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. 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. Let's get into the episode. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Manky Listener discretion advised. In fifteen forty two,
Speaker 1: Lady Rochford, lady in waiting to multiple queens and sister
Speaker 1: in law to one, was awaiting a trial during which
Speaker 1: 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. She had quote
Speaker 1: fits 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 Boleyn, 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 1: Why was the Bolin star on the rise? Well, I
Speaker 1: assume you probably know this story. First, Henry had had
Speaker 1: an affair with Mary Bolin, actually the married Mary carry
Speaker 1: but when given what he wanted, he lost interest fairly quickly,
Speaker 1: and then King Henry the Eighth became enchanted by dark,
Speaker 1: quick witted, charming Anne. As he fell deeper in love,
Speaker 1: he became more frustrated that his decades long marriage with
Speaker 1: Catherine of Arragon hadn't produced any male heirs, and he
Speaker 1: became more convinced that that was God's way of showing
Speaker 1: him that the marriage had actually been invalid the entire time.
Speaker 1: Henry began his maneuvers to do whatever he could to
Speaker 1: get thee to annul his first marriage so that he
Speaker 1: could marry Anne. In the meantime, the king showed the
Speaker 1: Bolens whatever favor he could. They were given the luxurious
Speaker 1: palace of Bullieu, which had hot and cold running water.
Speaker 1: As if the symbolism couldn't be more obvious with regards
Speaker 1: to the changing of fortunes, The palace had formerly belonged
Speaker 1: to Mary, Henry's daughter by Catherine of Aragon. She Mary
Speaker 1: was banished to less luxurious digs, and the Bolins swept
Speaker 1: into place. A lot of our information with what was
Speaker 1: happening with Jane at this point is filling in whatever
Speaker 1: gaps we can with our best educated guesses. The conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom is that Jane and George had a poisonous, unhappy marriage,
Speaker 1: that Jane was jealous and bitter toward Anne Boleyn. It's
Speaker 1: certainly possible to read the story that way, but the
Speaker 1: evidence isn't exactly air tight, and in recent years, historians,
Speaker 1: particularly 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 boletin 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 boln 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 1: It is more likely. Saburton posits that George Bolin and
Speaker 1: William Howard had been the men tasked with disciplining those involved.
Speaker 1: Being married to George Bolin had only made Jane more
Speaker 1: prominent and important at court. George was at the heart
Speaker 1: of courtly culture, with a flourishing career and an expanding
Speaker 1: portfolio of properties. It stands to reason that Jane would
Speaker 1: have been perfectly content to rise with him and his sister,
Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Jane, history would have other ideas. It
Speaker 1: didn't take long after King Henry the Eighth and Anne
Speaker 1: Boleyn were married for trouble to begin to brew for
Speaker 1: the new queen. AND's greatest problem was that she did
Speaker 1: not deliver Henry the son she had promised. She gave birth,
Speaker 1: but the prince everyone was expecting turned out to be
Speaker 1: a princess, and then, though Anne became pregnant again, she
Speaker 1: suffered a miscarriage. Henry began to get anxious and impatient,
Speaker 1: and Anne felt the tenuousness of her position. When Henry
Speaker 1: began to flirt with someone else at court, Anne asked
Speaker 1: her sister in law Jane, to scheme with her to
Speaker 1: find a 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. But the reality is a lot more nuanced,
Speaker 1: and by actually looking directly at the primary sources, it's
Speaker 1: much harder to make the case for Jane as a villain.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, the historian Julia Fox has been among
Speaker 1: the most prominent voices in redeeming Jane's character as she
Speaker 1: writes in Jane boln The True Story of the Infamous
Speaker 1: Lady Rochford, Jane quote had reaped nothing but benefits from
Speaker 1: her marriage, which had allowed her to live in quote
Speaker 1: unbridled luxury side of purely speculative motives. There's no actual
Speaker 1: textual reason she would have to drag down her own
Speaker 1: stature at court by disgracing her husband and sister in law. Instead,
Speaker 1: Fox paints a picture of what actually happened after her
Speaker 1: husband was suddenly arrested. Jane was, like everyone in their circle,
Speaker 1: interrogated in an incredibly high pressure environment, an interrogation during
Speaker 1: which she was almost certainly terrified and confused as to
Speaker 1: what was going on. 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. Anne, George,
Speaker 1: and the four other men accused were all found guilty.
Speaker 1: Most historians today are in agreement that the charges were
Speaker 1: trumped up against Anne in order to dispose of her
Speaker 1: and to allow Henry to marry the new woman he
Speaker 1: had set his sights on. But Anne Boleyn would not
Speaker 1: be the last Queen Jane served who would go on
Speaker 1: to lose her head. After a temporary retreat from court,
Speaker 1: Jane Boleyn would eventually return, only to find herself embroiled
Speaker 1: in another skin. This time, however, she would certainly have
Speaker 1: her fair share of blame. Jane Boleyn was only away
Speaker 1: from court for a few months after her husband was killed,
Speaker 1: during which time she was in tense negotiations with her
Speaker 1: former father in law and with Thomas Cromwell about what
Speaker 1: she was owed as a widow. Her income would be
Speaker 1: significantly decreased, but she was eventually allocated one hundred pounds
Speaker 1: a year, enough to return to court as a lady
Speaker 1: in time to serve the brand new Queen Jane Seymour.
Speaker 1: As you're probably aware, turnover in the King Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth Wife business was astonishingly high. Jane Lady Rochfort served
Speaker 1: Queen Jane Seymour until the queen died after complications following
Speaker 1: the birth of Henry's much sought after son. The next
Speaker 1: queen was a princess in ported from Germany for political reasons,
Speaker 1: Anne of Cleaves, whom Henry disliked almost as soon as
Speaker 1: he laid eyes on her. It's during this period that
Speaker 1: Jane's character as a sort of impulsive gossip comes into
Speaker 1: clear focus. At risk of being anachronistic, reading about her
Speaker 1: during this period, particularly in the books of Julia Fox
Speaker 1: and Gareth Russell, put to mind a sort of Tudor era,
Speaker 1: real housewife having whispered conversations that absolutely would be made
Speaker 1: public and apologies living for the drama. Anne of Cleaves,
Speaker 1: whether innocent or obtuse, told her ladies in waiting, that
Speaker 1: Henry did do his husbandly duty, you know, by kissing
Speaker 1: her good night and then letting her fall asleep. It
Speaker 1: was Jane among the women, remarking that Anne wasn't going
Speaker 1: to get pregnant with a little print that way. After,
Speaker 1: Henry found a way to dispatch with Anne of Cleaves,
Speaker 1: just legally this time, thankfully, not mortally. His next queen
Speaker 1: was the charming teenage Katherine Howard. Once again, Jane Bolen,
Speaker 1: Lady Rochford, was put into the queen's intimate service. In fact,
Speaker 1: with Catherine Howard, despite the fact that the two ladies
Speaker 1: were decades apart, the two became the closest of friends.
Speaker 1: Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, was Katherine Howard's confidante and eventually
Speaker 1: her conspirator. Plenty has been written on the life of
Speaker 1: Catherine Howard. In fact, we've done an episode on her
Speaker 1: on this very podcast during our series on the Wives
Speaker 1: of King Henry the Eighth. But the short version of
Speaker 1: her sad story is that months after she arrived at court,
Speaker 1: she caught the eye of the King, who was determined
Speaker 1: to make her his latest queen. Unfortunately, for everyone involved,
Speaker 1: there was a ticking time bomb when it came to Catherine,
Speaker 1: a secret that the King could absolutely not discover about
Speaker 1: his virginal new bride. Katherine had already had two liaisons
Speaker 1: with men in her grandmother's household, where she had grown up.
Speaker 1: The topics of those early relationships with regards to the
Speaker 1: question of consent in the context of the era, require
Speaker 1: far more nuanced than we have space for in an
Speaker 1: episode on Jane boln But if you're interested in the
Speaker 1: details of Catherine's life, I would direct you to the
Speaker 1: excellent biography by Gareth Russell. But suffice it to say
Speaker 1: those former relationships were once Catherine was queen, embarrassing and
Speaker 1: arguably treasonous episodes that she needed to remain secret. All
Speaker 1: of that would have been bad enough, but Catherine soon
Speaker 1: had another secret. The new Queen began a flirtation with
Speaker 1: a courtier named Thomas Culpeper. Whether this relationship was ever
Speaker 1: consummated remains an open question, but Catherine certainly enjoyed his
Speaker 1: company and sent him gifts and food when he was sick,
Speaker 1: made flirtatious comments to him, and, most damning of all,
Speaker 1: when the court was on procession through England, Katherine and
Speaker 1: her trusted lady in waiting, Jane Boleyn, made arrangements for
Speaker 1: secret meetings at every newcastle or manor along the queen's procession.
Speaker 1: Jane found quote back doors and backsteps where Culpeper could
Speaker 1: sneak in to meet the Queen without anyone else from
Speaker 1: the household knowing. Jane sent her own servant to check
Speaker 1: to see if the King's night watchman was nearby, and
Speaker 1: Jane herself would literally hide, keeping a lookout to make
Speaker 1: sure Catherine and Culpeper weren't discovered. Maybe this is the
Speaker 1: most shocking part of all. These secret meetings with Culpeper
Speaker 1: continued all summer, and that wouldn't actually be Catherine's downfall. Instead,
Speaker 1: Catherine's downfall came because a random courtier had told his
Speaker 1: sister that she should try to join the queen's household
Speaker 1: for social advancement. And then the sister scoffed and told
Speaker 1: her brother that she thought Catherine had low morals. After all,
Speaker 1: the sister said she had been there at Catherine's grandmother's
Speaker 1: estate during those early years when she had had those
Speaker 1: pre king relationships. This brother, agast reported what his sister
Speaker 1: had said, and the open secret finally became open. And
Speaker 1: when the investigation began once Culpeper's name was mentioned, the
Speaker 1: queen was already all but headless. In the autumn of
Speaker 1: fifteen forty one, when all of this came to a
Speaker 1: apology's head, Catherine was placed under house arrest at Sion Abbey.
Speaker 1: With regards to Catherine's investigation, the records are actually abundant
Speaker 1: in direct contrast with the shady investigation into Anne Bolin.
Speaker 1: It's as if the court wanted to prove that if
Speaker 1: Henry was going to execute another wife, he was going
Speaker 1: to do this one completely above board, with all of
Speaker 1: the proper paperwork. Intact, we do not have the action
Speaker 1: uctual record for Jane's testimony during the trial of Anne Boleyn,
Speaker 1: but we do have it for Catherine Howard. Jane was
Speaker 1: questioned and well interrogated. She admitted that quote she thinketh
Speaker 1: that Culpeper hath known the Queen Carnalie end quote, but
Speaker 1: she maintained that she never saw or heard any actual
Speaker 1: proof of consummation. Culpeper said that he had not slept
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: amendment during Jane's interrogation, she lost touch with reality. Under
Speaker 1: the pressure of knowing what was about to happen and
Speaker 1: realizing that there was no way out of it. Jane
Speaker 1: went mad after a nervous breakdown, which manifested in quote
Speaker 1: fits of fancy. Though legally she couldn't stand trial for
Speaker 1: what she had done if she was insane, the King
Speaker 1: and his court was determined that this whole sordid Catherine
Speaker 1: Howard 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 'swick, 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. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.