Chapter 34: Westminster Palace, May 1540 – Summary & Analysis
🚨 Spoiler Notice
This page reveals major plot points from Chapter 34 of Boleyn Traitor. Read on only if you are ready for full details of the chapter’s events.
Summary
The May Day joust at Westminster Palace unfolds with celebration and pageantry: Thomas Seymour champions, Gregory Cromwell breaks a spear, and Kitty Howard notices Thomas Culpeper’s favour to another. The king showers gifts on the jousters, and Lord Lisle beams at the honour shown to his stepson. Jane observes the royal Plantagenet charm of Lisle and hopes he will speak for Lady Margaret Pole’s release.
After the feast, Jane looks from the queen’s window and sees Lord Lisle walking silently with Sir William Kingston to an unmarked barge – an arrest, not an honour. The earl is taken without ceremony, his earldom never announced. Jane freezes, thinking of the petitio principii – the false witchcraft premise she and Cromwell once toyed with. A wave of arrests follows: Dr. Richard Sampson, George Carew, and others are swept into the Tower, accused of betraying Calais. Lady Lisle is turned out of her home, her possessions seized.
Jane confronts Cromwell, now Lord Essex, who confirms he is pursuing the witchcraft accusation but promises not to reach the queen if she agrees to an annulment. He tasks Jane with bringing ladies to the Tower to sign evidence and pressures her to advise the queen to choose safety. In the chapel, Jane whispers in German to the queen, outlining the two paths: a dignified settlement as a single woman, or a witchcraft trial and death. She coaches Anne to claim a precontract to the Duke of Lorraine and to say the marriage was never consummated, insisting it is the only lie that will save her life. Anne, though quietly resistant, does not reject the plan.
As May turns to June, Lord Hungerford is arrested with a witch, foretelling the king’s death, and condemned by attainder. Under the pretext of plague, the queen is sent to Richmond Palace, where she will receive her settlement. Jane, pretending household routine, joins the card game and tells Anne of the move. Anne Basset flees the room at the mention of the king’s business – her stepfather’s execution. Jane and the queen continue playing, their complicit silence sealing the scheme.
Key Events
- Thomas Seymour wins the May Day joust; Gregory Cromwell and others perform well.
- Kitty Howard is snubbed by Thomas Culpeper.
- Lord Lisle is arrested silently by Sir William Kingston after a privy council meeting.
- A wave of arrests follows: Dr. Sampson, George Carew, and others.
- Lady Lisle is evicted from her Calais home and property seized.
- Jane learns from Cromwell that the fictitious witchcraft plot is being used, but he will spare the queen if she agrees to an annulment.
- Jane coaches Queen Anne in the chapel to lie about a precontract and virginity to secure an annulment.
- Lord Hungerford is arrested and attainted for witchcraft and treason.
- The queen is sent to Richmond Palace under the guise of avoiding plague, as part of the annulment plan.
Character Development
- Lady Rochford (Jane): This chapter forces Jane to confront the real consequences of her earlier intellectual games. She is frozen by the sight of Lisle’s arrest, then becomes pragmatic, coaching the queen in a life-saving lie. She balances fear and calculation, showing both her complicity and her twisted sense of loyalty to Anne.
- Thomas Cromwell: Elevated to Lord Essex, he is at the peak of his power but operates with cold pragmatism. He reveals that the witchcraft plot is a tool to break the marriage, not necessarily to destroy the queen. His casual use of fear – “this inducement” – underscores his moral flexibility.
- Queen Anne of Cleves: Anne remains steely and perceptive. She questions the logic of the lie but accepts Jane’s instruction with a mixture of stoicism and dry humor. Her quiet strength and refusal to panic set her apart from her predecessor.
- Kitty Howard: Her petty jealousy over Culpeper and the king’s attention shows her youthful selfishness, oblivious to the danger circling the court.
- Lord Lisle and Anne Basset: The arrest of Lisle and Basset’s grief highlight the arbitrary terror of Henry’s court, where even loyal service offers no protection.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Deception as Survival: The annulment requires a web of lies – precontract, non-consummation – and Jane frames it as a masque. Deception is presented not as moral failure but as the only shield against political destruction.
- The Parallel of the Two Mays: Jane explicitly compares the current terror to the May of 1536, when Anne Boleyn fell. The repetition of silent arrests, rumour, and the queen’s vulnerability emphasizes the cyclical nature of court danger.
- Silence and Darkness: The arrest of Lisle is marked by unnatural silence – no trumpets, no farewells, a black barge. This motif of silent, shadowy power pervades the chapter, from Jane’s hooded figure to the whispered chapel conversation.
- Birds and Entrapment: Lady Lisle’s quails seized by the Earl of Sussex, and the earlier description of Lisle’s barge as a “dark cormorant,” suggest the queen and her allies are penned prey.
- Power and Impotence: The plot hinges on the king’s perceived inability to consummate the marriage, which must be reframed not as his failure but as Anne’s prior betrothal, turning vulnerability into a weapon.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 34 is the pivot in which the queen’s fate is decided. It moves from spectacle and celebration to clandestine arrests and coerced compliance. Jane’s role shifts from observer to active architect of the annulment lie, under Cromwell’s direction. The chapter deepens the tragedy: Anne of Cleves is not a passive victim but a woman forced to choose between a degrading lie and a witch’s death. It also demonstrates how the machinery of state – arrests, attainders, and pretences – dismantles anyone in the king’s way, and how even those who serve it (like Jane) become trapped in the moral cost. The foundations for the annulment are laid here, making the next chapters inevitable.
Study Questions
1. Why does Jane freeze when she sees Lord Lisle’s arrest, instead of immediately acting as she usually does?
Answer: Jane’s paralysis comes because the arrest is eerily quiet – a black barge, no escort – mirroring the 1536 arrests that led to her husband and sister-in-law’s deaths. For once, she cannot immediately calculate how to use the information because she recognises that the plot she and Cromwell imagined has become real, and she is now implicated in a chain of events she cannot control. The silence signals a threat that logic alone cannot navigate.
2. How does the coaching scene in the chapel reveal both Jane’s pragmatism and Anne’s character?
Answer: Jane reduces the annulment to a practical script: say you don’t know about the precontract, claim virginity, never accuse the king of impotence. This shows her ruthless survival instinct. Anne, however, notes the absurdity (“Is as stupid as the other”) and the moral cost (“But it is a lie”). Her quiet resistance and dark humour demonstrate an inner strength that Jane admires, even as she forces the lie that will save Anne’s life but erase her dignity.
3. What is the significance of the “plague” ruse used to move the queen to Richmond?
Answer: The false plague pretext is a classic Tudor court manipulation: a transparent lie that everyone must uphold. It mirrors the earlier “illness” that isolated Anne Boleyn. By sending the queen to Richmond, the council physically separates her from the king and the centre of power, preparing ground for the annulment announcement. For Jane, who knowingly plays along, it underscores the performative nature of court life and her own collusion in dismantling the queen’s position.