The new Queen had an easy task in creating a new atmosphere of unity, after the public confrontations and partisanship which had been the product of Anne Boleyn’s temperament. Chapuys adroitly conferred on Jane at their first interview the title of ‘peacemaker’, which had a fairly obvious diplomatic purpose, but which was seized on with pleasure by the King, a little nervous about how his demure bride might perform in front of the most important foreign envoy in the realm.1 Whatever courtiers thought about the rights and wrongs of destroying the Boleyns, the sense of relief among them after
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