King Henry VIII & Jane Seymour

The Perfect Wife

In the story of Henry VIII and his six wives, Jane Seymour has gone down as the ideal mate for the churlish monarch. His third wife, Jane bore him the son he so desperately wanted and that his first two wives had failed to provide. Having delivered for her husband, though, she died three days later, ensuring that he would never fall out of love with her. What more could Henry VIII ask for in a wife?

Henry himself thought so. Some years after her death in 1537 he commissioned a group portrait of the royal family. Beside him in the portrait is not Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, to whom he was married when the picture was painted, but Jane Seymour, mother of his son and royal heir.

Henry's high esteem for Jane has hurt her posthumous reputation with everyone else. Compared to her predecessors, steadfast Catherine of Aragon and sparkling Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour comes across as something of a drip, so unexciting that she is half forgotten. (Most people, hearing her name, are more likely to think of the actress and onetime Bond Girl.)

Unlike Henry's first two wives, both well-educated, Jane could not do much more than sign her name. She stuck to her needlework and household management, "traditional values" even in the sixteenth century. To judge from portraits, Henry's next wife, the much-derided Anne of Cleves, was better-looking. According to most accounts, Jane Seymour got ahead not by her looks or charm, but because she was pushed forward by ambitious relatives, especially her brother Edward.

Plain Jane?

Perhaps, however, there is more to the story than that. The Plain Jane Seymour version leaves out something that should be hard to miss: the massive figure of Henry VIII. Whether or not Jane had a mind of her own, Henry certainly knew his own mind, especially when it came to women. The Seymour family was not about to talk him into marrying anyone. They could put her on the hors d'œuvre tray, but Henry picked his own treats.

Jane Seymour was first put on the tray around 1530, in her early twenties, when she became a lady-in-waiting to Henry's first queen, Catherine of Aragon. Henry was busily trying to divorce Catherine at the time, but she was still queen and had the usual contingent of ladies-in-waiting.

These royal personal assistants were in a position to catch the king's eye, sometimes whether they wanted to or not. Anne Boleyn had been one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting when she caught Henry's eye a few years earlier. In 1530 she still had it and was angling for the ultimate promotion, from queen's personal assistant to queen. If Jane Seymour was also out to catch Henry's eye, or if her family hoped she would, she would have to wait her turn.

Jane kept her job when Anne Boleyn became queen in 1533. Any wife of Henry VIII, however, should have had good reason to be wary about her ladies-in-waiting, one of whom might end up replacing her. Certainly Henry knew Jane Seymour fairly well, but she did not catch his eye until 1535 - and then not at court, but at the Seymour family mansion, when Henry stopped off while traveling.

Away from court, amid her own household, Henry could notice Jane Seymour with fresh eyes - not for who she was, but for who she was not: Anne Boleyn. After shaking up Europe and changing England's religion to get Anne, Henry had quickly tired of her. She was less fun as a wife than she'd been as a mistress; much worse, the child she gave birth to was a daughter, not the son Henry wanted and needed.

Henry was ready for another chance at a son, and Jane Seymour must have looked like she fit the bill. He was not a man who marries the same type over and over; instead he seems more like a man trying to avoid repeating his last mistake. All the same, it is hard to imagine that Henry VIII fell for Jane simply because she showed great potential as a housewife. Henry was anything but coolly rational when it came to wives. He loved falling in love with women; the problem for his wives is that he did not stay in love with them.

So Jane Seymour probably had something going for her that has not passed down through time.

One thing we can say is that Jane Seymour appears to not have been squeamish; she and Henry were officially betrothed the day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Henry famously believed that It's Good to be King - the engagement party was a festive affair, and his new fiancée showed all the eager delight expected of a soon to be blushing bride and Queen of England.

Maybe, just maybe, Plain Jane Seymour was every bit as ambitious and ruthless as her brother Edward. Perhaps, in the right setting, she even had a bit of the charm of her other brother Thomas, who would later sweep a former queen and future queen off their feet on his way to the scaffold.

If Jane Seymour was ambitious, she hit the very pinnacle, for by bearing him a son she ensured herself a lasting place in Henry's heart - even if she had lived. Henry might have fallen out of love with her eventually, and spentless time with her. He might take up with mistresses, though Henry was never a big one for royal mistresses. He would probably not have divorced her, however, much less beheaded her, because she had performed her dynastic duty.

Henry's remarriages, at least his first two, were not sheer caprice and male vanity writ huge. The job description of an English king might still include fighting for the crown with sword in hand, as Henry's own father Henry VII had. A daughter's prospects of keeping and holding the throne were regarded as slender-to-none, and not totally without reason. Jane gave Henry that all-important son, which is why he had her portrayed in the dynastic portrait years later, as the mother of his son and heir.

Alas, Jane Seymour had hardly any time to enjoy her success and job security. She fell into a fever after giving birth and died three days later.