Jane and Katherine Grey

 

My article about Ladies Jane and Katherine Grey and their shared experiences of imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1553-4 and 1561-3 respectively has been published by EPOCH Magazine and is available to read here. 

Was Jane Seymour Pregnant in 1536?

 

A hitherto overlooked statement in the Calendar of State Papers, Spain offers intriguing information about Henry VIII's relationship with his third wife, Jane Seymour. Sometime in late 1535 or early in 1536, the king began a liaison with Jane - initially courtly in nature - and married her in May 1536, only eleven days after the execution of his second wife Anne Boleyn. Born in about 1509, Jane had served Anne but there is little evidence concerning her relationship with the king and the circumstances in which it began. It was only in February 1536, for example, that the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys reported the king's 'treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel [sic], to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents'.

Thus, in view of the obscure origins of the relationship, the following report deserves attention. On 26 June 1536 from Rome, a month after the execution of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's marriage to Jane, Dr Ortiz informed Commander Molina that the king had married again, to 'a lady who was already in the family-way by him five or six months ago'. The 'family way' was a term used to describe pregnancy. For example, Chapuys reported in January 1534 that Anne Boleyn 'is now in the family way again, and in a state of health and of an age to have many more children'. Thus, if Ortiz is to be believed, Jane had conceived a child in December 1535/January 1536, several months before her royal marriage.

The suggestion in this report that Jane was the king's mistress in the physical - rather than courtly - sense is interesting in view of her posthumous reputation as a virtuous and chaste figure, allegedly the antithesis of her predecessor, the flirtatious Anne Boleyn. However, other ambassadorial dispatches written shortly before Jane's marriage were similarly ambivalent about her virtues, indicating that Jane's moral, upstanding reputation was not necessarily as widely shared as is generally assumed. On 18 May, the day before Anne's execution, Chapuys wrote to Antoine Perrenot with information about the king's new love, commenting that Jane was of medium height, fair, and 'no great beauty'. He confided his doubts as to whether, having long resided at court, Jane really was a virgin. The ambassador cynically remarked that 'he [Henry] may make a condition in the marriage that she [Jane] be a virgin, and when he has a mind to divorce her he will find enough witnesses'. However, once Jane had become queen and had demonstrated her desire to restore the king's eldest daughter, Mary (daughter of Katherine of Aragon) to Henry's good graces, the ambassador's attitude towards Jane became markedly more positive and complimentary.

It is highly likely, however, that Ortiz was mistaken. There is no evidence that Jane was pregnant as early as December 1535, and such a detail would surely not have escaped the attention of the perceptive, eagle-eyed Chapuys, who keenly watched for any sign that Henry's relationship with Anne was in danger. Ortiz's dispatches, moreover, contain many inaccuracies, based as they are on second- or thirdhand gossip and rumours about the English court; his account of the fall of Anne Boleyn testifies to his limited knowledge of actual events. This is perhaps unsurprising, writing as he was from Rome and thus not in physical proximity to the events he describes. As I have noted elsewhere, ambassadors serving in the royal courts were keenly interested in any sign of a queen's pregnancy. The references to the possible pregnancies of Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour in this blog post, reported by ambassadors, testifies to the envoys' interest in the subject. Similarly, when Henry VIII married for the fifth time in 1540, it was reported in September in Brussels by the Venetian ambassador Francesco Contarini that 'the new Queen Katharine [Howard] is said for certain to be pregnant', a report that echoed the claim of the French ambassador Charles de Marillac in July that Katherine 'is already enceinte'.

Of course, Jane may have been Henry's mistress in the physical sense prior to their wedding in May 1536 and she may have conceived a child, but there is no other evidence to support Ortiz's claim and others, including Chapuys, surely would have reported a pregnancy if it was indeed the case. Chapuys only learned of their relationship in February 1536 and his dispatches suggest that the relationship between Henry and Jane was, at least initially, a courtly one, in which the king sent gifts and letters to his beloved but without the expectation of physical favours. By the spring, however, Henry was determined to set aside Anne and take Jane as his third wife. It is nonetheless interesting that several novelists have explored the idea that Jane conceived a child either before, or during the early months of, her marriage, but which resulted in a miscarriage or stillbirth. Whether or not that was the case, it is indisputable that she gave birth to the future Edward VI on 12 October 1537 at Hampton Court Palace, but the queen tragically died just days later, on 24 October, the only one of Henry's six wives to provide him with a surviving male heir.

The Tudor Consorts 1485–1547

 

Seven women held the office of consort in the period 1485–1547, one of whom as the wife of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, and the following six as the wives of his son and successor, Henry VIII. The consorts are Elizabeth of York, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr. These women have long fascinated scholars and the general public alike, with articles, books, films, television shows and even a musical about their dramatic, and in some cases tragic, lives. This article sets out to provide a brief overview of each consort, with further reading included for those who wish to learn more about the life in question. Briefly, however, it is worth noting that Retha M. Warnicke's Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-Law (2017) is the only extant study of Tudor queenship in this period, and provides an illuminating and in-depth study of Tudor queenship in the period 1485–1547, offering facts not usually available in other works. Alison Weir (1991), Antonia Fraser (1992), David Starkey (2004) and David Loades (2010) have all written works about Henry VIII's six queens.

Elizabeth of York, consort of Henry VII

Born: 11 February 1466, Westminster Palace, London, England

Died: 11 February 1503, Tower of London, London, England (aged 37)

Father: Edward IV 

Mother: Elizabeth Wydeville

Tenure as queen consort of England: 1486–1503 (17 years, 1 month)

Coronation: 25 November 1487

Elizabeth of York was the eldest child of the first Yorkist king, Edward IV, and his consort Elizabeth Wydeville. She was born on 11 February 1466 at Westminster Palace, but had no expectation of ruling England in view of prevailing attitudes to female succession alongside the birth of a number of sons to her parents, including the eldest, Edward (born in 1470). During her childhood, she was briefly betrothed to the Dauphin Charles, son of the king of France, but the marriage did not take place. In 1483, Elizabeth's father died and her uncle, Richard of Gloucester, seized the throne resulting in the deposition of her brother. He and his younger brother, also named Richard, were placed in the Tower of London but their subsequent fate remains a mystery. Elizabeth and her sisters sought sanctuary alongside their mother, but resided at their uncle's court when he reached an agreement with their mother, the dowager queen. Rumours circulated that King Richard intended to marry his niece Elizabeth, in view of reports that Queen Anne was unable to bear children and was in poor health. Some evidence suggests that Elizabeth may have been interested in this match, but the king publicly denied it. Instead, Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, who possessed a somewhat obscure claim to the English throne, schemed with Elizabeth Wydeville for the marriage of Henry to Elizabeth of York. Beautiful, virtuous and pious, Elizabeth became queen of England in January 1486 when she married Henry following his defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Historians have shown that there is no evidence for later allegations of conflict between Elizabeth and her somewhat domineering mother-in-law Lady Margaret. The king and queen had several children, but only four survived to adulthood: Arthur, Margaret, Henry and Mary. Arthur died in April 1502 at the age of fifteen and his mother died ten months later, on her thirty-seventh birthday at the Tower of London, shortly after giving birth to a short-lived daughter Katherine. She was buried at Westminster Abbey and was joined there by her husband when he died seven years later. Elizabeth's only surviving son, Henry, succeeded his father as king of England in 1509 and her two surviving daughters Margaret and Mary became queen consorts of Scotland and France, respectively.

Further reading:

- Amy Licence, Elizabeth of York: the Forgotten Tudor Queen (2013)

- Alison Weir, Elizabeth of York: the First Tudor Queen (2013)

- Arlene Okerlund, Elizabeth of York (2009)

Katherine of Aragon, first consort of Henry VIII

Born: 16 December 1485, Archiepiscopal Palace of Alcala de Henares, Alcala de Henares, Kingdom of Castile

Died: 7 January 1536, Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire, England (aged 50)

Father: Ferdinand II of Aragon

Mother: Isabella I of Castile

Tenure as queen consort of England: 1509–1533 (23 years, 11 months)

Coronation: 24 June 1509

The youngest daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, Katherine (born in 1485) was betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, in childhood and was thus educated as befitted a queen consort of England. A devout Roman Catholic, Katherine studied a range of subjects including philosophy, theology, history, arithmetic and classical and canon law, and learned languages such as French and Latin. She also acquired experience in domestic skills such as embroidery and sewing. In the summer of 1501, the fifteen-year-old Katherine travelled to England to wed Arthur and their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in November. Whether the young couple consummated their union or not has remained a subject of controversy for the last five hundred years. Tragically, Arthur died the following spring at Ludlow Castle on the borders of Wales, where Katherine was residing with him. Subsequently the English and Spanish monarchs arranged that Katherine would marry Arthur's younger brother, Henry, now heir to the English throne. Ferdinand's procrastination over paying the remainder of his daughter's dowry, however, led to the marriage being postponed while Katherine lived in difficult conditions at Durham House in London. When Henry VII died in 1509, his eighteen-year-old son elected to marry Katherine and the couple were crowned at Westminster Abbey in June. Katherine presided over a court of culture and learning and was appointed regent of England when her husband went to war with France in 1513. When the Scots invaded that year, the queen ordered Thomas Lovell to raise an army in the Midlands and the English army triumphed at the Battle of Flodden. 

During her marriage, Katherine was pregnant at least six times but only one child survived, Mary (born in 1516). Like many of his contemporaries, Henry doubted whether a female could successfully rule England and by 1527 believed that his marriage to Katherine had displeased God by virtue of their lack of surviving sons. He was also in love with Anne Boleyn, who served in Katherine's household. The king argued that Katherine's marriage to Arthur in 1501 had been consummated, thus making her subsequent union with Henry invalid according to Biblical law. The queen, however, claimed that she and Arthur had never consummated their marriage. The struggle for an annulment of the Aragon marriage endured for six years, but in 1532 or 1533 Henry married Anne Boleyn in secret and in May, Archbishop Cranmer pronounced the Aragon marriage null and void, rendering the queen's daughter Mary illegitimate and unable to succeed her father. By then banished from court, Katherine resided in a range of residences including The More, Ampthill Castle and Buckden Towers, before spending the final years of her life at Kimbolton Castle, where she died on 7 January 1536, perhaps of cancer, having never accepted her husband's decision to annul their marriage. She was buried at Peterborough Abbey (now Cathedral); her daughter Mary became England's first queen regnant in July 1553.

Further reading:

- Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (1941)

- Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen (2010)

- Amy Licence, Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True Wife (2016)

Anne Boleyn, second consort of Henry VIII

Born: Between 1500 and 1507 probably at Blickling Hall, Norfolk or Hever Castle, Kent, England

Died: 19 May 1536, Tower of London, London, England (aged 28–36)

Father: Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire

Mother: Lady Elizabeth Howard

Tenure as queen consort of England: 1533–1536 (3 years)

Coronation: 1 June 1533

The most famous of Henry VIII's six wives, Anne Boleyn was born between 1500 and 1507. The majority of modern historians favour a birth date of circa 1501, but evidence from her daughter's lifetime supports the later birth date, especially in view of prevailing court customs that decreed that maidens of honour did not receive instruction in languages. It is also questionable why the ambitious Thomas Boleyn would have been content for his daughter to remain unmarried between 1523 and 1527 if she were as old as twenty-seven in the latter year. Anne is thought to have been born at Blickling Hall in Norfolk or perhaps Hever Castle in Kent, although some of her later relatives believed that she had been born in London. Whether she was older or younger than her sister Mary and brother George continues to remain controversial. If born in 1507, Anne was probably the youngest surviving child. In 1513, she was sent to the court of Margaret of Austria in the Low Countries; traditionally thought to have served as a maiden of honour, as noted earlier it was not the custom for maidens to receive an education while they were fulfilling her duties. The following year, Anne wrote a letter to her father in poor French, indicating that she could not speak the language and so would not have been capable of fulfilling the duties of a maiden of honour. Perhaps she initially resided in the royal nursery and served as a maiden at a later date. In 1514, she attended Henry VIII's sister Mary when she married Louis XII of France and later served Claude of France, wife of Francois I. Anne acquired a thorough knowledge of French culture and developed her talents in dancing, music and singing. Her evangelical faith may also have originated in France. In 1521 or 1522, she returned to England to wed James Butler to settle a dispute between the Boleyn and Butler families concerning the earldom of Ormond, but the marriage never took place. Anne fell in love with, and hoped to marry, Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland, in 1523, but the couple were prevented from marrying due to the wishes of the king and Cardinal Wolsey and Anne was banished from court, remaining at Hever until 1526 or 1527, when she returned probably in the capacity of maiden of honour to Katherine of Aragon. 

Contemporaries described her as being of medium height, with long dark hair, brown or black eyes and a swarthy complexion. Her detractors slandered her as being deformed, while others noted her beauty and elegance. In 1531 she was described as being both 'young' and 'good-looking'; such references to Anne's youth in the late 1520s and early 1530s provide further evidence of a birth in 1507, rather than as early as 1500/1. In 1527, Henry fell passionately in love with the sophisticated and charming Anne, and proposed marriage to her. The couple, however, wed only in late 1532 or early 1533 on account of the long struggle to annul the Aragon marriage. Anne was crowned queen on 1 June 1533, already pregnant, and gave birth to her only surviving child, Elizabeth, on 7 September. Two further pregnancies resulted in a probable stillbirth (in 1534) and in a miscarriage (in 1536). The king and queen's relationship was stormy, punctuated by periods of bitter quarrels and subsequent reconciliation. Many of the king's subjects refused to accept Anne as queen and she was regularly slandered as a whore or prostitute. The marriage was also never recognised in Europe as valid. 

Anne exerted significant influence at court, especially in advancing the evangelical faith, and was outspoken on political and religious matters. Despite her influence, the royal couple's lack of a son endangered Anne's security. The queen's precarious position worsened in early 1536 when her husband fell in love with her attendant Jane Seymour. In May, four months after a miscarriage, Anne was accused of treason, adultery and incest with five men, including her brother, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Historians continue to debate the reasons for the queen's downfall; suggestions include that a coup was masterminded by Thomas Cromwell to remove Anne and her 'faction' from power; that her husband had grown to hate her and was desperate to marry Jane; that she actually was guilty of the charges; that she gave birth to a deformed foetus, convincing her husband that she was a witch; and that her own incriminating behaviour and conversations in the spring of 1536 created a climate of suspicion and distrust of her loyalty to the king. Irrespective of the reason, most historians believe that she and the men accused with her were not guilty of the charges. All were found guilty and the men were executed on 17 May, the date on which Anne's marriage to Henry was annulled, probably on account of his earlier liaison with the queen's sister Mary. Anne was beheaded within the walls of the Tower of London two days later, the first English queen to suffer execution, and her remains were interred at the Tower chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Her daughter, Elizabeth, became queen of England in 1558.

Further reading:

- Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (2004)

- Retha M. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (1989)

- G. W. Bernard, Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions (2010)

- Susan Bordo, The Creation of Anne Boleyn (2013)

- Alison Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn (2009)

Jane Seymour, third consort of Henry VIII

Born: About 1509 probably at Wolfhall, Wiltshire, England

Died: 24 October 1537, Hampton Court Palace, London, England (aged about 28)

Father: Sir John Seymour

Mother: Margery Wentworth

Tenure as queen consort of England: 1536–1537 (1 year, 5 months)

Coronation: Never crowned

On 30 May 1536, Jane Seymour became the third wife of Henry VIII when she married him at Whitehall Palace in London. The eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth, Jane was probably born in about 1509, for twenty-nine female mourners are alleged to have participated in her funeral procession, suggesting that when she died, she had been in her twenty-ninth year. The imperial ambassador also described her as being over 25 in 1536. Jane is thought to have served Katherine of Aragon as a maiden of honour, but the evidence is patchy and it is uncertain when she arrived at court. She later attended Anne Boleyn, although she is thought to have remained loyal to the former queen. There is little, if any, evidence for the oft-repeated assertion that Jane revered Katherine of Aragon and later modelled her queenship on that of Katherine's. She received a traditional education as a child, in which she learned skills such as embroidery, housewifery, sewing and needlework, but she was never described as possessing linguistic or musical ability. Jane may have been betrothed to William Dormer, but if so, the marriage took place and by early 1536, at the age of twenty-seven, Jane remained unwed. Henry VIII began courting her that year, perhaps with a view to taking her as his mistress, but Jane, who seems to have been coached by her family, refused the king's proposal. The turbulence of the Boleyn marriage, and the king's lack of sons by the queen, coupled with his interest in Jane, sealed Anne's fate and led to Jane becoming queen of England in May 1536. She was described as being pale and fair, but not beautiful, and while some observers praised her good sense and placid nature, others thought that she was haughty. Jane was never crowned queen due to an outbreak of plague in the capital. Her household was conservative in dress and behaviour, and she exerted little political influence, although she did intercede for the king's daughter Mary and father and daughter were reconciled in 1536. When Jane did attempt to speak out for the abbeys, which the king planned to dissolve in order to seize their revenues, she was brutally warned not to meddle in political matters if she wished to avoid the fate of her predecessor. 

In early 1537, the queen conceived a child and on 12 October, at Hampton Court Palace, she gave birth to the king's much-desired son, who was named Edward. Tragically, Jane died twelve days later at the age of about 28, perhaps of puerperal fever or an infection from a retained placenta. She was buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor, and her husband was interred there next to her when he died in 1547. 

Further reading:

- Pamela Gross, Jane, the Quene (1999)

- Elizabeth Norton, Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love (2009)

Anne of Cleves, fourth consort of Henry VIII

Born: June 1515 in Dusseldorf, Duchy of Berg, Holy Roman Empire

Died: 16 July 1557, Chelsea Old Manor, London, England (aged 42)

Father: John III, duke of Cleves

Mother: Maria of Julich-Berg

Tenure as queen consort of England: 1540 (6 months)

Coronation: Never crowned

Jane Seymour's death in 1537 led Henry VIII and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell to seek a bride from one of the royal houses of Europe. Various candidates were proposed, including Marie of Guise and Christina of Denmark, but the king's desire for an alliance with Cleves - in view of England's isolation and the threat from France and Spain, who were then allies - led him to favour a match with Anne, daughter of John III, duke of Cleves. Anne had initially been betrothed to Francis of Lorraine. Her education was traditional in nature, but she does not seem to have acquired instruction in music and was not viewed as being sophisticated. She was described by observers as attractive, with long fair hair and with a tall, slim build. In 1539 she departed for England in readiness for her marriage to Henry, whom she met for the first time at Rochester Abbey on New Year's Day 1540. The king and a few of his attendants adopted a courtly love convention in which they visited Anne in disguise. Henry was disappointed with Anne, perhaps because she had allegedly 'regarded him little' since she may not have known who he was on account of his disguise. The king also complained that she was 'nothing so fair as she hath been reported', but it is a myth that he described her as a Flanders mare, a claim which dates from a later period. The couple married at Greenwich Palace on 6 January 1540, but the marriage was never consummated and Anne was never crowned. By the spring of that year, Henry was passionately in love with Anne's maiden of honour, Katherine Howard, and international politics, namely the renewal of conflict between France and Spain, meant that the Cleves alliance was no longer welcome or necessary. The king believed that Anne was not legally his wife on account of her earlier precontract to Francis of Lorraine. The marriage was annulled in July and Thomas Cromwell, who had helped to arrange the Cleves marriage, was executed for treason. Anne received a generous settlement; her properties included Richmond Palace and Hever Castle. It is a myth that she was the luckiest of Henry VIII's six queens, for she would not have viewed the situation that way: Anne hoped to be reinstated as queen and when Henry married for the final time to Katherine Parr, she was described as being disappointed and disparaged the new queen's appearance. In some sense Henry was Anne's protector and, after his death, her life became increasingly complicated. She experienced conflict between her servants in her household and confided to her brother that she felt like a stranger in England. When her stepdaughter Mary became queen of England in 1553, Anne congratulated her and participated in the queen's coronation procession. She seems to have lost royal favour the following year on account of her close association with her other stepdaughter Elizabeth, who was implicated in Wyatt's Rebellion, and because she was thought to have intrigued on Elizabeth's behalf during the rebellion. Anne died on 16 July 1557 at Chelsea Old Manor, probably of cancer, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. 

Further reading:

- Heather Darsie, Anna, Duchess of Cleves: The King's Beloved Sister (2019)

- Retha M. Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves. Royal Protocol in Early Modern England (2000)

- Elizabeth Norton, Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Discarded Bride (2009)

Katherine Howard, fifth consort of Henry VIII

Born: Between 1523 and 1525 probably in Lambeth, London, England

Died: 13 February 1542, Tower of London, London, England (aged 17–19)

Father: Lord Edmund Howard

Mother: Joyce Culpeper

Tenure as queen consort of England: 1540–1541 (1 year, 4 months)

Coronation: Never crowned

Katherine Howard was the youngest wife of Henry VIII. She was a younger daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, and was the granddaughter of Thomas, second duke of Norfolk and a niece of Thomas, third duke of Norfolk. She and Anne Boleyn were first cousins, for Anne was the daughter of Edmund's sister Elizabeth. Katherine's date of birth is unknown, but contemporary - albeit fragmentary - evidence indicates that she was born between 1523 and 1525. Certainly she was a teenager when she captivated the ageing king in late 1539 or early 1540. At some point between 1531 and 1536, Katherine was sent to reside in the household of her step-grandmother Agnes, dowager duchess of Norfolk. She began receiving music lessons in 1536, perhaps with a view to serving as maiden of honour to Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour. That she only began receiving music lessons that year is a further clue to her age, for if born as early as 1520/1 these surely would have taken place earlier with a view to acquiring a place in the queen's household. In the midst of these lessons her music master Henry Manox seduced her, although the two did not have sexual intercourse. She later noted that Manox had beseeched her to grant him sexual favours 'at the flattering and fair persuasions of Manox, being but a young girl'. By 1538, Katherine was involved in a liaison with Francis Dereham, a secretary to the dowager duchess, and rumours circulated in the household that the two hoped to marry. Dereham, born between 1506 and 1509, was then aged between twenty-nine and thirty-two, and Katherine was aged between thirteen and fifteen. It is possible, though uncertain, that Dereham coerced her. By 1539, however, their relationship had ended on account of Katherine's appointment to the household of Anne of Cleves. 

An unknown Spanish chronicler later described Katherine as the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. She was elegant, charming and generous, although other contemporaries described her as willful and imperious. Upon her arrival at court, Henry VIII fell headily in love with the teenaged Katherine and the two married on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace. Katherine fulfilled her duties as queen successfully, acting as a patron and intercessor on a number of occasions, and court observers described the king's hope that his new queen would bear a son. Rumours circulated throughout Katherine's queenship that she was pregnant, but if so, she never gave birth to a living child. Like Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, Katherine was never crowned, although it was rumoured that she would be crowned in York during the royal couple's progress to the north of England. By the spring of 1541, however, Katherine's life became complicated. Her former suitor Dereham arrived at court, hoping to serve in her household, and soon began boasting of his former relations with the queen. Dereham's aggressive and possessive attitude towards Katherine placed both individuals in danger. At the same time, Katherine began secretly meeting with Thomas Culpeper, a favoured courtier, with the aid of Lady Rochford, sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn. Culpeper was described as handsome but he had a dark reputation as an alleged rapist.

Traditionally, the queen and Culpeper are thought to have had a sexual affair, but both parties denied it. A letter written by Katherine to Culpeper probably in July 1541, usually described as a love letter, instead indicates that she desired him to keep his promise to her, but it remains uncertain what she was referring to. Perhaps the couple were in love, but it is also possible that in a climate of tension and intrigue at court, in which Dereham had recklessly boasted of his former liaison with the queen, that Culpeper had learned of Katherine's background and used it against her in order to win favours and attention. In support of this theory is the fact that Katherine gave him gifts and met with him regularly while chaperoned by Lady Rochford. It is possible that the promise which Katherine referred to in her letter concerned Culpeper's promise not to reveal her past to the king. She also warned him to beware revealing their meetings during his confessions to priests in case Henry VIII, by virtue of his position as head of the Church in England, somehow learned of their liaisons. Irrespective of the nature of their meetings, Katherine behaved recklessly since contemporary customs warned women not to meet secretly with men who were not their husbands. It is also questionable why she did not learn from the experiences of her cousin and predecessor Anne Boleyn, whose allegedly indiscreet conversations had led to her downfall and execution in 1536.

In November 1541, Archbishop Cranmer learned of Katherine's past when John Lascelles, whose sister Mary had resided in the dowager duchess of Norfolk's household alongside Katherine, revealed that the queen had been involved with two men prior to her marriage to the king. The queen and her household were subsequently investigated and the privy councillors eventually learned of her secret meetings with Culpeper in the spring and summer of that year. The distraught king refused to see Katherine and moved away from court. In December, Dereham and Culpeper were executed for treason and in February of the following year, Katherine and Lady Rochford were beheaded at the Tower of London, having been found guilty of treason by an Act of Attainder, thus denying them the right to stand trial. Contrary to popular belief, the queen was not found guilty of adultery but was indicted for intending to commit adultery with Culpeper, which constituted a treasonous offence. Both women were praised for their godly conduct on the scaffold, in which they praised the king and beseeched onlookers to pray for them. After the executions, their remains were interred at the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Katherine was aged seventeen to nineteen years when she was executed. 

Further reading:

- Conor Byrne, Katherine Howard: Henry VIII's Slandered Queen (2019)

- Gareth Russell, Young and Damned and Fair: The Life and Tragedy of Catherine Howard at the Court of Henry VIII (2017)

- Josephine Wilkinson, Katherine Howard: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII's Fifth Queen (2016)

- Retha M. Warnicke, Wicked Women of Tudor England (2012)

- Lacey Baldwin Smith, A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard (1961)

Katherine Parr, sixth consort of Henry VIII

Born: 1512 probably in Blackfriars, London, England

Died: 5 September 1548, Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, England (aged 36)

Father: Sir Thomas Parr

Mother: Maud Green

Tenure as queen consort of England: 1543–1547 (3 years, 6 months)

Coronation: Never crowned

Katherine was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Parr and Maud Green, and was probably born in the summer of 1512 in Blackfriars, London. Her father was a favoured companion of Henry VIII and her mother served in the household of Katherine of Aragon, for whom Katherine Parr was probably named. Katherine acquired an excellent education, which included the learning of languages such as French and Latin, and in 1529, aged seventeen, she married Sir Edward Burgh of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Her husband died in 1533 and Katherine probably resided for a time at Sizergh Castle in Westmorland with the Dowager Lady Strickland, the widow of Katherine's cousin Sir Walter Strickland. The following year, Katherine married for the second time to John Neville, Baron Latimer, and acted as stepmother to his two children John and Margaret. In 1537, during the Pilgrimage of Grace, Katherine and her stepchildren were held hostage by the rebels at Snape Castle in Yorkshire. Her husband had been compelled the previous autumn to join the rebellion, and had been threatened with violence if he refused. However, Latimer's involvement in the rebellion led the king and Cromwell to suspect him of being a traitor, and it is possible that Katherine's brother William and their uncle (also named William) intervened for his life as a result. In 1543, Latimer died and at the age of thirty-one, Katherine was once more a widow.

She seems to have fallen in love with Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of the late Queen Jane, but while residing at court, she caught the attention of Henry VIII and the couple were married at Hampton Court Palace on 12 July of that year. Katherine's later correspondence indicates that she had not willingly agreed to marry the king, but felt that God had called her to be queen of England in order to advance true religion. It is a myth that she acted as a nursemaid to her ageing and infirm husband. Katherine was an educated, cultured and elegant queen consort who was known for her love of art, music and fashion. Like Katherine of Aragon, she was made regent of England in 1544 when the king left England to campaign in France. Katherine became close to her three stepchildren Mary, Elizabeth and Edward, and scholars have conjectured that her influence on Elizabeth, in particular, was significant. Katherine possessed a devout religious faith and wrote a number of religious works including The Lamentation of a Sinner (published after her husband's death). She enjoyed reading and discussing scripture with the ladies of her Privy Chamber. However, her adherence to the reformed faith led the conservatives at court, masterminded by Bishop Stephen Gardiner and Lord Wriothesley, to plot against her. Her own outspoken views increasingly alienated the king, and rumours began circulating that Henry planned to marry for the seventh time to the queen's friend Katherine, duchess of Suffolk. Whether there was any truth to these rumours remains uncertain.

In the summer of 1546, shortly after the burning of the heretic Anne Askew, who was thought to have links to some of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, a warrant was drawn up for the queen's arrest on charges of heresy. Fortunately for Katherine, a servant caught sight of the warrant and warned her in time. She convinced the king of her loyalty by claiming that she had only discussed religion with him as a distraction from the suffering caused by his ulcered leg. Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547 and his wife, now queen dowager, retired from court. The queen's swift remarriage to Thomas Seymour, probably in that spring, caused a scandal. In particular, her stepdaughter Mary was reported to be displeased by Katherine's actions. The dowager queen also experienced conflict with the Lord Protector on account of her jewels, since he and his wife argued that Katherine was no longer entitled to wear them.   

In the spring of 1548, Katherine conceived a child for the first time. However, her husband's reckless behaviour with her stepdaughter Elizabeth, who was residing with her stepmother, created a scandal in the household, and Elizabeth was dismissed as a result. On 30 August, the dowager queen gave birth to a daughter, Mary, but Katherine died only six days later from puerperal (or childbed) fever. Her daughter is thought to have died in infancy. Katherine was buried at St. Mary's Chapel in the grounds of Sudeley Castle, and remains the only English queen buried on private ground. Thomas Seymour was executed for treason the following March.

Further reading:

- Susan James, Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen (1999)

- Linda Porter, Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr (2010)

- Susan James, Catherine Parr: Henry VIII's Last Love (2010)

The Tudor Consorts

This article has sought to provide a brief biography of each of the seven Tudor consorts, alongside offering a list of recommended works for readers interested in learning more about them. Their lives continue to remain fascinating for modern audiences.

13 November 1553: The Trials of Queen Jane, Archbishop Cranmer, and the Dudley Brothers

At London's Guildhall on 13 November 1553, five individuals were tried for high treason: Lady Jane Grey, the so-called 'Nine Days Queen'; her husband Guildford Dudley; his brothers Ambrose and Henry; and Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer was charged with helping to seize the Tower for Jane and of levying troops for the duke of Northumberland's expeditionary force against Mary I (Northumberland himself had been executed in August that year). The beleaguered archbishop allegedly 'openly confessed his crime', although he himself later clarified that he had 'confessed more... than was true'. 

The Guildhall was the venue of several notable treason trials during the Tudor period. Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper, the reputed lovers of Katherine Howard, were tried and convicted at the Guildhall in 1541, while Anne Askew was tried for heresy at the same venue five years later. The five tried on 13 November 1553 proceeded from the Tower of London through the streets on foot to the Guildhall. Lady Jane - or Queen Jane; her exact title continues to rouse debate - was dressed in a sombre gown of black cloth and a black French hood. 

The commission was headed by the lord mayor, Sir Thomas White. Eric Ives notes that the commission was 'overwhelmingly Catholic in sentiment', which was surely a calculated move on Queen Mary's part, as a sign of the new order that was to be a feature of her reign. The 'Nine Days Queen' was charged with taking possession of the Tower, alongside her husband, and 'signing various writings'. In short, she had unlawfully usurped the sovereign's authority. 

All five were found guilty of high treason. The four men were sentenced to suffer a traitor's death: hanging, drawing and quartering. Jane was sentenced to be burned alive or beheaded according to the Queen's pleasure. The teenager faced news of her sentence bravely; she was sustained during those bleak months of imprisonment by her devout reformist faith. No date was given for the executions, and it appears that Queen Mary was, at least initially, willing to show mercy to the defendants, with the exception of Cranmer. 

The outbreak of rebellion in early 1554, however, changed that. Whether or not she was pressured by the Spanish envoys, with the promise of marriage to Philip of Spain, or by her Privy Council, Mary elected to order the executions of Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey, for she feared that her security would be compromised as long as they remained alive and a focus for reformers. On 12 February, Guildford and Jane were executed. Both died bravely. Jane was subsequently represented in cultural works as an innocent victim of her scheming parents, or as a virtuous Protestant martyr. Guildford was viewed with sympathy by his contemporaries, but modern writers tend to depict him negatively as an abusive, weak-willed and vicious adolescent, a portrayal that is essentially fictional in basis.

Ambrose and Henry, Guildford's brothers, were more fortunate. Ambrose was released from the Tower in late 1554 and went on to serve Elizabeth I as her Master of the Ordnance. In 1561, he was created earl of Warwick. He died in 1590. His younger brother Henry participated with Ambrose in several tournaments held by Philip of Spain, as a demonstration of Anglo-Spanish amity. Henry participated in the Battle of St. Quentin in 1557, where he died. Archbishop Cranmer fared less well. He was tried for heresy in 1555 and went to the stake on 21 March 1556. 

Almost A King: Lord Guildford Dudley

Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the duke of Northumberland, is not usually depicted positively either in fiction or non-fiction. Often, Guildford is presented as a weak-willed, snivelling adolescent who sobbed on the scaffold, or as an abusive sociopath capable of bullying his gentle wife, Lady Jane Grey. In her study of the so-called nine days queen, Hester Chapman described Guildford as 'a spoilt, conceited and disagreeable young man', while in her novel Innocent Traitor, Alison Weir portrayed Guildford as a vicious abuser who mistreated Jane on their wedding night.

Guildford, who married Jane in 1553, could have become king of England, had events turned out differently. Little is known of him, but it is likely that he was well educated and was brought up to favour the reformist faith. It is possible that he was younger than his wife Jane, who was probably born in the spring of 1537. The Dudleys had a newborn son in March 1537, while one of Guildford's godfathers, Diego de Mendoza, visited England between the spring of 1537 and the summer of 1538. Thus making it likely that Guildford was born in 1537 or 1538 and inherently probable that he was younger than his wife. According to Grafton, Guildford was 'a comely, virtuous and godly gentleman'.

In the spring of 1553, Guildford married Jane Grey, the cousin of Edward VI. For the Dudleys, the Grey marriage was a notable triumph, for it allied them with the ducal house of Suffolk as well as to the Tudor dynasty. There is no evidence that John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, schemed to marry his son to Jane as part of his plan to have Jane made queen in the wake of Edward VI's death. Traditionally, it has been reported that Jane was bullied into marrying Guildford by her scheming family; some alleged that she had been physically beaten until she had submitted to the will of her parents. These stories are questionable. Certainly there is no evidence that she objected to Guildford on personal terms, although it could be said that the duke and duchess of Suffolk, Jane's parents, might have hoped for a more noble bridegroom for their daughter. After all, rumours had circulated in some quarters that Edward VI himself hoped to marry Jane. Once it became apparent that the king's demise was imminent, the Dudleys surely realised that Guildford might very well become king of England as the husband of Queen Jane, if the coup against Mary Tudor succeeded.

Above: Lady Jane Grey. After her marriage, Jane referred to herself as 'Lady Jane Dudley'. There is no evidence that she objected to the marriage with Guildford on personal grounds.

Unfortunately for both the Greys and the Dudleys, Mary Tudor was highly popular in the country at large, and following Edward VI's death on 6 July, the displaced Mary immediately acted to ensure that she was accepted, and then crowned, as England's queen. Jane had arrived at the Tower of London shortly after the king's death, and she was presented with the crown jewels by the Marquess of Winchester. Reportedly, Jane explained that she did not wish her husband to be presented with a crown, because she wished to make him a duke, rather than honour him with the title of king consort. This was not because of personal feelings on her behalf, given that she was 'loving of my husband'. Indeed, after her marriage Jane consistently referred to herself as 'Lady Jane Dudley'. On 19 July, the last day of her 'reign', Jane acted as godmother to a son born to one of the Tower guards. The child was named Guildford.

Mary Tudor took the throne with triumph. Eric Ives and Leanda de Lisle have explained, in detail, how Mary seized the throne from Jane; whether or not she should be viewed as the rightful queen and Jane the usurper, or vice versa, continues to be disputed. On 22 August, Guildford's father, the duke of Northumberland, was executed. Three months later, both Jane and Guildford were tried and found guilty of treason, but the queen made known her wish that the two prisoners should be spared death. 

However, Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion in early 1554, which involved Jane's father, sealed the fates of both Jane and Guildford. Both wrote letters to the duke; Guildford signed himself 'youre lovyng and obedynent son', while Jane described herself as 'youre gracys humble daughter Jane Duddley'. On the day of their execution, 12 February 1554, it is reported that Guildford wished to see Jane one last time, 'desiring to give her the last kisses, and the last embrace'. Jane refused, however, because 'their sight would increase the misery in both, and bring much more suffering'. After their deaths, Jane believed, they would 'live perpetually joined in an indissoluble bond'.

Evidence suggests that Guildford, at  the age of only fifteen or sixteen, went to his death with dignity. He made a short, unrecorded speech on the scaffold and prayed without losing control of his emotions. No mention, in this contemporary account, of Guildford's supposed sobbing in the moments before his execution. 

Lord Guildford Dudley has traditionally been viewed as a weak-willed, vicious adolescent, who was loathed by his gentle, victimised wife Lady Jane Grey. There is no evidence of this, and the couple's closeness and loyalty to one another emerges from the sources even during the last hours of their lives. Had the events of the summer of 1553 gone differently, had Jane been blessed by fortune, Guildford could have become king of England as the husband of Jane I. It was not to be, and history has not been kind to him in the centuries since his passing. 

Remembering Lady Jane Grey

On 12 February 1554, Lady Jane Grey was executed within the walls of the Tower of London. Three months earlier, she and her husband Guildford Dudley had been found guilty of high treason. They had unlawfully usurped the throne from the rightful queen, Mary I. Traditionally, historians presented Lady Jane as an unwilling innocent, a much wronged young girl who had no desire whatsoever to be Queen of England. Recent research has disproved this legend. In actuality, Lady Jane was an intelligent, stubborn and resilient woman who was fiercely devoted to her Protestant faith. She regarded herself as appointed by God to rule England, and she likely regarded her Catholic cousin Mary Tudor as ungodly, even abominable in the eyes of God. He had chosen Jane to be Queen, and she believed it was her destiny to be sovereign of England.

Having been selected as Edward VI's heir, Jane was proclaimed queen in July 1553. As is well known, Jane's regime collapsed within days, and Mary was declared queen on 19 July. Jane's trial followed in November, and although she and her husband were found guilty, Queen Mary showed no desire to have them put to death. However, the outbreak of rebellion in early 1554, motivated by dislike of Mary's decision to marry Philip of Spain, coupled with the decision to reinstate the medieval heresy laws, sealed Jane's fate. Her own father was involved in the plot against the queen, and he followed Jane to the scaffold a few days after her own death. A courageous and resourceful young woman, Jane accepted her fate and bravely prepared for death.

Above: The traditional view of Lady Jane Grey, as portrayed in Paul Delaroche's nineteenth-century painting, as a wronged innocent.

Guildford Dudley was executed on the morning of 12 February 1554 on Tower Hill, where his father, the duke of Northumberland, had died the previous August. Guildford was himself still a teenager, perhaps no more than nineteen years old, and has been the victim of notable slanders. Modern historians have usually depicted him as a snivelling, weak-willed and vicious adolescent, loathed by Jane, but Leanda de Lisle's research questions whether this portrayal is accurate, as no contemporary source describes Guildford in such a negative way. Whatever the truth of Guildford's character, his end was tragic. Like Jane, he was the victim of his father's plotting, and he duly resigned himself to his fate. His wife was confronted by the sight of her husband's headless corpse, the fabric stained with his blood, returning on a cart from Tower Hill. She knew that her own demise was imminent.

Shortly afterwards, around ten in the morning, Lady Jane Grey walked out of her apartments and mounted the scaffold that had been built within the walls of the Tower. Onlookers commented on her braveness and her piety. Two versions of her scaffold speech survive, both of which confirm that she acknowledged that she was to die under the law, having been condemned by it. She confirmed that she had offended the queen and had behaved unlawfully. Most importantly, particularly for her posthumous reputation, Jane proclaimed that she died a true Christian woman, and looked to be saved only by Christ's mercy. This confirmed her commitment to the Protestant faith, for Catholics traditionally believed that good works also played an important part in one's salvation. She then asked the onlookers to pray for her.

Above: Queen Mary I, who ordered her cousin Lady Jane Grey's execution in February 1554.

Lady Jane's female attendants then helped her off with her gown and gave her a handkerchief to use as a blindfold. Groping about in the dark, she could not find the scaffold, and cried, "Where is it? What shall I do?" Someone came forward to guide her and she rested her head upon the block. Mercifully, she was decapitated with one blow, probably just a few months short of her seventeenth birthday. Her remains were interred in the nearby chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. With her passing, Lady Jane Grey's story became the stuff of legend. In Protestant works, most notably John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, she was depicted as a pious, virtuous Protestant maiden who had died for her faith, condemned by the cruel Catholic tyrant, Mary I. Victorian historians depicted her as an innocent victim of her grasping, scheming family, and portrayed Jane's mother, Lady Frances Brandon, as a tyrannical woman and an abusive mother. Modern historians have usually followed this version of events. But modern research has demonstrated that reality was more complex. Lady Jane Grey was far more than merely an innocent child, and there is no contemporary evidence to suggest that Frances was cruel to her daughters.

Lady Jane Grey remains, in many respects, a mystery. Her beheading was the first of several calamities to befall the Grey family. Her father followed her to the scaffold only eleven days after her own death; like her, he was executed as a traitor to his queen. In spite of this, Jane's mother, Frances, remained close to Queen Mary, and her younger daughters Catherine and Mary were resident at court. However, Elizabeth I's accession proved to be the final undoing of the Grey family. While she did not behead either of the Grey sisters, as Mary had done, Elizabeth had both Catherine and Mary Grey imprisoned for their clandestine marriages, and the distraught Catherine died in 1568 while still in her twenties, deprived of her husband and children. Mary followed her to the grave ten years later, her own husband having predeceased her. Lady Jane Grey's story has been represented as a great tragedy, but her younger sisters were as much victims of their birth as she was.

The Stereotyped Six Wives: Three: 'As Gentle A Lady'

Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII of England

Lifetime: c. 1508/9 - 24 October 1537

Reigned: May 1536 - October 1537 (1 year, 5 months)

Pregnancies: 1

Edward VI of England: 12 October 1537 - 6 July 1553

In this new six-part series, I will be reexamining the lives and personalities of Henry VIII's six wives, seeking to portray their lives realistically in a process that discards prevailing stereotypes. Much scholarly work has been done on Henry's reign in recent decades, affording fresh insights into the politics and achievements of the period. Understandably, widespread interest in Henry's marital affairs remains unabated. Yet stereotypes continue to bedevil our knowledge of the wives of this most enigmatic king. 

Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, became Queen of England upon her predecessor's execution for treason in May 1536. An unassuming woman in her late twenties, Jane is perhaps the most elusive of Henry's queens. Scarcely any evidence survives for her true personality. She was Henry's wife for merely seventeen months; yet her period as queen was tumultuous, in that it witnessed the restoration of Mary Tudor to favour, the unrest of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the long-awaited birth of a healthy son to the king. Jane has attracted few biographers because of the shortage of evidence concerning her. In many ways, though, the mystery of Jane Seymour makes her as fascinating a person of study as Henry's other wives. Whether Henry VIII truly did love Jane, his 'entirely beloved' third wife, as legend has it, is an issue that has provoked considerable debate. In actuality, the tantalising evidence we have suggests that the story is more complex. Jane's queenship was passive and her famously meek, subdued character may have owed far more to the control of her domineering husband than is usually considered.

Above: Hampton Court Palace, where Jane Seymour died merely twelve days after the birth of her son.

Jane was the fifth child and eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth. Twenty-nine ladies walked at her funeral procession in 1537 to mark her age: whether that means she had reached her twenty-ninth birthday, or whether she was in her twenty-ninth year, is uncertain, but it indicates that she was born either in 1508 or 1509. As with Anne Boleyn, Jane's father was much favoured by Henry VIII. Sir John Seymour, a 'gentle, courteous man', had been knighted by Henry VII at the battle of Blackheath in 1497 and later accompanied Henry VIII on the French campaign in 1513. By 1532 he had become a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and had acted as Sheriff of Wiltshire and Dorset. Sometime in the late 1520s, Jane arrived at court to serve Queen Katherine of Aragon. It is often assumed, with little supporting evidence, that Jane was loyal to Katherine and modelled herself on her. Aside from Jane's preference for gable hoods, which Katherine also liked, and Jane's later friendship with Katherine's daughter Mary, there is barely anything to suggest that Jane particularly admired Katherine or empthasised with her during the annulment proceedings.

Although she is rarely termed stupid, Jane is often regarded as being poorly educated. Indeed, there is no evidence that she had an aptitude for languages, and unlike Anne Boleyn she was not selected to participate in court masques, which suggests that her dancing and musical ability were unexceptional. Yet she was renowned for her talent in needlework and embroidery, with some of her work surviving well into the following century. Her contemporaries were also not especially enthusiastic about her appearance. Polydore Vergil described her flatteringly as 'a woman of the utmost charm both in appearance and character', but the Spanish ambassador was of the opinion that she was 'of middle stature and no great beauty', with a 'pure white' complexion. He also reported rumours that she was both 'haughty' and 'proud'. 

Indeed, it is the very absence of evidence which makes it so difficult to grasp Jane's true personality. Most historians often refer to her piety and virtue, but aside from Luther's belief that she was 'an enemy of the gospel' - in other words, she was a devout adherent of the Catholic faith - there is barely anything to suggest that she was especially pious. In contrast to Anne Boleyn, who assisted religious reformers, or Katherine Parr, who wrote evangelical works of devotion, Jane was entirely conventional in her religious devotions and may not have been interested in taking an active role in religious politics. The absence of her involvement in court masques and dances, or poetry celebrating her talents, can tentatively be interpreted to mean that she was not talented musically or artistically. 

For whatever reason, by early 1536 Jane Seymour remained unwed. At the age of twenty-six, it was certainly strange that her father had not arranged an advantageous marriage alliance for her, and even more unusual given that she was the eldest daughter. Her younger sister, Elizabeth, had married in 1531 and later remarried, to the son of Thomas Cromwell. Why no marriage had been arranged for Jane remains a mystery. We can only wonder how she herself felt about this: did she passively accept her fate as God's will, something to be accepted with resignation? Did she rebel, passionately hoping for an excellent marriage one day? We can only guess. Jane's fortunes, however, took a dramatically unexpected turn in the spring of 1536. Devastated by his wife's miscarriage, and uncertain whether his second marriage had won him divine favour, Henry VIII was susceptible to a new flirtation. For reasons that have puzzled historians for centuries, the object of his affections was Jane Seymour, the unassuming and apparently unremarkable attendant of the queen. 

Historians have generally suggested that Henry VIII was attracted to Jane because she 'was unquestionably virginal' and because 'there was certainly no threatening sexuality about her'. In short, it was her virtue, her piety and her goodness that charmed the ageing king. By extension, these same historians seem to imply that these were qualities decidedly lacking in Anne Boleyn, thus conveniently ignoring the considerable evidence of Anne's piety and the importance she placed on her virtue. While Henry may have been captivated by Jane's demeanour, there may be a darker story at place here.

As queen, Jane selected the motto 'Bound to Obey and Serve', thus confirming her submission to Henry VIII's will both as her husband and as her king. How far the king himself directed his new wife in this, however, should be considered. Henry VIII had been dangerously obsessed by Anne Boleyn, an assertive, educated and independent young woman who had refused to become involved with him because it offended her piety and endangered her virtue. Anne's inability to provide the much-desired male heir had gradually reduced Henry VIII's burning love to burning hatred, leaving him with a strong desire to destroy her and rejoicing in her execution, to the surprise even of Ambassador Chapuys. With Jane, he had no wish to be denied and no wish to be told 'no'. Jane's motto confirmed her husband's control of her and signalled to the world that passivity and submission, rather than the proactiveness of Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, would characterise Jane's rule. 

Above: Edward VI of England was born on 12 October 1537, only child of Jane Seymour.

Just as it is problematic to view Anne Boleyn as directly responsible for Katherine of Aragon's rustication from court and ill-treatment, so it is erroneous to view Jane as responsible for Anne's brutal end, as Victorian historians often did. In questioning her morals and condemning her actions, as Agnes Strickland did, these historians failed to understand the position Jane was in and the character of the man she married. Like Anne, she simply could not say no. With the passing of time, Henry had become increasingly autocratic and, on the single occasion that Jane did dare to voice her true opinion, she was brutally put in her place by her irascible husband, who warned her to consider her predecessor's fate before involving herself in affairs of state. There is scarcely any evidence for Jane's supposed love and admiration of Queen Katherine, and there is next to no evidence that she was hostile to Anne or resented her rise to queenship. While she did offer friendship to Mary Tudor once she had married Henry, this is understandable given their closeness in age and their shared devotion to the Catholic faith. In 1536, perhaps Jane, mindful of Henry's rejection of Anne and indifference to his second daughter, wisely judged it best not to antagonise her husband by showing marked favour to her stepdaughter Elizabeth. 

The absence of evidence for her inner feelings means that we cannot suggest that Jane was hostile to Anne Boleyn or deliberately sought to bring her down because of her aversion to the reformed faith favoured by Anne or because of her supposed loyalty to Katherine. In rejecting Henry's advances, in refusing to accept presents of money from him, in behaving 'modestly' rather than flirtatiously, perhaps Jane intended to signal a lack of interest that may well have been genuine. Her true feelings for Henry are usually ignored in the rush to condemn her supposedly callous behaviour. Jane Seymour's personality and motivations are swathed in mystery and remain largely inscrutable. She may have been ambitious, but equally she may have felt that she had no choice, as Katherine Parr did when presented with an unwanted marriage proposal by the king in 1543. Perhaps Jane resented Anne, but equally she may have accepted her as her mistress and wished to show her no ill-will. What does seem likely, however, is that Jane was coached by her ambitious relatives to attract the besotted king. Certainly they profited handsomely from her rise: her brother Edward became Viscount Beauchamp and her brother Thomas was knighted. It is uncertain whether Jane was a willing participant in the schemes of 1536 or whether she was manipulated by her family to serve their own ends.

Jane was never crowned as queen and her reign was entirely passive, as Pamela Gross noted in her academic study of Jane. She has usually been credited with restoring Mary Tudor to favour, but it is more likely that it was Henry himself who approved and brought about his daughter's return to court only after she had grovelled to him for her disobedience: 'I beseech your Majesty to countervail my transgressions with my repentance for the same'. Jane may have been sympathetic to Mary but she was not responsible for the latter's return to favour. Even if she had wished to enjoy Mary's company, Jane would not have forgotten for a second that her primary duty as queen was to provide a male heir, and would have acknowledged that Mary's position as the bastard of an unlawful union was a foreboding reminder of her own perilous position. As Henry himself warned Jane ominously: 'She ought to study the welfare and exaltation of her own children, if she had any by him, instead of looking out for the good of others'. 

Despite the oft-repeated legend that Jane Seymour was Henry VIII's most beloved wife, there is, in fact, surprisingly little evidence of his love for her dating from her own lifetime. As noted earlier, when she had voiced sympathy for Mary her husband had bluntly advised her to concern herself with producing an heir herself. If the story of her plea for the abbeys to be saved from dissolution is true, then Henry's response, in brutally reminding her of Anne's fate, is indicative of a bullying husband seeking to control a wife and prevent her from becoming unruly. Within days of his marriage to Jane, Henry VIII reportedly was acquainted with two beautiful women and voiced regret that he had not met them before he had remarried. The Second Act of Succession, which was passed in the summer of 1536, vested the succession either in Jane Seymour's offspring or in the offspring the king might have with any future wife. How Jane viewed this Act cannot be known, but as the months passed without a pregnancy, she must have lived in considerable anxiety, if not fear.

Described by Cromwell as 'a most virtuous lady', Jane conformed entirely to Henry's wishes. If she had ambition, she suppressed it. If she held opinions, she chose not to voice them. If she disagreed with her husband's policies, she did not inform him. How far Jane willingly assented to her marginalisation, how wholeheartedly she embraced her motto 'Bound to Obey and Serve', are questions that simply cannot be answered. Yet she had witnessed Katherine of Aragon's determined refusal to obey Henry's wishes, and she had heard of the ill-treatment inflicted on the proud queen in consequence. Jane's own marriage had been made in blood: her former mistress had been imprisoned, tried and executed in less than three weeks mainly because she had failed to give her husband a son. 

Jane's queenship is characterised by most historians as passive, but they have not usually considered whether she was willing in the circumscribing of her queenly authority. In concerning herself solely with domestic affairs, Jane sought to please her husband, but his threatening behaviour on several occasions towards her was a chilling reminder of the danger she faced if she displeased him. By giving birth to her son Edward on 12 October 1537 at Hampton Court Palace, Jane earned Henry's undying love and appreciation, but during her own lifetime he never demonstrated the constant passion he felt for Anne Boleyn, or the unswerving devotion he experienced for Katherine Howard. In her own lifetime, Jane was a cipher. During her brief tenure as queen, she walked on a knife edge. Her two predecessors had been rusticated and had died, alone and shamed, for their failures to give birth to a son. This thought must have constantly been in Jane's mind, and her overriding emotion at providing the male heir in the autumn of 1537 may well have been relief.

Philippa Gregory's new novel The Taming of the Queen, which describes the life of Katherine Parr as queen, focuses on the circumscribing of the queen's authority, the restriction of her power and the utter submission of the queen to her husband. This portrayal could, with some fairness, apply to Jane Seymour. Her reign has been viewed as unremarkable and devoid of achievements, with the exception of Prince Edward's birth. Historians have appreciated that, outside of her immediate household, the queen was little more than a cipher, never exercising the militant authority of Katherine of Aragon or seeking to influence religious policies, as did Anne Boleyn. But they have, tellingly, failed to consider how willing Jane was in the restrictions she faced. Perhaps she willingly accepted them, perhaps she accepted her submission as the price of her queenship. Or perhaps she resented the limits imposed on her and bridled when faced with her husband's suffocating presence.

There is no evidence to suggest that Jane was unquestionably hostile to Anne Boleyn and sought her destruction, nor is there evidence that she admired and revered Katherine of Aragon. There is scarcely any evidence for Henry's supposed love for her. It was only after her death that Jane became 'entirely beloved' and her memory revered. Only in 1544 was she celebrated in Holbein's painting as Henry's one true wife, rather than Katherine Parr, his queen at the time. Jane Seymour's queenship was circumscribed, 'tamed'. She remains a mystery because she was a cipher at court. What emerges from the sources is the strong likelihood that it was Henry VIII who was responsible for holding her in submission and curtailing her authority to ensure that she pleased him and conformed to his will. 

The Birth of Elizabeth Tudor

On a late Sunday afternoon in September 1533 at Greenwich Palace, Queen Anne of England was delivered of a healthy, beautiful child. Everything about the child was perfect, but for its sex. It was a girl. Henry VIII had been assured by his friends, advisers and astrologers that his second wife's child was certain to be the male heir for which he had broken with the church of Rome and annulled his marriage to the resourceful Katherine of Aragon. However, pregnancy was an inexact and uncertain science in the sixteenth-century, and the child conceived in late 1532, weeks after her parents' secret wedding in Dover, was female.

Almost certainly named after her paternal grandmother Queen Elizabeth of York, and perhaps also for her maternal grandmother Lady Elizabeth Howard, the new princess was red-haired, coal-eyed and perfectly formed. She grew up to be a charismatic, shrewd and fiercely intelligent young woman who, despite her small stature, was able to cut hardened politicians down to size. Princess Elizabeth embodied both the best and worst traits of her parents: she inherited her father's charisma, warmth, fieriness and cunning, while inheriting her mother's wit, sensuality and deep-seated charm. The new princess, despite her obvious appeal, was not the male heir so longed for by both Henry and Anne. 

The majority of the English population, while swearing the oath demanded by the king that recognised his second marriage as lawful, continued to regard the beleaguered Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, as the rightful heir to the throne. Katherine of Aragon was highly popular in England, especially among aristocratic women, and the new queen tended to be regarded as a scheming parvenu or a heretic responsible for her husband's increasing bloodthirstiness. Elizabeth was feted by her parents' supporters as the rightful heir to the throne, a promise of hope for the future, but those who opposed the break with Rome were unanimous in declaring the new princess a bastard undeserving of royal honours. 

Above: A later, fanciful artistic depiction of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

At the time, no-one expected Elizabeth to become queen regnant of England. It was both hoped and expected that Queen Anne would shortly bear the longed-for male heir, but as all students of history know, that was not to be. Elizabeth was cruelly deprived of her mother before her third birthday. Anne was sacrificed to the brutality of realpolitik, the increasing paranoia of her husband, and a climate of misogynistic vitriol that ended not only with her beheading but the deaths of five (almost certainly innocent) courtiers, including her own brother, Elizabeth's uncle. Elizabeth was shortly afterwards deprived of her place in the succession and was, like her half-sister Mary, declared illegitimate. Their half-brother Edward, born in the autumn of 1537, replaced them as heir to the throne. However, Elizabeth was to emerge triumphant in November 1558. At the age of twenty-five, this brilliant and hardened young woman became queen of England. Her reign has been immortalised ever since as the golden age of Gloriana, a possibility no-one could have foreseen in September 1533. 

6 July 1553: The Death of Edward VI

Above: King Edward VI of England.

July was usually a joyous month in early modern England. Before the advent of the Protestant Reformation, communities across the country participated in joyous summer pastimes that included village ales and games on the green. Edward VI's Reformation, of course, had swept away remnants of England's Catholic past. Yet, to those who remained superstitious, if the weather was anything to go by the early days of July 1553 were not fortuitous. Unseasonably chilly weather augured ill for the welfare of a kingdom that was already precarious. Those in the capital would have been privy to vague reports circulating of King Edward VI's alarmingly 'thin and wasted' condition. Although modern historians have convincingly dismissed the traditional view of Edward as an individual that was sickly from birth, forever close to death, it cannot be denied that the last year of the teenage king's life was agonising and painful. 

Early in the year, the king had fallen ill with a fever and cough that worsened with the passing of time. The imperial ambassador reported: 'He suffers a good deal when the fever is upon him, especially from a difficulty in drawing his breath, which is due to the compression of the organs on the right side'. Although the king's health briefly improved in April, by June his doctors were openly voicing doubts that he would ever recover from what they called 'a suppurating tumour'. Edward's legs became so swollen that he had to lie on his back. He allegedly informed his tutor John Cheke: "I am glad to die".

The end, when it came, came suddenly. Between eight and nine pm on the evening of 6 July at Greenwich Palace, the fifteen-year-old king's fragile life drew to a close. The martyrologist John Foxe later stated that Edward died in the arms of his Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Sir Henry Sidney, to whom he whispered: "I am faint, Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit". Historians have debated what it was that the teenage king died of. The Venetian ambassador had opined that Edward's cause of death was tuberculosis, a view which historians have generally agreed with, although Loach suspects that he may have died of acute bronchopneumonia, which led to a 'suppurating pulmonary infection'. 

Above: Lady Jane Grey (left) and Mary Tudor (right).

Several months earlier, in his "Devise for the Succession", Edward had stipulated that the crown was to pass to the male heirs of Lady Jane Grey, his cousin. As his health increasingly took a turn for the worse, and it remained apparent that Jane would not bear a son anytime soon, Edward altered the wording so that Jane herself could succeed him as queen following his death. Consequently, she was proclaimed queen in the aftermath of Edward's death. Four days after her cousin's passing, she travelled to the Tower of London in preparation for her coronation. It never occurred. Supported by the majority of the former king's subjects, Mary Tudor successfully took the crown and declared herself queen. On 19 July Mary was proclaimed queen by the Privy Council, and she was eventually crowned in October of that year.

Edward VI was king of England for only six years. Given his age upon succeeding to the throne, power was concentrated in the hands of the Privy Council and, more specifically, Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford and later duke of Somerset. Upon Somerset's fall from grace, the earl of Warwick (later duke of Northumberland) wrested control of the Council and was virtual ruler of the country until Edward's untimely death. Historians have debated whether it was Edward or Northumberland who masterminded the "Devise for the Succession", but more recently, it has compellingly been demonstrated that it was the determined king who commanded that his cousin Jane, rather than his sister Mary, should inherit the crown upon his death. In the end his wishes proved of no avail. Mary became queen and the teenaged Jane was executed alongside her husband in February 1554. Edward's reign is best known for the intensity of the Protestant Reformation. Had he lived longer, and wielded power himself rather than being controlled by the likes of Somerset and Northumberland (as he would have done in time), then Edward's reign might be remembered very differently. Instead, he remains one of the more shadowy of the Tudors, a boy king who died before his sixteenth birthday.