The story so far…
Week 8: The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1)
George Boleyn’s wife. We see her in this chapter, amused at the news that Bishop Fisher’s cook is to be boiled alive for poisoning.
Week 10: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 1)
Mary Boleyn says Jane and George hate each other, and George sits up all night with his sister playing cards.
At the Howard-Boleyn conference we see that hatred. George: “Say no more, or I may strike you.” and “I wish I could divorce you.” Lady Rochford makes it her duty to signal the severity of the situation for Anne, the Howards and the Boleyns.
Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)
Lady Rochford’s warning to Jane Seymour: “If your belly shows, mistress, we’ll have you bricked up alive.”
Week 13: Anna Regina (Part 2)
Jane Rochford on Cromwell: “A contusion on the body politic.”
Jane Rochford on the people of England: “Oh, but madam, they love Katherine because she is the daughter of two anointed sovereigns. Make your mind up to it madam — they will never love you, any more than they love … Cromwell here. It is nothing to do with your merits. It is a point of fact. There is no use trying to evade it.”
Week 14: Devil's Spit / A Painter’s Eye
Lady Rochford offers Cromwell information for friendship. She believes her brother and Anne would try to poison her. She says Anne’s marriage is stale and she looks for novelty elsewhere. George assists in the process. Mark Smeaton is never far from the action.
Here is Jane Boleyn on her husband, and on Cromwell, and on sheep:
‘There is not a minx within thirty miles who has not had a set of Rochford’s verses. But if you think the gallantry stops at the bedchamber’s door, you are more innocent than I took you for. You may be in love with Seymour’s daughter, but you need not emulate her in having the wit of a sheep.’
Week 16: The Map of Christendom (Part 1)
Cromwell suspects it is Jane who detected Mary’s pregnancy. “With her husband George away, she had no one to spy on.”
Mary lashes out at Jane: “This is better than your wedding day, Rochford. It’s like getting a houseful of presents. You can’t love, you don’t know what love it, and all you can do is envy those who do know, and rejoice in their troubles. You are a wretched unhappy woman whose husband loathes her, and I pity you and I pity my sister Anne.
Week 18: Falcons
Lady Rochford told Gregory that Cromwell liked Jane Seymour.
Who in the name of God gave you, Lady Rochford, a license to speculate about my intentions?