Chapter 29: St Andrew's Abbey, Rochester, Kent, January 1540

Spoiler Notice: This study guide contains full spoilers for Chapter 29 of Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory. If you are reading the novel for the first time and wish to avoid plot details, bookmark this page and return later.

Summary

Jane Boleyn, serving as chief lady-in-waiting for her fourth queen, arrives at St Andrew’s Abbey in Rochester to prepare Anne of Cleves for her journey to London. She finds a pretty young woman who speaks almost no English, communicating only in German. Frustrated by Anne’s insistence on wearing an ugly German gown and hood, Jane attempts to change her attire before meeting the king. Before she can intervene, a manservant summons her to the hall, where King Henry has arrived in secret with a band of masked courtiers. He plans a romantic surprise, modeling himself on a fairytale prince from the old Romances. Jane is forcibly recruited into the masquing band by Sir Anthony Browne. Against her urgent protests that Anne needs warning, the men sweep into the queen’s chamber. Henry grabs Anne and kisses her; she recoils in horror, shoves him away, shouts in German, wipes her mouth, and spits on the floor. The room freezes in shock until young Katheryn Howard breaks the silence, cooing recognition of the king. Sir Anthony reveals the scene was orchestrated to damage Thomas Cromwell, who chose Anne for the king.

Key Events

• Jane arrives at the abbey as chief lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves and discovers the queen-to-be speaks little English.
• Anne refuses to wear English dress, insisting on her cloth-of-gold German gown with an enormous hood.
• King Henry arrives in disguise with a troop of masked, half-drunk gentlemen and musicians, intending a romantic surprise.
• Sir Anthony Browne forcibly prevents Jane from warning Anne about the masque, giving her a man’s hat, mask, and cape.
• Henry enters the queen’s chamber, grabs Anne, and kisses her. She recoils, shoves him, shouts at him in German, wipes her mouth, and spits.
• The musicians falter; the entire room is paralyzed with horror at the king’s public humiliation.
• Katheryn Howard darts forward to save the moment, announcing the king’s identity and praising his handsomeness.
• Sir Anthony tells Jane the disaster was deliberately orchestrated to undermine Cromwell, who arranged the match.

Character Development

Jane Boleyn: Jane demonstrates her veteran courtier instincts, immediately recognizing the potential disaster of the unannounced masque and trying to prevent it. Her desperation to warn Anne shows genuine concern for the queen’s reception, but she is overruled by the men around her. Sir Anthony’s comment about “many faces” and Jane’s masked reflection underscore her role as a survivor who must constantly conceal her true thoughts.

Anne of Cleves: Introduced as a sheltered, linguistically isolated young woman. Her refusal to wear English dress signals stubbornness or cultural pride. Her visceral reaction to the king’s kiss — recoiling, wiping her mouth, spitting — reveals either profound naivety about English court custom or genuine physical revulsion she cannot mask.

Henry VIII: The king attempts to play the chivalric lover, boasting he has outdone his brother’s romantic gesture. His instant suspicion when Jane suggests Anne might need to look her best reveals deep insecurity. After the rejection, he appears “completely stricken,” looking around helplessly — a rare moment of exposed vulnerability before his courtiers manufactured a recovery.

Katheryn Howard: The youngest, most junior maid seizes her moment with theatrical instinct. Her intervention — “The king! So handsome! I would know him anywhere” — positions her as a quick-witted performer who understands exactly how to manage Henry’s ego. This is her first significant move in the Howards’ political strategy.

Sir Anthony Browne: Revealed as a political operator working against Cromwell. His deliberate obstruction of Jane’s attempts to prepare Anne, his remark that the disaster shows “Lord Cromwell’s choice as she truly is,” and his beam of satisfaction confirm the masque’s failure was a calculated ambush.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Performance and Disguise: The chapter is saturated with masks, costumes, and role-playing. Jane wears a man’s bonnet and mask; the king is “swathed in a cloak swirling with colours”; Sir Anthony remarks, “We all have many faces.” The masque is a literal performance that goes catastrophically wrong, exposing the fiction beneath courtly romance.

Language and Misunderstanding: Anne’s linguistic isolation is both practical and symbolic. She cannot understand the ceremony or the masque’s conventions, leaving her defenseless against misinterpretation. Jane’s discovery that “everyone reads aloud the ceremonial welcome in Latin” without expecting a reply shows how the English court has already dismissed Anne as a non-participant in her own reception.

Political Theater: Sir Anthony’s revelation that the disaster was orchestrated to damage Cromwell reframes the entire scene as deliberate sabotage. The failed kiss is not a romantic mishap but a calculated move in factional warfare. Katheryn Howard’s rescue simultaneously demonstrates the Howards’ readiness to exploit Cromwell’s weakness.

The Body and Revulsion: Anne’s bodily reaction — wiping her mouth on her sleeve, spitting on the floor — is the chapter’s most shocking image. It strips away courtly pretense and exposes raw physical rejection, an intolerable insult to a king whose aging body already fuels his insecurities.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter stages the pivotal first encounter between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves, the event that will doom their marriage before it formally begins. It crystallizes the factional dynamics driving the novel’s second half: Cromwell’s Protestant alliance through the German marriage versus the Howards’ resurgent Catholic ambition. The chapter’s construction as a deliberate political ambush — not an accident — recasts the historical “Flanders mare” anecdote as calculated sabotage by Cromwell’s enemies. Katheryn Howard’s emergence from obscurity as the king’s rescuer foreshadows her trajectory toward queenship, while Jane’s midnight note to Cromwell demonstrates her positioning within the intelligence networks of the court. The chapter also deepens Jane’s characterization as a woman who perceives the political currents around her but lacks the power to alter them, forced to watch disaster unfold while wearing a mask that hides her anxiety behind a painted smile.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Sir Anthony Browne prevent Jane from warning Anne about the masque, and what does this reveal about the court’s political factions?

Sir Anthony deliberately obstructs Jane because he wants the meeting to fail. He tells Jane directly that it is “better that the king sees Lord Cromwell’s choice as she truly is,” then adds that Cromwell “will have to answer for” Anne if the king dislikes her. This reveals that Sir Anthony and his allies have orchestrated a trap: by ensuring Anne is unprepared, they guarantee she will react naturally and unfavorably, producing a disastrous first impression that discredits Cromwell. The episode exposes the active conspiracy against Cromwell’s Protestant marriage policy, with the Howards and their allies maneuvering to replace Anne even before she reaches London.

2. How does Katheryn Howard’s intervention function as both a personal and a political act?

Katheryn’s intervention reveals instinctive political intelligence. She reads the room’s paralysis and supplies exactly what Henry needs: reassurance of his desirability and royal dignity. Her words — “The king! So handsome!” — flatter his vanity while performing shocked delight that centers his ego. Politically, her move is calculated to contrast with Anne’s rejection and to position a Howard girl favorably before the king. The chapter explicitly frames this as “the first move in the Howards’ brilliant bid for the throne, and another Howard girl is in play,” confirming that Katheryn is being positioned as an alternative bride should the Cleves match collapse.

3. What does Anne’s reaction to the kiss reveal about the collision between her expectations and English court ritual?

Anne’s violent recoil reveals a complete failure of cultural translation. She has been brought to England as a political bride, schooled in ceremonial welcomes delivered in Latin that she neither speaks nor answers. No one has explained the conventions of courtly masquing — that a stranger’s masked kiss is a romantic game she must pretend to enjoy until the unmasking. Her reaction — shoving, shouting in German, spitting — treats the king’s advance as a genuine assault by a drunk stranger. Her instinctive physical revulsion strips away the fiction of courtly love and exposes the marriage as a transactional arrangement between strangers who share neither language nor cultural understanding. The moment crystallizes how thoroughly Anne has been set up to fail by those who should have prepared her.