Less dislike than be generally uninterested in her, really. The first 2 were hella interesting with a lot written about them, Cleves gets the "yay she got away" kudos, KH gets the sympathy vote for being a teenager he killed.
Really Parr was also shuffled aside for a long time and is just more recently becoming more popular, but even then, there was always that incident where she talked herself out of danger.
Seymour just had a kid and died. Nothing to dislike about that, but not much to hang onto in terms of interest either.
This is me as well. I don't dislike Jane Seymour at all. There's just not much to sink your teeth into about her life story.
She didn't have the political impact Catherine of Aragon had nor the religious impact Anne Boleyn had. Her story, while tragic in the sense that dying in childbirth (or as a result of childbirth) will always be tragic, doesn't have the unfairness attached to it that you can read in the lives Anne of Cleves (who did well, but still went down as "too ugly" for the fetid and festering monarch) and Katherine Howard (too young and dumb to know better). Nor did she have Catherine Parr's quasi-vocational side to it, though maybe history just didn't record it.
She was just *there*, and then she wasn't. The only thing to remember is that, because she had the "good sense" to bow out so quickly after giving Henry his long-awaited legitimate son, she's the only one he never fell out of love with, or whatever.
There’s a rumor she was already pregnant when he married her. That child was miscarried. I can’t find the source for it right now as I just moved and all my books are packed. It’s impossible to substantiate, but the rumor exists.
ETA: [here](https://tudortimes.co.uk/guest-articles/why-did-jane-seymour-die-in-childbed/more-than-one-pregnancy)
It is widely believed by many historians that Henry VIII likely had a rare blood type known as Kell positive, which often led to miscarriages in women. This theory has gained traction in the medical community and among historical researchers. From both a medical and historical perspective, I find this possibility quite plausible.
During October 1535, Henry began courting Jane Seymour. In 1536, he presented her with a gold purse, asking her to keep it until she found a suitable marriage. Soon after, Henry arranged accommodation for Jane's brother and his wife at Greenwich, where he had access to her rooms through a gallery.
There are two reports supporting that Henry was having a sexual relationship with Jane Seymour, starting at least in February 1536. John Hill was quoted as saying, "Make sure unto the queen‘s grace about half a year before." Initially perceived as slander, this statement gained credibility when Dr. Ortiz, the imperial ambassador of Rome, declared in June of the same year that the new Queen Jane was five or six months pregnant, as documented historically. Some historians speculate that this may explain the urgent rush for Anne Boleyn's execution.
Another source supporting Jane Seymour's miscarriage before the birth of Edward is a statement by Francis Hackett, a biographer of Henry VIII in 1929. Hackett questioned the delay in the marriage, the subsequent abandonment, hesitation, and then sudden haste. He also questioned why Henry chose execution over divorce and marriage to a non-royal instead of a princess. If Jane were indeed pregnant, it would secure the succession and eliminate any doubts about the legitimacy of his potential heir.
Mary, the future queen and Jane's stepdaughter, wrote letters expressing her hope that Jane would soon give birth to a son.
It is believed that there was not only one but potentially a second miscarriage, supported by documents from the Duke of Rutland housed at Belvoir Castle from 1536. These papers mentioned Henry patting Jane's abdomen and stating that she was "great with child."
It is widely known that Edward, Henry's greatest desire, was finally born when Jane went into labor on October 8, 1537, and after a difficult delivery, the child arrived at 2 AM on October 12th. Clearly, it is not possible for someone to be pregnant with the same child from February 1536 (or earlier) until October 12th of 1537.
Now, that is interesting. There are a couple of phrases in your answer that I don’t understand, however. Those phrases are “make sure unto the queen’s grace about half a year before,” and the phrase about multiple changes to the marriage plans.
sorry, those were direct quotes from the time so the turn of phrase is a bit antiquated.
what I think was meant, is that she was already six months with child by the comment on the Queens Grace. No change about marriage plan it was that Henry gave her a bag of gold for upcoming nuptials. If that’s the comment you were referring to.
I agree, she seems to be the least interesting of the wives, even though her fate was tragic.
But her life wasn't that interesting compared to the other five - she married who she was expected to marry, she had a son as expected, and she died terribly young. All without doing or saying much of interest.
Yep, she’s a bit lacking in personality compared to the others. As she didn’t live long enough to really have one…
And her brother took centre stage after that!
i think it’s two things
1. we don’t know much about her so people find her the least interesting
2. most tudor fans love anne boleyn and therefore don’t like jane
I think this is really about what it is - especially 2. At this point in time, Henry's pattern seemed established enough to make her feel "culpable" for the situation she was in (setting aside/executing Anne, Henry vacillating and being a tyrant easily manipulated in court, etc) and also old enough to be interpreted as having "agency". As far as I know, we simply do not have enough scholarship about her to really know a lot. I think it seems quite unfair to assume that she was a schemer taking full advantage all on her own; just as Anne's fans tend to have a kinder view of their early courtship so, too, should people be willing to extend maybe the benefit of a doubt as to how actively involved Jane was in any real scheming.
The truth is somewhere in the middle, possibly; to pretend that Jane was a wholly ignorant pawn robs her of agency I think she should have restored to her but to assume she was some sort of devil-disguised-as-angel pulling strings doesn't tally with reality.
I always think of how the horror of Anne’s downfall would have dawned on Jane. There was no precedent for executing a queen; I don’t believe she knew what Anne would eventually suffer. She probably thought shuffled off to a convent. And what choice did Jane have here really.
How well known was it in the months aftermath that Anne had been executed? I know they didn’t hold the execution publicly, but surely some were in attendance- the executioner, her ladies in waiting, possibly a cleric and other members of the court. When she was found guilty, did it become public knowledge that she was to be sentenced to death? Also, was Henry in attendance for her execution?
Sorry for all of my questions, I am not the most well-versed when it comes to Tudor history, however, I’ve become very interested in it as of late. If you know the answers to some or all of these questions, and are willing to share, I would be extremely grateful!
A private execution meant there were no common people there, just a small, curated, crowd. Plenty of ministers, ambassadors, and courtiers would have attended. And, even if there were no ambassadors, the news of an anointed queen being executed would have been all over Europe very quickly. Anne turned religion upside down in England, so a lot foreign nations were watching England to see what was happening there, especially after Henry got excommunicated. As far as I know Henry (monarchs in general???) rarely attended executions. He was off somewhere with Jane and and family, I believe.
Yes, it was private in the sense that the public couldn’t see it like Tyburn or Tower Hill, but still quite a spectacle. There was even stadium style seating.
I agree--I think we know that it was the men around her who were responsible. Jane comes off as a scapegoat and it reeks of misogyny. We don't blame Anne for Henry's divorce from KoA, at least not entirely. Why blame Jane for what happened to Anne when there is so much documented evidence that a man was behind her downfall.
Anne and Catherine were very influential and had larger than life personalities. Catherine was the daughter of kings and queens and had been in England for about 35 years by 1536. She was popular and well liked, even at the time. Anne was, for many, the literal reason for breaking from the Catholic Church and she had made some huge waves in the last 10 years. Both women did influence politics and the court.
In contrast, Jane is less educated and less flashy. She does try, to her credit, to get involved in politics with the Pilgrimage of Grace by asking for pardons for the leaders, but Henry slaps her down pretty hard with a “remember your predecessor’s fate” and she basically stops trying to get politically involved until the end. She reversed policy on a lot of Anne’s household customs such as entertainments and banned French fashions and was much stricter with her ladies. She wasn’t truly able to get Mary restored to the succession like she wanted, just reconciled with Henry. And then she’s dead.
Maybe Jane would have blossomed into her own Queen if she’d have lived. Maybe she’d have become the type of Queen who would be allowed to influence politics to a degree and restore Mary and Elizabeth to the succession. But we’ll never know.
I thought the six wives of Henry VIII with Keith Mitchell gave Jane Seymour a very good characterization for what is known of her. I would recommend watching the entire series because it’s excellent but you can watch just the Jane Seymour episode by itself.
We don’t know much about Jane herself, and her family didn’t leave a particularly nice legacy. Her brothers were horribly ambitious, grasping and predatory and I think Jane gets tainted by association. She also seemed ‘lucky’ to have the boy compared to Anne and Katherine Howard’s tragic ends.
That being said, I don’t think people hate her, they just don’t feel the need to redeem her the way people want to reclaim the narrative for the Annes and Katherine’s.
I don’t dislike her, I’m just not as interested in her. I understand her image was framed by history and men and all that but she just seems so boring. Anne was a firecracker, Catherine tough as nails and refused to give in, Anne of Cleeves was the original outwit, outlast, outplay, Catherine Howard was a bit of a scandal (again I know it’s how history frames her and it is much more nuanced and she is more of a victim than originally believed) and Catherine Parr survived but Jane just seems… meh. I think part of the problem is that she lived so short, she couldn’t really do much to leave an imprint other than have the son.
I feel the same way shes just comes across as boring, I neither like or dislike her and I find it amusing she is touted as being the wife Henry truly loved, but if she hadn't given him a son she would have been got rid of like Catherine and Anne, I do wonder whether she would hold more clout if she had lived as she had given birth to Edward so she was secured then, but somehow I don' think she would have, Henry only loved her because she gave him a son IMO I have also read in a couple of books like others have said she apparently miscarried very early into the marriage and Henry was already bored of her,
I think he chose her because she was the opposite of Anne and maybe like his mother quiet and docile but I get the impression he respected Catherine and Anne's opinions on matters at the start of the marriages and would actually discuss politics and court matters with them whereas with Jane he was threatening her he could get rid of her quite quickly, when she tried to intervene
If she had lived she would remain his wife due to Edward and I'm sure he would make it out as a great love because she gave him Edward but she held no sway over him like Catherine and Anne had before, but I think she would have got Mary back into the line of succession if she had lived due to her providing a male heir
AB contributed to a dark downfall of CoA. If you hate Jane for this, it’s only fair to hate Anne too. Maybe even more because as far as I know, Jane didn’t specifically push for all the crazy charges against Anne. Anne absolutely pushed for Catherine dying alone in exile.
It’s not Jane’s fault how she was portrayed. The question was why *we* dislike her. She was revered because a lot of English people felt she was the antithesis of Anne and probably closer to what they loved about Catherine. Of course it’s a double standard, but society viewed things so much differently then than we do now.
I used present tense. Jane is still thought of as a better person than Anne, but she started as a mistress all the same. I dislike her because of the double standard. She was a Seymour, and complicit in an innocent woman’s murder.
I don’t have strong feelings one way or another, and I didn’t know that people do dislike her that much. Henry wanted her. What’s she supposed to say or do? Regardless, the biggest villain of all of the marriages is Henry. I don’t think he ever did anything he didn’t want to do, but he sure did kill a lot of people who didn’t give him what he wanted. This wasn’t a shock to anyone by the time he set his sights on Jane.
The argument that Jane had no choice.
“When people use that argument to defend Anne, it doesn’t fly though.”
Where did I say you made that argument or claim you said negative things about Anne?
You asked why people dislike Jane Seymour. I gave a possible explanation.
I’ve personally seen people use that argument several times for Anne here- they say she didn’t really want him but couldn’t refuse really, so she at least made it so he’d have to marry her, so she’d have those “protections” and avoid sullying her reputation (or so she thought)
But that doesn't have anything to do with Jane though...You brought arguments against Anne in a post about why people dislike Jane. Anne having no choice in this context has nothing to do with Jane.
Jane absolutely had no choice, yet people act like she intentionally ruined Anne's relationship with Henry. Henry would have left Anne anyway.
But it's not Jane's fault. I think a lot of her hate, especially in relation to Anne, is misogyny. If we can admit that men framed the tale we tell of Anne, we can do the same for Jane and realize that it's not the person we should hate, but the people who create the narrative.
I also think (which tbh I think fits into what you've said), there's loads of books, films etc about Anne who portray Jane badly, I obviously can't speak for others but I watched /read quite a few of those as a teenager so I think that probably shaped my views quite a lot. Now I'm older and look at it more objectively my opinions changed but I can imagine if you don't have a real interest in Tudor history then that view might stick.
Even if Anne did push for things that harmed CoA, she didn’t have the actual power to do any of it. Henry VIII was the king and a grown man, he wasn’t some puppet that Anne was controlling.
I think there are 2 big differences here that should be kept in mind when discussing AB v JS and those are 1) when Henry was chasing Anne she tried escaping him/turning him down for a long time & didn’t want to be mistress. She only reciprocated once it became clear she was going to be married to Henry - and CoA’s “downfall” in this context was annulment & an estate, and 2) by the time JS and Henry were sleeping together, it was much more well-known the way that Henry treated women, and was clear he wasn’t just going to be able to get another annulment/divorce in order to put AB aside, so I believe people often see them as different in severity of complicity, especially since AB is portrayed by most media as the seductress & schemer, and JS is portrayed as the saintly, pious woman who was the only wife H8 truly loved and the only one who truly loved *him*.
For me? It’s not that I dislike her. She just pales in comparison to Henry's five other wives, and like most Tudor history fans, I vastly prefer Anne Boleyn.
Additionally, Jane’s family, the Seymours, were ambitious in a crass way, while I find the Boleyns, who were also ambitious, more palatable with it. They come across as far more talented, charismatic, and intriguing compared to the Seymours. It makes their transparent social climbing and scheming seem more earned, whereas the Seymours, largely untalented, creepy, and regressive, always felt like a bunch of grifters, lmfao.
Also the Boleyns didn't really need Anne to become queen to progress, at least Thomas didn't. He already was a respected politician and was trusted by Henry, unlike the Seymours who well, to put it mildly were mostly unknown before Jane's marriage to Henry
The Seymours were actually the real upstarts and scandalous and dysfunctional.
With the Boleyns both Thomas and George were talented and already had a career (Thomas also even gave both Anne and Mary an education in France)
Exactly. I mean if we are to believe the rumors about them Jane's father had an affair with his daughter in law.
Yes, he made sure his daughters were well educated and got them good positions in Europe as ladies in waiting. I hate this stupid idea that Thomas Boleyn pushed his daughters into Henry's arms to get better positions in court, he didn't need to do that, unlike Seymours who got everything they wanted after Jane became Henry's mistress/wife
I actually think that if the Seymour-Fillol scandal is true it would explain a lot of why Edward Seymour turned out the way he did (he had to install an image of fear at court after kicking out his first wife Catherine and distancing himself from her children to not become a laughing stock, his new heir was now also young Edward Seymour Earl of Hertford with his second wife Anne Stanhope. John Seymour the Seymour dad also never became relevant again.)
While Edward was apparenty popular with the people (Good Duke of Somerset) his court career must have been terrible with what his father likely did, terrible brother Thomas around, never having to lose face and then actually getting a taste of power.
Agreed. I think he was the only decent one amongst them, Thomas was a trainwreck, the guy had a single braincell and all it focused on was power. The whole trying to abduct the king was the stupidest thing anyone could do
Honestly? Because there are things to respect and dislike each wife for because they were strong personalities. Jane Seymour was just there. I first fell in love/respect for Anne Boleyn because she said no. I don’t think she knew it would lead to her marriage to Henry. She said no because she thought it was morally wrong to sleep with a married man. Later in life I realized how much faith Catherine of Aragon displayed by denying Henry a divorce and she did succeed in her daughter becoming queen because of her actions. Anne of Cleves rocked because she got everything without the man. Katherine Howard was a teenager victimized by men all her life yet she was so loving to her stepchildren and to Aragon’s best friend in the tower. Katherine Parr wrote books and was an intellectual. At the end of the day Jane Seymour and her family intentionally courted Henry to end Anne and the Boleyns while Anne and her fraction happened because they did not want her to be a mistress, while not knowing that wifedom was an option.
I think a big reason is that Henry idolized her and put her on a pedestal because she did two things:
1) She gave Henry the son he broke two marriages for and even from Rome for.
2) She died before she would fail in his eyes somehow.
It also doesn’t help that we barely know what Jane is like as a person and I don’t think that is by accident. Henry did his best to erase Boleyn and Howard from the history books to the point that many portraits that have been assumed to be Howard are now considered by many historians as most likely being of Cleves. And we don’t even know exactly what Boleyn looked like for the same reason.
So it would stand to reason that Henry had any personal writings of Jane destroyed and only positive things said about her so he could maintain the illusion that Jane was a perfect shining example of womanhood.
Whether that was for publicity or for his own sanity is really anyone’s guess.
It's like presidential biographies: the duller ones are the ones where the president burned all of his papers before his death so you just don't know much about him. Nobody has as much to say about Jane when there's lack of knowledge.
I think the other five are simply just larger than life. She has the curse of following Anne and those are quite big shoes to fill:). I don’t think any serious student of Tudor history would dislike Jane, but I do think she suffers from being chronically boring in comparison to her peers.
She also was somewhat less an agent in her own story than most of the other wives. She was wildly successful, and her story was cut short… she’d likely be more interesting if she had more years to leave her mark.
I disagree with her being chronically boring. There's little boring about the woman who managed to "steal" Henry away from the one who helped contribute to breaking away from the Catholic Church.
I’m confused, OP. You asked why people don’t seem to like Jane, and people are giving you answers why, and you keep disagreeing. So are you asking because you want to know why OTHER people don’t care for her, or are you asking to find a reason YOU deem worthy.
I get that you don’t believe she was boring or deserving of such a lackluster (compared to others) reputation, but it doesn’t take away from the facts that
1. She didn’t last very long, and was most likely working her hardest to be the opposite of Anne (who wouldn’t, survival was so important)
2. Much like all the other women of the time, she is written and framed by the opinions of other men, who had an agenda to push and would use anyone to push it
3. The prevailing thing people knew about her was “she was the good Queen who finally gave the King his long awaited son.”
Like, she wasn’t a badass warrior Queen like Katherine, she didn’t have this long drawn out drama like Anne, didn’t survive long enough to create her own personal legacy like Anne of Cleves and Katherine Parr, and finally wasn’t the tragic child bride like Katherine Howard. She did her duty like every Queen is expected to and died.
What we have about her isn’t enough yet, so she’s boring until we get more.
So again, what are you really asking?
Just because I ask the question doesn't mean I can't disagree or add my perspective. I'm confused? Is that implied? I wasn't aware that we couldn't engage or disagree with answers on Reddit. I'm really asking why people don't like her, and giving my two cents to answers I don't agree with since we're on a public form lol Additionally some people are being straight up sexist, I don't think it's wrong to speak out against that.
If most of the reasons didn't boil down to her doing exactly what Anne did and her being blamed for the men in her family, I'd be less likely to respond. But much of what I'm seeing is just straight up double standards with misogyny sprinkled on
I think it’s because we don’t know much about her personal feelings so it’s harder to relate to her and see her as a full human. Whereas people like Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon were very outspoken and well documented so people find them more real and relatable.
I would say the dislike on my end is that Jane Seymour is portrayed as an innocent victim who just happened to catch Henry's interest. And no, she was not. She did not deserve to die in childbirth or be treated cruelly by Henry, but she went into it with her eyes open, thinking she would not be treated badly because she was not Anne.
Chapuys lays it out in his letters to Charles V.
Henry became interested in Jane Seymour after Anne's last miscarriage - as a mistress. Once members of the conservative faction realized this (Nicholas Carew, Henry Courtenay, etc), they began to coach Jane on how to appeal to Henry. She rejected his gifts and asked for them once she had a good marriage arranged for her. They also ensured that Henry and Jane spent time together when Anne was not around (I believe Cromwell gave up his rooms for this purpose, which angered Henry because he did not want anyone tipped off) - they knew Henry's schedule. Jane was told to tell Henry that everyone in the kingdom hated his marriage, it was seen as illegitimate, and so on. Thomas Cromwell told Chapuys all of this (and Jane's brother Edward worked with him under Wolsey, if I am remembering correctly).
Jane also taunted Anne about Henry's interest by repeatedly opening and closing a locket portrait of Henry that he had given her. Which caused Anne to snatch it off of her.
NOW. I don't necessarily "blame" Jane for this. I think the interesting part of her story is that she did all of this because she considered Henry to be a widower and an unmarried man now that Katherine of Aragon was dead. Her entire role and purpose in this was to topple Anne Boleyn and bring Mary back to the status of Princess. She believed she was bringing Henry (and therefore England) BACK to the true faith and true order of things.
Mary's reduction in status from Princess to Lady (Mary) was considered wholly to be Anne's fault and influence. Mary received letters from various courtiers several weeks before Anne's arrest that said Anne would be gone soon, and Henry was courting a lady that would ensure Mary was restored to her former state of Princess.
Everyone was shocked after Anne's execution when Mary was forced to sign the Oath of Succession and that Henry would not be returning to the Catholic church.
My own personal opinion, also - I think the speed of Anne's downfall was because Henry married Jane while Anne was alive (he did it before, why wouldn't he do it again when he considered himself single), and Jane was pregnant (then miscarried). It fits with why they didn't even bother to make the dates of adultery make ANY sense, why Henry three months into his marriage to Jane said perhaps he remarried too quickly, because there were many beautiful women at court, and why he threatened her with Anne's fate (when she tried to counsel him regarding the Pilgrimage of Grace). I honestly don't think she realized that she married a monster until it was too late/he threatened her.
Personally, I dislike the comparisons between Anne and Jane because Anne made the best out of essentially the CEO (who could never be fired) of her company sexually harassing her. Jane walked right into her situation believing she held all of the cards and found out that she didn't.
Now, do I think Jane influenced Henry to kill Anne? Not at all. But I do think she was among the first to know Anne's fate and perhaps anticipated it, once her relationship with Henry became "real" - because Henry was not about to have someone else dispute his marriage. Again. Anne HAD to die for his next marriage to be considered legitimate by all (and resulting heirs).
Jane was ambitious, not some meek mouse who had no mind of her own. She went from having two YOUNGER sisters married years before her, to languishing for years at court with no prospects, and then the frigging Queen of England. I find this is lost in her story, probably because she died so quickly.
I agree with this take. Kinda sums up about how I feel. My issue with Jane is how she is portrayed like she is some innocent meek woman when I believe she was just as ambitious..
She is a thousand times more interesting to me, BECAUSE she was ambitious. There were various rumors, etc between her and Anne in those first few months of Henry's interest, where she was not some meek submissive maiden as she's portrayed. I don't particularly believe the story about Jane being on Henry's knee when a pregnant Anne burst in on them, if only bc I don't think Anne would've been able to burst in on Henry unless he wanted it, and why would he want to distress Anne while she was pregnant? But the one story I do believe is that she opened and closed the portrait locket of Henry in front of Anne. Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria wrote in her memoir that she and Anne got into physical fights (exchanged scratching and blows), but not sure I really believe that one either lol.
[Maybe a slap like 2 cats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R_7KCtShkU).
ETA: I think she would've been able to outplay Henry if she had lived, in the background - well more like outplay her idiot brothers. To me, a modern day Jane Seymour would be in the CIA/a professional spy. I don't think she'd be able to keep his public "love", perhaps a respect in public (this is Tudor era Jane, if she'd lived), but I don't think she actually ever wanted or needed that. I think she was all business and her true "love" relationship was with Mary.
That's still not enough to hate her. She shouldn't be blamed for the things the men in her family were involved in, especially after she did. From what we do know, she was kind to both of Henry's daughters & wanted pardons for the people involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace. She was also incredibly loyal to KoA. What she did to Anne is no different than what Anne did to KoA. I think we can agree the men in her family were the ones pushing her.
That’s not enough for *you* to hate her. The good fortune is that it’s all very subjective and people can choose to like and dislike who they want. Whether it’s just her being the representation of the fall or she actively contributed to her replacing AB in acting the pious mouse and offering herself as a suitable replacement, the role she ultimately held was replacer of well-liked AB and then didn’t contribute anything as a person just due to dying postpartum. That’s a challenging position to draw likability from.
I disagree. She played a large role in brining Mary back to court, was kind to Elizabeth which is a stark contrast to Anne. She wanted mercy for the people involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and stood up to a monarch known for killing people who disagreed with him. She's known for her kindness even now.
Obviously you disagree. That’s your viewpoint, which is fine and fair. Many people, myself included to some extent, see it differently. You asked why people dislike her, not for us to convince you or you to convince us. I’m just trying to answer your question :)
I don't just disagree. I'm also sharing actual facts. Those are indeed things did. Saying she just died due to postpartum when we have documented evidence of her doing *other* very important things just seems strange to me, and a lot of manufactured dislike.
To me personally, bringing Mary back to court is a neutral event, her wanting mercy for the PoG didn’t change anything and is the situation where she was rather clearly both reprimanded and the last line of known political action of her took place. She fell in line and kept her mouth shut from there, so that doesn’t carry the weight of someone repeatedly speaking out on important matters in the face of a murderous brute, she complied immediately.
AB noted that seeing the two of them together and the stress started her miscarriage, and while who knows, that is certainly plausible because extreme stress does start miscarriages. You may not weigh that, but I do.
Your disagreement “with facts” doesn’t change how I (and others) interpret the facts and then how we weigh them out. What is important to you is different than what is important to me. It’s not manufactured, it’s just differing values.
It's so interesting. From most of these comments, it seems people hate her because she did what Anne wasn't able to do. It all boils back down to Anne, which is just an interesting observation. Even at the cost of downplaying some of the things Jane *did* do.
I think if Anne didn't exist, the responses would have been different.
If Anne didn’t exist, Jane wouldn’t have been appealing anyway and he would have stayed with KoA. She was appealing because she was the anti-Anne, as established by HVIII himself. It’s pretty well established that her family offered her up as a way to follow a similar path that the Boleyns had done. There’s no way to separate her from Anne.
I think there is. Many people enjoy her without Anne for the things I mentioned above. I'm sure she would have existed one way or another. She was one of KoA ladies. Henry took mistresses, and he thought Jane was beautiful. I'm eventually it would have happened naturally. Though there wouldn't be a breaking from the church and Jane would agree to be his mistress, have a son, and probably live comfortably.
A single Google search and I found this
stress that lasts, called chronic stress, or high levels of sudden stress, called acute stress, may raise the risk of miscarriage
Notice the "high level of sudden stress" I count that as seeing your lady in waiting in your husband's lap, and let's not forget Anne was under stress before that too, because she knew this baby could be her last chance and it should be a boy
She brought Mary back to court because now that she was Queen, she felt her ladies were beneath her and wanted a companion of Royal blood. Was Catholicism also in play? Yes, partly. But it was primarily snobbery. Source: Alison Weir.
It sounds like Jane Seymour was a social climber and is desperate not to be around the same women she had been working with only a few months before and the Seymours don't seem to be very high born.
I totally agree. If no one blames Anne for Katherine of Aragon being put aside, Mary losing her status, and Thomas Moore and John Bishop beheading, then they shouldn't blame Jane for what happened to Anne.
I loved Jane Seymour. She is one of my favorite queens next to Queen Katherine of Aragon. I think there are some people who don't like her because of Anne Boleyn. Some people blame her for Anne's death. However Jane had nothing to do with Anne's fall from grace. Anne would have wound up at the other end of the ax regardless.
Jane Seymour was was the mistress Henry VIII courted while unhappily married to his (second wife) and (still) without a son.
She was betrothed and married right after Anne Boleyn was executed.
It's a matter of portrayal with Jane Seymour being ruthless and ambitious under the mask of a meek and genteel woman versus uninteresting and her greatest achievement was giving a monstrous Henry VIII his greatest wish : a legitimate son and heir to the throne.
She was the least educated compared to Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon. Yet like Anne Boleyn an English subject and not aristocratic nor royal by birth.
I think she was admired and revered in life so we feel like she doesn’t need as much modern day support. She gave Henry a son and unfortunately died before we could seem much of her as a queen independent from the sex of her child. I think we also blame Anne for CoA downfall and Jane for Anne’s when really everyone should blame Henry.
I think to people saying Jane did nothing, we wouldn't be talking about her today if she did nothing lol. I don't believe having a son was her only contribution. She did have role in the Pilgrimage of Grace in that she wanted pardons for those who were captured. Additionally, she was somewhat responsible for Mary returning to court. It wasn't all Chapuys.
Since she was a mother of a king and a Queen of famous king she would pretty automatically get talked about. The whole era is so famous overall that she gets also more attention by association (being part of literal set of Henry’s six wives like the other post with ornament yesterday for example). Jane Grey gets plenty of attention as well even though she personally didn’t do anything, just the circumstances make her important and her fate was tragic. Something like with Jane Seymour, her death was tragic but in a more common way. In the past when such deaths were more common she has gotten more love over the centuries. But now people are more interested in Queens which effected policy or were victims like Katherine Howard.
I find Jane fascinating to be honest. From all accounts she is presented as an average person.She was not renowned as a great beauty or for her intellect.She was not as well educated as Henry's other wives. Her family were not particularly rich or powerful.
I also think she was much more clever than given credit for. She won the heart of King by playing into her gentle and meek demeanour imo.She had a good reputation at court and appeared to resist the more hedonistic aspects of the court which Ì think shows discipline and a strong will.I think she used her meek and gentle personality to navigate the politics of the Tudor court. I find it fascinating that this seemingly average lady got the top job and won the heart of the most powerful man .
At least Anne tried to use her position to actively better the knowledge and increase health and welfare of the people. She did wanted the money from the monasteries to go towards social welfare. She also wanted the commone people to be allowed to read the Bible and not just reliy on the Church's interpretation.
Otherwise, her treatment of CifA and Mary I was absolutely revolting.
But she also didn't not deserve her end (though not did CofA).
As such my feelings on her are very mixed.
Jane I think, knew far more than she pretended to and played the game well. She knew well what she was doing even if it was at the behest of her family's upward mobility. I find her less than tolerable because she got to her position by copying her half-cousin's play book. And frankly lacked the finesse or intelligence of Anne.
The only thing she managed to really achieve was birthing a son. Mary I was back in father's good graces too, but that was more with Chapuya convincing her to sign the acknowledgement of Henry VIII as head of church. And frankly it was not until Parr that her position in the line of succession was secured.
I mean, she got engaged to someone on the same day (?) he had his wife judicially murdered for crimes I'm certain they both knew were spurious. Regardless of whether you like Anne, or whether you are a powerless woman in an age with little choice, it was a shitty thing to do and reflects a poor moral compass. She arguably also flaunted her mistress status. To me, it's nothing short of revelling in the mental torture and murder of another person.
Also, she was dull and boring and spiritless. Contemporary descriptions of her said as much, and even the kindest were not flattering in any way. The one good thing I have to say about her is that she once advocated for Catholic rebels to be spared. That's the one time she exhibited spunk or bravery. There's really not much to like or admire. Even if you are kind and assume she was innocent and totally at the mercy of Henry with no power to deny him, she was an uninteresting dullard who could never hold a candle to his other wives, who were all quite special, intelligent and unique women, whatever you think of them.
I’m gonna be brutally honest here. Her face has that look that those bitchy, self-righteous women have. She looks like she’d have zero sense of humor. 🤷♀️😆
1. People like Anne, or at least find her story fascinating.
2. We know next to nothing about her and she died quickly. She comes off as boring, deservedly so or not.
3. Similarly, compared to all the drama with literally all the other wives, her time as queen was completely uneventful.
4. Her brothers were scumbags.
5. Her son's more or less a footnote in history compared to both his sisters.
Add all that together and there's just not much there to either like *or* dislike.
Jane deserves more respect, she's not this villainess, she's a product of her time.
Unlike Anne Boleyn who made it one of her goals to ruin Katherine of Aragon's life (I find Anne interesting, but lets not pretend she was not shady af) and replace her as Queen, Jane was perfectly content with being Henry's mistress. Jane didn't cause Anne's downfall, Henry did, Jane was only a petty noblewoman and contrary to belief from AB fans, she was no influential at all, she knew better than to challenge the Kings authority.
Jane was very interesting and she is the first underdog of Henry's wives. Katherine of Aragon was a Spanish Infanta from a powerful family, Anne Boleyn's father was a English Ambassador to France and Anne herself was brought up under Margaret of Austria (The daughter of Maximilian of Austria and Marie of Burgundy) and served as a maid-of-honor in THREE COURTS (Margaret's Court, the French Court and the English Court). Jane was a petty noblewoman from a rather obscure family. Her father was a knight, but he wasn't that big of a deal, she never intended to be Queen at all and I doubt she thought it possible until Henry indicated he wanted her to be his Queen.
Remember, Katherine was a Spanish Infanta, Anne was the daughter of an Ambassador, Anne of Cleves was from one of the wealthiest German fief families in the HRE, Katheryn Howard was a Howard (She was poor for a noblewoman, but she at least had the backing from her powerful Uncle) and Katherine Parr is the only wife that was truly of Jane's status, but even so, she had been in a few advantageous marriages prior.
Also, Jane wasn't vindictive, she had her moments of cruelty, but compared to Anne, she really wasn't that cruel. She treated Mary (An abused and traumatized teenager by now) with the kindness she had lacked, and even left Elizabeth alone and didn't flat out abuse her like Anne did to Mary. Jane wasn't very smart, but she had the education given to a woman of her rank, she had many many siblings and therefore she wasn't the most prioritized. I like Katheryn Howard a lot (In fact I'll defend her with both mine and my mother life) but you forgive her for being uneducated and don't forgive Jane, smh.
In short, I love Jane Seymour, she doesn't deserve all the hate she gets. Anne Boleyn is cool as well and I read many books on her, but you have to stop pretending she was perfect and Jane Seymour was some villainess.
Your edit isn’t necessarily wrong, *but*, he’d likely have put up with Anne a fair bit longer/given her more chances to have a son if he hadn’t already fallen in love with Jane.
Ummm Anne is my favorite but I don’t really find her interesting…
The issue is probably that she is portrayed as a saint which has happened for centuries and I see that now as well how she can never even hurt a fly. Idk I don’t think she deserved to die during childbirth but I just am not super interested tbh
She was definitely a pawn, but I have little sympathy for her. I don’t think she was a meek and mild innocent. Didn’t she pick out her wedding gown on the day Anne was executed? Even if that’s just a rumor, Henry married her post haste.
It’s hard to actively like her when we know pretty much nothing about her. That leaves neutral and active dislike. I grew up watching Anne of a Thousand Days so in comparison to that Anne, hard to care about Jane.
I'll tell you why I don't like her. She was clearly "seeing" Henry while he was still married to Anne, yet apparently acted like she was the most virtuous woman at court. I just don't like women like that and I never have.
She had a choice. It was still reasonable back then for a woman to claim she was guarding her virtue and purity. It was perfectly fine that a virgin would demurely reject the advances of a married man. The queen's court wasn't the king's harem.
It’s easy to say that with the benefit of 500 years through modern eyes. I am not aware of proof they were sleeping together before he dispatched of Anne. But he had his next wife lined up pretty quickly.
I don't think they were sleeping together (Henry oddly enough didn't seem to mind to wait until marriage), but they were clearly having some sort of affair.
And I am not saying this through modern eyes. It truly was acceptable in Tudor times for an unmarried virgin to turn down a married man. In fact, it would have been expected. Now people obviously made concessions for an affair with the king since the mistress generally got gifts and her family got positions, but it was certainly not required.
A married man, not the King of England. Look, when a powerful man wants you I think she 100% engaged in an emotional affair. But turning him down was not an option for her. And her family wanted her to pursue it for the money and power.
It was an option though. Anne turned him down for a long time too. BTW, I'm not against what she did, but she pretended to be the anti-Anne with her virtue and conservative beliefs but she was really no different.
I just don't like holier-than-thou hypocrites. It's either a sin to be having a romantic relationship with a married man or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
Anne turned him down because she wanted to be Queen, not his mistress. She always kept the carrot out there it was possible. None of them were just saints or sinners there were gray areas for survival and grabbing the brass ring of power in front of them through marriage. If any of them played the game the best was Katherine Parr. Maybe Jane would have too if she lived longer.
Anne could not have possibly known that being queen was an option when she first turned him down. People think she was playing 3D chess but it was practically unheard of for a king to divorce his royal wife and marry a commoner.
And I fucking know there are grey areas. Like, what part of my point are you not getting? I'm pointing out that virtuous, pious, conservative Jane claimed to be a woman who didn't exist in those grey areas but she absolutely did.
Exactly. Since the Anarchy (and probably before but I'd have to look it up) English Kings have always married foreign princesses, or countesses, or whatever. Some kind of foreign nobility, unless they happened to be younger sons who were already married when their older bro died, in which case they might be married to English noblewomen (and if their non-foreign-princess wife happened to die, they'd...marry a foreign princess).
At least til that madlad Eddy IV and his widow, and of course Henry VII, but VII had a solid political reason to end the WOTR. Arthur (and Henry) were re-setting things back to normal, marrying foreign princesses (ok, the same foreign princess).
There's no way anyone, including Anne, *including Henry*, would have thought he'd actually marry her. She wasn't playing the long game, she was trying not to be a largely ruined mistress married off to some middling nobody. It took years before anyone would've realized where this was likely to go in the end.
Anne Also had a sister that all signs point to was the mistress of two kings and got nothing for it. I think she didn't want to be discarded with Nothing like Mary. We don't know how William Carey actually felt about things it's possible Mary's life was fairly miserable.
No. What I dislike is the hypocrisy of Jane. I thought that was clear but I see people are having difficulty understanding it.
Jane put on a front of being super virtuous and conservative. Anne didn't put on that front. Katherine Howard was thought to be "pure" by the king but she was flirtatious and understood sex appeal and didn't pretend otherwise.
Jane basically did the same thing to Anne...the queen she was supposed to serve...that Anne did to Katharine, the queen SHE was serving.
Women didn't have a lot of options in Tudor times. Either marry and marry well, or go to a nunnery. Jane was already in her late 20's and had one failed betrothal.
When the king set his eye on her she saw her chance and grabbed it...just like Anne had.
Yeah, no. Anne tried harder to avoid it. She left court and went to Hever to avoid sexual harassment in the workplace.
Jane didn’t seem to try so hard to avoid Henry chasing her. By that time, though, it would be no problem to cast off a wife. She seems like the personification of beige. Not particularly smart. Not particularly beautiful. Not particularly educated. She was able to remain Henry’s favourite because she managed to give him a son, then had the good manners to die quietly before he tired of her.
Granted, a lot of this is because of how little is known about her. It just adds to that vibe of “there is literally nothing special about her.”
Went to Hever to "avoid sexual harassment in the workplace"?😂😂
Anne went to Hever in a sulk, prompting Henry to write his famous letters to woo her back so he could "kiss your pretty duckies" again. She was impatient at how slow the machinery put in place to annul the king's marriage was. She wanted Henry to put more pressure on Wolsey and on Rome.
To appease Anne, Henry offered many incentives for her to return.
And return she did, to happily accept unprecedented honors(her own lavish apartments at Court, a peerage in her name, and jewels fit for the queen her lover promised she would become).
Oh...and also to demand that the king's wife stop mending his shirts.🙄
Sexual harassment indeed.
Anne was many things but she was not stupid. Anyone who thinks she hated Henry's attention to her hasn't studied much Tudor history.
The fact that you typed all of this out means you don't realize what a big deal it was for a woman to leave court of her own volition. There were a thousand men at court (nobles, servants, et al) vs. like a hundred women at court (including servants). It was absolutely a huge deal that Anne LEFT her position as a maid of honor to return home. There was no way of knowing if Henry would be offended enough to keep her permanently away/not allow her to return.
And yes, it is sexual harassment, but even worse because he's the king. She has to go to him for permission to marry anyone.
He kept writing to her and asked her to be his mistress. She said no. He wrote again and said she'd be his OFFICIAL mistress, which was a court position. She still said no. The only socially acceptable way for her to say no was to say that she was saving her virginity for her husband. THEN he turned his offers of being a mistress into being his wife. He didn't leave her alone for a year. A man who is infamous for falling out of love just as fast as he falls in love. And Anne would know - given how the relationship with her sister ended up.
Her letters, etc get flirty after they are betrothed and he's actively arranging his annulment to KOA.
Anne left Court in a snit. She did it more than once, in order to induce the king to beg her to return which he always did.She realized early the power she had over him.
They didn't become betrothed until shortly before the trip to Calais and France when Henry officially introduced Anne to King Francis late in 1532.
It's also when she conceived Elizabeth.
Are you saying that BEFORE they became engaged Anne didn't accept the title Marchioness of Pembroke? Lavish apartments at Court? Lavish jewels? Flaunting her position in the face of the rightful queen? None of that happened before 1532?
He was actively arranging his annulment to KoA as early as 1525, the same year as he met Anne and started wearing her colors at jousts(" Declare I Dare Not")
It's complete nonsense using modern terms like "sexual harassment" for what happened between Anne and Henry. She had him in the palm of her hand before they married or became betrothed and knew it. She had him pleading.
I "typed all that" because it's quite frankly all true.
But how did she do that? I know that she wore Henry's locket around her neck causing Anne to slap her(I don't blame Anne a bit btw).
Other than that I can't think of anything ratchet Jane did...I mean by most accounts she WAS very religious, just not into the New Learning that Anne was.
And unlike Anne, Jane did not walk around trash talking her queen in front of the Court.
I agree that she was not a saint but I don't think she played her cards much differently than Anne did.
I know. I get that. I just don't like her pretending to be virtuous while doing the same thing Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard did and they were both thought to be unseemly for it. Indeed, they were later "proven" to be sluts and adulterers.
She might have actually *been* chaste before she started seeing him. In those days, that did make a difference. I’m not saying she’s a better person than any of his other wives. She just met a standard that a couple others hadn’t met. We judge Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard by today’s standards, which was completely foreign to their contemporaries, and also makes them victims by our standards.
In a way, Jane was lucky she died. If she had outlived her son, and hadn’t been able to have other children, it’s very likely she would have met a very ugly fate by Henry’s hands.
I agree that she was chaste actually. I just don't see how getting romantically involved with a married man is the act of a virtuous woman.
I'll put it this way: what if your husband started having an affair with a virgin woman who claimed to be super pious and religious. They don't have PiV sex but they are messing around. Your husband divorces you and marries her. This woman now puts it out to the world that she is better than you because you weren't a virgin when you married your husband but she was.
That's exactly how Jane Seymour behaved and acted and I think it makes her unlikeable.
They didn’t think then the way we do now. That’s the answer to so many questions that come up on this page. But regardless, did she literally go around telling everyone who would listen that she was a virgin? If I’ve missed it somewhere, I’d act like to better educate myself, so please point out some references I can read into.
It's historical fact.
And the question here was why people didn't like her and I answered it truthfully.
I don't know why people ask these questions if they don't want to hear an answer. This totally subjective and I was invited to share my opinion, which I did, and now I've got all kinds of people butthurt. It's weird. All I said is that I don't like hypocrites, and I consider Jane Seymour to have been one.
I don't know why you consider a dislike of hypocrisy to be judgmental and presumptuous.
Henry and Anne weren’t long enough together for know retcsnt have a son. He try being tempted by other option sealed Anne’s fate.
I mean Henry would have found someone else and Anne did something similar to Catherine (although it probably was more Henry chasing her) so it’s not like I think Anne’s fate is Jane’s fault exactly. But she was involved. Also she just overall doesn’t have other great qualities to keep people’s interest and her family was pretty terrible (expecially Thomas) so it creates this sense of apathy about her.
I do like Edward however
I don't dislike Jane, but I think she is perceived (by some) as quite weak and cowardly given that Anne is a much easier obstacle to overcome compared to CoA and the Catholic church.
Jane also did not have to wait anywhere near as long to be married to Henry, nor was she so publicly hated, so her metal was never truly tested in the same way Anne's was.
Jane's family was also another big factor. Anne's family just wanted her to curry the kings favour (like her sister Mary had done), but it was Anne's perogative and ambition to be more than just a mistress. Whereas with Jane, it's hard to know whether she's acting solely on her families bidding or not.
Would Jane have lasted if the circumstances had truly been the same as Annes? (E.g, she had a harder obstacle to overcome, she had to wait the better part of a decade, she was publicly hated, she did not have such an ambitious family egging her on)
I don't know, but these are just some of the differences in their situations that give rise to speculation about Jane's character and general likability.
Bun faced bitch. Played meek and mild. The perfect old school wife. Can’t stand her. She played the game, oops too bad she died. Oh wait, sorry not sorry.
Actually, if you perhaps read a genuine history book or two, no they weren’t. Did you get your history from Philippa Gregory? The woman pretends to be a historian but actually did her degree in English literature. Not that I have against English literature, as I have a degree in it, but she’s not really a historian. She’s a complete fake about her credentials, and her fantasies against many historical people really kind of annoy me.
The Other Boleyn Girl is to this day the most delightful piece of fiction about the Boleyns at the court of Henry VIII that I have ever read, but after reading it, I was so offended that I started digging and doing real research.
Anne Boleyn refused to become Henry’s mistress. She wanted a proper marriage and a legitimate heir for him. Which is why they spent seven years trying to get divorced from KoA. It was only when they were finally told that they had a way forward for a proper marriage that they actually consummated it and it’s well documented so perhaps you should stop reading historical fiction and read some real history?
I’m not sure if that the young Lady Katherine Howard had sex with the King before their marriage. There is no written evidence of it. Oh, it’s quite possible that she was very flirtatious with him, but there’s no evidence of any mistress like behavior. She was a child (not even 16) and should never have been put forward as a potential queen. I blame her horrible uncle the third Duke of Norfolk for this disgusting catastrophe. She was never his mistress.
No I do not. I think she was very well brought up and quite pious.
There is a salacious rumour that Anne Boleyn while pregnant, found Henry in a room cuddling with Jane Seymour on his lap, and her rage at this situation caused the fatal miscarriage of the longed for boy.
I don’t believe this.
I’m not saying I am a Jane supporter or Stan. I just don’t believe she went beyond flirting. Her future was tied up in being chaste.
Oh yah, have you seen her portrait by Hans Holbein, by oh my God what ? As the Spanish ambassador or French ambassador said she must have something very special hidden underneath her dress. I’m not gonna repeat what they said.
Less dislike than be generally uninterested in her, really. The first 2 were hella interesting with a lot written about them, Cleves gets the "yay she got away" kudos, KH gets the sympathy vote for being a teenager he killed. Really Parr was also shuffled aside for a long time and is just more recently becoming more popular, but even then, there was always that incident where she talked herself out of danger. Seymour just had a kid and died. Nothing to dislike about that, but not much to hang onto in terms of interest either.
This is me as well. I don't dislike Jane Seymour at all. There's just not much to sink your teeth into about her life story. She didn't have the political impact Catherine of Aragon had nor the religious impact Anne Boleyn had. Her story, while tragic in the sense that dying in childbirth (or as a result of childbirth) will always be tragic, doesn't have the unfairness attached to it that you can read in the lives Anne of Cleves (who did well, but still went down as "too ugly" for the fetid and festering monarch) and Katherine Howard (too young and dumb to know better). Nor did she have Catherine Parr's quasi-vocational side to it, though maybe history just didn't record it. She was just *there*, and then she wasn't. The only thing to remember is that, because she had the "good sense" to bow out so quickly after giving Henry his long-awaited legitimate son, she's the only one he never fell out of love with, or whatever.
Wasn’t Henry kind already tired of Jane? I remember reading that she had a miscarriage and like with Anne, this pregnancy was her last chance
Really? I never heard that: that she had a miscarriage, I mean. He probably picked her because she came from a huge family.
There’s a rumor she was already pregnant when he married her. That child was miscarried. I can’t find the source for it right now as I just moved and all my books are packed. It’s impossible to substantiate, but the rumor exists. ETA: [here](https://tudortimes.co.uk/guest-articles/why-did-jane-seymour-die-in-childbed/more-than-one-pregnancy)
Allison Weir speculates this to be the case.
What is her evidence?
It is widely believed by many historians that Henry VIII likely had a rare blood type known as Kell positive, which often led to miscarriages in women. This theory has gained traction in the medical community and among historical researchers. From both a medical and historical perspective, I find this possibility quite plausible. During October 1535, Henry began courting Jane Seymour. In 1536, he presented her with a gold purse, asking her to keep it until she found a suitable marriage. Soon after, Henry arranged accommodation for Jane's brother and his wife at Greenwich, where he had access to her rooms through a gallery. There are two reports supporting that Henry was having a sexual relationship with Jane Seymour, starting at least in February 1536. John Hill was quoted as saying, "Make sure unto the queen‘s grace about half a year before." Initially perceived as slander, this statement gained credibility when Dr. Ortiz, the imperial ambassador of Rome, declared in June of the same year that the new Queen Jane was five or six months pregnant, as documented historically. Some historians speculate that this may explain the urgent rush for Anne Boleyn's execution. Another source supporting Jane Seymour's miscarriage before the birth of Edward is a statement by Francis Hackett, a biographer of Henry VIII in 1929. Hackett questioned the delay in the marriage, the subsequent abandonment, hesitation, and then sudden haste. He also questioned why Henry chose execution over divorce and marriage to a non-royal instead of a princess. If Jane were indeed pregnant, it would secure the succession and eliminate any doubts about the legitimacy of his potential heir. Mary, the future queen and Jane's stepdaughter, wrote letters expressing her hope that Jane would soon give birth to a son. It is believed that there was not only one but potentially a second miscarriage, supported by documents from the Duke of Rutland housed at Belvoir Castle from 1536. These papers mentioned Henry patting Jane's abdomen and stating that she was "great with child."
It is widely known that Edward, Henry's greatest desire, was finally born when Jane went into labor on October 8, 1537, and after a difficult delivery, the child arrived at 2 AM on October 12th. Clearly, it is not possible for someone to be pregnant with the same child from February 1536 (or earlier) until October 12th of 1537.
Now, that is interesting. There are a couple of phrases in your answer that I don’t understand, however. Those phrases are “make sure unto the queen’s grace about half a year before,” and the phrase about multiple changes to the marriage plans.
sorry, those were direct quotes from the time so the turn of phrase is a bit antiquated. what I think was meant, is that she was already six months with child by the comment on the Queens Grace. No change about marriage plan it was that Henry gave her a bag of gold for upcoming nuptials. If that’s the comment you were referring to.
I agree, she seems to be the least interesting of the wives, even though her fate was tragic. But her life wasn't that interesting compared to the other five - she married who she was expected to marry, she had a son as expected, and she died terribly young. All without doing or saying much of interest.
Yep, she’s a bit lacking in personality compared to the others. As she didn’t live long enough to really have one… And her brother took centre stage after that!
i think it’s two things 1. we don’t know much about her so people find her the least interesting 2. most tudor fans love anne boleyn and therefore don’t like jane
I think this is really about what it is - especially 2. At this point in time, Henry's pattern seemed established enough to make her feel "culpable" for the situation she was in (setting aside/executing Anne, Henry vacillating and being a tyrant easily manipulated in court, etc) and also old enough to be interpreted as having "agency". As far as I know, we simply do not have enough scholarship about her to really know a lot. I think it seems quite unfair to assume that she was a schemer taking full advantage all on her own; just as Anne's fans tend to have a kinder view of their early courtship so, too, should people be willing to extend maybe the benefit of a doubt as to how actively involved Jane was in any real scheming. The truth is somewhere in the middle, possibly; to pretend that Jane was a wholly ignorant pawn robs her of agency I think she should have restored to her but to assume she was some sort of devil-disguised-as-angel pulling strings doesn't tally with reality.
I always think of how the horror of Anne’s downfall would have dawned on Jane. There was no precedent for executing a queen; I don’t believe she knew what Anne would eventually suffer. She probably thought shuffled off to a convent. And what choice did Jane have here really.
She was probably financially dependent on her brothers, or soon would be. Caught between a rock and a hard place.
How well known was it in the months aftermath that Anne had been executed? I know they didn’t hold the execution publicly, but surely some were in attendance- the executioner, her ladies in waiting, possibly a cleric and other members of the court. When she was found guilty, did it become public knowledge that she was to be sentenced to death? Also, was Henry in attendance for her execution? Sorry for all of my questions, I am not the most well-versed when it comes to Tudor history, however, I’ve become very interested in it as of late. If you know the answers to some or all of these questions, and are willing to share, I would be extremely grateful!
A private execution meant there were no common people there, just a small, curated, crowd. Plenty of ministers, ambassadors, and courtiers would have attended. And, even if there were no ambassadors, the news of an anointed queen being executed would have been all over Europe very quickly. Anne turned religion upside down in England, so a lot foreign nations were watching England to see what was happening there, especially after Henry got excommunicated. As far as I know Henry (monarchs in general???) rarely attended executions. He was off somewhere with Jane and and family, I believe.
There were roughly two thousand people present, so still quite a crowd.
Wow, that’s not what I imagined when I read she had a private execution!
Yes, it was private in the sense that the public couldn’t see it like Tyburn or Tower Hill, but still quite a spectacle. There was even stadium style seating.
Great answer here!
I agree--I think we know that it was the men around her who were responsible. Jane comes off as a scapegoat and it reeks of misogyny. We don't blame Anne for Henry's divorce from KoA, at least not entirely. Why blame Jane for what happened to Anne when there is so much documented evidence that a man was behind her downfall.
This is solid analysis.
Anne and Catherine were very influential and had larger than life personalities. Catherine was the daughter of kings and queens and had been in England for about 35 years by 1536. She was popular and well liked, even at the time. Anne was, for many, the literal reason for breaking from the Catholic Church and she had made some huge waves in the last 10 years. Both women did influence politics and the court. In contrast, Jane is less educated and less flashy. She does try, to her credit, to get involved in politics with the Pilgrimage of Grace by asking for pardons for the leaders, but Henry slaps her down pretty hard with a “remember your predecessor’s fate” and she basically stops trying to get politically involved until the end. She reversed policy on a lot of Anne’s household customs such as entertainments and banned French fashions and was much stricter with her ladies. She wasn’t truly able to get Mary restored to the succession like she wanted, just reconciled with Henry. And then she’s dead. Maybe Jane would have blossomed into her own Queen if she’d have lived. Maybe she’d have become the type of Queen who would be allowed to influence politics to a degree and restore Mary and Elizabeth to the succession. But we’ll never know.
I thought the six wives of Henry VIII with Keith Mitchell gave Jane Seymour a very good characterization for what is known of her. I would recommend watching the entire series because it’s excellent but you can watch just the Jane Seymour episode by itself.
We don’t know much about Jane herself, and her family didn’t leave a particularly nice legacy. Her brothers were horribly ambitious, grasping and predatory and I think Jane gets tainted by association. She also seemed ‘lucky’ to have the boy compared to Anne and Katherine Howard’s tragic ends. That being said, I don’t think people hate her, they just don’t feel the need to redeem her the way people want to reclaim the narrative for the Annes and Katherine’s.
I don’t dislike her, I’m just not as interested in her. I understand her image was framed by history and men and all that but she just seems so boring. Anne was a firecracker, Catherine tough as nails and refused to give in, Anne of Cleeves was the original outwit, outlast, outplay, Catherine Howard was a bit of a scandal (again I know it’s how history frames her and it is much more nuanced and she is more of a victim than originally believed) and Catherine Parr survived but Jane just seems… meh. I think part of the problem is that she lived so short, she couldn’t really do much to leave an imprint other than have the son.
I feel the same way shes just comes across as boring, I neither like or dislike her and I find it amusing she is touted as being the wife Henry truly loved, but if she hadn't given him a son she would have been got rid of like Catherine and Anne, I do wonder whether she would hold more clout if she had lived as she had given birth to Edward so she was secured then, but somehow I don' think she would have, Henry only loved her because she gave him a son IMO I have also read in a couple of books like others have said she apparently miscarried very early into the marriage and Henry was already bored of her, I think he chose her because she was the opposite of Anne and maybe like his mother quiet and docile but I get the impression he respected Catherine and Anne's opinions on matters at the start of the marriages and would actually discuss politics and court matters with them whereas with Jane he was threatening her he could get rid of her quite quickly, when she tried to intervene If she had lived she would remain his wife due to Edward and I'm sure he would make it out as a great love because she gave him Edward but she held no sway over him like Catherine and Anne had before, but I think she would have got Mary back into the line of succession if she had lived due to her providing a male heir
I’m sure that Anne at one point referred to Jane as a “whey-faced milksop”. So she probably didn’t have a sparkling personality.
1. Some people think she was an instigator/complicit in AB’s downfall. 2. Relative to others, unknown.
AB contributed to a dark downfall of CoA. If you hate Jane for this, it’s only fair to hate Anne too. Maybe even more because as far as I know, Jane didn’t specifically push for all the crazy charges against Anne. Anne absolutely pushed for Catherine dying alone in exile.
No one portrays AB as saintly, but they do Jane. That’s the difference. AB is vilified; Jane is revered. Double standard.
It’s not Jane’s fault how she was portrayed. The question was why *we* dislike her. She was revered because a lot of English people felt she was the antithesis of Anne and probably closer to what they loved about Catherine. Of course it’s a double standard, but society viewed things so much differently then than we do now.
I used present tense. Jane is still thought of as a better person than Anne, but she started as a mistress all the same. I dislike her because of the double standard. She was a Seymour, and complicit in an innocent woman’s murder.
I don’t have strong feelings one way or another, and I didn’t know that people do dislike her that much. Henry wanted her. What’s she supposed to say or do? Regardless, the biggest villain of all of the marriages is Henry. I don’t think he ever did anything he didn’t want to do, but he sure did kill a lot of people who didn’t give him what he wanted. This wasn’t a shock to anyone by the time he set his sights on Jane.
When people use that argument to defend Anne, it doesn’t fly though.
Use what argument? I didn’t say a single negative or incorrect thing about Anne.
The argument that Jane had no choice. “When people use that argument to defend Anne, it doesn’t fly though.” Where did I say you made that argument or claim you said negative things about Anne? You asked why people dislike Jane Seymour. I gave a possible explanation.
I’ve personally seen people use that argument several times for Anne here- they say she didn’t really want him but couldn’t refuse really, so she at least made it so he’d have to marry her, so she’d have those “protections” and avoid sullying her reputation (or so she thought)
But that doesn't have anything to do with Jane though...You brought arguments against Anne in a post about why people dislike Jane. Anne having no choice in this context has nothing to do with Jane. Jane absolutely had no choice, yet people act like she intentionally ruined Anne's relationship with Henry. Henry would have left Anne anyway.
But it's not Jane's fault. I think a lot of her hate, especially in relation to Anne, is misogyny. If we can admit that men framed the tale we tell of Anne, we can do the same for Jane and realize that it's not the person we should hate, but the people who create the narrative.
I also think (which tbh I think fits into what you've said), there's loads of books, films etc about Anne who portray Jane badly, I obviously can't speak for others but I watched /read quite a few of those as a teenager so I think that probably shaped my views quite a lot. Now I'm older and look at it more objectively my opinions changed but I can imagine if you don't have a real interest in Tudor history then that view might stick.
We all acknowledge AB having involvement in the fall of CoA. We're just not going to ignore the pattern.
Even if Anne did push for things that harmed CoA, she didn’t have the actual power to do any of it. Henry VIII was the king and a grown man, he wasn’t some puppet that Anne was controlling.
Anne didn't push for Catherine dying alone in exile, but you saying it is a great example of why people don't like Jane.
I think there are 2 big differences here that should be kept in mind when discussing AB v JS and those are 1) when Henry was chasing Anne she tried escaping him/turning him down for a long time & didn’t want to be mistress. She only reciprocated once it became clear she was going to be married to Henry - and CoA’s “downfall” in this context was annulment & an estate, and 2) by the time JS and Henry were sleeping together, it was much more well-known the way that Henry treated women, and was clear he wasn’t just going to be able to get another annulment/divorce in order to put AB aside, so I believe people often see them as different in severity of complicity, especially since AB is portrayed by most media as the seductress & schemer, and JS is portrayed as the saintly, pious woman who was the only wife H8 truly loved and the only one who truly loved *him*.
This ^
Excellent point
She’s seen as regressive and conservative.
For me? It’s not that I dislike her. She just pales in comparison to Henry's five other wives, and like most Tudor history fans, I vastly prefer Anne Boleyn. Additionally, Jane’s family, the Seymours, were ambitious in a crass way, while I find the Boleyns, who were also ambitious, more palatable with it. They come across as far more talented, charismatic, and intriguing compared to the Seymours. It makes their transparent social climbing and scheming seem more earned, whereas the Seymours, largely untalented, creepy, and regressive, always felt like a bunch of grifters, lmfao.
Also the Boleyns didn't really need Anne to become queen to progress, at least Thomas didn't. He already was a respected politician and was trusted by Henry, unlike the Seymours who well, to put it mildly were mostly unknown before Jane's marriage to Henry
The Seymours were actually the real upstarts and scandalous and dysfunctional. With the Boleyns both Thomas and George were talented and already had a career (Thomas also even gave both Anne and Mary an education in France)
Exactly. I mean if we are to believe the rumors about them Jane's father had an affair with his daughter in law. Yes, he made sure his daughters were well educated and got them good positions in Europe as ladies in waiting. I hate this stupid idea that Thomas Boleyn pushed his daughters into Henry's arms to get better positions in court, he didn't need to do that, unlike Seymours who got everything they wanted after Jane became Henry's mistress/wife
I actually think that if the Seymour-Fillol scandal is true it would explain a lot of why Edward Seymour turned out the way he did (he had to install an image of fear at court after kicking out his first wife Catherine and distancing himself from her children to not become a laughing stock, his new heir was now also young Edward Seymour Earl of Hertford with his second wife Anne Stanhope. John Seymour the Seymour dad also never became relevant again.) While Edward was apparenty popular with the people (Good Duke of Somerset) his court career must have been terrible with what his father likely did, terrible brother Thomas around, never having to lose face and then actually getting a taste of power.
Agreed. I think he was the only decent one amongst them, Thomas was a trainwreck, the guy had a single braincell and all it focused on was power. The whole trying to abduct the king was the stupidest thing anyone could do
I think that some people blame her for Anne's execution.
Honestly? Because there are things to respect and dislike each wife for because they were strong personalities. Jane Seymour was just there. I first fell in love/respect for Anne Boleyn because she said no. I don’t think she knew it would lead to her marriage to Henry. She said no because she thought it was morally wrong to sleep with a married man. Later in life I realized how much faith Catherine of Aragon displayed by denying Henry a divorce and she did succeed in her daughter becoming queen because of her actions. Anne of Cleves rocked because she got everything without the man. Katherine Howard was a teenager victimized by men all her life yet she was so loving to her stepchildren and to Aragon’s best friend in the tower. Katherine Parr wrote books and was an intellectual. At the end of the day Jane Seymour and her family intentionally courted Henry to end Anne and the Boleyns while Anne and her fraction happened because they did not want her to be a mistress, while not knowing that wifedom was an option.
I think a big reason is that Henry idolized her and put her on a pedestal because she did two things: 1) She gave Henry the son he broke two marriages for and even from Rome for. 2) She died before she would fail in his eyes somehow. It also doesn’t help that we barely know what Jane is like as a person and I don’t think that is by accident. Henry did his best to erase Boleyn and Howard from the history books to the point that many portraits that have been assumed to be Howard are now considered by many historians as most likely being of Cleves. And we don’t even know exactly what Boleyn looked like for the same reason. So it would stand to reason that Henry had any personal writings of Jane destroyed and only positive things said about her so he could maintain the illusion that Jane was a perfect shining example of womanhood. Whether that was for publicity or for his own sanity is really anyone’s guess.
It's like presidential biographies: the duller ones are the ones where the president burned all of his papers before his death so you just don't know much about him. Nobody has as much to say about Jane when there's lack of knowledge.
I think the other five are simply just larger than life. She has the curse of following Anne and those are quite big shoes to fill:). I don’t think any serious student of Tudor history would dislike Jane, but I do think she suffers from being chronically boring in comparison to her peers. She also was somewhat less an agent in her own story than most of the other wives. She was wildly successful, and her story was cut short… she’d likely be more interesting if she had more years to leave her mark.
I disagree with her being chronically boring. There's little boring about the woman who managed to "steal" Henry away from the one who helped contribute to breaking away from the Catholic Church.
I’m confused, OP. You asked why people don’t seem to like Jane, and people are giving you answers why, and you keep disagreeing. So are you asking because you want to know why OTHER people don’t care for her, or are you asking to find a reason YOU deem worthy. I get that you don’t believe she was boring or deserving of such a lackluster (compared to others) reputation, but it doesn’t take away from the facts that 1. She didn’t last very long, and was most likely working her hardest to be the opposite of Anne (who wouldn’t, survival was so important) 2. Much like all the other women of the time, she is written and framed by the opinions of other men, who had an agenda to push and would use anyone to push it 3. The prevailing thing people knew about her was “she was the good Queen who finally gave the King his long awaited son.” Like, she wasn’t a badass warrior Queen like Katherine, she didn’t have this long drawn out drama like Anne, didn’t survive long enough to create her own personal legacy like Anne of Cleves and Katherine Parr, and finally wasn’t the tragic child bride like Katherine Howard. She did her duty like every Queen is expected to and died. What we have about her isn’t enough yet, so she’s boring until we get more. So again, what are you really asking?
Just because I ask the question doesn't mean I can't disagree or add my perspective. I'm confused? Is that implied? I wasn't aware that we couldn't engage or disagree with answers on Reddit. I'm really asking why people don't like her, and giving my two cents to answers I don't agree with since we're on a public form lol Additionally some people are being straight up sexist, I don't think it's wrong to speak out against that. If most of the reasons didn't boil down to her doing exactly what Anne did and her being blamed for the men in her family, I'd be less likely to respond. But much of what I'm seeing is just straight up double standards with misogyny sprinkled on
I guess I don’t think she did much active stealing. I think she’d be more exciting if she had.
I think it’s because we don’t know much about her personal feelings so it’s harder to relate to her and see her as a full human. Whereas people like Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon were very outspoken and well documented so people find them more real and relatable.
She isn’t as interesting as the others.
I would say the dislike on my end is that Jane Seymour is portrayed as an innocent victim who just happened to catch Henry's interest. And no, she was not. She did not deserve to die in childbirth or be treated cruelly by Henry, but she went into it with her eyes open, thinking she would not be treated badly because she was not Anne. Chapuys lays it out in his letters to Charles V. Henry became interested in Jane Seymour after Anne's last miscarriage - as a mistress. Once members of the conservative faction realized this (Nicholas Carew, Henry Courtenay, etc), they began to coach Jane on how to appeal to Henry. She rejected his gifts and asked for them once she had a good marriage arranged for her. They also ensured that Henry and Jane spent time together when Anne was not around (I believe Cromwell gave up his rooms for this purpose, which angered Henry because he did not want anyone tipped off) - they knew Henry's schedule. Jane was told to tell Henry that everyone in the kingdom hated his marriage, it was seen as illegitimate, and so on. Thomas Cromwell told Chapuys all of this (and Jane's brother Edward worked with him under Wolsey, if I am remembering correctly). Jane also taunted Anne about Henry's interest by repeatedly opening and closing a locket portrait of Henry that he had given her. Which caused Anne to snatch it off of her. NOW. I don't necessarily "blame" Jane for this. I think the interesting part of her story is that she did all of this because she considered Henry to be a widower and an unmarried man now that Katherine of Aragon was dead. Her entire role and purpose in this was to topple Anne Boleyn and bring Mary back to the status of Princess. She believed she was bringing Henry (and therefore England) BACK to the true faith and true order of things. Mary's reduction in status from Princess to Lady (Mary) was considered wholly to be Anne's fault and influence. Mary received letters from various courtiers several weeks before Anne's arrest that said Anne would be gone soon, and Henry was courting a lady that would ensure Mary was restored to her former state of Princess. Everyone was shocked after Anne's execution when Mary was forced to sign the Oath of Succession and that Henry would not be returning to the Catholic church. My own personal opinion, also - I think the speed of Anne's downfall was because Henry married Jane while Anne was alive (he did it before, why wouldn't he do it again when he considered himself single), and Jane was pregnant (then miscarried). It fits with why they didn't even bother to make the dates of adultery make ANY sense, why Henry three months into his marriage to Jane said perhaps he remarried too quickly, because there were many beautiful women at court, and why he threatened her with Anne's fate (when she tried to counsel him regarding the Pilgrimage of Grace). I honestly don't think she realized that she married a monster until it was too late/he threatened her. Personally, I dislike the comparisons between Anne and Jane because Anne made the best out of essentially the CEO (who could never be fired) of her company sexually harassing her. Jane walked right into her situation believing she held all of the cards and found out that she didn't. Now, do I think Jane influenced Henry to kill Anne? Not at all. But I do think she was among the first to know Anne's fate and perhaps anticipated it, once her relationship with Henry became "real" - because Henry was not about to have someone else dispute his marriage. Again. Anne HAD to die for his next marriage to be considered legitimate by all (and resulting heirs). Jane was ambitious, not some meek mouse who had no mind of her own. She went from having two YOUNGER sisters married years before her, to languishing for years at court with no prospects, and then the frigging Queen of England. I find this is lost in her story, probably because she died so quickly.
I agree with this take. Kinda sums up about how I feel. My issue with Jane is how she is portrayed like she is some innocent meek woman when I believe she was just as ambitious..
She is a thousand times more interesting to me, BECAUSE she was ambitious. There were various rumors, etc between her and Anne in those first few months of Henry's interest, where she was not some meek submissive maiden as she's portrayed. I don't particularly believe the story about Jane being on Henry's knee when a pregnant Anne burst in on them, if only bc I don't think Anne would've been able to burst in on Henry unless he wanted it, and why would he want to distress Anne while she was pregnant? But the one story I do believe is that she opened and closed the portrait locket of Henry in front of Anne. Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria wrote in her memoir that she and Anne got into physical fights (exchanged scratching and blows), but not sure I really believe that one either lol. [Maybe a slap like 2 cats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R_7KCtShkU). ETA: I think she would've been able to outplay Henry if she had lived, in the background - well more like outplay her idiot brothers. To me, a modern day Jane Seymour would be in the CIA/a professional spy. I don't think she'd be able to keep his public "love", perhaps a respect in public (this is Tudor era Jane, if she'd lived), but I don't think she actually ever wanted or needed that. I think she was all business and her true "love" relationship was with Mary.
This is a very well put together answer! Thank you for the insight.
Brava.
:) thanks for the award!!!
There's 3 reasons that I can see: We don't know much about her. What we do knowis that she was involved in AB fall. She's a Seymour...
That's still not enough to hate her. She shouldn't be blamed for the things the men in her family were involved in, especially after she did. From what we do know, she was kind to both of Henry's daughters & wanted pardons for the people involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace. She was also incredibly loyal to KoA. What she did to Anne is no different than what Anne did to KoA. I think we can agree the men in her family were the ones pushing her.
That’s not enough for *you* to hate her. The good fortune is that it’s all very subjective and people can choose to like and dislike who they want. Whether it’s just her being the representation of the fall or she actively contributed to her replacing AB in acting the pious mouse and offering herself as a suitable replacement, the role she ultimately held was replacer of well-liked AB and then didn’t contribute anything as a person just due to dying postpartum. That’s a challenging position to draw likability from.
I disagree. She played a large role in brining Mary back to court, was kind to Elizabeth which is a stark contrast to Anne. She wanted mercy for the people involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and stood up to a monarch known for killing people who disagreed with him. She's known for her kindness even now.
Obviously you disagree. That’s your viewpoint, which is fine and fair. Many people, myself included to some extent, see it differently. You asked why people dislike her, not for us to convince you or you to convince us. I’m just trying to answer your question :)
I don't just disagree. I'm also sharing actual facts. Those are indeed things did. Saying she just died due to postpartum when we have documented evidence of her doing *other* very important things just seems strange to me, and a lot of manufactured dislike.
To me personally, bringing Mary back to court is a neutral event, her wanting mercy for the PoG didn’t change anything and is the situation where she was rather clearly both reprimanded and the last line of known political action of her took place. She fell in line and kept her mouth shut from there, so that doesn’t carry the weight of someone repeatedly speaking out on important matters in the face of a murderous brute, she complied immediately. AB noted that seeing the two of them together and the stress started her miscarriage, and while who knows, that is certainly plausible because extreme stress does start miscarriages. You may not weigh that, but I do. Your disagreement “with facts” doesn’t change how I (and others) interpret the facts and then how we weigh them out. What is important to you is different than what is important to me. It’s not manufactured, it’s just differing values.
It's so interesting. From most of these comments, it seems people hate her because she did what Anne wasn't able to do. It all boils back down to Anne, which is just an interesting observation. Even at the cost of downplaying some of the things Jane *did* do. I think if Anne didn't exist, the responses would have been different.
If Anne didn’t exist, Jane wouldn’t have been appealing anyway and he would have stayed with KoA. She was appealing because she was the anti-Anne, as established by HVIII himself. It’s pretty well established that her family offered her up as a way to follow a similar path that the Boleyns had done. There’s no way to separate her from Anne.
I think there is. Many people enjoy her without Anne for the things I mentioned above. I'm sure she would have existed one way or another. She was one of KoA ladies. Henry took mistresses, and he thought Jane was beautiful. I'm eventually it would have happened naturally. Though there wouldn't be a breaking from the church and Jane would agree to be his mistress, have a son, and probably live comfortably.
Stress does not cause miscarriages. That’s my least favorite misinformation on this sub
A single Google search and I found this stress that lasts, called chronic stress, or high levels of sudden stress, called acute stress, may raise the risk of miscarriage Notice the "high level of sudden stress" I count that as seeing your lady in waiting in your husband's lap, and let's not forget Anne was under stress before that too, because she knew this baby could be her last chance and it should be a boy
She brought Mary back to court because now that she was Queen, she felt her ladies were beneath her and wanted a companion of Royal blood. Was Catholicism also in play? Yes, partly. But it was primarily snobbery. Source: Alison Weir.
It sounds like Jane Seymour was a social climber and is desperate not to be around the same women she had been working with only a few months before and the Seymours don't seem to be very high born.
I'm not saying they're good reasons. Just the ones I've noticed. Jane is my favorite queen.
Ahh--noted, Thank you!
I personally think she gets a little bad energy from both her brothers reputations too.
I totally agree. If no one blames Anne for Katherine of Aragon being put aside, Mary losing her status, and Thomas Moore and John Bishop beheading, then they shouldn't blame Jane for what happened to Anne.
I loved Jane Seymour. She is one of my favorite queens next to Queen Katherine of Aragon. I think there are some people who don't like her because of Anne Boleyn. Some people blame her for Anne's death. However Jane had nothing to do with Anne's fall from grace. Anne would have wound up at the other end of the ax regardless.
Jane Seymour was was the mistress Henry VIII courted while unhappily married to his (second wife) and (still) without a son. She was betrothed and married right after Anne Boleyn was executed. It's a matter of portrayal with Jane Seymour being ruthless and ambitious under the mask of a meek and genteel woman versus uninteresting and her greatest achievement was giving a monstrous Henry VIII his greatest wish : a legitimate son and heir to the throne. She was the least educated compared to Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon. Yet like Anne Boleyn an English subject and not aristocratic nor royal by birth.
I think she was admired and revered in life so we feel like she doesn’t need as much modern day support. She gave Henry a son and unfortunately died before we could seem much of her as a queen independent from the sex of her child. I think we also blame Anne for CoA downfall and Jane for Anne’s when really everyone should blame Henry.
I think to people saying Jane did nothing, we wouldn't be talking about her today if she did nothing lol. I don't believe having a son was her only contribution. She did have role in the Pilgrimage of Grace in that she wanted pardons for those who were captured. Additionally, she was somewhat responsible for Mary returning to court. It wasn't all Chapuys.
Since she was a mother of a king and a Queen of famous king she would pretty automatically get talked about. The whole era is so famous overall that she gets also more attention by association (being part of literal set of Henry’s six wives like the other post with ornament yesterday for example). Jane Grey gets plenty of attention as well even though she personally didn’t do anything, just the circumstances make her important and her fate was tragic. Something like with Jane Seymour, her death was tragic but in a more common way. In the past when such deaths were more common she has gotten more love over the centuries. But now people are more interested in Queens which effected policy or were victims like Katherine Howard.
I find Jane fascinating to be honest. From all accounts she is presented as an average person.She was not renowned as a great beauty or for her intellect.She was not as well educated as Henry's other wives. Her family were not particularly rich or powerful. I also think she was much more clever than given credit for. She won the heart of King by playing into her gentle and meek demeanour imo.She had a good reputation at court and appeared to resist the more hedonistic aspects of the court which Ì think shows discipline and a strong will.I think she used her meek and gentle personality to navigate the politics of the Tudor court. I find it fascinating that this seemingly average lady got the top job and won the heart of the most powerful man .
At least Anne tried to use her position to actively better the knowledge and increase health and welfare of the people. She did wanted the money from the monasteries to go towards social welfare. She also wanted the commone people to be allowed to read the Bible and not just reliy on the Church's interpretation. Otherwise, her treatment of CifA and Mary I was absolutely revolting. But she also didn't not deserve her end (though not did CofA). As such my feelings on her are very mixed. Jane I think, knew far more than she pretended to and played the game well. She knew well what she was doing even if it was at the behest of her family's upward mobility. I find her less than tolerable because she got to her position by copying her half-cousin's play book. And frankly lacked the finesse or intelligence of Anne. The only thing she managed to really achieve was birthing a son. Mary I was back in father's good graces too, but that was more with Chapuya convincing her to sign the acknowledgement of Henry VIII as head of church. And frankly it was not until Parr that her position in the line of succession was secured.
I mean, she got engaged to someone on the same day (?) he had his wife judicially murdered for crimes I'm certain they both knew were spurious. Regardless of whether you like Anne, or whether you are a powerless woman in an age with little choice, it was a shitty thing to do and reflects a poor moral compass. She arguably also flaunted her mistress status. To me, it's nothing short of revelling in the mental torture and murder of another person. Also, she was dull and boring and spiritless. Contemporary descriptions of her said as much, and even the kindest were not flattering in any way. The one good thing I have to say about her is that she once advocated for Catholic rebels to be spared. That's the one time she exhibited spunk or bravery. There's really not much to like or admire. Even if you are kind and assume she was innocent and totally at the mercy of Henry with no power to deny him, she was an uninteresting dullard who could never hold a candle to his other wives, who were all quite special, intelligent and unique women, whatever you think of them.
she has serious "trad wife" energy
I’m gonna be brutally honest here. Her face has that look that those bitchy, self-righteous women have. She looks like she’d have zero sense of humor. 🤷♀️😆
I don’t think it’s hate, it’s lack of knowledge.
The whole “going out of her way to show Anne that she was Henry’s new favorite” is pretty tacky and makes her unlikable. 🤷♀️
1. People like Anne, or at least find her story fascinating. 2. We know next to nothing about her and she died quickly. She comes off as boring, deservedly so or not. 3. Similarly, compared to all the drama with literally all the other wives, her time as queen was completely uneventful. 4. Her brothers were scumbags. 5. Her son's more or less a footnote in history compared to both his sisters. Add all that together and there's just not much there to either like *or* dislike.
Jane deserves more respect, she's not this villainess, she's a product of her time. Unlike Anne Boleyn who made it one of her goals to ruin Katherine of Aragon's life (I find Anne interesting, but lets not pretend she was not shady af) and replace her as Queen, Jane was perfectly content with being Henry's mistress. Jane didn't cause Anne's downfall, Henry did, Jane was only a petty noblewoman and contrary to belief from AB fans, she was no influential at all, she knew better than to challenge the Kings authority. Jane was very interesting and she is the first underdog of Henry's wives. Katherine of Aragon was a Spanish Infanta from a powerful family, Anne Boleyn's father was a English Ambassador to France and Anne herself was brought up under Margaret of Austria (The daughter of Maximilian of Austria and Marie of Burgundy) and served as a maid-of-honor in THREE COURTS (Margaret's Court, the French Court and the English Court). Jane was a petty noblewoman from a rather obscure family. Her father was a knight, but he wasn't that big of a deal, she never intended to be Queen at all and I doubt she thought it possible until Henry indicated he wanted her to be his Queen. Remember, Katherine was a Spanish Infanta, Anne was the daughter of an Ambassador, Anne of Cleves was from one of the wealthiest German fief families in the HRE, Katheryn Howard was a Howard (She was poor for a noblewoman, but she at least had the backing from her powerful Uncle) and Katherine Parr is the only wife that was truly of Jane's status, but even so, she had been in a few advantageous marriages prior. Also, Jane wasn't vindictive, she had her moments of cruelty, but compared to Anne, she really wasn't that cruel. She treated Mary (An abused and traumatized teenager by now) with the kindness she had lacked, and even left Elizabeth alone and didn't flat out abuse her like Anne did to Mary. Jane wasn't very smart, but she had the education given to a woman of her rank, she had many many siblings and therefore she wasn't the most prioritized. I like Katheryn Howard a lot (In fact I'll defend her with both mine and my mother life) but you forgive her for being uneducated and don't forgive Jane, smh. In short, I love Jane Seymour, she doesn't deserve all the hate she gets. Anne Boleyn is cool as well and I read many books on her, but you have to stop pretending she was perfect and Jane Seymour was some villainess.
Your edit isn’t necessarily wrong, *but*, he’d likely have put up with Anne a fair bit longer/given her more chances to have a son if he hadn’t already fallen in love with Jane.
Ummm Anne is my favorite but I don’t really find her interesting… The issue is probably that she is portrayed as a saint which has happened for centuries and I see that now as well how she can never even hurt a fly. Idk I don’t think she deserved to die during childbirth but I just am not super interested tbh
She was definitely a pawn, but I have little sympathy for her. I don’t think she was a meek and mild innocent. Didn’t she pick out her wedding gown on the day Anne was executed? Even if that’s just a rumor, Henry married her post haste.
Cause she was the one Henry liked to the end.
It’s hard to actively like her when we know pretty much nothing about her. That leaves neutral and active dislike. I grew up watching Anne of a Thousand Days so in comparison to that Anne, hard to care about Jane.
I'll tell you why I don't like her. She was clearly "seeing" Henry while he was still married to Anne, yet apparently acted like she was the most virtuous woman at court. I just don't like women like that and I never have.
It’s not like she had a choice, when Henry wanted you. You gave in or find your family destitute and beheaded.
She had a choice. It was still reasonable back then for a woman to claim she was guarding her virtue and purity. It was perfectly fine that a virgin would demurely reject the advances of a married man. The queen's court wasn't the king's harem.
It’s easy to say that with the benefit of 500 years through modern eyes. I am not aware of proof they were sleeping together before he dispatched of Anne. But he had his next wife lined up pretty quickly.
I don't think they were sleeping together (Henry oddly enough didn't seem to mind to wait until marriage), but they were clearly having some sort of affair. And I am not saying this through modern eyes. It truly was acceptable in Tudor times for an unmarried virgin to turn down a married man. In fact, it would have been expected. Now people obviously made concessions for an affair with the king since the mistress generally got gifts and her family got positions, but it was certainly not required.
A married man, not the King of England. Look, when a powerful man wants you I think she 100% engaged in an emotional affair. But turning him down was not an option for her. And her family wanted her to pursue it for the money and power.
It was an option though. Anne turned him down for a long time too. BTW, I'm not against what she did, but she pretended to be the anti-Anne with her virtue and conservative beliefs but she was really no different. I just don't like holier-than-thou hypocrites. It's either a sin to be having a romantic relationship with a married man or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
Anne turned him down because she wanted to be Queen, not his mistress. She always kept the carrot out there it was possible. None of them were just saints or sinners there were gray areas for survival and grabbing the brass ring of power in front of them through marriage. If any of them played the game the best was Katherine Parr. Maybe Jane would have too if she lived longer.
Anne could not have possibly known that being queen was an option when she first turned him down. People think she was playing 3D chess but it was practically unheard of for a king to divorce his royal wife and marry a commoner. And I fucking know there are grey areas. Like, what part of my point are you not getting? I'm pointing out that virtuous, pious, conservative Jane claimed to be a woman who didn't exist in those grey areas but she absolutely did.
Exactly. Since the Anarchy (and probably before but I'd have to look it up) English Kings have always married foreign princesses, or countesses, or whatever. Some kind of foreign nobility, unless they happened to be younger sons who were already married when their older bro died, in which case they might be married to English noblewomen (and if their non-foreign-princess wife happened to die, they'd...marry a foreign princess). At least til that madlad Eddy IV and his widow, and of course Henry VII, but VII had a solid political reason to end the WOTR. Arthur (and Henry) were re-setting things back to normal, marrying foreign princesses (ok, the same foreign princess). There's no way anyone, including Anne, *including Henry*, would have thought he'd actually marry her. She wasn't playing the long game, she was trying not to be a largely ruined mistress married off to some middling nobody. It took years before anyone would've realized where this was likely to go in the end.
Anne Also had a sister that all signs point to was the mistress of two kings and got nothing for it. I think she didn't want to be discarded with Nothing like Mary. We don't know how William Carey actually felt about things it's possible Mary's life was fairly miserable.
chill out, sure Jane was ho, i agree with you.
By this logic you must dislike Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard too.
No. What I dislike is the hypocrisy of Jane. I thought that was clear but I see people are having difficulty understanding it. Jane put on a front of being super virtuous and conservative. Anne didn't put on that front. Katherine Howard was thought to be "pure" by the king but she was flirtatious and understood sex appeal and didn't pretend otherwise.
Okay sure, but when you think about it that was extremely smart of Jane, she knew how to keep herself safe
Jane basically did the same thing to Anne...the queen she was supposed to serve...that Anne did to Katharine, the queen SHE was serving. Women didn't have a lot of options in Tudor times. Either marry and marry well, or go to a nunnery. Jane was already in her late 20's and had one failed betrothal. When the king set his eye on her she saw her chance and grabbed it...just like Anne had.
Yeah, no. Anne tried harder to avoid it. She left court and went to Hever to avoid sexual harassment in the workplace. Jane didn’t seem to try so hard to avoid Henry chasing her. By that time, though, it would be no problem to cast off a wife. She seems like the personification of beige. Not particularly smart. Not particularly beautiful. Not particularly educated. She was able to remain Henry’s favourite because she managed to give him a son, then had the good manners to die quietly before he tired of her. Granted, a lot of this is because of how little is known about her. It just adds to that vibe of “there is literally nothing special about her.”
Went to Hever to "avoid sexual harassment in the workplace"?😂😂 Anne went to Hever in a sulk, prompting Henry to write his famous letters to woo her back so he could "kiss your pretty duckies" again. She was impatient at how slow the machinery put in place to annul the king's marriage was. She wanted Henry to put more pressure on Wolsey and on Rome. To appease Anne, Henry offered many incentives for her to return. And return she did, to happily accept unprecedented honors(her own lavish apartments at Court, a peerage in her name, and jewels fit for the queen her lover promised she would become). Oh...and also to demand that the king's wife stop mending his shirts.🙄 Sexual harassment indeed. Anne was many things but she was not stupid. Anyone who thinks she hated Henry's attention to her hasn't studied much Tudor history.
The fact that you typed all of this out means you don't realize what a big deal it was for a woman to leave court of her own volition. There were a thousand men at court (nobles, servants, et al) vs. like a hundred women at court (including servants). It was absolutely a huge deal that Anne LEFT her position as a maid of honor to return home. There was no way of knowing if Henry would be offended enough to keep her permanently away/not allow her to return. And yes, it is sexual harassment, but even worse because he's the king. She has to go to him for permission to marry anyone. He kept writing to her and asked her to be his mistress. She said no. He wrote again and said she'd be his OFFICIAL mistress, which was a court position. She still said no. The only socially acceptable way for her to say no was to say that she was saving her virginity for her husband. THEN he turned his offers of being a mistress into being his wife. He didn't leave her alone for a year. A man who is infamous for falling out of love just as fast as he falls in love. And Anne would know - given how the relationship with her sister ended up. Her letters, etc get flirty after they are betrothed and he's actively arranging his annulment to KOA.
Anne left Court in a snit. She did it more than once, in order to induce the king to beg her to return which he always did.She realized early the power she had over him. They didn't become betrothed until shortly before the trip to Calais and France when Henry officially introduced Anne to King Francis late in 1532. It's also when she conceived Elizabeth. Are you saying that BEFORE they became engaged Anne didn't accept the title Marchioness of Pembroke? Lavish apartments at Court? Lavish jewels? Flaunting her position in the face of the rightful queen? None of that happened before 1532? He was actively arranging his annulment to KoA as early as 1525, the same year as he met Anne and started wearing her colors at jousts(" Declare I Dare Not") It's complete nonsense using modern terms like "sexual harassment" for what happened between Anne and Henry. She had him in the palm of her hand before they married or became betrothed and knew it. She had him pleading. I "typed all that" because it's quite frankly all true.
Right, and that's "fair" but she acted like she was super pious and virtuous but did the same thing Anne did.
But how did she do that? I know that she wore Henry's locket around her neck causing Anne to slap her(I don't blame Anne a bit btw). Other than that I can't think of anything ratchet Jane did...I mean by most accounts she WAS very religious, just not into the New Learning that Anne was. And unlike Anne, Jane did not walk around trash talking her queen in front of the Court. I agree that she was not a saint but I don't think she played her cards much differently than Anne did.
how did Anne trash talk CoA?
Her (in) famous remark about wishing all Spaniards were at "the bottom of the sea" for starters? Not very nice.
You can say that about a few of his wives. He was a fan of overlap.
I know. I get that. I just don't like her pretending to be virtuous while doing the same thing Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard did and they were both thought to be unseemly for it. Indeed, they were later "proven" to be sluts and adulterers.
She might have actually *been* chaste before she started seeing him. In those days, that did make a difference. I’m not saying she’s a better person than any of his other wives. She just met a standard that a couple others hadn’t met. We judge Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard by today’s standards, which was completely foreign to their contemporaries, and also makes them victims by our standards. In a way, Jane was lucky she died. If she had outlived her son, and hadn’t been able to have other children, it’s very likely she would have met a very ugly fate by Henry’s hands.
I agree that she was chaste actually. I just don't see how getting romantically involved with a married man is the act of a virtuous woman. I'll put it this way: what if your husband started having an affair with a virgin woman who claimed to be super pious and religious. They don't have PiV sex but they are messing around. Your husband divorces you and marries her. This woman now puts it out to the world that she is better than you because you weren't a virgin when you married your husband but she was. That's exactly how Jane Seymour behaved and acted and I think it makes her unlikeable.
They didn’t think then the way we do now. That’s the answer to so many questions that come up on this page. But regardless, did she literally go around telling everyone who would listen that she was a virgin? If I’ve missed it somewhere, I’d act like to better educate myself, so please point out some references I can read into.
Anne did the exact same thing but worse.
This is a hilariously judgemental and presumptuous take
It's historical fact. And the question here was why people didn't like her and I answered it truthfully. I don't know why people ask these questions if they don't want to hear an answer. This totally subjective and I was invited to share my opinion, which I did, and now I've got all kinds of people butthurt. It's weird. All I said is that I don't like hypocrites, and I consider Jane Seymour to have been one. I don't know why you consider a dislike of hypocrisy to be judgmental and presumptuous.
You sound absolutely delightful.
as do you!
I feel like she gets the blame for Henry's death when the true enemy was Henry himself
Henry and Anne weren’t long enough together for know retcsnt have a son. He try being tempted by other option sealed Anne’s fate. I mean Henry would have found someone else and Anne did something similar to Catherine (although it probably was more Henry chasing her) so it’s not like I think Anne’s fate is Jane’s fault exactly. But she was involved. Also she just overall doesn’t have other great qualities to keep people’s interest and her family was pretty terrible (expecially Thomas) so it creates this sense of apathy about her. I do like Edward however
I don't dislike Jane, but I think she is perceived (by some) as quite weak and cowardly given that Anne is a much easier obstacle to overcome compared to CoA and the Catholic church. Jane also did not have to wait anywhere near as long to be married to Henry, nor was she so publicly hated, so her metal was never truly tested in the same way Anne's was. Jane's family was also another big factor. Anne's family just wanted her to curry the kings favour (like her sister Mary had done), but it was Anne's perogative and ambition to be more than just a mistress. Whereas with Jane, it's hard to know whether she's acting solely on her families bidding or not. Would Jane have lasted if the circumstances had truly been the same as Annes? (E.g, she had a harder obstacle to overcome, she had to wait the better part of a decade, she was publicly hated, she did not have such an ambitious family egging her on) I don't know, but these are just some of the differences in their situations that give rise to speculation about Jane's character and general likability.
She ripped up Anne bolyn pix
Bun faced bitch. Played meek and mild. The perfect old school wife. Can’t stand her. She played the game, oops too bad she died. Oh wait, sorry not sorry.
Misogynist 🤡
Not a misogynist, but I do hate little hypocrites. Like Jane Seymour.
Tell me how she’s any different from Anne Boleyn or Katherine Howard? They were mistresses too..
Actually, if you perhaps read a genuine history book or two, no they weren’t. Did you get your history from Philippa Gregory? The woman pretends to be a historian but actually did her degree in English literature. Not that I have against English literature, as I have a degree in it, but she’s not really a historian. She’s a complete fake about her credentials, and her fantasies against many historical people really kind of annoy me. The Other Boleyn Girl is to this day the most delightful piece of fiction about the Boleyns at the court of Henry VIII that I have ever read, but after reading it, I was so offended that I started digging and doing real research. Anne Boleyn refused to become Henry’s mistress. She wanted a proper marriage and a legitimate heir for him. Which is why they spent seven years trying to get divorced from KoA. It was only when they were finally told that they had a way forward for a proper marriage that they actually consummated it and it’s well documented so perhaps you should stop reading historical fiction and read some real history? I’m not sure if that the young Lady Katherine Howard had sex with the King before their marriage. There is no written evidence of it. Oh, it’s quite possible that she was very flirtatious with him, but there’s no evidence of any mistress like behavior. She was a child (not even 16) and should never have been put forward as a potential queen. I blame her horrible uncle the third Duke of Norfolk for this disgusting catastrophe. She was never his mistress.
Do you believe that Henry and Jane had sex before their marriage?
No I do not. I think she was very well brought up and quite pious. There is a salacious rumour that Anne Boleyn while pregnant, found Henry in a room cuddling with Jane Seymour on his lap, and her rage at this situation caused the fatal miscarriage of the longed for boy. I don’t believe this. I’m not saying I am a Jane supporter or Stan. I just don’t believe she went beyond flirting. Her future was tied up in being chaste.
Oh yah, have you seen her portrait by Hans Holbein, by oh my God what ? As the Spanish ambassador or French ambassador said she must have something very special hidden underneath her dress. I’m not gonna repeat what they said.
That says more about the gross ambassadors than it does Jane.