Jane Seymour

We asked members of Historic Royal Palaces staff which of Henry VIII's wives as the best. Here, Chief Curator Lucy Worlsley argues that along with being seen as the most important of Henrys wives - for being the only one to provide a son who survived infancy - Jane Seymour is also the most interesting - for achieving the rare feat of preserving her reputation as unquestioned to the very end!

Next year Hampton Court Palace will be home to rarely seen 16th-century portraits of each of the women in Henry VIII's life mother, sisters daughters and wives - and will be joined by evocative objects intimately connected to their fate.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Henry
• VIII
• jane
• seymour
• hampton
• court
• palace

[persephonethemad]

So, there were a lot of factors that could have meant that pregnancies ended in tragedy about then.

Anne Boleyn had good morals, she didn't become Henry's mistress. She was deeply relgious. Anne of Cleves too was a woman of good morality, as was Catherine Parr. The only one that had questionable morals was Katherine Howard, and that was due to her upbringing. But, whatever you say, Jane allowed the death of another woman, of an anointed Queen thats bad morals as far as I'm concerned.

[AndromedaMariaCarmen]

you're not allowed to defend Anne on here, you just get thumbed down!

[peacedesertrose]

@persephonethemad Oh yeah, Anne had really good morals.. manipulative, ambitious and quick tempered. She wanted Catherine and Mary dead lets not forget. She may have been very religious, but at least Jane showed kindness to Mary which Anne never did. And I'm sure Anne would have done exactly the same in Jane's position if Catherine had been executed in order for her to be queen. Anne is very interesting women though, I don't deny that.

[5RoseLilly]

Anyway we should all remember all of Henry The VIII Wives :)))

[EllieMarianna]

@ukcelticpride Only for the son she bore him. 

[EllieMarianna]

@1993frozenkiwi She didn't reunite Elizabeth and Henry. Only Mary. She stepped over both their mother's bodies easily. She wasn't a nice person in my opinion.

[1993frozenkiwi]

Jane did more than spoken about here. She reunited Henry with his children among other things. She could have at least mentioned that!

[LaBoricua2591]

A terrible case. Jane did as she was told because she was terrified of him; he had just put his previous queen to death eleven days before. She's remembered because she had a son, which is something that you don't actually have control over. All those little tricks that Jane pulled on the King she learned from Anne. And the reason why her fate was different than Anne's is because she had a son.

[cardwitch91]

Definately the weakest case for all these videos about the wives. I feel there is more of an argument for the other wives. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were remarkable women. Catheine Howard was tragic and foolish. Katherine Parr managed to get out of a tight spot. Jane is remembered simply for bearing a son. Had Catherine's or Anne's sons lived, they would have been honoured just as much if not more. Had Jane bore a daughter, he'd have buried and forgot her.

[LadyGillian]

VERY weak argument. Jane Seymour was only so favored because Henry ONLY valued her for that son.

Catherine of Aragon gave him a son too, granted that child didn't live long, but it was a male heir. It wasn't until Henry went nuts on the subject of 'must have MALE heir'...

Bessie Blount (sp??) also managed a son, Henry Fitzroy who was later granted an earldom, or something similar - I think at one time there was even talk of marrying off Mary to him despite step status of the 2.,

[BlackCatMargie]

I wonder if Jane would be buried with Henry if she had died giving birth to a girl? Henry was pretty eager to marry Catherine of Aragon too, and, though he may have forgotten it by his later years, they had a happy marriage until it became clear she could not create an heir. I find it ironic that all Henry wanted was to be remembered as the creator of a dynasty, but in the end he was mostly remembered for his marriages.

[ukcelticpride]

Henry and Jane burried together. She must have been his favourite.