Fact or Fiction: the myths and theories of Queen Jane Seymour
- Sira Barbeito
- Dec 16, 2025
- 6 min read
Jane Seymour © Hans Holbein the Younger – The National Portrait Gallery
Jane Seymour might be a greater mystery than even Anne Boleyn herself is to us these days. She was one out of ten children sired by Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth and, well, a woman, so not much about her life before the all-consuming King Henry VIII affair is really known to us through the centuries. She was quite old for the time period when they got married, having turned twenty-seven by that point and not possessing much of an education, in contrast to her predecessor, the aforementioned Anne Boleyn, who had been sentenced to death and quickly beheaded not even a month before Jane’s own wedding with Henry Tudor.
We might have had more information about her as a person and Queen had she not died less than two years later due to birthing complications after gifting her rogue husband with his much-desired heir, little prince Edward.
Her being the one he truly grieved (probably because she didn’t live enough to really upset him or because she fulfilled her duty of giving birth to a son) to the point of deciding to be buried next to her even after marrying thrice since her demise, has cultivated a big messy soup of myths and false narratives surrounding her persona which may be interesting for us to debunk or confirm today.
She was born at Wolfhall – Seemingly true!
Jane Seymour’s date of birth, similarly to Anne’s, is lost to us as it is her place of birth, with years ranging between 1504 and 1509. We do know that her family was a wealthy one that descended from King Edward III and had many manors and some castles with Wolfhall being one of them. This medieval house was a timber framed double courtyard house with two towers, many rooms and a small chapel, all probably built with financial assistance from Thomas Cromwell and King Henry VIII. It was the preferred residence of the Seymour family so it has been generally assumed that Jane started her life there alongside her other nine siblings.
Her cause of death was a caesarean ordered by King Henry VIII when giving birth to prince Edward – Myth!
Jane had gone into confinement at Hampton Court Palace in September 1537 and ended up going through two days and three nights of active labour before she could hold Henry’s desired son, Edward, on 12th of October. Everything seemed to be fine with her, especially after such a complicated birth (believed to be due to the baby being badly positioned) she even was writing letters the very next day and received some visits sitting on bed. By the 24th, after the christening of her baby boy, her health went rapidly downwards. She caught a severe fever that no one seemed to get under control. The doctors told Henry that if she could manage to survive that night, she would have made it out alive. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
Twenty-nine-year-old Jane finally drew her last breath less than two weeks after becoming a mother. King Edward's biographer, Jennifer Loach, said her death could have been due to an infection from a retained placenta while historian Alison Weir places her bet on either a puerperal fever following a bacterial infection contracted during the birth or a pulmonary embolism. We will never know for sure but we do know that Henry didn’t order a murderous caesarean in spite of Nicholas Sander’s claims that said, as reported by Jennifer Loach: “[Queen Jane] was in severe labour in a difficult childbirth, all her limbs [were] stretched for the purpose of making a passage for the child, or (as others stated) having the womb cut before she was dead, so that the child which of the two lives was to be spared. He answered, the boy’s, because he could easily provide himself with other wives.” Even if it sounds plausible that Henry would be so careless and cruel to his wife, there is no supporting evidence, written or otherwise, to that ever happening. Moreover, Jane had been seen alive and awake for more than ten days after Edward’s birth.
She was naive and had no ill-will towards Anne Boleyn – False!
Jane Seymour is remembered as the angelic third wife of irate Henry VIII, always in comparison to his previous one, Anne Boleyn, who was loud and opinionated and had a strong character. Some go as far as to say that Jane was his favourite wife, which may very well be true only due to the fact that she did not live long enough to tire him and she gave him what he desired the most: an heir.
While Anne remains the vulture that put her claim on the King, shamelessly putting herself just far away enough for him to pursue her while he was still married to Spanish Queen Katherine of Aragon, Jane is described as demure and timid doing exactly the same, even after getting caught on his lap while Anne was going through a difficult pregnancy.
They both had a hassle when Anne saw her wearing a necklace with his portrait inside it and she tried to get rid of her (as she had done once before with another of his lovers) but to no avail.
Jane followed Anne’s steps and refused all the little presents sent by the monarch as well as his offerings to meet alone, asking for forgiveness since she was waiting to get lawfully married someday and would prefer if their meetings were chaperoned, just like Anne Boleyn had done a decade before her. And it worked splendidly just as it had back then.
It’s important to talk about her being more submissive than Anne and pledging herself so easily to his demands might come as a result of Anne’s demise as well as that time Henry VIII shushed her down telling her to keep in mind what had happened to his late wife before disagreeing with him ever again (after she tried to defend the monasteries in the midst of his reformation process, though she did get some revenues off of some dissolutions).
It would be foolish to say one woman had enough power to refuse the King’s advances, even more if the King in question is Henry VIII, the ruler who sent many of his most beloved peers to death, but it is just as ignorant to blame only one of the women while complimenting the other. Both were victims of the circumstances, their power-hungry families, and their husband, doing their best to survive. Jane was not a Saint, just a human being with flaws and all, the only big difference between her and her predecessor would be the fact that she did give birth to a healthy son.
She was never crowned as Queen Consort of England – True!
Jane married Henry VIII, eleven days after Anne Boleyn’s death, at the Palace of Whitehall, Whitehall, London, in the Queen's closet by Bishop Stephen Gardiner, on 30 May 1536. Her new husband gave her 104 manors in four counties and a few forests and hunting chases as her income to support herself during their marriage.
She was well liked at Court due to her unwavering support for Henry’s first wife and daughter, Queen Katherine and Princess Mary and so she was pronounced Queen on 4 June 1536, with a coronating celebration under construction. It was supposed to take place in London but was postponed because of a plague outbreak in the city. Not too long after that, she fell pregnant and died after birthing their one and only son, Edward VI.
She miscarried once before having her son – Probably true!
There are some non-contemporary accounts that say she miscarried at some point before Christmas in 1536. The pressure she must have been under during that time, especially after Henry’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy’s death, must have been asphyxiating. The King passed a new Act of Succession confirming Mary’s and Elizabeth’s illegitimacy, and validating any future children by Jane or any other wife he might have, which would have scared and broken Jane’s heart all together.
She was Henry’s true love – Somewhat true!
It is believed Jane was his favourite wife due to the fact that he chose his final resting place to be next to hers forever. Henry also mourned her death like he did no other’s, locking himself in his rooms for days, in complete despair, and refusing to remarry. He wore black for months in her honour and arranged a funeral fitting for a royal instead of the splendorous coronation she should have had. It might be because their short-lived (eighteen months) marriage did not give them any time to truly fight as his previous decades-long ones had, plus Jane had fulfilled her role as consort, giving him a son to keep his bloodline peacefully alive.
Whether or not he was actually capable of caring about someone other than himself is a matter of personal opinion but one can think so looking at the state of his psyche immediately after she passed.
All in all, there are many unanswered questions that will remain that way, circling Jane in a foggy aura of mystery, just like Anne Boleyn’s life. She had a deep impact on Henry and the English Court as a whole even if her ruling was unfortunately cut short, leaving her infant son alone in a den of wolves. How history would have changed had she lived is just another one of the questions we will ponder with no real answer for centuries to come.
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