Today is the anniversary of the execution of Jane Boleyn (née Parker), Lady Rochford, on 13th February 1542. She was executed at the Tower of London with her mistress, Catherine Howard, fifth wife of King Henry VIII.
The two women had been found guilty of high treason by an act of attainder, Catherine for her past relationship with Francis Dereham and “her will to return to her old abominable life”, and for ‘confederating’ with Jane to “bring her vicious and abominable purpose to pass with Thos. Culpeper”. They were sentenced to death.
You can find out more about their executions in my “on this day in Tudor history” video for today – see https://youtu.be/4nGL47QKe4k.
Whenever I write about Jane Boleyn’s execution I always get comments about it serving her right because she betrayed her husband, George Boleyn, and her sister-in-law, Queen Anne Boleyn, so I thought I’d do a video on why I believe this to be nothing more than a myth, and a nasty one at that. It’s part of my series on Questions about Anne Boleyn. You can subscribe to the Anne Boleyn Files YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/AnneBoleynFiles.
Here is my video:
Julia Fox wrote a guest article for us on Jane Boleyn a few years ago and you can click here to read it.
