Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth died in fifteen forty seven, obese and
Speaker 1: ulcerd one leg still rotting from a bad fall of
Speaker 1: a horse decades earlier. After his corpse was embalmed and spiced,
Speaker 1: it lay in state in the presence Chamber of Whitehall,
Speaker 1: surrounded by burning taper candles, and then two weeks later
Speaker 1: the slow procession to his burial site began a carriage
Speaker 1: followed by hundreds of men on horseback. The carriage itself
Speaker 1: was massive, a laborate tall pulled by eight horses, each
Speaker 1: ridden by a child on top of the hearse in
Speaker 1: full view of the public that had come out onto
Speaker 1: the streets to say goodbye to their king. An effigy
Speaker 1: made of wax and wood meant to resemble the king
Speaker 1: in his more handsome days. The effigy were satin and
Speaker 1: velvet and jewels with rings dotting its gloved hands. It
Speaker 1: wore a crown. But when King Henry's procession finally reached
Speaker 1: its destination, Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. His tomb
Speaker 1: wasn't gilded or flanked by sculptures, the type of pomp
Speaker 1: you would expect for the final resting place of a
Speaker 1: man who saw himself as a dynastic hero, the champion
Speaker 1: of England, chosen by God to lead their church and
Speaker 1: their nation. That was the tomb he had wanted for himself,
Speaker 1: when he had described early in his life, a double
Speaker 1: tomb with effigies in marble, carved angels on the wall,
Speaker 1: and prophets perched on overlooking columns. But King Henry was
Speaker 1: not a man who wanted to acknowledge his own death
Speaker 1: to spend thousands of pounds while he lived celebrating the
Speaker 1: idea that one day he would be gone, He never
Speaker 1: built his own tomb, and so instead he was interred
Speaker 1: simply in the vault beneath St. George's Chapel, beneath a
Speaker 1: plain black marble slab. What was supposed to be his
Speaker 1: temporary resting place became the place that Henry the Eighth,
Speaker 1: one of England's most famous monarchs, remained permanently. But one
Speaker 1: of his wishes for burial was honored. Though at the
Speaker 1: time of his death, Henry the eighth was on his
Speaker 1: sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. He specified that he
Speaker 1: should be buried not next to her, but next to
Speaker 1: his third wife, Jane Seymour. He was married three times
Speaker 1: after her, but it was her memory that Henry clung to,
Speaker 1: the memory of the wife who had done what all
Speaker 1: of the others hadn't, given him a living son. The
Speaker 1: two of them side by side for history, for eternity,
Speaker 1: the man who had six wives, choosing to be entwined
Speaker 1: forever with the one he idealized and romanticized and missed
Speaker 1: until finally he joined her in death. I'm Danis Schwartz,
Speaker 1: and this is noble blood. Jane Seymour was never going
Speaker 1: to make a very advantageous 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 blond 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 night 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 Arragon 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, and 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. Now, 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 love,
Speaker 1: or even acknowledgment, all while being forbidden to see her
Speaker 1: mother ever again. When Anne Boleyn became Queen and adopted
Speaker 1: the Most Happy as her motto, Anne pushed Henry to
Speaker 1: continue to ignore Mary and let Catherine suffer the misery
Speaker 1: of her own making. Jane didn't mind being Queen Anne's
Speaker 1: new lady, although of course she would never admit out loud,
Speaker 1: she still had sympathy for the former queen and for
Speaker 1: the once princess Mary, still banished from court, even after
Speaker 1: Catherine of Arragon eventually died. Jane was 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
Speaker 1: him continued to elude her, his eye began to wander.
Speaker 1: In the fall, Henry and Queen Anne had taken a
Speaker 1: hunting trip and they had stopped at wolf Hall, where
Speaker 1: Jane Seymour's family lived. Of course, Jane wasn't there, she
Speaker 1: was 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: eyeline whenever they could. One queen had already been dislodged
Speaker 1: because the king had fallen in love with one of
Speaker 1: her ladies in waiting, the same thing could happen to
Speaker 1: the next queen. Jane was everything Henry realized he wanted
Speaker 1: a wife to be docile, sweet, humble, virtuous. There was
Speaker 1: no chance that once he got her to bed, she
Speaker 1: would be more experienced than he was, that she would
Speaker 1: be a seductress who exposed his own inadequacies. By contrast
Speaker 1: the way his current Queen Anne did. Henry wanted to
Speaker 1: feel like a man again. His wife, who insisted on
Speaker 1: arguing with him, having conversations, debating politics, and winning those debates, well,
Speaker 1: she did not make him feel like a man. Anne
Speaker 1: had gotten her reward. She was queen for God's sake.
Speaker 1: Where was his reward? Henry thought? Where was his son?
Speaker 1: In the spring? Henry propositioned Jane and asked her to
Speaker 1: be his mistress. She responded, I have no greater treasure
Speaker 1: in all the world than my honor, and I would
Speaker 1: rather die a thousand times than tarnish it. Jane dutifully
Speaker 1: returned the letters and expensive gifts that Henry had sent her.
Speaker 1: There was no game, no malice, no intrigue in her behavior.
Speaker 1: She asked nothing of him, and so Henry wanted her
Speaker 1: all the more desperately. Jane was Anne's opposite in temperament
Speaker 1: and personality and looks, but ironically she used the same
Speaker 1: tact distance to make Henry fall in love with her.
Speaker 1: Here was the wife Henry should have married. He thought
Speaker 1: Anne was a witch. She had bewitched him. She was
Speaker 1: sinful and evil, and she had led him astray. The
Speaker 1: day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded, King Henry announced his
Speaker 1: engagement to her twenty eight year old former lady, Jane Seymour.
Speaker 1: Ten days after that, on May six, the two were wed.
Speaker 1: Catherine of Arrogun had been raised as a princess, born
Speaker 1: and bred to be married to a king. Anne Boleyn
Speaker 1: had been cunning and spent her entire life at court.
Speaker 1: She knew how to play the game better than anyone.
Speaker 1: Jane Seymour was a twenty eight year old virgin, completely
Speaker 1: new to the attention and the spectacle of which she
Speaker 1: was now at the center. She informally banned the French
Speaker 1: fashions that Anne Boleyn had popularized at court. As her motto,
Speaker 1: she adopted the phrase bound to obey and serve, and
Speaker 1: as for her symbol, it would be a phoenix. The
Speaker 1: Tutor dynasty would be born anew after the disaster of
Speaker 1: Anne Boleyn, Henry was besotted. Jane was everything he wanted
Speaker 1: in a wife. He even took up embroidery poorly just
Speaker 1: to spend time next to her, to watch her deft
Speaker 1: fingers maneuvered their way between string and cotton, building something
Speaker 1: intricate and beautiful onto a fabric that would find its
Speaker 1: place somewhere in their home. Their home. Henry had a wife,
Speaker 1: and soon he would have a son. He had to
Speaker 1: the summer after Jane and Henry got married, Henry received
Speaker 1: terrible news. Back when he had been married to Catherine,
Speaker 1: he had had a son out of wedlock with a mistress,
Speaker 1: a bastard named Henry fitz Roy, now a teenager. In
Speaker 1: July of fifty six, Henry fitz Roy, the Duke of
Speaker 1: Richmond and Somerset, had died only seventeen years old. They
Speaker 1: say it was consumption, something that had taken hold of
Speaker 1: his lungs. Yes, he had been illegitimate, but he was
Speaker 1: still Henry's son, and before his death, Henry had even
Speaker 1: been contemplating legitimizing him. Henry Fitzroy could have been his heir.
Speaker 1: Now that he was dad in the ground, it was
Speaker 1: all up to Jane Seymour. Though a magnificent coronation for
Speaker 1: Jane to introduce her to the people as their official
Speaker 1: queen had been scheduled in October, uprisings all over England
Speaker 1: put those plans aside for the time being. The people
Speaker 1: were still protesting Henry's break from the Catholic Church, his
Speaker 1: disillusion of the monasteries, and seizing their property to add
Speaker 1: to his own wealth. The largest protest, called the Pilgrimage
Speaker 1: of Grace, took months to quell entirely. Jane, who had
Speaker 1: been raised to devout Catholic, of course, quietly asked Henry
Speaker 1: if he might show mercy to the men involved, After all,
Speaker 1: they had only been attempting to be true to their faith.
Speaker 1: Henry spun his head around and snapped at his young wife,
Speaker 1: to whom he had been married for months and yet
Speaker 1: who still wasn't pregnant. You should hold your tongue when
Speaker 1: it comes to matters of the king, he spat. After all,
Speaker 1: you remember well the fate of your predecessors. Jane was
Speaker 1: left alone shaking. She never contradicted or challenged Henry again.
Speaker 1: She learned quickly the way to persuade him of anything,
Speaker 1: to achieve any change, merely mention it. Allude to it
Speaker 1: once casually. It seems such a shame. Your daughter Mary
Speaker 1: isn't here to enjoy the feast, Jane might say sweetly.
Speaker 1: Henry might murmur a response, or he might not. Did
Speaker 1: your daughter Mary enjoy riding? She'd ask? How is Mary's embroidery?
Speaker 1: I heard her embroidery was beautiful and delicate, she might say.
Speaker 1: And so then, when weeks later Henry had the magnificent
Speaker 1: idea to finally allow Mary his daughter back to court,
Speaker 1: Jane just had to smile and clap her hands and
Speaker 1: praise his wisdom. Mary, now one with a world very
Speaker 1: darkness in her eyes, bowed deeply to her father and
Speaker 1: his new wife. Jane would become something of a big
Speaker 1: sister to her, a figure of kindness who shepherded her
Speaker 1: back into the fold. Jane's coronation was delayed again for
Speaker 1: good enough reasons. There was a plague in London, they said,
Speaker 1: there were still aftershocks of rebellions about the monasteries around
Speaker 1: the country. But in the back of Jane's mind, she
Speaker 1: couldn't help but think that the true reason, the true
Speaker 1: reason she wasn't being celebrated out in the streets with
Speaker 1: the crown on her head and a king by her side,
Speaker 1: was because she hadn't done her duty yet, she wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 1: Why waste a parade on a woman who was still
Speaker 1: as disposable as all the rest. Finally it came her miracle,
Speaker 1: her savior. In February of seven, Jane's period stopped. Her
Speaker 1: petite 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 quickening,
Speaker 1: they believed was the infant soul entering its body. Here
Speaker 1: was the prince who would secure the tutor dynasty. He
Speaker 1: was on his way throughout the country. There were bonfires
Speaker 1: 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. The
Speaker 1: quail was out of season in England. He ordered that
Speaker 1: it be brought specially from Calais, with orders to expe
Speaker 1: banned of the search and go even further afield. If
Speaker 1: enough quail couldn't be found, Jane would have everything she
Speaker 1: wanted while she was carrying all of Henry's hopes in
Speaker 1: her belly. In September, she was put on bedrest, confined
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, enough maneuvering, enough
Speaker 1: 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 births 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 St. Edward's day.
Speaker 1: On October twelve, 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 It's christening, greeting the well
Speaker 1: wishers who congratulated her on achieving with the two women
Speaker 1: before her had been unable to do. Mary, the boy's
Speaker 1: half sister, was the godmother, But a week later Jane
Speaker 1: felt woozy and lightheaded. Within the hour, her fever spiked.
Speaker 1: She was delirious and sweating. By the time she awoke
Speaker 1: early the next morning. It was obvious that a priest
Speaker 1: would need to be summoned. Jane Seymour died at noon
Speaker 1: that day in a rush of fever and blood, just
Speaker 1: after she had given Henry everything he wanted, after she
Speaker 1: had just ensured that her position as queen was secure.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to know exactly why Jane died twelve days
Speaker 1: after childbirth, 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: surround did by candles with a nightly watch to prevent
Speaker 1: any more harm from coming to her. Jane is the
Speaker 1: only one of Henry's six wives who received an official
Speaker 1: queen's funeral. The route for her casket to get to Windsor,
Speaker 1: where she would be buried, was hung with black cloth
Speaker 1: out nearly every window. Her wax effigy atop the casket
Speaker 1: rested on a golden pillow. It wore golden shoes and
Speaker 1: rings on its finger, and it was dressed in beautifully
Speaker 1: embroidered stockings. The carriage was trailed by twenty nine wailing mourners,
Speaker 1: one for each year of Jane's life. Young Mary was
Speaker 1: Jane's chief mourner. Stories would come out later, ballads martyring
Speaker 1: Jane 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, herod and witty
Speaker 1: to blonde and docile. The 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's
Speaker 1: at 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 Catherine of Aragon 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 sponsored 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 washhouse 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. Edwards survived infancy. He lived long enough to
Speaker 1: become king after Henry's eventual death when he Edward was
Speaker 1: 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 tutor 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 daughter
Speaker 1: all along who would usher in a golden period of
Speaker 1: art and stability for England. Noble Blood is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and
Speaker 1: produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,
Speaker 1: and you can learn more about the show over at
Speaker 1: Noble blood tails dot com. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M hmm