Jane Boleyn's Last Christmas and Henry Parker's New Year Gift

With the exception of 1536, it’s fair to say that Jane Boleyn Lady Rochford had seen a lot better Christmases than that of 1541. Christmas 1541 was when Jane’s life started to unravel following her arrest for her involvement in Queen Katherine Howard’s infidelity. Only earlier that month, on the 1st December, both Katherine’s lover Thomas Culpepper and former lover Francis Dereham, had been tried for treason. Dereham then faced the full gruesome traitor’s death of hanging, drawing and quartering, whilst Culpepper faced the relatively merciful beheading.

While this took place, Katherine Howard remained at Syon while Jane stayed in the Tower. Neither Jane’s brother Henry, nor her father Henry Parker had attempted to intervene. In fact, the uncle of Jane’s sister-in-law Anne Boleyn, James Boleyn, took back Blickling Hall from Jane. Her family were profiting from her death. Understandably, Jane suffered a nervous breakdown.

Despite Jane’s mental collapse, however, Henry VIII was still determined not to let her off the hook. In the King’s eyes, Jane knew about Katherine’s affair and had played a central role in this, helping Katherine to meet Culpepper in secret. Henry was still going to make an example of her - she would still be punished publicly. Therefore, the King sent his own Doctors to nurse her back to sanity. Jane was temporarily allowed out of the Tower and spent Christmas 1541 at Russell House, on the Strand, London. Jane spent Christmas with Admiral Lord Russell and his wife, Anne. She was already acquainted with them from court and also would have met them on a progress visit made earlier that year to the family seat at Chenies, Buckinghamshire.

After Christmas, the King himself opened Parliament in January 1542. Jane, referred to as “that bawd, the lady Jane Rochford” and Katherine Howard had proceedings made against them under the Act of Attainder. This meant that both would not be entitled to a trial, nor would they have a chance to defend themselves. Both were sentenced to death.

Jane’s father, Henry, would have been in attendance and witnessed this. He could not defend his own daughter. He would have had to accept the decision made along with the rest of Parliament that his daughter was to die.

Both Jane and Katherine were then executed on the 13th February 1542. By this time, Jane had recovered from her nervous breakdown and faced her death with dignity. It is impossible to know what thoughts she may have had in those winter months, but she probably felt incredibly alone, disowned by her family, resigned to her fate and even feeling that she deserved her fate. Jane, like the rest of the Parker family, had always been Catholic. Spending her last Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, despite the terrible fate that she was to face in the new year, may have reinforced her Catholic faith even more, helping to give her the strength to face her punishment. Certainly according to an eyewitness at the execution, Ottwell Johnson, both Jane and Katherine met a dignified end – their souls were “with God, for they made the most godly and Christian’s end that was ever heard tell of (I think) since the world’s creation”.

On the face of it, it does look like Jane had been disowned by her own family. However, we do have reason to believe that her parents did mourn their daughter. They may have not been allowed to do this publicly – to do this publicly may have had repercussions against the rest of the family as it would be like a protest against the King. However, they did make a sneaky, private tribute to her memory – something that went amiss under the King’s radar.

As a tribute to her daughter, her mother, Alice, made a donation towards the cost of the bells of the church of St. Giles at Great Hallingbury, Essex, where Jane had grown up. Her father, Henry Parker, on the other hand, presented a New Year gift in 1543 to the King.

Henry presented to the King a decorated manuscript describing the sacrifice of Polyxena, the daughter of Hecuba and Priam, at the fall of Troy. In the manuscript, the translation is accurate. However, the way in which Henry had described in particular Polyxena’s sacrifice does give an indication of Henry’s true feelings.

He described Polyxena as offering her “neck” to Pyrrhus, Achilles’ son, “with a deep and constant heart” to “satisfy for another’s woman’s offence”, the other woman being either possibly Hecuba or Helen. However, crucially, it was Polyxena’s throat - not her neck – that was cut. When Jane was executed, she had followed Katherine Howard, who had been unfaithful to the King, to the scaffold and faced the axe with “constancy” as described by eyewitness, Ottwell Johnson.

The way in which Henry had made this subtle change of word from “throat” to “neck” is definitely an unmistakable reference to his own daughter’s fate. On the scaffold, Jane had also died with a “deeply constant heart” – or as Johnson described, with “constancy”, as a result of the offence of another woman, who in Jane’s case was Katherine Howard.

Therefore, there is no doubt that Henry’s New Year gift to the King was also a secret tribute to his daughter. So, even though the Parkers were helpless in trying to keep Jane alive, they made sure that her memory was kept alive after her death.

Sources and further reading:

“Jane Boleyn – The Infamous Lady Rochford” – Julia Fox, 2007.

Henry Parker’s New Year gift is also referred to in my own novella “The Lady Rochford Saga Part 1: Into the Ranks of the Deceived” – Danielle Marchant, 2013.

Image – Jane Boleyn losing her sanity in the Tower (from “The Tudors” played by Joanne King)