Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised, this is
Speaker 1: Danish Schwartz. I'm still on maternity leave and so today
Speaker 1: we're going back to the archives revisiting the series I
Speaker 1: did on Henry the Eighth's Six Wives. This episode is
Speaker 1: about Jane Seymour, the wife who gave Henry the son
Speaker 1: he so desperately wanted, and the wife he would ultimately
Speaker 1: choose to be buried with. Hope you enjoy. Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth died in fifteen forty seven, obese and ulcered, one
Speaker 1: leg still rotting from a bad fall of a horse
Speaker 1: decades earlier. After his corpse was embalmed and spiced, it
Speaker 1: lay in state in the present Chamber of Whitehall, surrounded
Speaker 1: by burning tape candles, and then two weeks later the
Speaker 1: slow procession to his burial site began a carriage followed
Speaker 1: by hundreds of men on horseback. The carriage itself was massive,
Speaker 1: elaborate and tall, pulled by eight horses, each ridden by
Speaker 1: a child on top of the hearse in full view
Speaker 1: of the public that had come out onto the streets
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to their king was an effigy made
Speaker 1: of wax and wood, meant to resemble the king in
Speaker 1: his more handsome days. The effigy wore satin and velvet
Speaker 1: and jewels, with rings dotting its gloved hands. It wore
Speaker 1: a crown. But when King Henry's procession finally reached its
Speaker 1: destination Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, his tomb wasn't
Speaker 1: gilded or flanked by sculptures, the type of pomp you
Speaker 1: would expect for the final resting place of a man
Speaker 1: who saw himself as a dynastic hero, the champion of England,
Speaker 1: chosen by God to lead their church and their nation.
Speaker 1: That was the tomb he had wanted for himself, one
Speaker 1: he had described early in his life, a double tomb
Speaker 1: with effigies in marble, carved angels on the wall, and
Speaker 1: prophets perched on overlooking columns. But King Henry was not
Speaker 1: a man who wanted to acknowledge his own death to
Speaker 1: spend thousands of pounds while he lived celebrating the idea
Speaker 1: that one day he would be gone. He never built
Speaker 1: his own tomb, and so instead he was interred simply
Speaker 1: in the vault, beneath Saint George's chapel, beneath a plain
Speaker 1: black marble slab, What was supposed to be his temporary
Speaker 1: resting place became the place that Henry the Eighth, one
Speaker 1: of England's most famous monarchs, remained permanently, but one of
Speaker 1: his wishes for burial was honored. Though at the time
Speaker 1: of his death, Henry the Eighth was on his sixth
Speaker 1: and final wife, Catherine Parr, he specified that he should
Speaker 1: be buried not next to her, but next to his
Speaker 1: third wife, Jane Seymour. He was married three times after her,
Speaker 1: but it was her memory that Henry clung to, the
Speaker 1: memory of the wife who had done what all of
Speaker 1: the others hadn't, given him a living son, The two
Speaker 1: of them side by side for history, for eternity, the
Speaker 1: man who had six wives, choosing to be entwined forever
Speaker 1: with the one he idealized and romanticized and missed until
Speaker 1: finally he joined her in death. I'm Danish Schwartz and
Speaker 1: this is noble blood. Jane Seymour was never going to
Speaker 1: make a very advantageous man marriage. That's what she knew
Speaker 1: growing up in the Wiltshire countryside. Her mother's seventh child,
Speaker 1: with three surviving older brothers. She was still unmarried in
Speaker 1: her twenties, largely because her father wasn't wealthy enough to
Speaker 1: put up an attractive dowry, and so the family used
Speaker 1: what connections they had to send her to court, where
Speaker 1: she would be a lady to Catherine of Aragon, the
Speaker 1: Queen of England. Jane was blonde and fair, and while
Speaker 1: she wasn't unattractive, no one would ever call her a
Speaker 1: great beauty. The hope was that she would meet a
Speaker 1: nice man at court, maybe a knight Banneret or the like,
Speaker 1: and that she would get married. Jane was raised Catholic
Speaker 1: and raised to be a dutiful wife above all else.
Speaker 1: She was only barely literate, but she was an expert
Speaker 1: at embroidery and housekeeping. And one day she would bear
Speaker 1: a brood of children like her mother. Everyone knew it.
Speaker 1: Her mother had given her father three living sons. There's
Speaker 1: no greater success than that. Good sweet Jane went to
Speaker 1: court and watched as Catherine of Aragun was humiliated and
Speaker 1: banished and betrayed by her husband. Catherine was a devout
Speaker 1: Catholic too, She prayed every day. She was a princess,
Speaker 1: daughter of a king and a queen, and she had
Speaker 1: loved her husband with her whole heart. Catherine never complained,
Speaker 1: never became angry when her husband flirted with other women,
Speaker 1: danced with other women, slept with other women. Catherine hadn't
Speaker 1: been able to give Henry a son, though, just the
Speaker 1: little Princess Mary, the girl with red blonde hair like
Speaker 1: her father and a dutiful Catholic heart like her mother.
Speaker 1: Princess Mary was only a few years younger than Jane herself,
Speaker 1: and Jane had watched Mary's life play out like some
Speaker 1: sort of Greek tragedy. The girl had been the pearl
Speaker 1: of court, beloved and doated on by her father until
Speaker 1: Catherine fell out of favor, until Henry fell in love
Speaker 1: with Anne Boleyn and declared Mary illegitimate. Mary was stripped
Speaker 1: of her title, no longer a princess, just a lady now,
Speaker 1: and banished from court, doomed to teenage years of anguish
Speaker 1: of begging her father for mercy, for a shred of
Speaker 1: love or even acknowledgment, all while being forbidden to see
Speaker 1: her mother ever again. When Anne Boleyn became queen and
Speaker 1: adopted the most happy as her motto, Anne pushed Henry
Speaker 1: to continue to ignore Mary and let Catherine suffer the
Speaker 1: misery of her own making. Jane didn't mind being Queen
Speaker 1: Anne's new lady, although of course she would never admit
Speaker 1: out loud. How she still had sympathy for the former
Speaker 1: Queen and for the once princess Mary, still banished from court,
Speaker 1: even after Catherine of Aragon eventually Diedane dutiful and disciplined,
Speaker 1: and Queen Anne liked her plenty, mostly because Jane seemed
Speaker 1: to fade into the wallpaper, that is, until she didn't.
Speaker 1: As King Henry began to prickle against his impetuous, wilful,
Speaker 1: stubborn new wife, and as the son she had promised him,
Speaker 1: continued to elude her, his eye began to wander. In
Speaker 1: the fall, Henry and Queen Anne had taken a hunting
Speaker 1: trip and they had stopped at wolf Hall, where Jane
Speaker 1: Seymour's family lived. Of course, Jane wasn't there, she was
Speaker 1: back at court, but Henry had seen the domestic scene,
Speaker 1: the subservient wife, the proud father, and the many, many
Speaker 1: healthy living children, and Henry had remembered the shy smile
Speaker 1: of that blonde girl at court who came from such
Speaker 1: a fertile line. Anne had had another miscarriage earlier in
Speaker 1: the summer. She and Henry were polite but distant for
Speaker 1: most of their ride the next day. By winter, Henry's
Speaker 1: infatuation with the girl everyone else had seemed to ignore
Speaker 1: became the buzz of court. He gave Jane gifts, flirted
Speaker 1: with her in public, and of course, Anne Boleyn's enemies
Speaker 1: made sure to put Jane front and center in Henry's
Speaker 1: eye line whenever they could. One queen had already been
Speaker 1: dislodged because the king had fallen in love with one
Speaker 1: of her ladies in waiting, the same thing could happen
Speaker 1: to the next queen. Jane was everything Henry realized he
Speaker 1: wanted a wife to be docile, sweet, humble, virtuous. There
Speaker 1: was no chance that once he got her to bed,
Speaker 1: she would be more experienced than he was, that she
Speaker 1: would be a seductress who exposed his own inadequacies by
Speaker 1: contrast the way his current Queen Anne did. Henry wanted
Speaker 1: to feel like a man again. His wife, who insisted
Speaker 1: on arguing with him, having conversation, debating politics and winning
Speaker 1: those debates while she did not make him feel like
Speaker 1: a man. Anne had gotten her reward. She was queen
Speaker 1: for God's sake? Where was his reward? Henry thought? Where
Speaker 1: was his son? In the spring, Henry propositioned Jane and
Speaker 1: asked her to be his mistress. She responded, I have
Speaker 1: no greater treasure in all the world than my honor,
Speaker 1: and I would rather die a thousand times than tarnish it.
Speaker 1: Jane dutifully returned the letters and expensive gifts that Henry
Speaker 1: had sent her. There was no game, no malice, no
Speaker 1: intrigue in her behavior. She asked nothing of him, and
Speaker 1: so Henry wanted her all the more desperately. Jane was
Speaker 1: Anne's opposite in temperament and personality and looks, but ironically
Speaker 1: she used the same tact distance to make Henry fall
Speaker 1: in love with her. Here was the Henry should have married.
Speaker 1: He thought Anne was a witch. She had bewitched him.
Speaker 1: She was sinful and evil, and she had led him astray.
Speaker 1: The day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded, King Henry announced
Speaker 1: his engagement to her twenty eight year old former lady,
Speaker 1: Jane Seymour. Ten days after that, on May thirtieth, fifteen
Speaker 1: thirty six, the two were wed. Catherine of Aragon had
Speaker 1: been raised as a princess, born and bred to be
Speaker 1: married to a king. Anne Boleyn had been cunning and
Speaker 1: spent her entire life at court. She knew how to
Speaker 1: play the game better than anyone. Jane Seymour was a
Speaker 1: twenty eight year old virgin, completely new to the attention
Speaker 1: and the spectacle of which she was now at the center.
Speaker 1: She informally banned the French fashions that Anne Boleyn had
Speaker 1: popularized at court. As her motto, she adopted the phrase
Speaker 1: bound to obey and serve, And as for her symbol,
Speaker 1: it would be a phoenix. The Tudor dynasty would be
Speaker 1: born anew after the disaster of Anne Boleyn, Henry was besotted.
Speaker 1: Jane was everything he wanted in a wife. He even
Speaker 1: took up embroidery poorly, just to spend time next to her,
Speaker 1: to watch her deft fingers maneuver their way between string
Speaker 1: and cotton, building something intricate and beautiful onto a fabric
Speaker 1: that would find its place somewhere in their home. Their home.
Speaker 1: Henry had a wife, and soon he would have a son.
Speaker 1: He had to the summer after Jane and Henry got married,
Speaker 1: Henry received terrible news. Back when he had been married
Speaker 1: to Catherine, he had had a son out of wedlock
Speaker 1: with a mistress, a bastard named Henry Fitzroy, now a teenager.
Speaker 1: In July of fifteen thirty six, Henry Fitzroy, the Duke
Speaker 1: of Richmond and Somerset, had died only seventeen years old.
Speaker 1: They say it was consumption, something that had taken hold
Speaker 1: of his lungs. Yes, he had been illegitimate, but he
Speaker 1: was still Henry's son, and before his death Henry had
Speaker 1: even been contemplating legitimizing him. Henry Fitzroy could have been
Speaker 1: his heir. Now that he was dead in the ground,
Speaker 1: it was all up to Jane Seymour. Though a magnificent
Speaker 1: coronation for Jane to introduce her to the people as
Speaker 1: their official queen had been scheduled in October, uprisings all
Speaker 1: over England put those plans aside for the time being.
Speaker 1: The people were still protesting Henry's break from the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: his dissolution of the monasteries and seizing their property to
Speaker 1: add to his own wealth. The largest protest, called the
Speaker 1: Pilgrimage of Grace, took months to quell entirely. Jane, who
Speaker 1: had been raised a devout Catholic, of course, quietly asked
Speaker 1: Henry if he might show mercy to the men involved,
Speaker 1: after all, they had only been attempting to be true
Speaker 1: to their faith. Henry spun his head around and snapped
Speaker 1: at his young wife, to whom he had been married
Speaker 1: for months, and yet who still wasn't pregnant. You should
Speaker 1: hold your tongue when it comes to matters of the king,
Speaker 1: he spat. After all, you remember well the fate of
Speaker 1: your predecessors. Jane was left alone shaking. She never contradicted
Speaker 1: or challenged Henry again. She learned quickly the way to
Speaker 1: persuade him of anything, to achieve any change, merely mention it.
Speaker 1: Allude to it once casually. It seems such a shame.
Speaker 1: Your daughter Mary isn't here to enjoy the feast, Jane
Speaker 1: might say sweetly. Henry might murmur response, or he might not.
Speaker 1: Did your daughter Mary enjoy riding? She'd ask? How is
Speaker 1: Mary's embroidery? I heard her embroidery was beautiful and delicate,
Speaker 1: she might say. And so then when weeks later Henry
Speaker 1: had the magnificent idea to finally allow Mary his daughter
Speaker 1: back to court. Jane just had to smile and clap
Speaker 1: her hands and praise his wisdom. Mary, now twenty one,
Speaker 1: with a world weary darkness in her eyes, bowed deeply
Speaker 1: to her father and his new wife. Jane would become
Speaker 1: something of a big sister to her, a figure of
Speaker 1: kindness who shepherded her back into the fold. Jane's coronation
Speaker 1: was delayed again for good enough reasons. There was a
Speaker 1: plague in London, they said, there were still after shocks
Speaker 1: of rebellions about the monasteries around the country. But in
Speaker 1: the back of Jane's mind, she couldn't help but think
Speaker 1: that the true reason, the true reason she wasn't being
Speaker 1: celebrated out in the streets with the crown on her
Speaker 1: head and a king by her side, was because she
Speaker 1: hadn't done her duty yet, she wasn't pregnant. Why waste
Speaker 1: a parade on a woman who was still as disposable
Speaker 1: as all the rest. Finally it came her miracle, her savior.
Speaker 1: In February of fifteen thirty seven, Jane's period stopped. Her
Speaker 1: appetite changed. She had done it all, the soothsayers said,
Speaker 1: it would be a boy. Henry would stroke her belly,
Speaker 1: putting his face against her skin and cooing into her flesh. Edward, Edward,
Speaker 1: he whispered. When Jane first felt the baby kick. In May,
Speaker 1: there was a massive celebration, with Jane wearing a gown
Speaker 1: open at the belly and lined with lace beneath the
Speaker 1: quickening they believed was the infant's soul entering its body.
Speaker 1: Where was the prince who would secure the Tudor dynasty.
Speaker 1: He was on his way throughout the country. There were
Speaker 1: bonfires and parties where wine flowed and singing filled the air.
Speaker 1: With Jane's belly expanding, she mentioned that she had a
Speaker 1: craving for quail. Bring my wife Quail, Henry bellowed, though
Speaker 1: quail was out of season in England. He ordered that
Speaker 1: it be brought specially from Calais, with orders to expand
Speaker 1: the search and go even further afield. If enough quail
Speaker 1: couldn't be found, Jane would have everything she wanted while
Speaker 1: she was carrying all of Henry's hopes in her belly.
Speaker 1: In September, she was put on bed rest, confined to
Speaker 1: her chamber and not permitted to leave, to prevent any
Speaker 1: trouble with the pregnancy. Henry could not lose another son,
Speaker 1: and this was going to be a son. Everyone knew it. Finally,
Speaker 1: it had been long enough, enough waiting and enough maneuvering,
Speaker 1: enough plotting and marrying and beheading. Henry finally had a wife,
Speaker 1: and Henry was about to have a legitimate son. A
Speaker 1: month later, the labor began. Henry took as many precautions
Speaker 1: as physically possible to ensure the survival of his child.
Speaker 1: Most berths at the time would be attended to by
Speaker 1: a midwife. Henry insisted instead on a team of all
Speaker 1: male doctors. When the labor began, it quickly became apparent
Speaker 1: that the infant was in a breach position. For two
Speaker 1: days and three nights, Jane did her best to follow
Speaker 1: her doctor's instructions to shut out the pain and to
Speaker 1: think of nothing but how happy Henry would be when
Speaker 1: he finally met his son. And then, finally, with a
Speaker 1: final scream of pain and a whimper, it was over.
Speaker 1: She had done it the day before Saint Edward's Day.
Speaker 1: On October twelfth, Prince Edward was born, a healthy, living,
Speaker 1: legitimate male child. Jane wept with relief, a few days
Speaker 1: after the birth, the baby was made Duke of Cornwall
Speaker 1: and Earl of Chester. Jane's brother got promoted to Earle,
Speaker 1: and Jane was well enough to dress and sit in
Speaker 1: the receiving room for Edward's christening, greeting the well wishers
Speaker 1: who congratulated her on achieving what the two women before
Speaker 1: her had been unable to do. Mary, the boy's half sister,
Speaker 1: was the godmother. But a week later, Jane felt woozy
Speaker 1: and light headed. Within the hour, her fever spiked. She
Speaker 1: was delirious and sweating. By the time she awoke early
Speaker 1: the next morning. It was obvious that a priest would
Speaker 1: need to be summoned. Jane Seymour died at noon that
Speaker 1: day in a rush of fever and blood, just after
Speaker 1: she had given Henry everything he wanted, after she had
Speaker 1: just ensured that her position as queen was secure. It's
Speaker 1: difficult to know exactly why Jane died twelve days after childbirth,
Speaker 1: whether it was child bed fever, a pulmonary embolism, hemorrhaging.
Speaker 1: It also seemed possible, even likely, that Jane hadn't fully
Speaker 1: expelled the placenta after giving birth, left in her body.
Speaker 1: The placenta became infected. Ironically, male doctors at the time
Speaker 1: had far less experience when it came to childbirth than midwives.
Speaker 1: If Jane had been attended to by a midwife who
Speaker 1: had been through hundreds of births, the midwife would have
Speaker 1: known exactly what to do and could have solved the problem.
Speaker 1: After Jane's death, King Henry was so depressed that he
Speaker 1: could barely speak. He left the funeral arrangements to two
Speaker 1: of his advisers and went off to mourn in isolation.
Speaker 1: Jane Seymour's body was brought to a wax chandler, who
Speaker 1: removed her entrails and embalmed her body with spices before
Speaker 1: she was passed off to a lead plumber, who soldered
Speaker 1: her into place. She lay in state, then at Hampton Court,
Speaker 1: surrounded by candles, with a nightly watch to prevent any
Speaker 1: more harm from coming to her. Jane is the only
Speaker 1: one of Henry's six wives who received an official queen's funeral.
Speaker 1: The route for her casket to get to Windsor, where
Speaker 1: she would be buried, was hung with black cloth out
Speaker 1: nearly every window. Her wax effigy atop the casket rested
Speaker 1: on a golden pillow. It wore golden shoes and rings
Speaker 1: on its finger, and it was dressed in beautifully embroidered stockings.
Speaker 1: The carriage was trailed by twenty nine wailing mourners, one
Speaker 1: for each year of Jane's life. Young Mary was Jane's
Speaker 1: chief mourner. Stories would come out later, ballads martyring Jane
Speaker 1: saying that she had chosen to get a cesarean section,
Speaker 1: or that she was given the option to either save
Speaker 1: her own life or save the life of her child,
Speaker 1: and she had chosen the latter. It's pleasant to imagine
Speaker 1: her heroic, to give agency to the woman who was
Speaker 1: most often characterized in history books as just the opposite
Speaker 1: of Anne. A pendulum swing from raven haired and whitty
Speaker 1: to blonde and docile. A phoenix dies to bring new
Speaker 1: life that was Jane Seal the phoenix death turns to
Speaker 1: new life. Henry finally got his son, but he would
Speaker 1: spend the rest of his life mourning and yearning for
Speaker 1: the wife he lost too soon, because now that she
Speaker 1: was gone, in her memory, she would always be perfect.
Speaker 1: Eight years after losing Jane, Henry the Eighth commissioned a
Speaker 1: family portrait. By this time he had already gone through
Speaker 1: two more wives and had finally landed on his sixth
Speaker 1: and final wife, Katherine Parr. In the family portrait, Henry
Speaker 1: sits the center, with his son Edward directly to his right.
Speaker 1: On either far side of the frame stand Princess Mary
Speaker 1: and Princess Elizabeth, daughters respectively of Katherine of Ragun and
Speaker 1: Anne Boleyn. And to King Henry's left standing is his queen,
Speaker 1: not the woman he was married to at the time. No.
Speaker 1: Nearly a decade after her death, Henry insisted that the
Speaker 1: family portrait be painted to feature his queen as Jane Seymour.
Speaker 1: That's the short life of Jane Seymour, but stick around
Speaker 1: after a brief sponsor break to hear a bit more
Speaker 1: about Little Baby Edward. Little Baby Edward was given his
Speaker 1: own household at Hampton Court, where King Henry forbid both
Speaker 1: dogs and serving boys too clumsy. No one was allowed
Speaker 1: to leave for London in the summer when illnesses ran rampant,
Speaker 1: No food or dirty utensils could be left within sight
Speaker 1: of the infant. The floors, walls, and ceilings of his
Speaker 1: chamber were scrubbed down daily. Guests would need written permission
Speaker 1: to be allowed to approach Edward's cradle. A brand new
Speaker 1: kitchen and washout were built at Hampton Court just for
Speaker 1: Edward to prevent any possible contamination by the rest of court.
Speaker 1: Before a single article of clothing was put on the
Speaker 1: young prince, it needed to be washed, brushed, tested for poison, perfumed,
Speaker 1: and then dried fully by the fire. Henry's protections worked
Speaker 1: sort of. Edward survived in infancy. He lived long enough
Speaker 1: to become king after Henry's eventual death when he Edward
Speaker 1: was just nine years old. He lasted until he was fifteen.
Speaker 1: King Henry's daughters, then, who he thought of as his failures,
Speaker 1: took the throne, next Mary, who tried to restore Catholicism
Speaker 1: to England, and then finally the last Tudor ruler, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry,
Speaker 1: who had tried so hard to produce a male heir,
Speaker 1: who would have thought that it would be a all
Speaker 1: along who would usher in a golden period of art
Speaker 1: and stability for England. Noble Blood is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble
Speaker 1: Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing
Speaker 1: and research by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Courtney Sender, Amy
Speaker 1: Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced
Speaker 1: by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima il KLi and
Speaker 1: executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.