The Boleyn Inheritance

Jane Boleyn, the Tower of London,
November 1541

I am in such terror I think I shall go mad in truth. They keep asking me about Katherine and that fool Dereham, and I thought at first that I could deny everything. I was not there at Lambeth when they were lovers, and for sure they were never lovers after that. I could tell them all I know and with a clear conscience. But when that great wooden gate banged shut behind me, and the shadow of the Tower fell cold on me, I felt a terror that I had never known before.

The ghosts that have haunted me since that day in May will take me for their own now. I am where they walked. I feel the chill of the same walls, and I know the same terror; I am living their deaths.

Dear God, it must have been like this for him, for George, my beloved George. He must have heard that gate bang; he must have seen the stone bulk of the Tower block out the sky; he must have known that his friends and his enemies were somewhere inside these walls, lying their heads off to save themselves and to condemn him. And now I am here walking where he walked, and now I know what he felt, and now I know fear, as he knew it.

If Cranmer and his inquisitors look no further than Katherine’s life when she was a girl, before she came to court, they have enough to destroy her; and what more do they need than that? If they rest on her affairs with Manox and Dereham, then they need nothing from me. I did not even know her then. It is nothing to do with me. So I should have nothing to fear. But if that is the case, then why am I here?

The room is cramped, with stone-paved floors and damp stone walls. The walls are pocked with the carved initials of people who have been held here before me. I will not look for GB, “George Boleyn”; I think I should go mad if I saw his name. I will sit quietly by the window and look out to the courtyard below. I will not go over the walls for his name, fingering the cold stone looking for “Boleyn,” and touch where he carved. I will sit quietly here and look out of the window.

No, this is no good. The window looks out onto Tower Green; my prison chamber looks down on the very spot where Anne was beheaded on my evidence. I cannot look at that place; I cannot look at the bright greenness of the grass – surely it is more verdant than any autumn grass should be? – if I look at the green, I will surely lose my mind. It must have been like this for her when she was waiting, and she would have known that I knew enough to have her beheaded. And she must have known that I would choose to have her beheaded. She knew that she had tormented me and teased me and laughed at me until I was beside myself with jealousy; she must have wondered how far I would follow my evil rage, even to seek her death? Then she knew. She knew I gave witness against the two of them, that I spoke out in a clear voice and condemned them without remorse. Well, I feel remorse now; God knows that I do.

I feel as if I have been hiding myself from the truth for all these years, but it took that hard man the Duke of Norfolk to spell it out to me, and it took these cold walls to make it real for me. I was jealous of Anne and her love for George and his devotion to her, and I bore witness not from what I knew to be a fact, but from what would harm them the most. God forgive me. I took his tenderness and his care and his kindness for his sister, and I made it into something dirty and dark and bad because I could not bear that he was not tender or careful or kind to me. I brought him to his death to punish him for neglecting me. And now, like some old play in which the gods are furious, I am still neglected. I have never been more alone. I have committed the greatest sin a wife could do, and still I have no satisfaction.

The duke has withdrawn to the country; neither Katherine nor I will ever see him again. I know him well enough to know that his sole care will be to protect his own old skin and guard his well-loved fortune. And the king needs a Howard to march and fight and execute for him. The king may hate him for this second adultery, but he will not make the mistake of losing a commander as well as a wife. Katherine’s step-grandmother, the duchess, may lose her life for this. If they can prove that she knew that Katherine, in her care, was little more than a slut, then they will accuse her of treason: for failing to warn the king. She will be tearing open documents, swearing servants to secrecy, sacking old retainers, and cleaning out her rooms, if I know her. She may be able to hide enough to save herself.

But what about me?

My way is clear. I shall say nothing of Thomas Culpepper, and the evidence I can give of Francis Dereham is that he was secretary to the queen at the request of her step-grandmother, and that nothing passed between them under my eye. If they discover about Thomas Culpepper (and if they look only a little, they are certain to discover all about Thomas Culpepper), then they will see it all. If they see it all, I shall tell them that she lay with him at Hampton Court, when the king first was ill, all through the royal progress when she thought she was with child, till the very day that we all went down on our knees and thanked God for her. That I knew she was a slut from that first day, but that she ordered me, and the duke ordered me, and I was not free to do what I thought right.

This is what I shall say. She shall die for it, and the duke may die for it; but I will not.

This is all I should consider.

My room faces east, the sun rises in the morning at seven, and I am always awake to see it rise. The Tower throws a long shadow across the bright grass of the green where she died, as if it is pointing a dark finger to my window. If I think of Anne, in her beauty and her allure, in her cleverness and her wit, then I think I shall go mad. She was in these rooms, and she went down those stairs, and she went out to that piece of grass (which I could see if I went to the window, but I never go to the window) and put her head down on the block and died a brave death, knowing that she was betrayed by everyone who had benefited from her rise. Knowing that her brother and his friends, the little circle who loved her so well, had died the day before, knowing that I gave the fatal evidence, her uncle gave the death sentence, and the king celebrated it. I cannot think of this. I must take good care of myself and not think of this.

Dear God, she knew that I betrayed her. Dear God, he went to a traitor’s death on the scaffold knowing that I betrayed him. He perhaps did not realize that it was from love. That’s the worst thing. He will never have known that it was from love. It was such a murderous thing to do; it was such a gesture from hatred that he will never have known that I loved him and I couldn’t bear that he should look at another woman. Let alone Anne. Let alone what he was to her.

I sit and face the wall. I cannot bear to look out of the window; I cannot bear to trace the writings on the walls of the cell for fear of finding his initials. I sit and fold my hands in my lap. To anyone watching me I am composed. I am an innocent woman. I am as innocent and composed as – say – Lady Margaret Pole, who was also beheaded outside my window. I never said one word for her either. Dear God, how can I even breathe the air of this place?

I can hear the shuffle of many feet on the stairs. How many do they think they need? The key grates in the lock; the door swings open. I am irritated by the slowness. Do they think they can frighten me with this theater of threat? Then they come in. Two men and the guards. I recognize Sir Thomas Wriothsley, but not the clerk. They fuss about, setting up the table, putting out a chair for me. I stand and try to look unmoved, my hands clasped. Then I realize I am wringing my hands, and I make myself be still.

“We wish to ask you about the queen’s behavior at Lambeth when she was a girl,” he says. He nods at the clerk to indicate that he should write.

“I know nothing about it,” I say. “As you will see from your own records I was in the country, at Blickling Hall, and then in service with Queen Anne, to whom I gave good and honorable service. I did not know Katherine Howard until she came to serve Queen Anne.”

The clerk makes one mark, only one. I see it. It is a tick. This means that they knew what I would say, that it is not worth writing down. They have prepared for this interview; I should not trust a word they say. They know what they want to say and what they want me to reply. I have to be ready. I have to be armed against them. I wish I could think clearly; I wish my thoughts were not such a whirl. I must be calm. I must be clever.

“When the queen took on Francis Dereham as her secretary, did you know that he was her old friend and previous lover?”

“No, I knew nothing of her life before,” I say.

The clerk puts down a tick. This, too, is expected.

“When the queen asked you to fetch Thomas Culpepper to her room, did you know what were her intentions?”

I am stunned. How do we go from Francis Dereham to Thomas Culpepper in one leap? How do they know of Thomas Culpepper? What do they know of Thomas Culpepper? What has he told them? Is he on the rack vomiting in pain and sicking up the truth?

“She never asked me,” I say.

The clerk puts down a dash.

“We know that she asked you to fetch him, and we know that he came. Now, to save your life, will you tell us what took place between Thomas Culpepper and Katherine Howard?”

The clerk’s pen is poised; I can feel the words in my dry mouth. It is over. She is ruined, he is a dead man, I am on the brink of betrayal: again.