Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford

The story of Henry VIII's queens - as seen through the eyes of Jane Rochford, sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn and cousin to Katherine Howard.

Jane Rochford was sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn and Lady of the Bedchamber to Katherine Howard, whom she followed to the scaffold in 1542. Hers is a life of extraordinary drama as a witness to, and participant in, the greatest events of Henry's reign.

She arrived at court as a teenager when Katherine of Aragon was queen. Even before Henry's marriage to Anne, her own marriage to George Boleyn brought her into the closest royal circles - and there she remained through the unfolding spectacle and tragedy of Henry's succession of marriages. She survived the trauma of Anne and George's executions and despite briefly being banned from Court managed to regain her place there to attend on Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. Her supposed part in both Anne Boleyn's and Katherine Howard's downfall has led to her being reviled through centuries.

In this fascinating biography Julia Fox repudiates the idea of the infamous Lady Rochford and Jane emerges as a rather modern woman forced by brutal circumstance to fend for herself in a politically lethal world.