Died (From the Archive)

Jane Seymour was the third wife of King Henry VIII.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised, this is
Danish Schwartz. I'm still on maternity leave and so today
we're going back to the archives revisiting the series I
did on Henry the Eighth's Six Wives. This episode is

(00:23):
about Jane Seymour, the wife who gave Henry the son
he so desperately wanted, and the wife he would ultimately
choose to be buried with. Hope you enjoy. Henry the
Eighth died in fifteen forty seven, obese and ulcered, one

(00:45):
leg still rotting from a bad fall of a horse
decades earlier. After his corpse was embalmed and spiced, it
lay in state in the present Chamber of Whitehall, surrounded
by burning tape candles, and then two weeks later the
slow procession to his burial site began a carriage followed

(01:09):
by hundreds of men on horseback. The carriage itself was massive,
elaborate and tall, pulled by eight horses, each ridden by
a child on top of the hearse in full view
of the public that had come out onto the streets
to say goodbye to their king was an effigy made

(01:29):
of wax and wood, meant to resemble the king in
his more handsome days. The effigy wore satin and velvet
and jewels, with rings dotting its gloved hands. It wore
a crown. But when King Henry's procession finally reached its
destination Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, his tomb wasn't

(01:54):
gilded or flanked by sculptures, the type of pomp you
would expect for the final resting place of a man
who saw himself as a dynastic hero, the champion of England,
chosen by God to lead their church and their nation.
That was the tomb he had wanted for himself, one
he had described early in his life, a double tomb

(02:17):
with effigies in marble, carved angels on the wall, and
prophets perched on overlooking columns. But King Henry was not
a man who wanted to acknowledge his own death to
spend thousands of pounds while he lived celebrating the idea
that one day he would be gone. He never built

(02:38):
his own tomb, and so instead he was interred simply
in the vault, beneath Saint George's chapel, beneath a plain
black marble slab, What was supposed to be his temporary
resting place became the place that Henry the Eighth, one
of England's most famous monarchs, remained permanently, but one of

(03:01):
his wishes for burial was honored. Though at the time
of his death, Henry the Eighth was on his sixth
and final wife, Catherine Parr, he specified that he should
be buried not next to her, but next to his
third wife, Jane Seymour. He was married three times after her,
but it was her memory that Henry clung to, the

(03:24):
memory of the wife who had done what all of
the others hadn't, given him a living son, The two
of them side by side for history, for eternity, the
man who had six wives, choosing to be entwined forever
with the one he idealized and romanticized and missed until

(03:46):
finally he joined her in death. I'm Danish Schwartz and
this is noble blood. Jane Seymour was never going to
make a very advantageous man marriage. That's what she knew
growing up in the Wiltshire countryside. Her mother's seventh child,

(04:06):
with three surviving older brothers. She was still unmarried in
her twenties, largely because her father wasn't wealthy enough to
put up an attractive dowry, and so the family used
what connections they had to send her to court, where
she would be a lady to Catherine of Aragon, the
Queen of England. Jane was blonde and fair, and while

(04:28):
she wasn't unattractive, no one would ever call her a
great beauty. The hope was that she would meet a
nice man at court, maybe a knight Banneret or the like,
and that she would get married. Jane was raised Catholic
and raised to be a dutiful wife above all else.
She was only barely literate, but she was an expert
at embroidery and housekeeping. And one day she would bear

(04:51):
a brood of children like her mother. Everyone knew it.
Her mother had given her father three living sons. There's
no greater success than that. Good sweet Jane went to
court and watched as Catherine of Aragun was humiliated and
banished and betrayed by her husband. Catherine was a devout

(05:14):
Catholic too, She prayed every day. She was a princess,
daughter of a king and a queen, and she had
loved her husband with her whole heart. Catherine never complained,
never became angry when her husband flirted with other women,
danced with other women, slept with other women. Catherine hadn't

(05:35):
been able to give Henry a son, though, just the
little Princess Mary, the girl with red blonde hair like
her father and a dutiful Catholic heart like her mother.
Princess Mary was only a few years younger than Jane herself,
and Jane had watched Mary's life play out like some
sort of Greek tragedy. The girl had been the pearl

(05:57):
of court, beloved and doated on by her father until
Catherine fell out of favor, until Henry fell in love
with Anne Boleyn and declared Mary illegitimate. Mary was stripped
of her title, no longer a princess, just a lady now,
and banished from court, doomed to teenage years of anguish

(06:19):
of begging her father for mercy, for a shred of
love or even acknowledgment, all while being forbidden to see
her mother ever again. When Anne Boleyn became queen and
adopted the most happy as her motto, Anne pushed Henry
to continue to ignore Mary and let Catherine suffer the

(06:40):
misery of her own making. Jane didn't mind being Queen
Anne's new lady, although of course she would never admit
out loud. How she still had sympathy for the former
Queen and for the once princess Mary, still banished from court,
even after Catherine of Aragon eventually Diedane dutiful and disciplined,

(07:01):
and Queen Anne liked her plenty, mostly because Jane seemed
to fade into the wallpaper, that is, until she didn't.
As King Henry began to prickle against his impetuous, wilful,
stubborn new wife, and as the son she had promised him,
continued to elude her, his eye began to wander. In

(07:23):
the fall, Henry and Queen Anne had taken a hunting
trip and they had stopped at wolf Hall, where Jane
Seymour's family lived. Of course, Jane wasn't there, she was
back at court, but Henry had seen the domestic scene,
the subservient wife, the proud father, and the many, many
healthy living children, and Henry had remembered the shy smile

(07:47):
of that blonde girl at court who came from such
a fertile line. Anne had had another miscarriage earlier in
the summer. She and Henry were polite but distant for
most of their ride the next day. By winter, Henry's
infatuation with the girl everyone else had seemed to ignore

(08:07):
became the buzz of court. He gave Jane gifts, flirted
with her in public, and of course, Anne Boleyn's enemies
made sure to put Jane front and center in Henry's
eye line whenever they could. One queen had already been
dislodged because the king had fallen in love with one
of her ladies in waiting, the same thing could happen

(08:29):
to the next queen. Jane was everything Henry realized he
wanted a wife to be docile, sweet, humble, virtuous. There
was no chance that once he got her to bed,
she would be more experienced than he was, that she
would be a seductress who exposed his own inadequacies by
contrast the way his current Queen Anne did. Henry wanted

(08:53):
to feel like a man again. His wife, who insisted
on arguing with him, having conversation, debating politics and winning
those debates while she did not make him feel like
a man. Anne had gotten her reward. She was queen
for God's sake? Where was his reward? Henry thought? Where

(09:14):
was his son? In the spring, Henry propositioned Jane and
asked her to be his mistress. She responded, I have
no greater treasure in all the world than my honor,
and I would rather die a thousand times than tarnish it.
Jane dutifully returned the letters and expensive gifts that Henry

(09:36):
had sent her. There was no game, no malice, no
intrigue in her behavior. She asked nothing of him, and
so Henry wanted her all the more desperately. Jane was
Anne's opposite in temperament and personality and looks, but ironically
she used the same tact distance to make Henry fall

(09:57):
in love with her. Here was the Henry should have married.
He thought Anne was a witch. She had bewitched him.
She was sinful and evil, and she had led him astray.
The day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded, King Henry announced
his engagement to her twenty eight year old former lady,

(10:17):
Jane Seymour. Ten days after that, on May thirtieth, fifteen
thirty six, the two were wed. Catherine of Aragon had
been raised as a princess, born and bred to be
married to a king. Anne Boleyn had been cunning and

(10:38):
spent her entire life at court. She knew how to
play the game better than anyone. Jane Seymour was a
twenty eight year old virgin, completely new to the attention
and the spectacle of which she was now at the center.
She informally banned the French fashions that Anne Boleyn had
popularized at court. As her motto, she adopted the phrase

(11:03):
bound to obey and serve, And as for her symbol,
it would be a phoenix. The Tudor dynasty would be
born anew after the disaster of Anne Boleyn, Henry was besotted.
Jane was everything he wanted in a wife. He even
took up embroidery poorly, just to spend time next to her,

(11:25):
to watch her deft fingers maneuver their way between string
and cotton, building something intricate and beautiful onto a fabric
that would find its place somewhere in their home. Their home.
Henry had a wife, and soon he would have a son.
He had to the summer after Jane and Henry got married,

(11:48):
Henry received terrible news. Back when he had been married
to Catherine, he had had a son out of wedlock
with a mistress, a bastard named Henry Fitzroy, now a teenager.
In July of fifteen thirty six, Henry Fitzroy, the Duke
of Richmond and Somerset, had died only seventeen years old.

(12:11):
They say it was consumption, something that had taken hold
of his lungs. Yes, he had been illegitimate, but he
was still Henry's son, and before his death Henry had
even been contemplating legitimizing him. Henry Fitzroy could have been
his heir. Now that he was dead in the ground,
it was all up to Jane Seymour. Though a magnificent

(12:37):
coronation for Jane to introduce her to the people as
their official queen had been scheduled in October, uprisings all
over England put those plans aside for the time being.
The people were still protesting Henry's break from the Catholic Church,
his dissolution of the monasteries and seizing their property to

(12:58):
add to his own wealth. The largest protest, called the
Pilgrimage of Grace, took months to quell entirely. Jane, who
had been raised a devout Catholic, of course, quietly asked
Henry if he might show mercy to the men involved,
after all, they had only been attempting to be true
to their faith. Henry spun his head around and snapped

(13:21):
at his young wife, to whom he had been married
for months, and yet who still wasn't pregnant. You should
hold your tongue when it comes to matters of the king,
he spat. After all, you remember well the fate of
your predecessors. Jane was left alone shaking. She never contradicted

(13:41):
or challenged Henry again. She learned quickly the way to
persuade him of anything, to achieve any change, merely mention it.
Allude to it once casually. It seems such a shame.
Your daughter Mary isn't here to enjoy the feast, Jane
might say sweetly. Henry might murmur response, or he might not.

(14:02):
Did your daughter Mary enjoy riding? She'd ask? How is
Mary's embroidery? I heard her embroidery was beautiful and delicate,
she might say. And so then when weeks later Henry
had the magnificent idea to finally allow Mary his daughter
back to court. Jane just had to smile and clap

(14:22):
her hands and praise his wisdom. Mary, now twenty one,
with a world weary darkness in her eyes, bowed deeply
to her father and his new wife. Jane would become
something of a big sister to her, a figure of
kindness who shepherded her back into the fold. Jane's coronation

(14:43):
was delayed again for good enough reasons. There was a
plague in London, they said, there were still after shocks
of rebellions about the monasteries around the country. But in
the back of Jane's mind, she couldn't help but think
that the true reason, the true reason she wasn't being
celebrated out in the streets with the crown on her
head and a king by her side, was because she

(15:05):
hadn't done her duty yet, she wasn't pregnant. Why waste
a parade on a woman who was still as disposable
as all the rest. Finally it came her miracle, her savior.
In February of fifteen thirty seven, Jane's period stopped. Her

(15:28):
appetite changed. She had done it all, the soothsayers said,
it would be a boy. Henry would stroke her belly,
putting his face against her skin and cooing into her flesh. Edward, Edward,
he whispered. When Jane first felt the baby kick. In May,
there was a massive celebration, with Jane wearing a gown

(15:51):
open at the belly and lined with lace beneath the
quickening they believed was the infant's soul entering its body.
Where was the prince who would secure the Tudor dynasty.
He was on his way throughout the country. There were
bonfires and parties where wine flowed and singing filled the air.

(16:13):
With Jane's belly expanding, she mentioned that she had a
craving for quail. Bring my wife Quail, Henry bellowed, though
quail was out of season in England. He ordered that
it be brought specially from Calais, with orders to expand
the search and go even further afield. If enough quail
couldn't be found, Jane would have everything she wanted while

(16:35):
she was carrying all of Henry's hopes in her belly.
In September, she was put on bed rest, confined to
her chamber and not permitted to leave, to prevent any
trouble with the pregnancy. Henry could not lose another son,
and this was going to be a son. Everyone knew it. Finally,

(16:57):
it had been long enough, enough waiting and enough maneuvering,
enough plotting and marrying and beheading. Henry finally had a wife,
and Henry was about to have a legitimate son. A
month later, the labor began. Henry took as many precautions

(17:18):
as physically possible to ensure the survival of his child.
Most berths at the time would be attended to by
a midwife. Henry insisted instead on a team of all
male doctors. When the labor began, it quickly became apparent
that the infant was in a breach position. For two
days and three nights, Jane did her best to follow

(17:41):
her doctor's instructions to shut out the pain and to
think of nothing but how happy Henry would be when
he finally met his son. And then, finally, with a
final scream of pain and a whimper, it was over.
She had done it the day before Saint Edward's Day.

(18:03):
On October twelfth, Prince Edward was born, a healthy, living,
legitimate male child. Jane wept with relief, a few days
after the birth, the baby was made Duke of Cornwall
and Earl of Chester. Jane's brother got promoted to Earle,

(18:24):
and Jane was well enough to dress and sit in
the receiving room for Edward's christening, greeting the well wishers
who congratulated her on achieving what the two women before
her had been unable to do. Mary, the boy's half sister,
was the godmother. But a week later, Jane felt woozy

(18:45):
and light headed. Within the hour, her fever spiked. She
was delirious and sweating. By the time she awoke early
the next morning. It was obvious that a priest would
need to be summoned. Jane Seymour died at noon that
day in a rush of fever and blood, just after

(19:07):
she had given Henry everything he wanted, after she had
just ensured that her position as queen was secure. It's
difficult to know exactly why Jane died twelve days after childbirth,
whether it was child bed fever, a pulmonary embolism, hemorrhaging.

(19:30):
It also seemed possible, even likely, that Jane hadn't fully
expelled the placenta after giving birth, left in her body.
The placenta became infected. Ironically, male doctors at the time
had far less experience when it came to childbirth than midwives.
If Jane had been attended to by a midwife who

(19:51):
had been through hundreds of births, the midwife would have
known exactly what to do and could have solved the problem.
After Jane's death, King Henry was so depressed that he
could barely speak. He left the funeral arrangements to two
of his advisers and went off to mourn in isolation.

(20:12):
Jane Seymour's body was brought to a wax chandler, who
removed her entrails and embalmed her body with spices before
she was passed off to a lead plumber, who soldered
her into place. She lay in state, then at Hampton Court,
surrounded by candles, with a nightly watch to prevent any
more harm from coming to her. Jane is the only

(20:36):
one of Henry's six wives who received an official queen's funeral.
The route for her casket to get to Windsor, where
she would be buried, was hung with black cloth out
nearly every window. Her wax effigy atop the casket rested
on a golden pillow. It wore golden shoes and rings

(20:58):
on its finger, and it was dressed in beautifully embroidered stockings.
The carriage was trailed by twenty nine wailing mourners, one
for each year of Jane's life. Young Mary was Jane's
chief mourner. Stories would come out later, ballads martyring Jane

(21:24):
saying that she had chosen to get a cesarean section,
or that she was given the option to either save
her own life or save the life of her child,
and she had chosen the latter. It's pleasant to imagine
her heroic, to give agency to the woman who was
most often characterized in history books as just the opposite
of Anne. A pendulum swing from raven haired and whitty

(21:47):
to blonde and docile. A phoenix dies to bring new
life that was Jane Seal the phoenix death turns to
new life. Henry finally got his son, but he would
spend the rest of his life mourning and yearning for
the wife he lost too soon, because now that she
was gone, in her memory, she would always be perfect.

(22:12):
Eight years after losing Jane, Henry the Eighth commissioned a
family portrait. By this time he had already gone through
two more wives and had finally landed on his sixth
and final wife, Katherine Parr. In the family portrait, Henry
sits the center, with his son Edward directly to his right.

(22:32):
On either far side of the frame stand Princess Mary
and Princess Elizabeth, daughters respectively of Katherine of Ragun and
Anne Boleyn. And to King Henry's left standing is his queen,
not the woman he was married to at the time. No.
Nearly a decade after her death, Henry insisted that the

(22:55):
family portrait be painted to feature his queen as Jane Seymour.
That's the short life of Jane Seymour, but stick around
after a brief sponsor break to hear a bit more
about Little Baby Edward. Little Baby Edward was given his

(23:29):
own household at Hampton Court, where King Henry forbid both
dogs and serving boys too clumsy. No one was allowed
to leave for London in the summer when illnesses ran rampant,
No food or dirty utensils could be left within sight
of the infant. The floors, walls, and ceilings of his
chamber were scrubbed down daily. Guests would need written permission

(23:54):
to be allowed to approach Edward's cradle. A brand new
kitchen and washout were built at Hampton Court just for
Edward to prevent any possible contamination by the rest of court.
Before a single article of clothing was put on the
young prince, it needed to be washed, brushed, tested for poison, perfumed,

(24:16):
and then dried fully by the fire. Henry's protections worked
sort of. Edward survived in infancy. He lived long enough
to become king after Henry's eventual death when he Edward
was just nine years old. He lasted until he was fifteen.
King Henry's daughters, then, who he thought of as his failures,

(24:39):
took the throne, next Mary, who tried to restore Catholicism
to England, and then finally the last Tudor ruler, Elizabeth
the First. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry,
who had tried so hard to produce a male heir,
who would have thought that it would be a all

(25:00):
along who would usher in a golden period of art
and stability for England. Noble Blood is a production of
iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble
Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing

(25:21):
and research by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Courtney Sender, Amy
Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced
by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima il KLi and
executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
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(25:45):
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