Jane Seymour

Queen consort of England (r. 1536-1537)

• Born: c. 1509
• Birthplace: Wolf Hall, Wiltshire, England
• Died: October 24, 1537
• Place of death: Hampton Court, London, England

The third wife of King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour gave birth to Henry’s only son, the future King Edward VI. Although Jane did not long survive Edward’s birth, the connection she established between her family and the throne would play a crucial role in England becoming a predominantly Protestant country.

Early Life

Jane Seymour was the daughter of Sir John Seymour and Lady Margery Wentworth, who had ten children, of whom six three boys and three girls lived to maturity, a rare feat of survival for the early sixteenth century. Jane’s parents were members of the minor English aristocracy who had important connections to the royal court, and Jane’s mother could trace her descent to King Edward III.

Jane grew up in the family home, Wolf Hall. Her education was probably the typical one for a girl of her station in life: She learned to read and write, to do needlework, and to manage a household. There would also have been an emphasis on the development of religious devotion and modest behavior, since Jane’s era believed the model woman was chaste, silent, and obedient. The evidence from Jane’s life as queen indicates she took these instructions to heart: her motto was “bound to serve and obey.”

Jane’s family connections earned her a place at court in the service of Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon . Jane was there by at least 1529 and, after Catherine had been replaced by Anne Boleyn, Jane moved to Anne’s service, no later than the end of 1533. Thus, Henry would have known Jane for several years before he developed an interest in her, most likely toward the end of 1535.

Life’s Work

When she first attracted Henry’s attention, Jane was around twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. It was unusual for a young woman of her class to be unmarried at that age. She was known at court more for propriety than beauty, and it may have been her quiet calmness that attracted a king who was rapidly growing weary of a volatile and demanding queen. Yet at the start of 1536, Anne’s position seemed secure, as she was pregnant with what everyone assumed was the future male heir Henry so desperately desired. Anne’s miscarriage of that child at the end of January her second miscarriage of a male fetus changed the situation entirely.

Had Jane not been open to the king’s attentions before, she certainly was after Anne’s miscarriage. Whether by her own inclination, or her brother Edward’s advice, or both, however, Jane made it clear that she would not compromise her virtue. She accepted Henry’s gifts, but when he was careless and crass enough to send money, she respectfully but firmly refused it, on the grounds that to accept would harm her honor. Far from being angry, Henry praised her modesty, and from that April on, as their relationship was becoming more widely known, the king visited Jane only in the company of her brother Edward and his wife. Clearly, Henry was thinking of Jane as more than a mistress. On May 2, Anne was arrested on charges of adultery and incest, and she was executed May 19. The next day, Henry and Jane Seymour were formally betrothed, and they married May 30, 1536.

Clearly, the most important job for the new queen was to conceive and bear a son. While waiting for that to happen, however, Jane had other tasks she wished to accomplish. Perhaps the most important, in her view, was to reconcile the king with his eldest daughter, Mary, the future Queen Mary I . Mary’s mother, Henry’s first wife Catherine, had died late in 1535, so the young princess had no resentment against Jane, as she had with Anne. Jane managed to persuade Mary to submit to her father. Jane then persuaded Henry to accept the girl’s submission and restore her to a proper place at court by the end of the year.

Jane also wanted a devout and dignified court. Reflecting her own strong sense of decorum, she insisted that the ladies in her service conduct themselves virtuously and dress modestly. Henry and the nation approved of this. He was less approving, however, when she attempted to influence him on policy; he pointedly and publicly rebuked her for it on at least one occasion. Jane understood the place she was to take. If there were other attempts by her to influence the king, they were done discreetly and privately.

In most ways, though, Jane pleased her husband, and no more so than when, early in 1537, it became apparent that she was pregnant. Henry did everything in his power to make his expectant wife comfortable and happy. She made no public appearances, and prayers for her and the unborn child were offered in churches throughout England. When Jane began to crave quail, the king went to a great deal of trouble and expense to keep her well-supplied with them. Henry had already made Jane’s brother Edward Viscount Beauchamp shortly after their wedding; to please her even more, the king made Beauchamp a member of the Privy Council.

Jane passed her pregnancy pleasantly, “entirely beloved” of her royal spouse. On October 12, 1537, after three days of labor, Jane cemented her place in Henry’s affections by giving birth to a baby boy, and so the king had, at long last, a son and heir.

The boy was christened Edward in a lavish ceremony on October 15, and three days later the boy’s uncle, Edward Seymour, was created earl of Hertford. Jane seemed to have come through the difficult birth well, and she received visitors after the christening, as was customary. The next day, however, she began to show signs of puerperal, or “childbed” fever, a virulent infection that progressed quickly. On October 24, 1537, Jane Seymour died. She was buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where Henry was eventually laid to rest beside his “sweet Jane” in 1547.

Significance

Jane Seymour gave Henry VIII what two previous wives over twenty-five years could not: a surviving son. By this she also created a connection between her family and the throne, which became important when Edward, while still a child, succeeded his father in 1547. Edward’s maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, then became England’s lord protector, acting as regent for his nephew between 1547 and 1549, which began the process by which the Church of England became Protestant in its doctrine and worship.

Jane also helped to reconcile Henry VIII with his estranged eldest daughter Mary, and she helped maintain an atmosphere of decorum and piety at the royal court. Although she was in a position to influence the king on political and religious matters and, in fact, might have attempted to do so, she was not significant in this regard. As mother to Edward, the heir to the throne, she might have become more influential had she not died prematurely.

Bibliography

Fraser, Antonia. The Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. More scholarly than most works covering Henry’s wives, this already classic book is nonetheless written in a lively style by a noted historian.

Gross, Pamela M. Jane, the Quene, Third Consort of King Henry VIII. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. This is the only book devoted entirely to Jane Seymour.

Lindsey, Karen. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995. This work seeks to define Henry’s wives, including Jane, on their own terms and within the context of their times.

Loades, David. The Politics of Marriage: Henry VIII and His Queens. Dover, N.H.: Sutton, 1994. This book is concerned with the political contexts that led to, and created, Henry’s marriages, including that with Jane Seymour.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation. New York: Palgrave, 1999. This is a scholarly work covering the reign of Jane’s son Edward and the impact of Jane’s brother, Edward Seymour.

Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. One of many works that includes Jane Seymour, by a popular and prolific author.