The Boleyn Inheritance

Jane Boleyn, the Tower of London,
January 1542

And so we wait.

The king must be minded to forgive the whore his queen, since he waits for so long. And if he forgives her, he forgives me, and I escape the axe again.

Ha-ha! What a joke my life has become that I should end up here in the Tower where my husband was kept, awaiting the fate that met him, when I could have walked away from court and the court life, when I could have been safe and snug in Norfolk. I had escaped once, escaped with my title and a pension. Why ever did I rush to come back?

I did truly think I would set him free. I did think that if I confessed everything on his behalf, then they would see that she was a witch, as they called her, and an adulteress, as they called her, and they would see he was ensnared and enslaved and they would release him to be with me, and I should have taken him home to our house, Rochford Hall, and made him well again, and we could have had our children and we could have been happy.

That was my plan; that was what should have happened. I did think that she would go to the block and he would be spared. I did think I would see her lovely neck hacked in two but that I would have my husband safe in my own bed at last. I thought I would comfort him for the loss of her and that he would come to see that she was no great loss.

Not really.

No, not really.

I suppose sometimes I thought that she would be killed and it would be her deserts for the scheming whore she was, and that he would die, too, and it would be her fault, and he would realize on the gallows that he should have left her and loved me. That I had always been his true wife and she was always a bad sister. I suppose I thought that if it took him to get to the very steps of the gallows to see what a false friend she was, then it was worth doing. I never really believed that they would die and I would never see them again. I never really believed that they could disappear from my life, from this life, and I would never see them again. How could one think that? That there could be a day when they would never stroll through the door, arm in arm, laughing at some private joke, her hood as high as his dark curly head, her hand on his arm, equally assured, equally beautiful, equally regal. The cleverest, wittiest, most glamorous couple at court. What woman, married to him, and looking at her, would not wish them both dead rather than walking forever, arm in arm, in their beauty and their pride?

Oh, God, I hope that spring comes early this year; the dark afternoons are like a nightmare that goes on forever in this little room. It is dark till eight in the morning and then dusk by three. Sometimes they forget to replace the candles, and I have to sit by the fire for light. I am cold all the time. If spring comes early and I can see the morning light coming up golden over the stone windowsill, then I will have lived through these dark days, and I can be sure that I will live to see others. By my reckoning – and who knows the king better than I? – if he does not have her beheaded by Easter, then he will not have it done at all.

If he does not have her beheaded by Easter, then I will escape, because why would he spare her and kill me, who is accused with her? If she keeps her wits about her and denies everything, then she could live. I hope that someone has told her that if she denies Culpepper but says that she was married in the sight of God to Dereham, then she can live. If she declares herself Dereham’s wife, then she has not then cuckolded the king but only Dereham; and since his head is on London Bridge, he is in no position to complain. I could laugh, it is such an obvious escape for her; but if no one tells her of it, then she might die for the lack of wit.

Dear God, why would I, who was sister to Anne Boleyn, ever plot with such a half-wit as that slut Katherine?

I was wrong to put my faith in the Duke of Norfolk. I thought that we were working together; I thought that he would find me a husband and that I would have a great match. I know now that he is not to be trusted. I should have known that before. He used me to keep Katherine in check, and then he used me again to put her in the way of Culpepper. And now he has gone to the country and his own stepmother, her son, and his wife are here in the Tower somewhere, and they will all die for their parts in entrapping the king. He will not lift a finger to save his stepmother; he will not lift a finger to save his little niece. God knows, he will not lift a finger to save me.

If I survive this, if I am spared this, I shall find some way to report him for treason, and I shall see him confined to one room, living in daily terror, waiting for the sound of their building the scaffold below the window, waiting for the Keeper of the Tower to come and say that tomorrow is the day, and tomorrow he will die. If I survive this, I shall make him pay for what he said to me, for what he called me, for what he did to them. He will suffer in this little room as I am suffering now.

When I think of this happening to me, I could go mad with terror. My only comfort, my only safety, is that if I go mad with terror, they will not be able to execute me. A madman cannot be beheaded. I could laugh if I were not afraid of the sound of my laughter echoing off the walls. A madman cannot be executed, so at the very end of this, if it goes as badly as it might, I shall escape the block where Katherine dies. I shall pretend to be mad, and they will send me back to Blickling with a keeper, and slowly I shall recover my wits.

Some days I rave a little so that they can see I have the tendency. Some days I cry out that it is raining, and I let them find me sobbing because the slates outside my window are shining with the wet. Some nights I cry out that the moon is whispering happy dreams to me. I frighten myself, to tell the truth. For some days, when I am not acting mad, I think that I must be mad, I must have been mad, quite mad, perhaps since my childhood. Mad to marry George, who never loved me, mad to love and hate him with such a passion, mad to find such intense pleasure in thinking of him with a lover, mad to bear witness against him, maddest of all to love him with such jealousy that I could send him to the gallows…

Stop, I must stop. I can’t think about this now. I cannot have this before me now. I am to act mad. I am not to drive myself mad. I am to pretend to madness, not feel it. I shall remember that everything I could do to save George, I did do. Anything anyone says against that is a lie. I was a good and faithful wife, and I tried to save my husband and my sister-in-law. And I tried to save Katherine, too. I cannot be blamed if the three of them were all as bad as one another. Indeed, I should be pitied for having such ill luck in my life.