The Boleyn Inheritance

Jane Boleyn, Hampton Court,
April 1541

We have our candidate for the queen’s favor and I have done next to nothing to hasten the courtship. Without any prompting but a girl’s desire, she has fallen head over heels in love with Thomas Culpepper, and by all I can see, he with her. The king’s leg is giving him less pain, and he has come out from his private rooms since Easter and the court is back to normal again; but there are still many chances for the young couple to meet, and, indeed, the king throws them together, telling Culpepper to dance with the queen, or advising her on her gambling when Culpepper is dealing. The king loves Culpepper as his favorite groom of the bedchamber, and he takes him everywhere he goes, delighting in his charm and his wit and his good looks. Whenever he visits the queen, Culpepper is always in his train, and the king likes to see the two young people together. If he were not blinded by his monstrous vanity, he would see that he is throwing them into each other’s arms; but, instead, he sees the three of them as a merry trio and swears that Culpepper reminds him of his boyhood.

The girl queen and the boy courtier are playing pairs together, with the king overlooking both of their cards like an indulgent father with two handsome children, when the Duke of Norfolk makes his way around the room to talk to me.

“He is back in her rooms? She is bedding the king as she should?”

“Yes,” I say, hardly moving my lips, my face turned toward the handsome young pair and their doting elder. “But to what effect, no one can know.”

He nods. “And Culpepper is willing to service her?”

I smile and glance up at him. “As you see, she is hot for him, and he longs for her.”

He nods. “I thought as much. And he is a great favorite with the king; that’s to our advantage. The king likes to see her dance with his favorites. And he is a conscienceless bastard; that’s to our advantage, too. D’you think he is reckless enough to risk it?”

I take a moment to admire the way the duke can plot with his eyes on his victim, and anyone would think he was talking of nothing but the weather.

“I think he is in love with her; I think he would risk his life for her right now.”

“Sweet,” he says sourly. “We’ll have to watch him. He has a temper. There was some incident, wasn’t there? He raped some game-keeper’s wife?”

I shake my head and turn away. “I hadn’t heard.”

He offers me his arm and together we stroll down the gallery. “Raped her and killed her husband when he tried to defend her. The king issued him a pardon for both offenses.”

I am too old to be shocked. “A favorite indeed,” I say dryly. “What else might the king forgive him?”

“But why would Katherine fancy him, above all the others? There’s no merit in him at all except youth and good looks and arrogance.”

I laugh. “For a girl married to an ugly man old enough to be her grandfather, that is probably enough.”

“Well, she can have him, if she wishes, and I may find another youth to throw in her way as well. I have my eye on a former favorite of hers, just returned from Ireland and still carrying a torch. Can you encourage her while we are on progress, perhaps? She will be less watched, and if she were to conceive this summer she could be crowned before Christmas. I would feel safer if she had the crown on her head and a baby in her belly, especially if the king falls sick again. His doctor says his bowels are bound up tight.”

“I can help the two of them,” I say. “I can make it easy for them to meet. But I can hardly do more than that.”

The duke smiles. “Culpepper is such a blackguard, and she is such a flirt, that I doubt you need do more than that, my dear Lady Rochford.”

He is so warm and so confiding that I dare to put my hand on his arm as he moves to go back to the inner circle. “And my own affairs,” I remind him.

His smile does not waver for a moment. “Ah, your hopes for marriage,” he says. “I am pursuing something. I will tell you later.”

“Who is it?” I ask. Foolish, but I find I have caught my breath, like a girl. If I were to be married soon, it is not impossible but that I could have another child. If I were to be married to some great man, I could lay down the foundation of a great family, build a big house, amass a fortune to hand down to my own heirs. I could do better than the Boleyns did. I could see my family rise. I could leave a fortune, and the shame and distress of my first marriage would be forgotten in the glamour of my second.

“You will have to be patient,” he says. “Let’s get this business with Katherine settled first.”