The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fatales Who Changed English History (30 page)

it may be enacted that the said Queen Katherine and Jane Lady Rochford for their said abominable and detestable treasons by them and every of them most abominably and traitorously committed and done against your majesty and this your realm shall be by the authority of this present parliament convicted and attainted of High Treason; and that … they … shall have and suffer pains of death, loss of goods, chattels, debts, farms, and all other things as in cases of high treason by the laws of this your realm hath been accustomed granted and given to the Crown.
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Jane was taken to the Tower on 9 February, with the queen following the next day.
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Catherine, as Anne Boleyn had been before her, was terrified, with it recorded that she ‘weeps, cries and torments herself miserably, without ceasing’.
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There were rumours that this would delay the executions in order ‘to give her leisure to recover’ as had earlier been afforded to Jane. This speculation was unfounded, and, for both, time had nearly run out. On the evening of 12 February, both women were told that they would die the next day. On hearing that she was soon to die, Catherine composed herself and asked for the block to be brought to her so that she could practice for the morning. Jane’s activity is not recorded but her last night alive cannot have been a joyful one.

At around nine o’clock in the morning on 13 February Jane and Catherine stepped out of the Tower together, making a short walk over to Tower Green where a scaffold had been erected. As they walked, they would have been aware that the king’s whole council, as well as other invited guests, had assembled to watch them die.
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As the superior in rank, Catherine was to die first, stepping up onto the scaffold to be beheaded by an axe. Her body was then covered with a black cloth and carried by her ladies to one side, to make space for Jane at the block.
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It was then Jane’s turn and she, like her mistress, was despatched quickly.

There is some dispute over the words spoken by Catherine and Jane on the scaffold. Their contemporary, Edward Hall, merely recorded that they ‘confessed their offences, and died repentant’.
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The French ambassador, on the other hand, recorded that ‘the queen was so weak that she could hardly speak, but confessed that she had merited a hundred deaths for so offending the king who had so graciously treated her. The Lady of Rochefort said as much in a long discourse of several faults which she had committed in her life.’
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Chapuys recorded that ‘neither the queen nor Madam de Rochefort spoke much on the scaffold; all they did was to confess their guilt and pray for the king’s welfare and prosperity’.
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Another account, written by Otwell Johnson, a London merchant who witnessed the two women die, claimed that both made Christian ends, and,

uttering their lively faith in the blood of Christ only, with wonderful patience and constancy to the death, & with goodly words and steady countenance they desired all Chritsian people, to take regard unto their worthy and just punishment with death for their offences, against God heinously from their youth upwards, in breaking of his commandment, and also against the king’s royal majesty, very dangerously: wherefore they being justly condemned (as they said) by the laws of the realm and parliament, to die, required the people (I say) to take example of them, for amendment of their ungodly lives, and gladly to obey the king in all things, for whose preservation they did heartily pray, and willed all people so to do commending their souls to god, & earnestly calling for mercy upon him.
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Given that Catherine was believed to have said little on the scaffold, much of the speech recorded above by Johnson was probably made by Jane. She therefore died a good death by the conventions of the day, appearing remorseful and contrite on the scaffold and admitting that she had sinned.

In death, Jane Parker Boleyn, the last true Boleyn woman to be resident at court, was laid in a humble grave near her husband, George Boleyn, and her sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn, in the chapel in the Tower. Although she was the last notable Boleyn woman, Boleyn daughters continued to be prominent. The most famous of them all, Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was finally welcomed back into the royal family shortly after Jane’s death.

Following the execution of Lady Rochford, there were no Boleyn women at court. While some of Queen Anne Boleyn’s aunts, as well as the daughters of Sir Edward Boleyn, remained living, the Boleyn line that had sprung from Geoffrey Boleyn of Salle at the beginning of the fifteenth century was all but extinct, with the last remaining male-line descendant, Sir James Boleyn, dying in 1561. This was not quite the end of the story and, while not strictly speaking ‘Boleyn women’ themselves, the daughters of Boleyn women still continued to have a major impact in England for decades after the fall of Queen Anne Boleyn and her family.

Mary Boleyn’s daughter, who may have been the child of Henry VIII, reached maturity in the late 1530s. Catherine Carey’s whereabouts during her childhood are unknown. Her aunt, Anne Boleyn, took the wardship of her brother, Henry, following their father’s death. It has been suggested that Anne placed Henry with her daughter, Princess Elizabeth, after her birth in 1533, something that is indeed possible.
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Certainly, Elizabeth later created her cousin Baron Hunsdon, the name of one of her childhood residences, and he also married the granddaughter of Lady Herbert of Troy, who was lady mistress of her household between 1537 and 1546. Elizabeth’s household accounts survive for the period between October 1551 and September 1552 and include evidence of her continuing relationship with Henry Carey. In December 1551, for example, she paid 40 shillings ‘at the christening of Mr Carey’s child’, something that suggests that she was godmother.
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She later paid 20 shillings to Henry himself as a reward for some service.
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Finally, in April 1552 she received a visit at Hatfield from a Mrs Carey, who can probably be identified as Henry Carey’s wife.
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That this visit was a social call can be seen from the payment made on the same day that Mrs Carey left for some boys who played music to the princess and, presumably, also her guest.

If Henry was indeed placed with Elizabeth then it is possible that Catherine was also raised with her younger cousin. Until her banishment from court in 1534, Mary Boleyn had duties that would have kept her regularly at court. In addition to this, a position with Princess Elizabeth would have been a desirable one for her daughter, something that may well have persuaded Catherine’s mother to allow her to live with her niece. Catherine and Elizabeth were very close in later life. For example, a letter from Elizabeth to her cousin survives dating to the1550s when Catherine was preparing to leave England. The letter is one of the most affectionate that Elizabeth would write, testifying to the close relationship between the pair:

Relieve your sorrow for your far journey with joy of your short return, and think this pilgrimage rather a proof of your friends, than a leaving of your country. The length of time, and distance of place, separates not the love of friends, nor deprives not the show of good-will. An old saying, when bale is lowest boot is nearest: when your need shall be most you shall find my friendship greatest. Let others promise, and I will do, in words not more, in deeds as much. My power but small, my love as great as them whose gifts may tell their friendship’s tale, let will supply all other want, and oft sending take the lieu of often sights. Your messengers shall not return empty, nor yet your desires unaccomplished. Lethe’s flood hath here no course, goof memory hath greatest stream. And to conclude, a word that hardly I can say, I am driven by need to write, farewell, it is which in the sense one way I wish, the other way I grieve.
     Your loving cousin and ready friend, Cor Rotto [i.e. Broken Heart]
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That Elizabeth wrote of her grief and referred to herself as ‘Broken Heart’ at a parting from Catherine suggests that the two were close and used to spending time together, which testifies to a relationship likely to have developed in childhood and due to their shared Boleyn kinship. There is also very considerable evidence for their close relationship from the facts of their lives. Legend states that Catherine attended her aunt, Queen Anne Boleyn, for some of her time in the Tower, which would have further endeared her to Anne’s daughter. Elizabeth was kind to her Boleyn and Howard kin, with her accounts from the early 1550s making it clear that she was in contact with her great-uncle, Edward Boleyn, for example.
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A portrait of Catherine depicting her in the later stages of pregnancy and dating to 1562, when she was thirty-eight, shows that, even in maturity, she was a pleasing-looking woman with auburn hair and the pointed features characteristic of many of the Boleyn women. Facially she resembles Elizabeth I, her cousin and, possibly, also her half-sister. Although her gown in the picture is black, something that hints at her staunchly Protestant beliefs, her inner gown is silver, with furs and gold embroidery adorning her clothing. Clearly, like her cousin the queen, she was not so pious that she was prepared to always wear the drab clothes for which Elizabeth had been so praised during her half-brother’s reign. A second depiction of Catherine, from a memorial placed in Rotherfield Greys church by her son, shows a woman of very similar appearance although more austerely dressed. Clearly Catherine cared about her appearance and was considered good-looking by her peers. She married young, at the age of only around fifteen or sixteen, a few months after being appointed as a maid of honour in November 1539 in anticipation of the arrival of Anne of Cleves.

Catherine’s husband, Francis Knollys, was the heir to an old family who could trace their descent back to Sir Robert Knollys, a soldier during the reign of Edward III.
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Francis’s father, another Sir Robert, was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry VIII, receiving a lease of the manor of Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire from the king, which became the family’s principal seat. He had earlier served Prince Arthur.
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Sir Robert Knollys married Lettice Peniston and Francis was their eldest surviving son, being born in 1514. Francis’s first public office was in 1534 when he sat in parliament. He was also one of the gentlemen chosen to welcome Anne of Cleves to England, something which would have facilitated a first meeting with Catherine. Francis proved a reliable royal servant to Henry VIII, for example providing troops for a royal army to be sent to the Netherlands in 1543.
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He served the king as a gentleman pensioner, as well as holding office under Edward VI. Ideologically, Francis was suited to government under Henry VIII’s son, serving as Edward VI’s master of horse and taking part in the jousts held to celebrate the young king’s Coronation in 1547. He and Catherine resided at Rotherfield Greys after their marriage, which was settled on them jointly by Act of Parliament shortly after their marriage.
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It seems likely that Catherine and Francis met at court and, given the very close relationship that they established after their marriage, the suspicion must be that they made a love match. A letter survives from Francis to Catherine, written towards the end of her life, in which he addressed her as ‘his loving wife’.
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Sir Francis’s Latin dictionary also survives, into which were inserted the names and dates of birth of twelve of the couple’s children.
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The births, which ranged from Easter 1541 until May 1562, indicate that the couple must have been frequently together, with only eight years without a recorded birth. It is also possible that two daughters were not recorded in the dictionary, perhaps due to them being stillbirths and not something that their grieving father chose to recall. While the dictionary lists eight sons and six daughters, a memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey which was in place before 1600 states that Catherine bore eight sons and eight daughters, something which is likely to be correct given that Francis died in 1596.
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Clearly the marriage was very regularly consummated and most of Catherine’s time during her first twenty years of marriage was taken up with childbearing and childrearing, with Catherine paying particular care to the education of her six daughters, Mary, Lettice, Maud, Elizabeth, Anne and Catherine. Catherine probably played a decisive role in naming these daughters. While the second, Lettice, was named for Francis’s mother, the first, Mary, was named for Mary Boleyn. Elizabeth may have been chosen for Catherine’s royal cousin, with Anne perhaps for her executed aunt. Clearly the Boleyn women were still remembered and of importance to Catherine Carey. The couple were blessed in the health of their children. Only the youngest, Dudley, is known to have died in infancy, surviving only between 9 May and June 1562. Their daughters Mary and Maud are nowhere recorded as adults but, given that they are depicted as adults on the family memorial in Rotherfield Greys church while Dudley is an infant, it would seem likely that they survived to adulthood, albeit remaining unmarried. As set out above, the couple may also have lost two further daughters but, even if this is the case, the loss of only three infants out of sixteen was a remarkable achievement. The love between the couple is also suggested by the fact that, although he outlived her by nearly thirty years, Francis never remarried, remaining a prominent government servant until the end.

While Catherine Carey was first settling down as a wife and mother, her cousin, Princess Elizabeth, also began to take her first steps towards adult life, finally returning to a more acknowledged place within the royal family. On 12 July 1543 the nine-year-old princess was present at the wedding of her father to his sixth bride, Catherine Parr, who was a friend and near contemporary of Princess Mary.
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Catherine, who had been twice widowed before her marriage to the king, was an experienced stepmother and quickly took the two youngest royal children under her wing, as well as continuing her friendship with her adult stepdaughter. The king and queen kept all three royal children with them in the summer following their wedding, with the Regent of the Netherlands asking in December 1543 whether the five ‘continued still in one household’.
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The answer was unfortunately no, as Elizabeth had displeased her father in some way and been banished from court by the end of the year. That this exile was not permanent was down to the good offices of her stepmother, who continued to speak on her behalf and was able to persuade Henry to allow her to return when he went on campaign in France the following summer.