On 30 May 1536, only ll days after the judicial murder of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII married Jane Seymour.
IIn spite of the fact none of his former wives were alive, and he could indisputably wed again, Henry married Jane quietly in the Queen’s Closet of York Place. Archbishop Cranmer, who had been close to Anne Boleyn and knew — from her last confession — with absolute certainty that she was innocent, had to perform the ceremony. How did he feel hearing Jane Seymour promise to be “bonny and buxom in bed and board” to the monarch who had murdered the last queen? How did Jane feel? She shows no remorse or guilt in the historical record, but did she think of Anne in the deeps of the night? Was she afraid she would get the chop too in the six months it took her to get pregnant with the son who could keep her safe?
Henry trotted out his new queen for his court and Privy Council on 2 June, but there was no formal announcement of his marriage and no public display of his latest wife for the cheering masses. The most likely reason for the clandestine nature of the wedding and tepid revelation of Jane’s new role was because his subjects were revolted by the manner of his second wife’s death and his haste to marry his mistress. The imperial ambassador Chapuys wrote that people were speaking” variously about the King, and certainly the slander will not cease when they hear of what passed and is passing between him and his new mistress, Jane Seymour.” Henry had already had to warn Jane that there was “a ballad made lately of great derision against us” and to beg her “to pay no manner of regard to it.” The composer of the ballad was never caught, but a man named John Hill of Eynsham was brought for trial for having be heard to claim that ‘the king, for a frawde and a gilte, caused Master Norrys, Mr Weston, and the Queen [Anne] to be put to death because he was made sure unto the Queen’s Grace [Jane] that now is half a year before’ (Norton, Pg. 80-81). Henry knew the marriage was unpopular, and more than one person believed Anne had died so he could marry Jane.
Nor did Henry produce a lavish crowning of his third wife, although he did have her formally pronounced queen on 4 June at Greenwich and held a water pageant in her honour of the 7th. Was her potential coronation really delayed by revolts in the north or was the king hedging his bets by feting her but avoiding her enthronement? If she was not an anointed sovereign, it would be a lot easier to nullify the marriage (or kill her) if no son were forthcoming, yet Henry needed to keep up the semblance of romance and chivalry for his own peace of mind. The king petted her and kept her powerless, just as he like her … and Jane quickly learned not to try to intervene or to intercede for anyone lest it make Henry mad.
Even her family was given less elevation after her wedding than the Boleyn’s had enjoyed. Her elder brother was made a viscount, but not an earl. Her father and mother were left in the countryside with the other bumpkins, roundly ignored by their children and their new royal son-in-law. Considering that one of their other son-in-laws was a blacksmith, the king was probably not eager to point out his recently acquired family’s minor status. It was considered bad enough when a king married a commoner — the more common the wife, the worse the king’s degradation in the eyes of the Tudors.
Jane is one of the most ambiguous of Henry’s wives, since her personality is frequently obscured by the the more powerful people who surrounded her. She seemed to have very little will of her own, and appeared, with few exceptions, to be content to do as she was told by the authority figures in her life. But is this accurate? People were raving about how ‘amiable’ Jane was, but was this sweetness a result of a good nature or the product of a desperate hope popularity would keep her in the king’s good graces? After watching Anne be destroyed by powerful rival factions, was Jane hoping to avoid making enemies that could get her killed too?
I’ve no secret of the fact I find Jane Seymour’s behaviour while Anne Boleyn was alive to have been unseemly at the least and possibly even deliberately manipulative and grasping. While Anne Boleyn is tarred and feathered as a home wrecker despite her repeated two-year-long attempts to dissuade Henry’s attentions, Jane Seymour is remembered as the Good Wife even though she is the one who pulled all the shenanigans Anne was unfairly accused of. It has frequently been charged that she, under orders, set out to make herself pleasing to the King once he showed his interest in her. Certainly all of her coy refusals of Henry’s pursuit lack the authenticity of Anne’s noncompliance. Anne left court and avoided Henry. In contrast, Jane stayed in court, made herself visible to the king, and even took a suit of rooms so he could visit her in secret. Now, Anne was dead and Jane was queen.
For many people, including most historians, the biggest mystery about Jane Seymour is what Henry found so captivating about her in the first place. There is no telling what goes on in the human heart, and why people fall in love, but Kings, like other powerful and wealthy men, typically pick an exceptionally attractive or charismatic person to partner them. Thanks to the extreme talent of Henry’s portrait artist, Hans Holbein, we have a very good idea of what Jane looked like. A painting by Holbein is fairly close to a photograph in accuracy, such was his talent. Jane had, at best, mediocre looks. Neither was she witty. She had nothing to recommend her. She wasn’t beautiful, she wasn’t smart. Hers was not a powerful family. She could reasonably be described as ‘drab’. After years of living with the sizzle of Anne Boleyn, what was it about Jane that attracted the King?
Maybe Jane’s charm came from the fact she was not beautiful, not smart, not vibrant, and not from a powerful family, and Henry was tired of strong, beautiful women who outsmarted him. According to historian Elizabeth Norton, the new queen set herself up as the opposite of Anne Boleyn, even taking the motto “Bound to Obey and Serve” as the counterpoint to Anne’s fiery independence and will. Jane’s seemingly passive personality and deliberate coddling must have been a gentle rain on the scorched earth of the king’s ego. Unlike his first two wives, Jane would never best him in a mental battle. Other men would never covet her for her comeliness. She would never match her will to his, since she would have been afraid of his wrath in a way his first two queens had not been. She would never take attention away from Henry. The King would always shine in comparison to her. If, by any chance, he became weary of her, leaving her would be simple. She was as exciting, and as comforting, as a glass of warm milk.