Jane Seymour

Queen Jane, Jane Seymour (c. 1508 or 1509 – October 24, 1537) was the third wife of King Henry VIII of England. She gave him his only male heir, later Edward VI, but died shortly after his birth.

Historiography

Jane was widely praised as "the fairest, the discreetest, and the most meritous of all Henry VIII's wives" in the centuries after her death. One historian, however, took serious umbrage to this view in the 19th century. Victorian beauty and much-praised scholar, Agnes Strickland, author of encyclopaedic studies of French, Scottish and English royal women said that the story of "Anne Boleyn's last agonised hours" and Henry VIII's swift remarriage to Jane Seymour "is repulsive enough, but it becomes tenfold more abhorrent when the woman who caused the whole tragedy is loaded with panegyric."

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Modern historians, particularly Alison Weir and Lady Antonia Fraser, paint a favourable portrait of a woman of discretion and good-sense--"a strong-minded matriarch in the making," says Weir. Others are not convinced.

Related Topics:
Alison Weir - Lady Antonia Fraser

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Hester W. Chapman and Professor E.W. Ives resurrected Strickland's view of Jane Seymour, and believe she played a crucial and conscious role in the cold-blooded plot to bring Anne Boleyn to the scaffold. Dr. David Starkey and Karen Lindsey are both relatively dismissive of Jane's importance in comparison to Henry's other queens--particularly Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr. Joanna Denny, Marie Louise Bruce and Carolly Erickson also refrain from giving overly-sympathetic accounts of Jane's life and career.

Related Topics:
Catherine of Aragon - Anne Boleyn - Catherine Parr

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