WEBVTT - Died (From the Archive) 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:11.400 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised, this is 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.200 Danish Schwartz. I'm still on maternity leave and so today 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.919 we're going back to the archives revisiting the series I 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.759 did on Henry the Eighth's Six Wives. This episode is 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:28.240 about Jane Seymour, the wife who gave Henry the son 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.320 he so desperately wanted, and the wife he would ultimately 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:39.760 choose to be buried with. Hope you enjoy. Henry the 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:45.440 Eighth died in fifteen forty seven, obese and ulcered, one 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.600 leg still rotting from a bad fall of a horse 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:54.760 decades earlier. After his corpse was embalmed and spiced, it 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:59.040 lay in state in the present Chamber of Whitehall, surrounded 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.760 by burning tape candles, and then two weeks later the 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:09.120 slow procession to his burial site began a carriage followed 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:13.959 by hundreds of men on horseback. The carriage itself was massive, 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:19.399 elaborate and tall, pulled by eight horses, each ridden by 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:23.320 a child on top of the hearse in full view 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.000 of the public that had come out onto the streets 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.760 to say goodbye to their king was an effigy made 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.560 of wax and wood, meant to resemble the king in 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:38.640 his more handsome days. The effigy wore satin and velvet 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:44.040 and jewels, with rings dotting its gloved hands. It wore 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:49.240 a crown. But when King Henry's procession finally reached its 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:54.360 destination Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, his tomb wasn't 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.920 gilded or flanked by sculptures, the type of pomp you 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.280 would expect for the final resting place of a man 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:06.559 who saw himself as a dynastic hero, the champion of England, 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.960 chosen by God to lead their church and their nation. 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.119 That was the tomb he had wanted for himself, one 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.560 he had described early in his life, a double tomb 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:22.240 with effigies in marble, carved angels on the wall, and 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:27.480 prophets perched on overlooking columns. But King Henry was not 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.000 a man who wanted to acknowledge his own death to 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.080 spend thousands of pounds while he lived celebrating the idea 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.200 that one day he would be gone. He never built 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.520 his own tomb, and so instead he was interred simply 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.400 in the vault, beneath Saint George's chapel, beneath a plain 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.400 black marble slab, What was supposed to be his temporary 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.320 resting place became the place that Henry the Eighth, one 0:02:55.360 --> 0:03:01.040 of England's most famous monarchs, remained permanently, but one of 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.440 his wishes for burial was honored. Though at the time 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.280 of his death, Henry the Eighth was on his sixth 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.800 and final wife, Catherine Parr, he specified that he should 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.840 be buried not next to her, but next to his 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.919 third wife, Jane Seymour. He was married three times after her, 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.920 but it was her memory that Henry clung to, the 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.320 memory of the wife who had done what all of 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:31.320 the others hadn't, given him a living son, The two 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:36.720 of them side by side for history, for eternity, the 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.640 man who had six wives, choosing to be entwined forever 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:46.120 with the one he idealized and romanticized and missed until 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.920 finally he joined her in death. I'm Danish Schwartz and 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:58.200 this is noble blood. Jane Seymour was never going to 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.040 make a very advantageous man marriage. That's what she knew 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:06.800 growing up in the Wiltshire countryside. Her mother's seventh child, 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:11.160 with three surviving older brothers. She was still unmarried in 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.320 her twenties, largely because her father wasn't wealthy enough to 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.039 put up an attractive dowry, and so the family used 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.920 what connections they had to send her to court, where 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.720 she would be a lady to Catherine of Aragon, the 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.960 Queen of England. Jane was blonde and fair, and while 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.279 she wasn't unattractive, no one would ever call her a 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.400 great beauty. The hope was that she would meet a 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.560 nice man at court, maybe a knight Banneret or the like, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.600 and that she would get married. Jane was raised Catholic 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.559 and raised to be a dutiful wife above all else. 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.960 She was only barely literate, but she was an expert 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.880 at embroidery and housekeeping. And one day she would bear 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.760 a brood of children like her mother. Everyone knew it. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.040 Her mother had given her father three living sons. There's 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.359 no greater success than that. Good sweet Jane went to 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.000 court and watched as Catherine of Aragun was humiliated and 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:14.440 banished and betrayed by her husband. Catherine was a devout 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:19.040 Catholic too, She prayed every day. She was a princess, 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.240 daughter of a king and a queen, and she had 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.760 loved her husband with her whole heart. Catherine never complained, 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.400 never became angry when her husband flirted with other women, 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:35.479 danced with other women, slept with other women. Catherine hadn't 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.000 been able to give Henry a son, though, just the 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.400 little Princess Mary, the girl with red blonde hair like 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.960 her father and a dutiful Catholic heart like her mother. 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.000 Princess Mary was only a few years younger than Jane herself, 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.600 and Jane had watched Mary's life play out like some 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.039 sort of Greek tragedy. The girl had been the pearl 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:01.520 of court, beloved and doated on by her father until 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.080 Catherine fell out of favor, until Henry fell in love 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:10.239 with Anne Boleyn and declared Mary illegitimate. Mary was stripped 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.920 of her title, no longer a princess, just a lady now, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:19.000 and banished from court, doomed to teenage years of anguish 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.800 of begging her father for mercy, for a shred of 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.839 love or even acknowledgment, all while being forbidden to see 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:31.800 her mother ever again. When Anne Boleyn became queen and 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:36.560 adopted the most happy as her motto, Anne pushed Henry 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.120 to continue to ignore Mary and let Catherine suffer the 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.839 misery of her own making. Jane didn't mind being Queen 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.799 Anne's new lady, although of course she would never admit 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.360 out loud. How she still had sympathy for the former 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.880 Queen and for the once princess Mary, still banished from court, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:07:01.599 even after Catherine of Aragon eventually Diedane dutiful and disciplined, 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.080 and Queen Anne liked her plenty, mostly because Jane seemed 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.480 to fade into the wallpaper, that is, until she didn't. 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:14.600 As King Henry began to prickle against his impetuous, wilful, 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.560 stubborn new wife, and as the son she had promised him, 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:23.600 continued to elude her, his eye began to wander. In 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.400 the fall, Henry and Queen Anne had taken a hunting 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.400 trip and they had stopped at wolf Hall, where Jane 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.200 Seymour's family lived. Of course, Jane wasn't there, she was 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.840 back at court, but Henry had seen the domestic scene, 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.960 the subservient wife, the proud father, and the many, many 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.840 healthy living children, and Henry had remembered the shy smile 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.280 of that blonde girl at court who came from such 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.720 a fertile line. Anne had had another miscarriage earlier in 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.600 the summer. She and Henry were polite but distant for 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:03.480 most of their ride the next day. By winter, Henry's 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.120 infatuation with the girl everyone else had seemed to ignore 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:12.800 became the buzz of court. He gave Jane gifts, flirted 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.280 with her in public, and of course, Anne Boleyn's enemies 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.480 made sure to put Jane front and center in Henry's 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.440 eye line whenever they could. One queen had already been 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.160 dislodged because the king had fallen in love with one 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.360 of her ladies in waiting, the same thing could happen 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.720 to the next queen. Jane was everything Henry realized he 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:39.840 wanted a wife to be docile, sweet, humble, virtuous. There 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.040 was no chance that once he got her to bed, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.160 she would be more experienced than he was, that she 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.760 would be a seductress who exposed his own inadequacies by 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:53.760 contrast the way his current Queen Anne did. Henry wanted 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.240 to feel like a man again. His wife, who insisted 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:02.400 on arguing with him, having conversation, debating politics and winning 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.720 those debates while she did not make him feel like 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.760 a man. Anne had gotten her reward. She was queen 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:14.240 for God's sake? Where was his reward? Henry thought? Where 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:19.880 was his son? In the spring, Henry propositioned Jane and 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:24.360 asked her to be his mistress. She responded, I have 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.640 no greater treasure in all the world than my honor, 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.320 and I would rather die a thousand times than tarnish it. 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.320 Jane dutifully returned the letters and expensive gifts that Henry 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.760 had sent her. There was no game, no malice, no 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:44.520 intrigue in her behavior. She asked nothing of him, and 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:49.160 so Henry wanted her all the more desperately. Jane was 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:53.760 Anne's opposite in temperament and personality and looks, but ironically 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.520 she used the same tact distance to make Henry fall 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.440 in love with her. Here was the Henry should have married. 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.000 He thought Anne was a witch. She had bewitched him. 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.719 She was sinful and evil, and she had led him astray. 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.760 The day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded, King Henry announced 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.200 his engagement to her twenty eight year old former lady, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:22.880 Jane Seymour. Ten days after that, on May thirtieth, fifteen 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:31.480 thirty six, the two were wed. Catherine of Aragon had 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.760 been raised as a princess, born and bred to be 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.760 married to a king. Anne Boleyn had been cunning and 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.640 spent her entire life at court. She knew how to 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.480 play the game better than anyone. Jane Seymour was a 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:49.280 twenty eight year old virgin, completely new to the attention 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.960 and the spectacle of which she was now at the center. 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.920 She informally banned the French fashions that Anne Boleyn had 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:02.800 popularized at court. As her motto, she adopted the phrase 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.520 bound to obey and serve, And as for her symbol, 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.280 it would be a phoenix. The Tudor dynasty would be 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:17.760 born anew after the disaster of Anne Boleyn, Henry was besotted. 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.440 Jane was everything he wanted in a wife. He even 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.480 took up embroidery poorly, just to spend time next to her, 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.240 to watch her deft fingers maneuver their way between string 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:34.160 and cotton, building something intricate and beautiful onto a fabric 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.520 that would find its place somewhere in their home. Their home. 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.680 Henry had a wife, and soon he would have a son. 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:48.240 He had to the summer after Jane and Henry got married, 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:53.240 Henry received terrible news. Back when he had been married 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.080 to Catherine, he had had a son out of wedlock 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.840 with a mistress, a bastard named Henry Fitzroy, now a teenager. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:05.720 In July of fifteen thirty six, Henry Fitzroy, the Duke 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:10.559 of Richmond and Somerset, had died only seventeen years old. 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.640 They say it was consumption, something that had taken hold 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.280 of his lungs. Yes, he had been illegitimate, but he 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.800 was still Henry's son, and before his death Henry had 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:26.280 even been contemplating legitimizing him. Henry Fitzroy could have been 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.280 his heir. Now that he was dead in the ground, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:37.480 it was all up to Jane Seymour. Though a magnificent 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.040 coronation for Jane to introduce her to the people as 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.559 their official queen had been scheduled in October, uprisings all 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.560 over England put those plans aside for the time being. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.520 The people were still protesting Henry's break from the Catholic Church, 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:58.000 his dissolution of the monasteries and seizing their property to 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.920 add to his own wealth. The largest protest, called the 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:07.040 Pilgrimage of Grace, took months to quell entirely. Jane, who 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.560 had been raised a devout Catholic, of course, quietly asked 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.679 Henry if he might show mercy to the men involved, 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.200 after all, they had only been attempting to be true 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.240 to their faith. Henry spun his head around and snapped 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.520 at his young wife, to whom he had been married 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.319 for months, and yet who still wasn't pregnant. You should 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.160 hold your tongue when it comes to matters of the king, 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:35.120 he spat. After all, you remember well the fate of 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:41.760 your predecessors. Jane was left alone shaking. She never contradicted 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.480 or challenged Henry again. She learned quickly the way to 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.880 persuade him of anything, to achieve any change, merely mention it. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.960 Allude to it once casually. It seems such a shame. 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.040 Your daughter Mary isn't here to enjoy the feast, Jane 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:01.520 might say sweetly. Henry might murmur response, or he might not. 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.480 Did your daughter Mary enjoy riding? She'd ask? How is 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.480 Mary's embroidery? I heard her embroidery was beautiful and delicate, 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:15.360 she might say. And so then when weeks later Henry 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.959 had the magnificent idea to finally allow Mary his daughter 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.680 back to court. Jane just had to smile and clap 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:26.880 her hands and praise his wisdom. Mary, now twenty one, 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.320 with a world weary darkness in her eyes, bowed deeply 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.680 to her father and his new wife. Jane would become 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.520 something of a big sister to her, a figure of 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:43.160 kindness who shepherded her back into the fold. Jane's coronation 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.760 was delayed again for good enough reasons. There was a 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.880 plague in London, they said, there were still after shocks 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.440 of rebellions about the monasteries around the country. But in 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.200 the back of Jane's mind, she couldn't help but think 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.320 that the true reason, the true reason she wasn't being 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.840 celebrated out in the streets with the crown on her 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.120 head and a king by her side, was because she 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.680 hadn't done her duty yet, she wasn't pregnant. Why waste 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.400 a parade on a woman who was still as disposable 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:22.120 as all the rest. Finally it came her miracle, her savior. 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:28.200 In February of fifteen thirty seven, Jane's period stopped. Her 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:33.280 appetite changed. She had done it all, the soothsayers said, 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.560 it would be a boy. Henry would stroke her belly, 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:42.520 putting his face against her skin and cooing into her flesh. Edward, Edward, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:47.160 he whispered. When Jane first felt the baby kick. In May, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.280 there was a massive celebration, with Jane wearing a gown 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:55.120 open at the belly and lined with lace beneath the 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:59.040 quickening they believed was the infant's soul entering its body. 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.760 Where was the prince who would secure the Tudor dynasty. 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.200 He was on his way throughout the country. There were 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:12.240 bonfires and parties where wine flowed and singing filled the air. 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.520 With Jane's belly expanding, she mentioned that she had a 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:21.880 craving for quail. Bring my wife Quail, Henry bellowed, though 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.920 quail was out of season in England. He ordered that 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.640 it be brought specially from Calais, with orders to expand 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.520 the search and go even further afield. If enough quail 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.640 couldn't be found, Jane would have everything she wanted while 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.440 she was carrying all of Henry's hopes in her belly. 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.680 In September, she was put on bed rest, confined to 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.720 her chamber and not permitted to leave, to prevent any 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.240 trouble with the pregnancy. Henry could not lose another son, 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:56.680 and this was going to be a son. Everyone knew it. Finally, 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.880 it had been long enough, enough waiting and enough maneuvering, 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.920 enough plotting and marrying and beheading. Henry finally had a wife, 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.600 and Henry was about to have a legitimate son. A 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:18.680 month later, the labor began. Henry took as many precautions 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.040 as physically possible to ensure the survival of his child. 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.360 Most berths at the time would be attended to by 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:29.200 a midwife. Henry insisted instead on a team of all 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.880 male doctors. When the labor began, it quickly became apparent 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.440 that the infant was in a breach position. For two 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.639 days and three nights, Jane did her best to follow 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.359 her doctor's instructions to shut out the pain and to 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.640 think of nothing but how happy Henry would be when 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:53.479 he finally met his son. And then, finally, with a 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.320 final scream of pain and a whimper, it was over. 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.920 She had done it the day before Saint Edward's Day. 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:09.199 On October twelfth, Prince Edward was born, a healthy, living, 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:16.160 legitimate male child. Jane wept with relief, a few days 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:19.320 after the birth, the baby was made Duke of Cornwall 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:23.160 and Earl of Chester. Jane's brother got promoted to Earle, 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.639 and Jane was well enough to dress and sit in 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:31.000 the receiving room for Edward's christening, greeting the well wishers 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.560 who congratulated her on achieving what the two women before 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:39.439 her had been unable to do. Mary, the boy's half sister, 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:45.520 was the godmother. But a week later, Jane felt woozy 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:50.560 and light headed. Within the hour, her fever spiked. She 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:55.439 was delirious and sweating. By the time she awoke early 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.600 the next morning. It was obvious that a priest would 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.960 need to be summoned. Jane Seymour died at noon that 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:07.800 day in a rush of fever and blood, just after 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.119 she had given Henry everything he wanted, after she had 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:20.360 just ensured that her position as queen was secure. It's 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.760 difficult to know exactly why Jane died twelve days after childbirth, 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.760 whether it was child bed fever, a pulmonary embolism, hemorrhaging. 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.520 It also seemed possible, even likely, that Jane hadn't fully 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.480 expelled the placenta after giving birth, left in her body. 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:43.920 The placenta became infected. Ironically, male doctors at the time 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:48.680 had far less experience when it came to childbirth than midwives. 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.960 If Jane had been attended to by a midwife who 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.960 had been through hundreds of births, the midwife would have 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.480 known exactly what to do and could have solved the problem. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.600 After Jane's death, King Henry was so depressed that he 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.720 could barely speak. He left the funeral arrangements to two 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.240 of his advisers and went off to mourn in isolation. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.040 Jane Seymour's body was brought to a wax chandler, who 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.159 removed her entrails and embalmed her body with spices before 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.320 she was passed off to a lead plumber, who soldered 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.440 her into place. She lay in state, then at Hampton Court, 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:32.320 surrounded by candles, with a nightly watch to prevent any 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.679 more harm from coming to her. Jane is the only 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:41.160 one of Henry's six wives who received an official queen's funeral. 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.640 The route for her casket to get to Windsor, where 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.120 she would be buried, was hung with black cloth out 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:53.440 nearly every window. Her wax effigy atop the casket rested 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:58.160 on a golden pillow. It wore golden shoes and rings 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:04.399 on its finger, and it was dressed in beautifully embroidered stockings. 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:10.120 The carriage was trailed by twenty nine wailing mourners, one 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:14.840 for each year of Jane's life. Young Mary was Jane's 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:23.800 chief mourner. Stories would come out later, ballads martyring Jane 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.800 saying that she had chosen to get a cesarean section, 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:29.600 or that she was given the option to either save 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.840 her own life or save the life of her child, 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.720 and she had chosen the latter. It's pleasant to imagine 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.879 her heroic, to give agency to the woman who was 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.680 most often characterized in history books as just the opposite 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.280 of Anne. A pendulum swing from raven haired and whitty 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.520 to blonde and docile. A phoenix dies to bring new 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:56.119 life that was Jane Seal the phoenix death turns to 0:21:56.240 --> 0:22:00.520 new life. Henry finally got his son, but he would 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.879 spend the rest of his life mourning and yearning for 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.040 the wife he lost too soon, because now that she 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.080 was gone, in her memory, she would always be perfect. 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.800 Eight years after losing Jane, Henry the Eighth commissioned a 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.640 family portrait. By this time he had already gone through 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.960 two more wives and had finally landed on his sixth 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:28.240 and final wife, Katherine Parr. In the family portrait, Henry 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:31.760 sits the center, with his son Edward directly to his right. 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.119 On either far side of the frame stand Princess Mary 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:41.359 and Princess Elizabeth, daughters respectively of Katherine of Ragun and 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:46.720 Anne Boleyn. And to King Henry's left standing is his queen, 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:50.360 not the woman he was married to at the time. No. 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:55.840 Nearly a decade after her death, Henry insisted that the 0:22:55.840 --> 0:23:01.680 family portrait be painted to feature his queen as Jane Seymour. 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:12.399 That's the short life of Jane Seymour, but stick around 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:15.200 after a brief sponsor break to hear a bit more 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:29.720 about Little Baby Edward. Little Baby Edward was given his 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:33.960 own household at Hampton Court, where King Henry forbid both 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:38.720 dogs and serving boys too clumsy. No one was allowed 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.880 to leave for London in the summer when illnesses ran rampant, 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.520 No food or dirty utensils could be left within sight 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:49.600 of the infant. The floors, walls, and ceilings of his 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:54.639 chamber were scrubbed down daily. Guests would need written permission 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:58.760 to be allowed to approach Edward's cradle. A brand new 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:02.840 kitchen and washout were built at Hampton Court just for 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:07.040 Edward to prevent any possible contamination by the rest of court. 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.000 Before a single article of clothing was put on the 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:16.440 young prince, it needed to be washed, brushed, tested for poison, perfumed, 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:21.439 and then dried fully by the fire. Henry's protections worked 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:26.120 sort of. Edward survived in infancy. He lived long enough 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:30.399 to become king after Henry's eventual death when he Edward 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:34.440 was just nine years old. He lasted until he was fifteen. 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:39.520 King Henry's daughters, then, who he thought of as his failures, 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:44.240 took the throne, next Mary, who tried to restore Catholicism 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:50.360 to England, and then finally the last Tudor ruler, Elizabeth 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:54.440 the First. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry, 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:57.640 who had tried so hard to produce a male heir, 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:00.600 who would have thought that it would be a all 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:04.040 along who would usher in a golden period of art 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:13.119 and stability for England. Noble Blood is a production of 0:25:13.280 --> 0:25:17.480 iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:21.439 Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:25.800 and research by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Courtney Sender, Amy 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:30.000 Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:35.239 by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima il KLi and 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:39.840 executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For 0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:45.360 more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:49.480 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.