(Introductory information about the Six Wives of Henry VIII is located in the summary information of the geocache for Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. For those with interest, it may be interesting to read the information in that geocache description).
Shortcut summary: Jane Seymour was Henry VIII’s third wife and – hallelujah and it’s about time! – the mother of his only legitimately-born and surviving son and heir, Edward VI. Henry was very attracted to Jane because she was so different from Wife #2 Anne Boleyn. She was quiet, respectful, soft-spoken, optimistic, and kind – and she did what she was told to do by the men in her life. She married Henry two (2) days after Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Seven (7) months’ later, she was pregnant with Edward, and two (2) weeks after she gave birth (an extremely difficult birth) to Edward, she died, probably from an infection caused by a difficult childbirth. Henry went from absolute delight and elation due to the birth of his healthy baby boy and male heir to complete despair and agony due at the death of the wife who gave him what he wanted the most in the world. Although he married three (3) more times, Henry never really recovered from his grief at Jane Seymour’s death. She is buried at Windsor Castle outside of London, and King Henry VIII is buried with her, upon his request to be buried with the mother of his son. The geocache is located across the street from a practice that would no doubt have saved the life of Jane Seymour had it existed at the time.
FULL STORY: THIRD WIFE: JANE SEYMOUR
It must have been truly frightening to have been Jane Seymour, a virtuous, sweet, religious female member of an exceedingly elite noble English family in the court of Henry VIII, and to watch King Henry, who had cruelly abandoned his first wife and murdered his second wife, decide that SHE, as his third wife, seemed a likely candidate to bear his coveted royal male heir.
Jane Seymour was the polar opposite of Wife #2 Anne Boleyn (see Boleyn geocache for detail of Wife #2’s nasty disposition), not surprisingly, given that Henry was so tired of Anne Boleyn that he found reasons to chop off her head. Jane Seymour was known by some as a “plain Jane” (although some persons from the time noted her extreme paleness and ethereal beauty), and she was so uneducated that she only knew how to read and write her own name. She did know needlepoint, sewing, and household management very well, as they were the coveted female traits for the time. She was soft-spoken, optimistic, very kind, and gentle; even better, she mostly did as she was told by the men who controlled her life (mostly her brothers, Edward and Thomas Seymour and then Henry) with quiet grace and rectitude. Some biographers opine that even though she was not educated, and she seemed quite docile, Jane, with the help of her brothers, learned well the lessons of courtly behavior; she had, after all, been a lady-in-waiting for both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, had been at court for several years, and had witnessed the unfolding drama of Henry’s previous marriages. Her experiences at court taught her moderation, forethought, and common sense.
Henry took serious interest in Jane Seymour before Anne Boleyn’s demise. While Queen Anne was pregnant, recovering from miscarriages, and/or driving Henry mad with her constant screaming about his faults and inadequacies, he spent his time with other more amenable feminine company. He seems to have been genuinely attracted to Jane precisely because she was nothing like Anne Boleyn. She demurely turned down most of his gifts as he tried to woe her, she was always careful to be sure that they were properly chaperoned when they spent time together, and she seemed interested only in the womanly arts of child and home care. And it didn’t hurt that Henry discovered that her mother had given birth to five (5) boys. Henry and Jane had a discreet and respectful courtship (considering that Anne Boleyn was still around), and, in a quiet, but elegant ceremony, Henry (age 45) and Jane (age 27, an older first-time bride at that time) were married two (2) days after Wife #2 Anne Boleyn was beheaded.
King Henry and Jane Seymour (she was never crowned; she was his “queen consort”) did seem to get along very well in the early months of their marriage. Jane was a closet Catholic who wished England to return to the arms of the Vatican, and she privately urged Henry to return to the old church. She befriended his daughter, Mary, also a very staunch Catholic (as Katherine of Aragon’s daughter), and she was able to reconcile Henry and Mary, who had been estranged since Henry’s divorce from Mary’s mother and because Mary refused to recognize Henry as the religious leader of England, due to her strong Catholic faith.
Despite the relative happiness and calm of the first few months of their marriage, Henry thought he would again be disappointed in his wifely choice because Jane did not conceive a child immediately after their marriage. It took seven (7) months of “great effort,” but Jane did become pregnant in early 1537. She had a normal pregnancy during which she developed constant cravings for quails’ eggs, and records show that Henry went to great effort to make sure that quails’ eggs and whatever else Jane’s tummy and heart desired was immediately provided.
In September, 1537, Jane went into “confinement,” a time period about a month before the “due date,” where pregnant women of that time laid around in cloistered, dark, airless rooms doing nothing but awaiting labor pains. The best London physicians and midwives were brought to Hampton Court Palace to assist with the baby’s delivery. Jane went into labor on October 9, and, despite the excellent medical assistance that was available, the poor woman endured a very long and painful labor (probably due to the fact that the baby was not well-positioned [breach]) for three (3) days and three (3) nights. Finally, on October 12, 1537, at 2 am, a healthy baby boy was born. Henry’s heir, named Edward, had -- at long last – arrived.
Jane was completely exhausted from the difficult delivery, and she needed rest and recovery, but she was also in very good spirits and wrote letters about the baby’s birth to friends and received visitors in her bedchamber for the first few days after Edward’s birth. Henry was ecstatically happy and proclaimed celebrations, parties, and festivals all over the country! Edward was christened on October 15, 1537, and on that day, Jane fell seriously ill, and she never recovered. Her health declined precipitously, and she died on October 24, 1537, most likely from an infection – either from a retained placenta or an infected birth canal or a tear in her perineum. She died from what many, many, many women died from in those days – the act of childbirth.
Jane Seymour was provided a royal funeral (the only wife of Henry VIII to receive a royal funeral) and was buried at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle outside of London. Mary Tudor, the stepdaughter with whom Jane grew very close, acted as her chief mourner. King Henry refused to attend the funeral, secluded himself in locked rooms for weeks, and fell into a deep depression that lasted for many months. He mourned Jane for the rest of his life. He was married to her for only 18 months, but she gave him his boy, and he always called her “the love of his life.” Upon his request, Henry VIII is buried with Jane Seymour at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.
The geocache for Jane Seymour is located across the street from a practice that could very easily have saved poor Jane Seymour’s life if she had been treated with modern obstetrical and post-natal care. “We’ve come a long way, baby.” We really truly have.
“Motherhood: all love begins and ends there.” – Robert Browning
Afterward: Henry and Jane’s son Edward became King Edward VI after Henry’s death in 1547; he was nine (9) years old, so England was governed by his family regents (his cruel, greedy Seymour uncles basically ran things). Edward’s short reign was marked with considerable political and social unrest as the adults in his life fought over power, money, and influence.
Edward appeared to be a healthy child, but he did occasionally fall severely ill from the contagious diseases that existed at that time. His sisters Mary and Elizabeth were part of his life on a regular basis (thanks to Wife #6, but that’s another geocache), and he was described as a quiet, intelligent, and kind-hearted boy.
Tragically, Edward VI was not long for his world – he contracted “consumption” (tuberculosis) and died at age 15. His Tudor successors were Lady Jane Grey, the 9-Day Queen (whose life and reign are a truly horrifically sad story of a parental power grab), Queen Mary I (Katherine of Aragon’s daughter), and Queen Elizabeth I (Anne Boleyn’s daughter). At Elizabeth’s death, the great Tudor Dynasty in England ended.
Congratulations, dotdotdash, on FTF!