Chapter 67: The Tower of London, February 1542 – Summary & Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning
This summary and analysis contains major plot details from the chapter. Read on only if you have finished the chapter or are comfortable with spoilers.
Full Summary
The chapter opens with Jane Rochford imprisoned in the Tower of London in February 1542, awaiting execution. She no longer feigns madness because the world itself is governed by a madman: King Henry. She traces the nation’s complicity back to Henry’s youth, when people admired and loved him, and blames that habit of blind devotion for the escalating tyranny that followed. She notes that the king has destroyed friends, wives, and the Church while everyone continued to insist he was fair and handsome.
The Tower is crowded with prisoners accused of treason in connection with Catherine Howard. The dowager duchess and others fill the cells; dozens are condemned by an Act of Attainder, a legal device that pronounces guilt without a trial. Catherine has no hope of defence and, rather than play a defiant queen, she rehearses dying gracefully: the block is brought to her chamber so she can practise kneeling and laying her head down. Jane shudders to think she will put her own cheek where Catherine’s has just lain, and that the block will never be cleaned in time.
As the days pass, Jane begins to wonder whether the king’s attention will drift to foreign wars or marriage alliances, perhaps sparing them. A maid reports that Henry dined with sixty-one ladies and appeared pleased with several, including former fellow spies of Jane’s. The news sparks a bleak calculation: if the king wants a new wife, he may clear the Tower quickly; if his diseased leg kills him first, the prisoners might survive.
The hammering of a scaffold on Tower Green ends that speculation. Jane sees Catherine walk beneath her window to the block, her head bowed and her pace a rehearsed, lilting scaffold walk. Jane hears the silence, the axe fall, and the murmur of the crowd witnessing a death performed with grace. She knows Catherine executed her final role well.
Moments later Sir John Gage appears at Jane’s door to lead her out. She answers, “I’m ready,” but her mind finishes the thought that has threaded the entire chapter: she should have said “no.”
Key Events
- Jane analyses the kingdom’s madness and collective failure to oppose Henry’s tyranny from the start.
- The Tower is crowded with Catherine Howard’s relatives and attendants, all condemned by Act of Attainder without trial.
- Catherine practises placing her head on the block in her chamber, accepting her fate as a dying queen rather than a defiant one.
- A maid brings news that the king dined with numerous ladies, hinting that he is already seeking a new wife.
- Jane weighs whether Henry’s rotting leg might kill him before he orders executions.
- A scaffold is built on Tower Green, confirming that Catherine will die.
- Jane watches Catherine walk to the scaffold and hears the axe fall.
- Sir John Gage arrives to take Jane to her own execution.
Character Development
Jane Rochford
Jane’s internal monologue in this chapter crystallises her ultimate self‑assessment. Having abandoned the tactic of feigned madness, she sees the court’s behaviour as genuinely insane. Her bitterness is aimed at everyone who, like herself, never opposed the king. The phrase “we should have said ‘no’” becomes a mantra. She recognises that the courage to resist at the first dismissal of Katherine of Aragon might have prevented all the bloodshed. Her final readiness to walk to the block is not heroic acceptance but a weary recognition that she has been complicit all along. The chapter closes her arc from ambitious spy to a woman who sees her own extinction as the logical end of a lifetime spent serving a tyrant.
Catherine Howard
Catherine appears only through Jane’s observations and reports, yet the chapter strongly colours her final portrait. Instead of attempting a defence or raging against her fate, Catherine choreographs her death. The image of her rehearsing with the block in her room and then walking a “scaffold walk” like a dance step turns her into a performer to the end. Jane respects the performance but also sees it as another form of the collective madness—a refusal to scream “no” even at the last moment.
Henry VIII
Although absent from the scene, the king’s presence is felt in every corner of the Tower. He is described as a tyrant whose early charm locked his subjects into unquestioning obedience. The report of the dinner with ladies reduces him to a grotesque bridegroom, one who may hurry the deaths of his current wife and her circle simply to clear space for a sixth marriage.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
The Refusal to Say “No”
The chapter’s most persistent motif is the phrase “we should have said ‘no.’” Jane traces the entire disaster of the Tudor court back to the moment when no one opposed the abandonment of Katherine of Aragon. This refusal is not presented as fear but as a kind of collective self‑deception, a madness that made tyranny possible.
Madness and Sanity
Jane concludes that pretending to be mad was pointless because the world she inhabits is truly insane. The court’s continuous praise of the king, even as he destroys those around him, is a lunacy all its own. This thematic line blurs the boundary between Jane’s earlier feigned madness and the real madness of compliance.
Performance and Rehearsed Death
Catherine’s rehearsal with the block and her slow, lilting walk to the scaffold underscore the theatricality of Tudor executions. Death becomes a final performance, one that is staged, practised, and critiqued by onlookers. Jane’s wry remark that Catherine “liked to do things well” tinges this motif with dark admiration.
The Scaffold as Stake in a Grim Race
Jane frames her fate as a wager: whether the king’s desire for a new wife will outpace the decay in his leg. The hammering of wood signals that she has lost the bet. This metaphor turns political survival into a gamble entirely dependent on a tyrant’s whims and physical health.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter serves as the emotional and thematic climax of Jane Rochford’s story. Catherine Howard’s execution is enacted and witnessed, tying off the fifth‑wife tragedy. Jane’s own moment of reckoning arrives immediately afterward, completing the novel’s long meditation on complicity. The repeated call to say “no” links the personal failure of the narrator to the wider catastrophe of Henry’s reign, making the chapter a final, damning judgement on a court that destroyed itself through obedience. The timing—with a new scaffold built and a new wife implicitly on the horizon—shows that the cycle of destruction will continue because the fundamental habit of submission has never been broken.
Study Questions & Answers
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Why does Jane Rochford stop feigning madness in this chapter?
Jane decides that pretending to be mad is pointless in a kingdom ruled by a genuinely mad king. She sees the court’s constant praise of Henry and its refusal to challenge his actions as the true insanity. Her own fake madness is laughable compared to the collective delusion that has enabled tyranny for years. -
What does Catherine Howard’s rehearsal with the execution block symbolise?
Catherine’s rehearsal transforms her death into a choreographed performance. It symbolises the pressure on Tudor victims to die gracefully for public consumption, but it also represents a deeper form of compliance—she does not resist or speak out, choosing instead to perfect her final scene. Jane interprets this as one more missed opportunity to say “no.” -
How does the idea of a “race” between the king’s marriage plans and his illness shape the chapter’s tension?
Jane speculates that if Henry’s leg ulcer kills him before he selects a sixth wife, she and the other prisoners might be spared. This framing injects dark suspense into the chapter: the sound of hammering on the scaffold confirms that the king’s marital urgency has won the race, sealing Catherine’s death and Jane’s immediate fate. It emphasises the prisoners’ complete dependence on the king’s capricious body and desires.