Even though it has taken me any extra 10 days over my allotted time to read this biography of Jane Boleyn, I feel that it was totally worth it. Over the last 20 years or so, I have read many biographies of people at the court of Henry VIII, but this is the first I've seen about Jane Boleyn, who was certainly at the very heart of it. I could not stop reading till I had read every last word and end note.
For those less familiar with English history, Jane Boleyn was the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's doomed second queen, for whom he threw over
Katherine of Aragon and the Catholic Church. Jane was married to Anne's brother George, for whom Anne had a particular, some would call it unnatural
affection. Jane's fortunes rose with Anne's ascension to the throne as Henry's Queen, and fell again when Anne failed to produce the living male heir necessary to the Tudor succession. Although Anne and George Boleyn would meet their deaths at the hands of an executioner, Jane was spared the ax, that time.
Exiled from court for a time, Jane reappeared at the side of Henry's 3rd wife,
Jane Seymour, who was lucky enough to bear Henry a male child, but unlucky
enough to catch puerperal fever and die about two weeks later. Fortunately for
Jane, Henry quickly picked up wife #4, whom he just as quickly dropped, and
then #5, a Boleyn cousin named Catherine Howard. Jane became a great confidante to Catherine Howard, and that would be her undoing, as Catherine was a bit loose in her morals, both before AND after her marriage to the king. And while profligacy in an unmarried girl is not wise, after marriage to Henry VIII, it was downright deadly. In this case, Henry had both former lovers of Catherine,
the Queen herself, and her lady-in-waiting Jane Boleyn executed.
What I find most interesting is that most biographies of Henry and his many
wives vilify the Lady Rochford, as Jane Boleyn was called after her husband
gained a title because of his social climbing sister. But this biography shows
clearly how Jane's reputation shifted over time, from that of a woman who had
little to do with the persecution and death of her husband in contemporary
writings, to later historical accounts where she becomes a woman motivated by
jealousy who was glad to see her perverted husband and his sister die.
If that story makes this book sound interesting, well it really isn't. The history contained in this painfully researched book is only rarely titillating, but more often dry and exhaustive. Still, since I've read so much Tudor history, I very am impressed by the amount of research and thought Fox has put into this biography of a woman not even important enough in the court's eyes to have her portrait painted. While a slow, difficult, read, "Jane Boleyn" is worth it for the true student of Tudor history.
Submitted by Gerti
