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was really only a matter of time before Charles and Francis, his only realistic rival, were at each other’s throats. When that happened, Henry’s role would be crucial. The complex negotiations that had preceded the Field of Cloth of Gold involved a universal peace treaty by which any signatory attacked by another should be supported by the rest. Trouble came when Charles, protesting that Francis had violated the agreements, demanded Henry’s military and financial assistance. Although Wolsey resumed his diplomatic efforts to preserve the peace, it looked as though war was likely. Charles, anxious to press the king for help, sent three ambassadors to England.
    Jane’s chance to move into the spotlight came at an entertainment devised to impress these envoys. She was about seventeen years old and good looking or she would not have been on show, daughter of a peer or not. The occasion was a pageant at the cardinal’s palace of York Place on Shrove Tuesday, March 4, 1522. Led by Wolsey and the king after supper, the ambassadors entered a “great chamber” lit by hundreds of candles, its walls lined with vibrantly colored tapestries, some probably echoing the action about to be performed. It was like going into a theater just before the curtain rises. Attention immediately focused on the end of the room where an amazing imitation castle, Château Vert, was installed. It had three towers and battlements gleaming with green foil, each tower surmounted by a different flag, suggesting the power that women could have: one depicted three men’s torn hearts, one a man’s heart held in a woman’s hand, and the third showed a man’s heart being turned around. The spectators soon realized that in the towers were eight brilliantly dressed court ladies. In their white satin gowns, with their hair encased in close-fitting gold cauls, delicately netted headdresses, and with golden bonnets dotted with jewels on their heads, they looked magnificent, shining out against the iridescent green foil. The name of each lady’s character was picked out in yellow satin and sewn onto her costume for the audience to see. The identity of the woman dressed as Pity is unknown, but we do know who the rest were. Mary, the French queen, with recognizable typecasting, portrayed Beauty. Of the other six, five had been part of Katherine’s entourage at the Field of Cloth of Gold. The Countess of Devonshire was Honor. Mistress Browne represented Bounty and Mistress Dannet, Mercy. But it was the real lives of the remaining three that were destined to be fatally entwined. Mary Carey was Kindness, Jane was Constancy, and Perseverance was played by Mary’s sister, Anne Boleyn, who had returned from the French court only recently and whose chic dress sense and cosmopolitan ways had already aroused male interest.
    While these eight ladies epitomized agreeable female qualities, the castle was defended by eight more who represented contrary and unwanted attributes. They included Danger, Disdain, Jealousy, Unkindness, Scorn, Malbouche (slander or bad-mouthing), and Strangeness (remoteness or inapproachability). The name of the eighth is not recorded. In fact, they were not women at all but children of Henry’s Chapel Royal. Dressed “like to women of India,” they guarded the castle from the eight gentlemen who, decked in cloth of gold with blue satin cloaks, then appeared. They too had names: Amorous, Nobleness, Youth, Attendance, Loyalty, Pleasure, Gentleness, and Liberty. One, but we do not know which, was Henry himself, always eager to join in the revels whenever he could. The suitors were led by Ardent Desire, spectacularly arrayed in crimson satin, who was perhaps William Cornish, master of the Chapel Royal.
    When Ardent Desire playfully asked the women to come down to meet his companions, the fun really began. The eight desirable ladies were so attracted to these gorgeously appareled men that they were prepared to give up their castle, but Scorn and