A Beloved Mistress: Jane Seymour and her relationship with Queen Catherine of Aragon

Jane Seymour © Hans Holbein the Younger – The National Portrait Gallery

Catherine of Aragon © Unknown Artist – The National Portrait Gallery

As the third wife and queen of King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour was fortunate enough not only to know her predecessors but to serve them. Jane had served both Queen Catalina de Aragon, also known as Catherine of Aragon, as a maid of honour in 1529 where she joined the Queen’s household during a tense time as another lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn, had become the scandal of the court as the King wished to discard his current queen and replace her with Anne. When the King’s wish finally became a reality in 1533, Jane Seymour was placed by her family into the household of the new Queen, the woman who Jane would later replace her.

Her relationship with Catherine of Aragon, while not as documented or spoken of, is a stark contrast to the one she shared with Anne Boleyn. What could possibly have caused Jane’s differing opinions and relationship between the two Queens is two things; religion and personality.

Similar to Jane, the King’s first wife Catherine of Aragon was a devout Catholic who strongly opposed the rise of the Protestant faith both in England and across the world. Faith, now not as influential or morally damning as the past, was a vital part of everyday life for people of the sixteenth century; their religion could dictate every single aspect of their lives. It was Catherine’s dedication to her faith and to God that provided her with the strength, grace and dignity to silently bear her husband’s numerous infidelities. Even when one of the King’s mistresses, Bessie Blount, fell with child and later gave birth to the King’s only acknowledged illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy, the Queen did not cause a scene and showed no display of jealousy or anger towards either her husband or her former lady-in-waiting. Whether Catherine’s silence and gracefulness was a result of witnessing her own mother furiously confront her father on his own affairs or a lesson learnt from speaking out against her husband early in their marriage which resulted in his vengeful dismissal of her Spanish companions.

Many of her husband’s affairs occurred with women placed within her own household, which undoubtedly would have hurt Catherine more. The Queen was known to “surround herself with attractive young women, often to her own detriment, and was a benevolent mistress to those who served her, never failing in courtesy towards them, and taking an almost maternal interest in their lives” and this maternal interest might explain her refusal to confront these women. More often than not, these women felt unable to deny the King as women had little control over their own lives and refusing the King could have proven detrimental not only to their place in the royal household but their families lives also. Although both Anne Boleyn and Jane herself were successful in denying the King’s carnal desires for as long as they could, many other women were not as fortunate as they were. Catherine herself was also powerless to prevent her husband’s eyes wandering over her ladies as he was known to punish those who defied him and the possibility remains that Catherine’s silence symbolises more than we realise; that she was allowing her husband to take advantage of the young women in her care as a method of preventing a breakdown within her own relationship with the King.

It is to be believed that Jane admired the Queen’s demeanour during the tumultuous period upon joining the royal household; another of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting had betrayed her through not only having romance with her husband but by planning to replace her also. Whilst Anne is believed to have been reluctant towards the affair in the earlier years, by the year 1529 this had completely changed. Jane would have witnessed every interaction between the two women, each fighting to keep hold of the King, and so would have formed an opinion on each woman.

During her time in the Queen’s household, Jane would have experienced not just sorrow but joy and laughter as the Queen “also enjoyed a dance, but generally did so in her rooms with her ladies; she was, after all, almost permanently pregnant”. The Queen’s constant state of pregnancy could have provided Jane with opportunities to form a close bond with the Queen who was always surrounded by her lady attendants. In these moments, Jane and the Queen may have discussed religion or small courtly matters or gossiped with the other women. No recorded details of Jane’s time with Catherine survive but I believe wholeheartedly that Jane sympathised with the Queen and her plight with the King’s relationship with Anne Boleyn.

The Queen was aware, upon Jane’s arrival in 1529, that the King was working tirelessly to annul his marriage on the basis that they were not truly man and wife, citing Leviticus: “If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an impurity; he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.”

An annulment would allow the King to marry his beloved Anne Boleyn, a proud evangelical and advocate for religious reform. Anne’s own relationship with the Queen might have started as one of respect but throughout the years, it turned into one of hatred, resentment and jealousy. By 1529, Anne desired to become Queen and her resentment towards Catherine for not giving into the King’s wishes was clear as she soon began displaying influential political power within the court. One such example would be the tragic downfall of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1529, leading to his removal from power and eventual death in 1530. Throughout the court, Anne’s relationship with the Queen, or lack of one, was known and was even documented in a letter by the Spanish Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys in 1531;

“The Lady Anne is braver than a lion . . . She said to one of the Queen’s ladies that she wished all Spaniards were in the sea. The lady told her such language was disrespectful to her mistress. She said she cared nothing for the Queen, and would rather see her hang than acknowledge her as her mistress…”

On the other hand, Catherine showed “never betrayed any sign of jealousy, even though she believed – and continued to believe even after Henry’s outright denial of the fact in November 1529 – that he and Anne were lovers” and even maintained a light-hearted air around her husband and his mistress during a competitive game of cards, stating to the victorious Anne that “‘My Lady Anne, you have the good hap ever to stop at a king, but you are like the others: you will have all or none.’”

Though her own queenship was short, it is most obvious that Jane’s great admiration and love for her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon, had inspired her to model her own behaviour as queen after her. Like Catherine before her, Jane possessed a keen interest in improving women’s education and caring for the women within her household to the best of her ability.

This choice appeared to benefit Jane greatly as she did not infuriate the King as Anne Boleyn had through their constant disagreements and her defiance through publicly debating politics with him. For the most part, Jane had adopted Catherine’s composed, graceful manner along with her silence although on one occasion the King is recorded to have scolded Jane for daring to ask the King to reinstate his daughter Mary to the succession, demanding she “‘ought to solicit the advancement of the children they would have together, and not any others’”.

Jane’s fight for Mary’s restoration to the Succession displays her deep love and admiration for Catherine as she wished for Mary, whom many believed was the true heir to the throne despite the King’s divorce from her mother, to be restored to her former glory. Regardless of Jane’s own ambition and wish to provide the King with a male heir, she still fought for Mary to be restored although it is important to note that Anne Boleyn, the enemy of Mary, offered her far more than Jane ever would, famously promising Mary “that if she would lay aside her obstinacy and obey her lather, she would be the best friend to her in the world and be like another mother, and would obtain for her anything she could ask, and that if she wished to come to Court she would be exempted from holding the tail of her gown.”

Had Mary accepted Anne’s offer, she would have received more than Jane could ever offer, especially since Jane would later be the one to deliver a living male heir to the King, Edward, who would become the new heir over Mary and her half-siblings, Lady Elizabeth and Henry FitzRoy who Henry briefly considered legitimising before Edward’s birth. On the other hand, once Mary rejected Anne’s offer, Anne’s politeness swiftly faded as Eustace Chapuys wrote;

“‘Neither the Queen nor the Princess will be safe for a moment while the Concubine still has power; she is desperate to get rid of them’, warned Chapuys. He alerted Katherine to the danger threatening her, and told her bluntly that he had heard Anne saying she ‘would not be satisfied until both the Queen and her daughter had been done to death by poison or otherwise.’”

Jane’s own relationship with Anne Boleyn was sour and bitter. Anne Boleyn was not the woman of “utmost charm both in appearance and character” as described by Polydore Vergil nor did she possess Jane’s meek and submissive nature. Anne was known for her loud, ambitious and outspoken nature that once ignited the King’s passion which slowly seeped into irritation and led to bickering between the couple. Many historians state Jane’s obedient ways as the reason the King’s attention fell upon her while others argue Anne’s luck had run out and any beauty at court might have been chosen as her replacement.

Once Queen Catherine was sent away in exile in 1531 and Anne Boleyn took her place, Jane’s father had her placed within Anne’s household. Jane herself might have preferred exile with the true queen, Catherine, however it was in Jane’s best interests to remain at court and therefore enter into Anne Boleyn’s household. As the future Queen, Anne’s household offered Jane opportunities that Catherine could no longer offer and, had Jane chosen exile with Catherine, there would be no reason for Anne to permit Jane into her household after siding with her enemy. As historian Alison Weir states, Anne began busying herself with filling her household and “it would have been easy for Jane, with her experience of the court, to secure a place with her”.

Unfortunately for Jane, Queen Anne’s behaviour and relationships with her women was a vast contrast to that of her predecessor as Anne’s jealousy was plain for all to see. Much as he had with Catherine, it was no long before the King sought comfort in the arms of other women following Anne’s coronation and the subsequent birth of her first child, Elizabeth. Anne knew how easily her power could be stolen from her and how her ladies could be the ones behind it.

The exact moment Jane caught the King’s eye is unknown however, it has been suggested it could have been as early as 1534 as Eustace Chapuys described the King having an affair with an unknown beautiful young lady who may have been Jane. Historians, on the other hand, suggest the King’s visit to Jane’s family home of Wulfhall in 1535 as to when the King’s interest in Jane first ignited. And it would not be long before the King’s interest in Jane was displayed before the court and his easily jealous wife…

Before long, expensive gifts and messages of love would arrive for Jane within the Queen’s chambers for all to see and this struck hard into the heart of Queen Anne. Jane followed in Anne’s footsteps by initially refusing to accept the King’s gifts, returning them with a soft kiss placed on the letters and parcels with the statement that she would “rather die a thousand times” than dishonour herself. This tactic only deepened the King’s desire for Jane, just as it had with Anne, and both the women knew what kind of game Jane was playing as it was inevitable that, should Anne’s next pregnancy fail, Jane would be standing where Anne now stood.

Refusing to allow such behaviour to go unnoticed, she reportedly lashed out at her new rival when she received a fancy locket containing the King’s portrait after catching her opening it for Anne to see. The incident involved Anne “ripping the locket from Jane’s neck so roughly that she cut her own finger. Anne would dearly have loved to dismiss Jane from her service, but she dared not do so”.

Just as Catherine failed to be rid of Anne, she could not be rid of Jane.

What occurred next was even more shocking, even for Jane. One afternoon, whilst heavily pregnant, Anne “flew into a frenzy” walked into a room to find Jane sitting on the King’s lap, reportedly kissing him and acting inappropriately. This infuriated and distressed Anne, to the point where she blamed this incident as the reason behind her unfortunate miscarriage. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly very dangerous for Jane to have done so, especially since she was caught by the Queen who hated her more than ever before.

There is the common belief that Jane ‘stole’ the King from Anne, just as Anne had ‘stolen’ and ‘bewitched’ the King from Catherine but there is one thing that is always missed; Jane would have had no control over whether she began an affair with the King as her family and the King himself dictated her fate. It was his actions that destroyed his relationships with Catherine and Anne, not those of the women tangled up in the mess. Whether Anne hated Catherine or Jane hated Anne is irrelevant, neither woman was evil to want to destroy a marriage, as even Anne left court to return to Hever for a year to stop the King’s advances.

When Catherine of Aragon died of cancer in January 1536, I believe that Jane would have privately mourned the loss of the Queen she admired so dearly. Her presence lived on in her daughter Mary and perhaps this is why Jane fought so hard for Mary to be restored to court so that a piece of Catherine could live on within her. The same cannot be said for Anne Boleyn’s own death by execution in May 1536; there was no love lost between the two women, she may have prayed for Anne’s soul and, despite everything that happened between them, I doubt Jane would have believed the accusations against Anne to be true. Even more so, Anne’s death symbolised something frightening to Jane; it showed Jane what might befall her should she fail to give the King a son. He had loved both Catherine and Anne deeply and had been responsible for both of their deaths, he could very easily do the same for her.

Fortunately, she would later be remembered as the wife who delivered both the King and England the long awaited male heir and it would be Jane who the King would later chose to be buried to as his ‘true love’. Unfortunately, similar to her predecessors, she would never live to see the day her son ruled over England.

References:

1. The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

2. How to be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life by Ruth Goodman

3. Jane Seymour | Hampton Court Palace | Historic Royal Palaces

4. Jane Seymour | Queen, Henry VIII's Third Wife, Facts & Death | HistoryExtra

5. The Life of Jane Seymour - Third Wife of Henry VIII - Tudors Dynasty