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up at greenlight.com/podcast. Queen

1:10

Jane, lay in labor

1:13

through sex days or

1:15

more. Tell

1:19

the web and crew we'd eat

1:21

and the medwives give o'er.

1:27

They sent for King

1:29

Henry to come with

1:32

great speed. To

1:37

be with Queen Jane

1:39

and her of need.

1:46

Henry VIII's third queen is

1:48

a paradox. She's

1:50

the one about whom we know perhaps the

1:53

least, and yet she's almost

1:55

painted the most. She was

1:57

the most lowly of the queens, but she had

1:59

royal and she

2:01

is often described as plain and mousy

2:03

and lacking opinions, but when

2:05

we do see her in the sources she

2:08

tends to be doing something that shows agency

2:10

while wearing some very flashy clothes indeed. So

2:13

what can we make of Jane Seymour,

2:15

Queen for 18 months, sister to a

2:17

Lord Protector, wife and mother

2:19

to a King, who was Queen

2:22

Jane? Joining me to

2:24

talk about her is Dr. Elizabeth Norton. Dr.

2:26

Norton has written biographies of Margaret Beauford

2:28

and four of Henry the Eight's wives,

2:31

plus the critically acclaimed The Lives of

2:33

Tudor Women and The Temptation of Elizabeth

2:35

Tudor. Although she published a

2:37

biography of Jane in 2009, Dr.

2:39

Norton is now working on a new

2:42

scholarly biography for Routledge, so

2:44

we get to benefit from her latest research. Dr.

2:52

Norton, welcome back to Not Just the Tudors.

2:54

Hello, thank you, it's a real pleasure to be

2:56

back. I think that one of the things

2:58

that's happened to Jane is that

3:00

people have conflated a paucity of evidence

3:02

with a paucity of character, and

3:05

because we don't have that much about

3:07

her and particularly because we don't have

3:09

so many letters from Eustace Shapley, who's

3:11

the ambassador from the Holy Roman Empire,

3:14

we end up with this perspective

3:16

on Jane and her reign that

3:19

is missing so much detail but also

3:21

changes how we see her as a person.

3:23

It's a bit like not having responses to Henry

3:25

the Eight's love letters from Anne Boleyn, and I

3:27

actually went to Vienna last year to read Shapley's

3:29

letters, and part of it was that I wanted

3:32

to see for myself if there were any extras

3:34

because they tail off during Jane's reign. So I

3:36

want to ask you about the nature of the

3:38

sources that we have and the extent to which

3:40

you think the existing material has shaped perspectives on

3:42

Jane. Yeah, absolutely. Jane is

3:44

the blank in the Six Wives,

3:46

if you like. She'll please the

3:48

batches stop very soon after she

3:50

becomes Queen, and it's such a shame

3:52

because of course it's through him we get all

3:54

the gossipy detail about Anne Boleyn. By the point

3:57

they've tailed off with Jane, he's already speculated that

3:59

she can't possibly still be a virgin and

4:01

been very rude about her appearance. So I

4:03

think there would have been quite a lot

4:05

in those missing dispatches if only we had

4:08

them. She also hasn't been served very well

4:10

with preservation in the English National Archives.

4:12

A lot of the sources that probably

4:14

would have existed for her period as

4:16

Queen also don't survive. And she's

4:18

the lowest born of

4:20

the Six Fives by quite a large

4:22

margin, which also means of course we

4:25

don't have many sources for her early

4:27

life. The Seymour family don't have much

4:29

of a surviving archive. They're somewhat lonely,

4:31

but in general it's not as thick

4:33

as you would expect for other families.

4:36

She is very poorly served to the sources.

4:38

There are some out there but you have

4:40

to picture him. I think absolutely it affects

4:42

how we see her because she is very

4:44

much treated as this figure that

4:46

we can't really see. She's seen as a

4:48

bit boring, a bit plain if you like,

4:50

plain Jane. And I think that comes down

4:53

to the fact that we can't see the

4:55

vivid detail of her life. We can't see

4:57

where she is, but we can't see what

4:59

she's thinking. We never see inside Jane's head.

5:02

Even surviving letters are very official and we

5:04

don't have any personal correspondence. So

5:06

I get from what you've just said

5:08

that working on Jane involves reconstruction and

5:10

guesswork and joining the dots. Absolutely.

5:13

And I think also what I'm trying to

5:15

do with Jane at the moment is also

5:17

to try and pair it back and strip

5:19

away the myth because I think that's quite

5:21

important with Jane because there is a surprising

5:23

amount of myth and I think it's been

5:25

previous attempts to fill in the dots perhaps

5:27

as well as people could have done or

5:29

to try and flesh her out more. But

5:31

we do have to really scratch around and

5:33

there are huge areas of her life where

5:35

actually we can't say something really.

5:37

And I think in many respects it's better

5:39

to say that than to try and make

5:42

it up if you like. But there are many areas of

5:44

her life where we can say quite a bit from the

5:46

sources. So first things first and here

5:48

we go with the series of questions that

5:50

we have to consider whether

5:52

we have the sources for. Do

5:54

we know when Jane was born? No. She

5:57

really only appeared vividly not long before

5:59

she died. dies, in fact. We

6:01

can guess roughly when she's born, her parents

6:03

marry at the end of the 15th

6:06

century, her eldest brother is born in

6:08

around 1500, her eldest surviving brother. There

6:10

are 10 children in the family. She's

6:12

probably the second daughter of three, but

6:14

we don't know where she comes in

6:17

around the sun. At best guess, she's

6:19

probably born in around 1508, something

6:22

like that. She says she's past 25

6:24

when she marries the king, but that's

6:26

as close as we can get. What

6:29

about the thing that is often said about

6:31

her, the number of women in her

6:33

funeral procession indicating her age? Yes, it's

6:35

an interesting number. 29 is a bit

6:37

of an unusual number. You wouldn't necessarily,

6:40

why not have 30? It's a possibility. She might well

6:42

be 29, but again, I think

6:45

it's one of those things with Jane where actually it's happened.

6:47

Yeah, she's probably in her late 20s when she dies. Tell

6:50

me about Jane's parentage and upbringing.

6:52

What do we know? Jane is

6:55

the daughter of John Seymour and

6:57

Marjorie Wentworth. Marjorie is a

6:59

higher social status than John. She is

7:02

the daughter of Henry Wentworth. They're quite

7:04

well connected. In fact, she's a niece

7:06

of Anne Boleyn's grandmother. In fact, the

7:08

Countess of Surrey. So actually, Jane and

7:11

Anne are quite closely related and of

7:13

course also Catherine Howard. So Marjorie, to

7:15

some extent, marries a little bit down.

7:17

The Seymour's are a good county family.

7:19

They serve

7:21

as members of parliament. They serve as

7:23

sheriffs on occasion, their justices of the

7:25

peace, but they're not particularly high profile.

7:27

The Seymour's have really arrived in the

7:30

15th century. They inherit and call their

7:32

main manner through a female relative. So

7:34

they are gentry, but not in the same

7:36

way that Anne Boleyn is gentry. For example,

7:38

they lower down the social scale. They

7:41

don't have a huge amount of contact with courts.

7:43

John Seymour does come

7:45

to court on occasion. He seems to have been quite a

7:47

good soldier, which brings him to Henry VIII and also Henry

7:49

VII's attention. But they're not

7:51

a particularly wealthy family. Again,

7:53

we don't have anything specific on Jane's childhood

7:56

or upbringing. We can assume that she was

7:58

born at Walpole because that's the case. That's

8:00

why the family seems to be living. She

8:02

seems to have been educated to some extent.

8:04

She owns books as queen. We also have

8:06

her signature, which shows quite a neat hand,

8:08

which suggests that she can write and that

8:11

she can also read. We know

8:13

she can speak some French because she's able

8:15

to speak to Chapoy and other ambassadors at

8:17

court. Whether she's fluent or

8:19

not, we don't know. But she's certainly

8:21

received some level of education. Quite often,

8:23

it implies that she's very poorly educated.

8:26

The least international of Henry's queens, actually,

8:28

we don't necessarily know that. She does own

8:30

a number of books at the time

8:32

of her death, although we've only got the title through

8:34

a few. And of course,

8:36

actually, her level of intellect and her

8:39

level of education may not have been

8:41

con competent. But I suppose it might

8:43

be fair to say, well, tell me,

8:45

is it fair to say that in

8:47

the listening of Henry's queens, she is

8:50

comparatively lowly and comparatively unlearned? Yeah, she's

8:52

definitely the loneliest. I mean, she's probably

8:54

until Kate Middleton, the current Princess of

8:56

Wales, becomes queen. Jane Seymour is the

8:58

lowest born acknowledged British queen. And I

9:01

think that's not really controversial. The fact

9:03

that she got anywhere near this road

9:05

is quite surprising. So yes, she's

9:07

definitely the loneliest. She doesn't have the

9:09

aristocratic background that the other queens of

9:12

Henry VIII have. And she's

9:14

certainly not as well educated as Emily,

9:16

as far as we can tell. She

9:18

might well outstrip Catherine Howard, possibly, in

9:20

education. But it's simply, there are generations

9:23

before it becomes fashionable to educate girls.

9:25

So she is competent enough, but I

9:27

would highly doubt that she's had any

9:29

kind of humanist education. Her

9:31

brothers, Edward and Thomas, become

9:34

notable, obviously in their own right,

9:36

and her sister Elizabeth. You

9:38

said we don't know exactly about the order

9:40

of the bus. Do we know anything about

9:42

the relationships between the siblings? Yeah, so again,

9:44

we can extrapolate a bit. Surprisingly, actually, the

9:47

brother James closest to, at least from my

9:49

reading, is Henry, who is the middle brother,

9:51

who is the brother that stays in Wiltshire.

9:53

He comes to court a little bit and

9:55

then goes home and lives a long and

9:57

presumably happy life. He is...

10:00

is the one that Jane very much promotes when

10:02

she's queen. He is appointed to quite a lot

10:04

of menorial offices in the Queensland. Also

10:06

when she dies, when some of her

10:09

jewelry is distributed, he receives most of

10:11

the seamaw. Thomas also receives some of

10:13

Jane's jewelry and seems to be connected

10:16

with her. Edward not so much when

10:18

she's queen. He does prop

10:20

up in some of the records surrounding

10:22

her. I think the age gap is

10:24

probably quite large between Edward and Jane.

10:26

He's certainly the eldest surviving son, most

10:28

likely the eldest surviving child, whereas she's

10:30

much more in the middle. So he may well

10:32

have left home before she's really

10:35

old enough to form a relationship with

10:37

him. But certainly Henry and Thomas, she's

10:39

close to. Her sisters, there's

10:41

not really any evidence of closeness, actually,

10:43

to her sister Elizabeth or her sister

10:45

Dorothy, which is quite surprising. Elizabeth, of

10:48

course, appeals to Thomas Cromwell and then

10:50

later marries Cromwell's son Gregory. But

10:52

actually there's no evidence that I've come

10:54

across of the interaction between the two

10:56

sisters, which is somewhat surprising. It's

10:59

possible there's a bit of an age gap. I

11:01

would expect the sisters to be quite close

11:03

in age based on how their life and

11:05

when they marry and when they leave home. But

11:07

it's possible that they're not as close as we

11:09

would think they would be. I want

11:11

to ask you about why you think we

11:13

don't have things like letters between her and

11:15

her sister. Perhaps it's because they're in each

11:17

other's company not enough to need to write

11:19

to each other. But given

11:22

that Jane is the mother of

11:24

a king, one would

11:26

expect that subsequent

11:28

historians and archivists would

11:31

have been very keen to hold on to any

11:33

material that did exist. Yeah, absolutely. You would think

11:35

that it would survive. We only have three originals

11:37

surviving, let's say Jane. And the third one, there

11:39

are lots of versions of it because it's a

11:42

birth announcement for editor six. But

11:44

actually the letters are very mundane. One

11:46

is recommending someone to Thomas Cromwell to

11:48

promote and the other one is asking

11:50

for some deer to be sent to

11:52

the boys of the king's choir. So

11:54

pretty dull stuff really. So as

11:56

far as we know, there are no

11:58

surviving personal letters. Jane and certainly none

12:01

to her sister, which is quite surprising because Elizabeth

12:03

has quite a few moving

12:05

letters which suggest that if they had

12:07

existed they might have survived, but again

12:10

we can't really say. And

12:13

as I understand it, she entered Catherine's service.

12:15

Tell us about the evidence of this. So

12:17

again, this is one of those areas with

12:19

Jane where we don't have much to go

12:21

on. Jane is almost certainly

12:23

in Catherine and Regan's household and we know

12:26

this because of Rizzi's clinical. Rizzi's

12:28

clinical is pretty much contemporary sauce. It's

12:30

a very good sauce. Charles Rizzi,

12:32

the writer, has very solid court

12:34

connections. So I would assume

12:36

that it's true and he simply says as

12:39

an aside, she served Queen Catherine. So I

12:41

think we can believe it. It would make

12:43

sense. We know from other references to Jane

12:45

she's been a long time at court. We

12:48

don't know when she started. We don't know when she left.

12:50

She doesn't seem to have made any lasting impression. And

12:53

it would account for the fact that

12:55

she is very fond of Princess Mary.

12:57

That's one area where we really can

12:59

see Jane quite vividly. She is clearly

13:01

very fond of Catherine Regan's daughter Mary

13:03

and seeks to promote her. And Rizzi

13:07

also seeks to promote her, also seeks to mother

13:09

her to some extent, which I think is quite

13:11

an important aspect. My guess would

13:13

be that she perhaps wasn't with Catherine

13:15

for very long. Catherine's household is obviously

13:17

being denuded. People are leaving. People are

13:20

being sacked. She obviously can't have been

13:22

too active in support of Catherine because

13:24

she finds a place of Anne Boleyn,

13:26

presumably quite easily. Now she fully

13:28

emerges in the sources in April 1536. And

13:31

as you say, we've got a bit

13:33

of evidence before that, that she is

13:36

in Anne's household, which explains in part

13:38

why Henry notices her. Let's talk about

13:40

the incident that is recorded by Chappouille,

13:42

though. Can you retell it for a

13:44

start? The incident that brings her into the

13:46

limelight and then what you make of it?

13:48

Yes, Jane is definitely an ambulance household. She

13:50

probably gets there through the family connection. Her

13:52

mother is a cousin of Anne's mother, and

13:54

that probably is what brings her to court.

13:56

But she doesn't seem to have been the

13:58

most loyal of cousins. There are a few

14:01

recordings and some not such good sources, but

14:03

the best one is Chappuille, where he says

14:06

that the king sends a letter and a

14:08

purse of gold to Jane. And when she

14:10

sees the messenger with them, she refuses to

14:12

take them and she throws herself on her

14:14

knees. And she says, I'm not going to

14:17

take these. I'm an honourable woman. I'm good

14:19

parentage. And she basically says, I will

14:21

accept a gift from the king on the day

14:23

of my marriage, but until then I cannot take

14:25

this. And it's clearly quite

14:27

a rehearsed, quite a practised scene.

14:30

Obviously, we don't know the contents of the letter.

14:32

There is a suggestion that Penny asking her to

14:34

be mistress. And earlier evidence

14:36

suggests that might well be the

14:38

case. There's an account of Anne

14:40

Boleyn finding Jane on Henry's lap,

14:43

for example. There's another later account

14:45

of Anne snatching Henry's portrait, a

14:47

miniature from around Jane's neck. Clearly

14:49

they're in some kind of relationship.

14:51

And clearly they haven't slept together

14:53

because Henry is absolutely smitten by

14:55

Jane's response. He declares that she's

14:57

this pure woman and that to

14:59

show how honourable his intentions towards her

15:01

are, he won't see her alone. So she

15:04

will have a chaperone. So he actually moves

15:06

her brother, Edward and his wife into apartments,

15:09

which are actually connected to his via secret

15:11

staircase. Thomas Cromwell actually moves out so that

15:13

Edward Seymour can move in, which means that

15:15

Henry can meet with Jane, but he can

15:17

show that his intentions are honourable, that he's

15:19

not planning to make her his mistress. And

15:22

of course, if he's not planning to make

15:24

her his mistress, the implication is he's considering

15:26

making her his wife. Yes,

15:28

it's interesting, isn't it? It's all by inference,

15:30

because presumably, as I understand, we don't have

15:32

any evidence before Anne is in the towel

15:34

that Henry is planning to make Jane his

15:37

wife, except what we can infer. It's striking,

15:39

isn't it, that Henry is once again obsessed

15:42

with the idea of virginity

15:44

and of this kind of

15:46

modest display. We're very familiar

15:48

with the way in which men seem

15:50

to find that attractive, but

15:52

Henry certainly does. The other thing I wanted

15:54

to ask you about this is that some

15:57

historians in the past have written performance

16:00

is on the basis of having been

16:02

coached. Again, without any evidence, what do

16:04

you make of that? It's very commonly

16:07

suggested that she's coached. She clearly has

16:09

a party. Edward Seymour would very much

16:11

like his sister to be queen. And

16:13

down to this, Puy is brought into

16:15

some sense a conspiracy with Princess Mary.

16:18

So he is, he says Princess Mary

16:20

would support a new wife. Thomas Cromwell

16:22

seems to be supporting the Seamos. We

16:24

can see this in moving apartments, but

16:26

also in conversations he has with Shep

16:29

Puy. So there's clearly a

16:31

party around Jane. Shep Puy suggests

16:33

that she's being schooled in what to

16:35

say to Henry. So to some extent

16:37

she probably is, but I think it

16:40

denies her agency to suggest that she's

16:42

really just a cipher. And I do

16:44

have an issue with that because I

16:46

think actually there's no evidence at all

16:49

that she doesn't know what she's doing. She doesn't

16:51

desire it because she clearly does enjoy being queen.

16:53

And we can see that in things that happen

16:55

later in her life. She likes to find clothes,

16:58

but she also likes some of the other aspects of

17:00

being queen. We can see that in the sources. So

17:02

I think it denies her agency

17:04

to say that she's being solely coached.

17:06

She almost certainly is being advised, but

17:08

I think it goes too far to

17:10

say she's being coached. I think she

17:12

knows the story of Amberlynn, how Amberlynn

17:14

became queen. And to some extent she's

17:17

emulating that she's holding out for marriage,

17:19

but she's also created her own persona.

17:21

This is a woman that will choose

17:23

them to obey and serve at her

17:25

motto. She's clearly created how she wants

17:27

Henry to perceive her. And I

17:30

mean, he falls for it. Absolutely, you know, bide

17:32

into this with Jane. It's just don't

17:34

see how a woman can be her successor as

17:36

she is without really having any around to the

17:38

personal input. And I think really we shouldn't credit

17:40

Jane with the fact that she's able

17:43

to persuade Henry to marry her. That's

17:45

very well said because you can't imagine anyone

17:47

saying the same of Amberlynn. She was being

17:50

told how to act and it

17:52

really does make Jane in

17:54

that previous telling into a

17:57

puppet and doesn't, as you

17:59

say, a quarter-eighty. Hi,

18:13

I'm Eleanor Janaga. And I'm Matt Lewis.

18:15

And all this month on Gone Medieval,

18:18

we're delving deep into the pivotal moments

18:20

that shaped the destiny of England, the

18:22

Battle of Hastings. Three

18:24

men struggle for supremacy. The Saxon

18:26

King, Harold Godwinson. The Viking warlord,

18:29

Harold Hardrada. And the ambitious Norman

18:31

Duke, William the Conqueror. So join

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18:35

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to rule that he never wanted. He

19:46

refused to lead, and used funds from the

19:48

royal treasury to further his extreme love of

19:51

opera. But this choice eventually

19:53

cost him the crown and his life.

19:56

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20:01

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right now on One Replus. Can

20:12

I ask what you think is

20:14

going on from Henry's perspective? We've talked

20:16

about the modesty issue, but do

20:19

you think it's a rebound relationship? So

20:21

it's interesting with Henry because he's clearly

20:23

not committed to ending the Berlin marriage

20:26

really until not long before Anne falls.

20:28

He's able to get Chapeau to finally

20:30

recognise her as Queen, that Easter. It's

20:32

by no means a certainty that he

20:34

will end his marriage to Anne in

20:36

April. So I think to some extent

20:38

he's keeping his options open. I think you see

20:40

how it plays out with Jane. It

20:43

is a bit reboundy. It's often suggested that

20:45

Henry ricochets around. He goes to Glamour of

20:47

San Berlin and then he goes for homely

20:49

at Jane Seymour. And I think that's quite

20:52

unfair. I think Jane again suffers quite lots

20:54

in comparison with Anne Boleyn and they're often

20:56

treated as a dichotomy if you like. Anne

20:59

Boleyn is this, so Jane Seymour must be

21:01

this. And I think they're

21:03

a lot more similar in a lot of

21:05

aspects than I think we've necessarily given credit

21:08

for. So it is a little reboundy. Henry

21:10

is interested in Jane. She's a virgin. She's

21:12

very pure. She's very modest. But Anne Boleyn,

21:14

of course, presents herself as a virgin before

21:17

her marriage to Henry VIII. As you say,

21:19

Henry does have a thing about virginity. So

21:21

I think he is interested

21:23

in Jane. He's clearly attracted to her because

21:26

he wouldn't have married her. If he wasn't

21:28

attracted to her, it's his own free choice. I

21:30

think the persona of being this virgin

21:32

figure, obedient, quiet, I think that

21:34

does appeal to him. So it

21:36

is to some level a rebound

21:38

relationship. But I think in general,

21:40

he really gets to know

21:42

Jane in that period in March, April,

21:44

early May. And that's really what makes

21:47

the decision for him that he's going to marry her because

21:49

he doesn't have to marry her. He can still behead Anne

21:51

Boleyn if he wants and then marry somebody else. I

21:54

think this is another area where Jane's reputation very

21:56

much suffers because, of course, she becomes betrothed to

21:58

Henry the day after Anne Boleyn. It's

22:01

very much like in Hannah, the funeral bank

22:03

meets the coldly furnished walls of the marriage

22:07

table. It doesn't look good. What I would

22:09

say is even Anne didn't realise she was

22:11

going to be beheaded. In the terror she

22:13

says, they'll send me to a nunnery. To

22:15

actually behead your wife is really unusual and

22:17

the enemies in Europe are quite shocked by

22:19

it. Even Eustor Chapeau is shocked by Anne's

22:21

beheading. I think it's really unlikely that Jane

22:23

would have realised that Henry would behead Anne

22:26

and really it's not something she desired

22:28

because it sets a precedent because he can behead

22:30

Anne Boleyn. Of course he can behead Jane Seymour if

22:33

he wants to. So I think it's

22:35

unfair to charge her with Anne Boleyn's

22:37

death. That comes from Henry. He certainly didn't

22:39

have to execute Anne to get rid of

22:41

her because most people had doubts about the

22:43

validity of that marriage anyway. So

22:45

I think she was probably in a state

22:47

of fear and we can see that an

22:50

occasion while she's queen, she's talked about as

22:52

a woman who isn't very secure. Her coronation

22:54

keeps being postponed and it's postponed because of

22:56

plague but there is an implication that perhaps

22:59

she is disposable in a

23:01

way that Anne Boleyn was also disposable.

23:03

So I think we can

23:05

extrapolate that Jane's reaction is probably not one

23:07

of great joys that Anne Boleyn is asking and

23:09

that she is not set for very dangerous person

23:12

of her heart and we see that with

23:14

Caster and Howard of course. I'm reminded of

23:16

Richard Burton who of course played Henry the

23:18

Eighth Month saying divorces like killing after the

23:20

first time it's easier. And

23:23

I suppose you're absolutely right in terms

23:25

of this sense of precedent being set.

23:29

And of course you're right to point

23:31

to the fact that Henry could have

23:33

just said hold on a second,

23:36

it was all done in the wrong

23:38

order. I married Anne before my marriage

23:40

to Catherine was annulled. An argument could

23:42

be made to challenge the legitimacy of

23:44

that marriage. So he doesn't hold his

23:46

marriage to Anne Boleyn, he just then

23:49

also beheads her. There's no legal justification

23:51

for beheading Anne Boleyn. He doesn't

23:53

want another ex-wife hanging around, he doesn't

23:55

want any questions over legitimacy of this

23:57

new marriage because of course once haven't

24:00

got any living ex-wives. It's quite neat,

24:02

but there's no legal reason to do

24:04

it. Let's have a think then about

24:06

Jane as Queen. What evidence do we

24:08

have of her behaviour as

24:10

a head of a household as Queen?

24:13

And also what can we make

24:15

of her character and allegiances as demonstrated

24:17

by her actions? We've got

24:20

more to go on when Jane becomes Queen.

24:22

This is something where she becomes somewhat visible.

24:24

She takes control of the Queen's land. I

24:26

mean, she becomes one of the wealthiest landowners

24:28

in England at a stroke when she

24:31

sees the Queen's land. And actually there is evidence

24:33

of her taking quite a strong interest in those.

24:36

We can also see her taking the running

24:38

of her household. She appears quite often in

24:40

the Lyle letters and she does seem to

24:43

be quite a strict mistress. There's suggestion

24:45

that she orders one of her new maids

24:47

to get rid of all her French hoods

24:49

and wear English gable hoods because they're less

24:51

becoming. I think it goes too far

24:53

to suggest that Jane bans the French hood, which

24:56

is obviously much sexier than the gable hoods, essentially,

24:58

is where you can see the hairs. When you

25:00

see portraits of Amber Lynn, she's normally wearing the

25:02

French hood, whereas Jane is wearing the gable hood

25:04

that looks like the roof of her house. Jane

25:06

did own a French hood. She probably wore them

25:09

on occasion, but she does seem to have tried

25:11

to present this air of modesty in her household,

25:13

which is quite sensible because of course Henry

25:15

has borne his previous two wives from

25:17

his wife's household. So perhaps not displaying

25:20

a maid as particularly attractive isn't necessarily

25:22

a bad thing. So it's less about

25:24

her own prudery and more about a

25:27

sense of caution, perhaps. Yeah, absolutely. And

25:29

we know that she dresses very richly.

25:31

Surviving evidence of jewellery and her dresses

25:33

show that she really does enjoy the

25:36

finessing of being queen. She's got red

25:38

velvet, she's got furs, she's got a

25:40

huge amount of jewellery. She clearly dresses

25:43

to impress. So I think it's really

25:45

unlikely that she's trying to appear as this

25:47

dowdy little woman. I think actually she looks

25:49

good when she's at court, but she doesn't

25:51

necessarily want other people to look as good

25:53

as her. Other aspects of

25:55

her as queen, she takes on the role of

25:58

stepmother. You can see her in the background. interacting

26:00

with Elizabeth for some extent, she's obviously Anne

26:02

Berlin's daughter, she's going to talk now, she's

26:04

not even three. But Jane seems to have

26:06

bought us some clothes on occasion. After

26:09

Jane's dad, some gifts of Jane's property

26:11

are given to Elizabeth, which suggests that

26:13

something that Jane would have wanted. Elizabeth

26:16

also visits court on occasion. She does

26:18

have a relationship with Elizabeth. It probably

26:20

is somewhat difficult given what's happened to

26:22

Elizabeth's mother, but again, that's extrapolating, if

26:25

you like. With Mary, we're much on

26:27

the ground and Jane is clearly very

26:29

fond of Mary, said in fact that

26:32

she'd already spoken out for Mary before

26:34

she's married Henry about reinstating her in

26:36

this succession, bringing her back to court.

26:38

Jane is absolutely instrumental in

26:40

Mary being brought back. Henry

26:43

probably would have brought Mary back anyway, he

26:45

likes to keep his options open. And we

26:47

can see in marriage alliances, which are still

26:50

going on after she's been declared illegitimate, that

26:52

he is keeping his options open about whether

26:54

or not Mary is one of the heirs

26:56

to the throne, even though she's legally illegitimate.

26:58

But I think Jane helps to smooth the

27:00

proof that she provides the human faith, whereas

27:03

Henry still insists that Mary

27:05

recognizes her illegitimacy. At the same

27:07

time, Mary is getting letters and presents from Jane

27:09

saying come to court, spend time with

27:11

me. And they clearly do have

27:13

a very affectionate relationship. We know they

27:15

play cards together, for example. And Mary

27:17

is Jane's chief mourner when she dies.

27:19

And that's the role that you would give

27:22

to the closest relative to the same sex.

27:25

Jane has a mother, she has sisters. So

27:27

the fact that it's Mary, I think demonstrates

27:29

just how close the relationship was. And it's

27:31

also Mary who pays off members of Jane's

27:33

household, who gives the charitable arms at Jane's

27:36

funeral as well. So I think the two

27:38

are very close. And

27:40

there's a sense also that Jane is

27:42

more opinionated than the popular image of

27:44

her suggests, isn't there? This

27:46

is an area where because we don't have

27:48

Shappuis dispatches, I think we've got some real

27:50

blanks. But the evidence suggests that Jane is

27:52

quite opinionated. It was claimed that she actually

27:54

spoke out to the rebels of the pilgrimage

27:56

of Great, where she actually threw herself on

27:58

her knees before Henry this might

28:00

be God's judgment for you ruining

28:02

so many churches. And that's very

28:04

outspoken and going against what the

28:06

king himself is thinking. So that's

28:08

quite interesting. There's talk of her

28:10

being regent. The second batch of

28:12

succession that's passed that she gives

28:14

provision for her to be regent

28:16

should Henry die while their child

28:18

is still a minor. Also,

28:21

when Henry is considering going against the

28:23

rebels himself in the Pilgrimship Grace, he's going

28:25

to leave Jane in charge of the

28:27

council at Windsor, which again suggests that

28:29

she has some level of political

28:31

input. What we can see of

28:33

Jane, she is politically active to

28:35

some extent. She also is involved in

28:37

some of the nunneries and religious houses

28:39

during the dissolution of the monastery. One

28:41

particularly is Catesby nunnery, which she seems

28:44

to have spoken out for to try

28:46

to save the house. And

28:48

she's not the only one in fact,

28:50

the Cromwell's commissioners actually try to save

28:52

Catesby. Surprisingly, it's obviously quite a popular

28:54

house, but it does show Jane taking

28:57

the initiative and acting by herself. Given

29:00

that we know comparatively little

29:02

about what's going on inside

29:04

her head, we have a comparatively great number

29:07

of paintings of the outside of it. And

29:09

of course, it's dangerous to attempt to read

29:11

character into the 16th century portraits. But what

29:13

do you think we can learn from them?

29:15

The best portrait of Jane, and the one

29:17

on which many are based, is the Holbein,

29:20

which is in Vienna, which of course shows

29:22

Jane wearing her gable hood. She's wearing rich

29:24

red fabrics, lots of jewels. To

29:26

modernize, she doesn't look particularly attractive in that portrait.

29:28

And that often gets pointed out. She's got a

29:31

double chin, she looks quite severe. The

29:33

clothes to some extent overwhelm her. We see

29:35

the clothes, we see the headdress, we don't

29:37

necessarily see Jane at first. It's clearly a

29:40

very human likeness. It's a Holbein, which is

29:42

obviously better than anything that's survived for Anne

29:44

Boleyn, for example. So I think we can

29:46

see something of the real Jane.

29:49

The reason that she's survived so well with

29:51

portraits, in a way that Catherine Howard, for

29:53

example, we don't have a concerned likeness, with

29:56

Jane, of course, she remains important to the

29:58

Tudor dynasty. So it is Jane who

30:00

appears in the family of Henry VIII, which is painted

30:02

in the 1540s. And

30:04

she appeared in the Whitehall mural,

30:06

which doesn't survive, but there

30:08

are many copies. And that's because she

30:11

becomes effectively a family member of

30:13

the Tudor dynasty. We have Henry VII in the list

30:15

of the Bjork, and then we have Henry VIII and

30:17

Jane Seymour. She remains important until

30:19

Edward's death, the death of her son in

30:21

1553, and then her

30:23

importance just vanishes. But until that point,

30:25

she is considered a very

30:27

significant figure in the dynasty, and that's why

30:29

we have so many portraits. And so

30:31

many of them posthumous, as you say. Well,

30:34

as you've mentioned, of course, in 1537, when

30:37

we do not have that much evidence about her,

30:39

we do know that she becomes pregnant.

30:42

Do you have any sense of when she would

30:44

have first known or how the pregnancy was before

30:46

we get to how it ended? Yes,

30:49

she actually takes quite a while to become pregnant.

30:51

She gets married at the end of May, 1536,

30:53

just in June, and

30:56

then she's not pregnant until around

30:58

the end of January, after Henry she was

31:00

left in October. So she probably

31:02

was somewhat worried, and there are rumors

31:04

that her coronation was being postponed until

31:06

Henry could determine whether or not she

31:08

could bear him a child. She

31:11

probably starts to realize she's pregnant

31:13

around Easter in 1537, and

31:16

I think her abiding emotion would have been

31:18

relief that she's finally pregnant. We know that

31:21

Henry has had some problems. Obviously,

31:23

he admits to impotency in the Annapleeves marriage.

31:25

There are rumors dating back to his marriage

31:27

to Anne Boleyn that he's perhaps having trouble

31:30

in the marriage bed. So the problem probably

31:32

lies with him, but of course, in

31:34

the 16th century, it would always be blamed on the woman.

31:37

So she realizes she's pregnant, and suddenly

31:39

Henry can't do enough for her. So

31:41

he's sending to France de Calais her

31:43

quail, which she seems to have desired

31:46

to eat in her pregnancy. Princess Mary

31:48

also buys her quails and also a

31:50

cucumber during her pregnancy. There's

31:53

celebrations when the baby quickens, or when she

31:55

feels the baby move. And also, Henry's very

31:57

solicitous. So actually, he says he's not pregnant.

32:00

going to travel too far from her in case she

32:02

hears some rumour that might upset her. That's

32:04

an interesting one because it suggests that he did believe

32:06

that it would have been hearing about

32:08

the news of his fall that had upset

32:10

Amberlynn into miscarriage in January Yeah,

32:13

I agree. I think it probably does. I

32:15

think there's probably not a particular reason to

32:17

doubt that being at least identified as the

32:19

cause of the miscarriage and it might well

32:21

be the case in that it would have

32:23

been a big shock to Amberlynn to hear

32:25

that Henry has been injured because she's going

32:27

to have to try and keep

32:29

hold of the throne for her unborn child or

32:31

for Princess Elizabeth, which would have been quite difficult to do,

32:33

I think. Henry is certainly

32:36

concerned that Jane will miss Carrie. She's

32:38

concerned as well, in fact, and we

32:40

can see this as plague in London

32:42

towards the end of her pregnancy and

32:44

actually one of Cromwell's servants notes to

32:46

Cromwell saying that actually Jane seemed very

32:48

frightened when there's talk of plague and

32:50

Henry's quite relaxed about it, which is

32:53

somewhat surprising for Henry because he doesn't like

32:55

disease, but actually really it's Jane who is

32:57

really frightened by the fact that there seems

32:59

to be plague coming closer to the court

33:01

and actually it's agreed that she'll be somewhat

33:04

closer to the way people won't be able

33:06

to come into contact with her too much.

33:08

So she's clearly very worried about the outcome

33:10

of her pregnancy, understandably so because

33:12

the entire focus of the country

33:14

is on this baby and Henry

33:16

didn't give Amberlynn that many chances

33:19

to bear him a son, probably

33:21

three pregnancies, which isn't that many

33:23

chances in the 16th century. And

33:25

Jane is lucky insofar

33:27

as she gives birth to a son,

33:30

but not lucky in the

33:32

nature of that birth or indeed the outcome for

33:34

her. Talk us through it.

33:36

Yes. So Jane goes into labour on

33:38

the 10th of October and it's clearly

33:40

a very difficult labour. It takes two

33:42

days. In fact, they have precision through London

33:45

to pray for her safe delivery. So

33:47

there's clearly concern. On the

33:49

12th of October, she gives birth to a

33:51

son, Amberlynn 6th and the country erupts in

33:53

celebration. And I mean, she

33:55

must have been exhausted. She's been in labour for

33:57

two days, but she seems to be okay. The

34:00

sexism is on the 15th of October

34:02

and she's well enough to attend some

34:04

of the ceremony So she appears lying

34:06

on a kind of daybed And

34:10

you wouldn't expect the mother to attend the christening

34:12

anyway So actually there's nothing out of the ordinary

34:14

and the fact that she's able to attend she's

34:17

clearly considered to be well enough However,

34:19

she then falls sick very quickly

34:21

and she clearly has a fever

34:24

She lasts quite a long time for childbed

34:26

fever But she does quite well and there

34:28

are a few reports that suggest perhaps she

34:31

is going to recover But it really becomes quite

34:33

clear quickly that she's not And

34:35

she died on the 21st of October 1537, the

34:37

12 days after the birth of her son I

34:41

think we know that she's died from

34:43

complications from childbirth. It's most likely straightforward

34:45

childbed fever She has a midwife. She

34:47

will also have doctors involved. They don't

34:49

wash their hands Nobody understands about hygiene

34:52

in the period so it's very common

34:54

to contract an infection after childbirth Particularly

34:56

after a difficult labour. They've got no

34:58

antibiotics. There's nothing they can do about

35:00

it You just have to simply see

35:02

whether they get better or not Yes,

35:05

that is one of the horrifying things about the past.

35:07

It's why when people say to me what period of

35:09

history Would you like to live in? I always say now Beth

35:13

what is it that attracts you

35:16

particularly to Jane? Is it that sense of

35:18

mystery? Why is it of the six queens?

35:20

She is the one who compels your attention.

35:22

I think it's a mixture And partly I

35:24

feel slightly drawn to the underdog and to

35:27

some extent she's not the underdog if you

35:29

ask henry yates Who the most successful of

35:31

his queens were absolutely is jane And

35:33

yet actually she is the underdog I did

35:36

one of those things that felt the cathedral recently

35:38

Well, you do talks and people vote on the

35:40

most successful of the wife and jane simel got

35:42

six votes There are probably about 300 people there

35:45

So she's not very popular And I think

35:47

a lot of that is to do with the

35:50

fact that ambalin is so popular and again We

35:52

have the dichotomy that if ambalin is your favorite

35:54

queen then jane simel must be your least favorite

35:56

queen And I think that's very unfair. I think

35:58

I don't really like the queens

36:00

against each other anyway because I think they're all

36:03

individuals. They all have different circumstances and I don't

36:05

think it's very helpful necessarily to compare them. But

36:07

I think Jane does tend to get a rough

36:09

deal and it's also in the mystery as you

36:11

say you can go to an archive and you

36:13

can sit there for days and not find anything

36:16

and then you can just find something that's interesting

36:18

that hasn't been necessarily found before

36:20

with Jane. So I think that's really interesting

36:22

and I also think she suffers a lot

36:24

from quite a lot of myths about her

36:26

which I'm trying to unpick, hopefully I will.

36:28

Well I'm sure you will and we'll look

36:31

forward to the fruits of that research.

36:33

I'm talking to myself and thinking about how you

36:35

must respond to the six of the musical if

36:37

you don't want to hear the wives compared to

36:39

each other. Well maybe we'll have to go to

36:41

that someday so I can see your visceral reaction.

36:43

Thank you so much for joining me today. It's

36:45

always a pleasure to talk to you and especially

36:47

about this. This is really your specialist subject I

36:49

think on Mastermind wouldn't it? So thank you for

36:51

coming on. Thank you very much. It's an absolute

36:53

pleasure. And

37:01

thanks to you for listening to Not Just

37:03

the Tudors from History Hit and

37:05

also to my researcher Alice Smith

37:07

and my producer Rob Weinberg. We

37:09

are always eager to hear from you

37:12

so do drop us a line at notjustthetudors

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37:20

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