Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford

[2] She was sent to the royal court in her early teens, certainly before her fifteenth birthday, where she joined the household of King Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon.

The seven performers were selected from the ladies of court in large part for their attractiveness, including the King's sister Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France.

As the Boleyn family's wealth and influence increased, the couple were given the Palace of Beaulieu in Essex as their chief residence, which George and Jane decorated with a lavish chapel, a tennis court, a bathroom with hot-and-cold running water, imported carpets, mahogany furniture and their own large collection of silverware.

[7][8] Beaulieu had initially belonged to the Boleyns as one of their country retreats[9] before they sold it to the King, who spent over £17,000 lavishly refurbishing and expanding it.

In fact, according to George Cavendish, he lived in 'bestial' fashion, forcing widows, deflowering virgins ... [and] it has been suggested he indulged in homosexual activity too, but there is no evidence for this, although he may well have committed buggery with female partners.

"[11] Julia Fox, Jane's most recent biographer, disagrees with both arguments, concluding that the exact nature of the marriage is unclear but suggesting that it was by no means unhappy.

After 11 years of marriage, George Boleyn was arrested in May 1536 and imprisoned in the Tower of London, accused of having had sexual intercourse with his sister Queen Anne.

There was no truth in these rumours, according to the vast majority of contemporary witnesses, but they provided the legal pretext that the Boleyns' enemies needed to bring about the execution of Lord Rochford.

Jane was mentioned only once during the trials, when George Boleyn was asked if the Queen had relayed information about Henry's sexual troubles to her.

Subsequent generations of historians also believed that Jane's testimony against her husband and sister-in-law in 1536 was motivated by spite rather than any actual belief in their guilt, hence her generally unfavourable historical reputation.

Georgian and Victorian histories pointed to Jane's execution in 1542 to suggest that moral justice had triumphed because "the infamous Lady Rochford ... justly deserved her fate for the concern which she had in bringing Anne Boleyn, as well as her own husband, to the block".

Faced with such relentless, incessant questions, which she had no choice but to answer, Jane would have searched her memory for every tiny incident that occurred to her ... Jane had not been quick to tell tales, but she had buckled under the pressure of relentless questioning ... And it was her weakness under interrogation that gave her future detractors—happy to find a scapegoat to exonerate the King from the heinous charge of callously killing his innocent wife—the ammunition to maintain that it was her evidence that had fooled Henry and destroyed Anne and George ...[17]George Boleyn was beheaded on Tower Hill on 17 May 1536.

"[19] It is not known whether Jane witnessed the execution of either her husband or her sister-in-law, but the posthumous sympathy Anne aroused in many meant that many of those linked to her fall were cast in the roles of villains.

Jane continued to use the courtesy title of Viscountess Rochford but without a son she could not benefit from what remained of the Boleyn family fortune.

[26] Her "fits of frenzy" meant that legally she could not stand trial for her role in facilitating the Queen's alleged adultery, but since he was determined to have her punished, the King implemented a law which allowed the execution of the insane for high treason.

Despite her nervous collapse over the previous months, she was calm and dignified and both women won mild posthumous approval for their behaviour.

'[29][30] The French ambassador Charles de Marillac merely stated that Jane gave a 'long discourse'; Johnson says that she apologised for her 'many sins', but neither man's account supports the later legend that she spoke at length about her late husband or sister-in-law.

She also features in Robin Maxwell's The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, Suzannah Dunn's The Queen of Subtleties and briefly in Margaret George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII.

In both these representations, Jane was shown as being a political tool in the hands of her husband's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, although the presentation of her in The Other Boleyn Girl was more sympathetic.

Jane is also represented in seasons two to four of the Showtime series The Tudors, by Joanne King with Padraic Delaney playing her husband George.

In this version, their marriage is miserable, with both pressured into it by their parents and Jane finding it increasingly humiliating to put up with her husband's affair with Mark Smeaton.

Her portrayal, while consistent with negative depictions of her, also stems from the disrespect and neglect she is shown experiencing from both Anne and George Boleyn, which makes her a ready accomplice to the intrigues of Thomas Cromwell.