Anne Boleyn. It's certainly
Speaker 1: possible to read the story that way, but the evidence
Speaker 1: isn't exactly air tight, and in recent years, historians, particularly
Speaker 1: Julia Fox, have begun a bit of a reclamation project.
Speaker 1: People historically have pointed out that George and Jane didn't
Speaker 1: have any children as evidence for the fact that their
Speaker 1: marriage was unhappy, but there are plenty of reasons why
Speaker 1: people might not have been able to have children, and
Speaker 1: all contemporary writing seems to indicate that Jane really cared
Speaker 1: for George, even when, as you'll soon see, trouble came
Speaker 1: for them. It certainly wasn't a love match, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean by Tudor standards it was an unsuccessful marriage.
Speaker 1: Another central piece of evidence in favor of Jane's resentment
Speaker 1: for the Bolet is apparent writing that indicates Jane allegedly
Speaker 1: participated in a group of ladies protesting against Anne after
Speaker 1: she became queen, a public show of support for Henry's
Speaker 1: daughter Mary from his first marriage, Except did Jane actually
Speaker 1: attend that protest? The evidence comes from handwritten Marginalia, a
Speaker 1: contemporary source documenting the protest, who wrote Downmu Lord Rochfort
Speaker 1: and Meu Lord Guillaume, indicating George Bolin, Lord Rochfort, and
Speaker 1: William Howard. In the nineteenth century, a biographer interpreted that
Speaker 1: as meaning their wives had been among the women protesting,
Speaker 1: but modern scholarship indicates that that almost certainly was not
Speaker 1: the case. As Sylvia Barbara Sorberton points out, William Howard's
Speaker 1: wife actually he died a few months before the protest,
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't marry again until the next year, so
Speaker 1: he didn't even have a wife at the time who
Speaker 1: could have attended the protest. And for Jane, in Sorberton's
Speaker 1: words quote, to break the habit of a lifetime and
Speaker 1: speak out, particularly against her husband's family, would be most
Speaker 1: uncharacteristic her fortunes had risen with the Bolins, it would
Speaker 1: have been outright foolish and probably far more notable than
Speaker 1: just a scribble in a margin if she had taken
Speaker 1: such a public stance against her very powerful sister in law.
Speaker 2: It is more likely.
Speaker 1: Syburton posits that George Bolin and William Howard had been
Speaker 1: the men tasked with disciplining those involved. Being married to
Speaker 1: George Bolin had only made Jane more prominent and important
Speaker 1: at court. George was at the heart of courtly culture,
Speaker 1: with a flourishing career and an expanding portfolio of properties.
Speaker 1: It stands to reason that Jane would have been perfectly
Speaker 1: content to rise with him and his sister, But unfortunately
Speaker 1: for Jane, history would have other ideas. It didn't take
Speaker 1: long after King Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn were
Speaker 1: married for trouble to begin to brew for the new queen.
Speaker 1: AND's greatest problem was that she did not deliver Henry
Speaker 1: the son she had promised. She gave birth, but the
Speaker 1: prince everyone was expecting turned out to be a princess,
Speaker 1: And then though Anne became pregnant again, she suffered a
Speaker 1: miscarriage Henry began to get anxious and impatient, and Anne
Speaker 1: felt the tenuousness of her position. When Henry began to
Speaker 1: flirt with someone else at court, Anne asked her sister
Speaker 1: in law Jane, to scheme with her to find a
Speaker 1: way to get that woman sent away from court. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Jane picked a fight with that woman, hoping that Henry
Speaker 1: would dismiss her from court to avoid any public drama,
Speaker 1: but the plan backfired and Jane herself alone was temporarily exiled.
Speaker 1: It became more urgent than ever that Anne Boleyn become pregnant,
Speaker 1: but as she confided to Jane, there were some challenges
Speaker 1: with that, or rather one main challenge being that the
Speaker 1: king had performance issues in bed. Jane shared the gossip
Speaker 1: with her husband. Though again you can characterize Jane as
Speaker 1: a machiavellian and double faced schemer here, it seems equally
Speaker 1: or more likely that she was just an involved family
Speaker 1: member who shared her families concerned with their precarious position.
Speaker 1: The writing was on the wall with regards to the
Speaker 1: Bolins when a position opened up for a new Knight
Speaker 1: of the Garter, and instead of the honor being awarded
Speaker 1: to George Bolin, the King had the position go to
Speaker 1: Sir Nicholas Carew, a relative of Jane Seymour, the lady
Speaker 1: in waiting. Henry had recently turned his attention to the Queen.
Speaker 1: Anne Bolen couldn't get her own brother elected, it seemed
Speaker 1: obvious her days in power were numbered. In fifteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: Anne Bolin and her brother George were suddenly arrested and
Speaker 1: taken to the Tower of London along with four other men,
Speaker 1: accused of adultery and and therefore treason and in George's case, incest.
Speaker 1: This is where the climax comes in the legend of
Speaker 1: Jane Boln's villainy. The popular story is that Jane Bolin
Speaker 1: finally had an opportunity to turn on her hated husband
Speaker 1: and sister in law, and that she took it to
Speaker 1: give testimony against both of them that sent them to
Speaker 1: their deaths.
Speaker 2: But the reality is a lot.
Speaker 1: More nuanced, and by actually looking directly at the primary sources,
Speaker 1: it's much harder to make the case for Jane as
Speaker 1: a villain. As I mentioned, the historian Julia Fox has
Speaker 1: been among the most prominent voices in redeeming Jane's character,
Speaker 1: As she writes in Jane boln The True Story of
Speaker 1: the Infamous Lady Rochford. Jane quote had reaped nothing but
Speaker 1: benefits from her marriage, which had allowed her to live
Speaker 1: in quote unbridled luxury side of purely speculative motives. There's
Speaker 1: no actual textual reason she would have to drag down
Speaker 1: her own stature at court by disgracing her husband and
Speaker 1: sister in law. Instead, Fox paints a picture of what
Speaker 1: actually happened after her husband was suddenly arrested. Jane was,
Speaker 1: like everyone in their circle, interrogated in an incredibly high
Speaker 1: pressure environment, an interrogation during which she was almost certainly
Speaker 1: terrified and confused as to what was going on.
Speaker 2: As Fox writes, quote, the arrests.
Speaker 1: Had been so sudden and unexpected that there was no
Speaker 1: time to separate out what testimony might be damaging, what
Speaker 1: could be twisted to become so, or what could only
Speaker 1: be innocuous, no matter what the interpretation end quote. And
Speaker 1: while her husband of eleven years was in the tower,
Speaker 1: Jane was actually the only person to attempt to send
Speaker 1: him a letter in support. She promised in the letter
Speaker 1: to quote humbly make suit unto the King's Highness on
Speaker 1: his behalf Jane's testimony came up only once during her
Speaker 1: husband's trial, the only evidence we actually have of Jane's
Speaker 1: so called betrayal. During the trial, Cromwell handed George a
Speaker 1: piece of paper while he was on the stand, paper
Speaker 1: with a question on it. Cromwell instructed him to answer
Speaker 1: the question with a simple yes or no. George instead
Speaker 1: read the note aloud, a question which had been about
Speaker 1: whether Anne had mentioned to Jane the King's indelicate troubles
Speaker 1: in the bedroom. It is damning, but it's also information
Speaker 1: that had been pulled from Jane by experts and determined interrogators.
Speaker 1: Hardly mustache twirling sabotage. Fox writes of Jane's inquisition, quote,
Speaker 1: faced with such relentless, incessant questions which she had no
Speaker 1: choice but to answer, Jane would have searched her memory
Speaker 1: for every tiny incident that occurred to her. Jane had
Speaker 1: not been quick to tell tales, but she had buckled
Speaker 1: under the pressure of relentless questioning end quote. Perhaps even
Speaker 1: more tellingly, Sorburton points out no contemporary sources named Jane
Speaker 1: in their list of Bolin accusers. If Jane Boln had
Speaker 1: willingly turned on her husband and sister in law. Sorburton writes, quote,
Speaker 1: such explosive information would have been shared at court end quote.
Speaker 1: So if it was betrayal on Jane Boln's part, it
Speaker 1: was very subtle betrayal. It's only decades later that Jane's
Speaker 1: character assassination begins in earnest. The historian George Wyatt, writing
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century, called Jane quote wicked wife, accuser
Speaker 1: of her own husband, even to the seeking of her
Speaker 1: own blood, and Jane became an especially useful scapegoat when
Speaker 1: Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth eventually became Queen Elizabeth the First
Speaker 1: Elizabeth couldn't say that her father was a murderer, and
Speaker 1: she couldn't say that her mother was a treasonous adulteress,
Speaker 1: and so who was there to blame? As Julia Fox writes, quote,
Speaker 1: it was Jane's weakness under interrogation that gave her future detractors,
Speaker 1: happy to find a scapegoat to exonerate the king from
Speaker 1: the heinous charge of callously killing his innocent wife, the
Speaker 1: ammunition to maintain that it was her Jane's evidence that
Speaker 1: had fooled Henry and destroyed Anne and George end quote.
Speaker 1: Anne George and the four other men accused were all
Speaker 1: found guilty. Most historians today are in agreement that the
Speaker 1: charges were trumped up against Anne in order to dispose
Speaker 1: of her and to allow Henry to marry the new
Speaker 1: woman he had set his sights on. But Anne Boleyn
Speaker 1: would not be the last Queen Jane served who would
Speaker 1: go on to lose her head. After a temporary retreat
Speaker 1: from court, Jane Boleyn would eventually return, only to find
Speaker 1: herself embroiled in another skin. This time, however, she would
Speaker 1: certainly have her fair share of blame. Jane Boleyn was
Speaker 1: only away from court for a few months after her
Speaker 1: husband was killed, during which time she was in tense
Speaker 1: negotiations with her former father in law and with Thomas
Speaker 1: Cromwell about what she was owed as a widow. Her
Speaker 1: income would be significantly decreased, but she was eventually allocated
Speaker 1: one hundred pounds a year, enough to return to court
Speaker 1: as a lady in time to serve the brand new
Speaker 1: Queen Jane Seymour. As you're probably aware, turnover in the
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth Wife business was astonishingly high. Jane
Speaker 1: Lady Rochfort served Queen Jane Seymour until the queen died
Speaker 1: after complications following the birth of Henry's much sought after son.
Speaker 1: The next queen was a princess in ported from Germany
Speaker 1: for political reasons, Anne of Cleaves, whom Henry disliked almost
Speaker 1: as soon as he laid eyes on her. It's during
Speaker 1: this period that Jane's character as a sort of impulsive
Speaker 1: gossip comes into clear focus. At risk of being anachronistic,
Speaker 1: reading about her during this period, particularly in the books
Speaker 1: of Julia Fox and Gareth Russell, put to mind a
Speaker 1: sort of Tudor era, real housewife having whispered conversations that
Speaker 1: absolutely would be made public and apologies living for the drama.
Speaker 1: Anne of Cleaves, whether innocent or obtuse, told her ladies
Speaker 1: in waiting, that Henry did do his husbandly duty, you know,
Speaker 1: by kissing her good night and then letting her fall asleep.
Speaker 1: It was Jane among the women, remarking that Anne wasn't
Speaker 1: going to get pregnant with a little print that way.
Speaker 2: After, Henry found a.
Speaker 1: Way to dispatch with Anne of Cleaves, just legally this time, thankfully,
Speaker 1: not mortally. His next queen was the charming teenage Katherine
Speaker 1: Howard once again. Jane Bolen, Lady Rochford, was put into
Speaker 1: the queen's intimate service. In fact, with Catherine Howard, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that the two ladies were decades apart, the
Speaker 1: two became the closest of friends. Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford,
Speaker 1: was Katherine Howard's confidante and eventually her conspirator. Plenty has
Speaker 1: been written on the life of Catherine Howard. In fact,
Speaker 1: we've done an episode on her on this very podcast
Speaker 1: during our series on the Wives of King Henry the Eighth.
Speaker 1: But the short version of her sad story is that
Speaker 1: months after she arrived at court, she caught the eye
Speaker 1: of the King, who was determined to make her his
Speaker 1: latest queen. Unfortunately for everyone involved, there was a ticking
Speaker 1: time bomb when it came to Catherine, a secret that
Speaker 1: the King could absolutely not discover about his virginal new bride.
Speaker 1: Katherine had already had two liaisons with men in her
Speaker 1: grandmother's household, where she had grown up. The topics of
Speaker 1: those early relationships with regards to the question of consent
Speaker 1: in the context of the era, require far more nuanced
Speaker 1: than we have space for in an episode on Jane
Speaker 1: boln But if you're interested in the details of Catherine's life,
Speaker 1: I would direct you to the excellent biography by Gareth Russell.
Speaker 1: But suffice it to say those former relationships were once
Speaker 1: Catherine was queen, embarrassing and arguably treasonous episodes that she
Speaker 1: needed to remain secret. All of that would have been
Speaker 1: bad enough, but Catherine soon had another secret. The new
Speaker 1: Queen began a flirtation with a courtier named Thomas Culpeper.
Speaker 1: Whether this relationship was ever consummated remains an open question,
Speaker 1: but Catherine certainly enjoyed his company and sent him gifts
Speaker 1: and food when he was sick, made flirtatious comments to him, and,
Speaker 1: most damning of all, when the court was on procession
Speaker 1: through England, Katherine and her trusted lady in waiting, Jane Boleyn,
Speaker 1: made arrangements for secret meetings at every newcastle or manor
Speaker 1: along the queen's procession. Jane found quote back doors and
Speaker 1: backsteps where Culpeper could sneak in to meet the Queen
Speaker 1: without anyone else from the household knowing. Jane sent her
Speaker 1: own servant to check to see if the King's night
Speaker 1: watchman was nearby. And Jane herself would literally hide, keeping
Speaker 1: a lookout to make sure Catherine and Culpeper weren't discovered.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is the most shocking part of all.
Speaker 2: These secret meetings with Culpeper continued all summer, and that
Speaker 2: wouldn't actually be Catherine's downfall.
Speaker 1: Instead, Catherine's downfall came because a random courtier had told
Speaker 1: his sister that she should try to join the queen's
Speaker 1: household for social advancement. And then the sister scoffed and
Speaker 1: told her brother that she thought Catherine had low morals.
Speaker 1: After all, the sister said she had been there at
Speaker 1: Catherine's grandmother's estate during those early years when she had
Speaker 1: had those pre king relationships. This brother, agast reported what
Speaker 1: his sister had said, and the open secret finally became open.
Speaker 1: And when the investigation began once Culpeper's name was mentioned,
Speaker 1: the queen was already all but headless. In the autumn
Speaker 1: of fifteen forty one, when all of this came to
Speaker 1: a apology's head, Catherine was placed under house arrest at
Speaker 1: Sion Abbey. With regards to Catherine's investigation, the records are
Speaker 1: actually abundant, in direct contrast with the shady investigation into
Speaker 1: Anne Bolin. It's as if the court wanted to prove
Speaker 1: that if Henry was going to execute another wife, he
Speaker 1: was going to do this one completely above board, with
Speaker 1: all of the proper paperwork. Intact, we do not have
Speaker 1: the action uctual record for Jane's testimony during the trial
Speaker 1: of Anne Boleyn, but we do have it for Catherine Howard.
Speaker 1: Jane was questioned and well interrogated. She admitted that quote
Speaker 1: she thinketh that Culpeper hath known the Queen Carnalie end quote,
Speaker 1: but she maintained that she never saw or heard any
Speaker 1: actual proof of consummation. Culpeper said that he had not
Speaker 1: slept with the queen, but that he had planned to, which,
Speaker 1: unfortunately for Culpeper, was more than enough to condemn him.
Speaker 1: Planning on committing treason was still a death sentence. It
Speaker 1: is pretty undeniable that Jane had been involved. Five years
Speaker 1: after the death of Anne Bolen, Jane was once again
Speaker 1: at the heart of a scandal that would lead to
Speaker 1: a headless queen. The French ambassador rod that Jane quote
Speaker 1: all her life had the name to esteem her honor
Speaker 1: little and has thus in her old age shown little Amendment.
Speaker 1: During Jane's interrogation, she lost touch with reality under the
Speaker 1: pressure of knowing what was about to happen and realizing
Speaker 1: that there was no way out of it. Jane went
Speaker 1: mad after a nervous breakdown, which manifested in quote fits
Speaker 1: of fancy. Though legally she couldn't stand trial for what
Speaker 1: she had done if she was insane, the King and
Speaker 1: his court was determined that this whole sordid Catherine Howard
Speaker 1: affair be dealt with completely and once and for all.
Speaker 1: A law was passed permitting the execution of the insane
Speaker 1: for high treason, and Jane was committed by parliamentary act
Speaker 1: of attainder. According to an ambassador, when Jane was told
Speaker 1: that she would finally be put to death, her symptoms
Speaker 1: of madness left her. We don't have a direct account
Speaker 1: of what exactly Jane and Katherine Howard might have said
Speaker 1: on the scaffold before their deaths, but one merchant who
Speaker 1: has an eye witnessed to the executions wrote in a
Speaker 1: letter that quote they made the most godly and Christian ends.
Speaker 1: Because no one comments explicitly on Jane saying anything particularly notable,
Speaker 1: we have to assume that she just made her proper prayers,
Speaker 1: apologized for her sins, and begged for forgiveness from the King.
Speaker 1: As Nikola Clark writes in her book The Waiting Game,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to know why exactly Jane would have involved
Speaker 1: herself in such a deeply misguided scheme with Katherine Howard.
Speaker 1: Was she really just a real housewife type trying to
Speaker 1: stir up drama wherever she could? Clark writes, perhaps she
Speaker 1: really was as guilty as her colleagues made her out
Speaker 1: to be, encouraging the affair for nefarious reasons of her
Speaker 1: own revenge on her family or on the king, who
Speaker 1: had taken and twisted her words to kill her husband
Speaker 1: and to annul his own previous marriage, ruining her life
Speaker 1: and condemning her immortal soul. Perhaps she simply misjudged the
Speaker 1: situation and made some bad decisions, Perhaps perhaps perhaps end quote.
Speaker 1: Whatever the reason, at the time, Jane was decried as
Speaker 1: immoral and body, and then years later she was shamed
Speaker 1: as a traitress for having turned against her own husband
Speaker 1: and sister in law. Why she did what she did
Speaker 1: is impossible to know, but it's always easier and to
Speaker 1: be frank usually more fun to imagine a nefarious individual
Speaker 1: villain than it is to reckon with the complicated dynamics
Speaker 1: of power, autonomy, sex, and cultures of gossip, and ultimately
Speaker 1: meaningless murder given the gloss of legality. After Jane's head
Speaker 1: was separated from her body, she was buried in the
Speaker 1: Tower of London with Catherine Howard, the final Queen. She
Speaker 1: served near the bodies of Jane's husband, George Bolin and
Speaker 1: Jane's sister in law and Bolin a family plot of
Speaker 1: headless bodies. That's the story of Jane Bolin. But keep
Speaker 1: listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little
Speaker 1: bit more about a gruesome legend surrounding Henry the Eighth's
Speaker 1: ultimate end. Back in fifteen thirty two, when Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth was still determined to marry Anne Boleyn, a friar
Speaker 1: William Peto publicly preached against it. He compared Anne Boleyn
Speaker 1: to the biblical Jezebel and Henry to King Ahab, and
Speaker 1: he declared during his Easter sermon that dogs would lick
Speaker 1: Henry's blood after his death, just as they did ahebs
Speaker 1: fifteen years later. The prophecy may have come to fruition
Speaker 1: may have. Henry died in fifteen forty seven and his
Speaker 1: body went on a funeral procession, where it stayed overnight
Speaker 1: at Sion Abbey, incidentally the same place where Catherine Howard
Speaker 1: had been put under house arrest before her imprisonment in
Speaker 1: the Tower of London. Coincidentally, Henry's body was there exactly
Speaker 1: five years minus a day after Catherine was beheaded. According
Speaker 1: to legend, hen nae Man's coffin burst open and the
Speaker 1: well fluid dribbled out onto the floor. Men came in
Speaker 1: to repair the coffin before it continued along to its
Speaker 1: final burial at Windsor, but as the story goes, a
Speaker 1: dog at their feet lapped up some of the whatever
Speaker 1: it was before anyone could stop it. The dog part
Speaker 1: of the story is probably invention, but it's not unlikely
Speaker 1: that Henry's embalmed body did leak. The coffin had been
Speaker 1: jostled along on the journey, which had separated the plates,
Speaker 1: and the coffin would have also been swelling with the
Speaker 1: gases of decomposition in process. Given the fact that Henry
Speaker 1: wasn't embalmed until three days after his death, still what
Speaker 1: came out of that coffin would not have been blood,
Speaker 1: and I imagine it wouldn't have been appealing to a
Speaker 1: dog or anything else. But maybe the posthumous humiliation, particularly
Speaker 1: this story around it was just Catherine getting her revenge.
Speaker 1: After all, stories tend to stick around, whether or not
Speaker 1: they're true. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted
Speaker 1: by me Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 1: Hannah Zwick, Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski, and me Dana Schwartz.
Speaker 1: The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and
Speaker 1: Nomes Griffin, with supervising producer rima Ill Kali and executive
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.