Third times the charm! - Henry VIII and Jane Seymour are wed!
- Jade Lynch
- May 30
- 2 min read
Jane Seymour © Hans Holbein the Younger – The National Portrait Gallery
On 30th May 1536, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour were married. Jane was Henry’s third wife and the pair were only married for a year, but she certainly made an impact on the Tudor court, being the only one to provide Henry with his coveted son and heir.
. . .
Jane arrived at Henry VIII’s court in 1529, entering the service of Henry’s first wife, Katherine of Aragon. She was lady-in-waiting to Katherine and would have spent lots of time with the Queen, both entertaining her and attending to her every whim. At the time, Jane would have seen much of the court drama unfold, as Henry was desperate for a son and eventually sought to divorce his wife.
By 1533, Henry had broken away from the Catholic church and married Anne Boleyn, and Jane found herself with a place in the new Queen’s household. As Anne also struggled to give Henry a male heir, rumours began to spread that the King had a growing interest in Jane [1]. She was said to be fair, gentle and chaste, and her large family made it seem likely that she would be suitable to have many children [2].
In the years that followed, Henry sent various letters and gifts to Jane as tokens of his affection, but it wasn’t until Anne Boleyn’s execution in 1536 that Henry could make a move to wed her. In fact, Henry was formally betrothed to Jane the very next day in a ceremony at Hampton Court Palace [3].
In the speedy wedding preparations that followed, Anne’s falcon badges at Hampton Court were replaced with Jane’s personal emblem, ‘a phoenix rising from a castle amid flames and Tudor roses painted in red and white’ [4] and her initials were removed to make way for her successor’s [5]. This was all completed in such haste that the ‘A’s are still visible underneath the J’s’ [5].
Henry and Jane were officially wed two weeks later on 30 May 1536. The ceremony took place in the Queen’s Closet at Whitehall Palace, with Archbishop Cranmer officiating.
Some accounts note that the marriage was celebrated publicly, but Jane’s biographer, Elizabeth Norton, highlights that their marriage remained a secret for a few days. After the wedding, Jane ‘sat enthroned under the canopy of estate in the presence chamber’ [3].
As a wedding gift, Henry granted Jane ‘104 manors in four counties as well as a number of forests and hunting chases for her jointure, the income to support her during their marriage’ [2].
Jane was publicly proclaimed as Queen on 4 June 1536. However, unfortunately for Jane, she would not hold this position for long…
By 1537, Jane had fallen pregnant and gave birth to a son and heir, Edward, on 12 October. It is reported that Jane had a very difficult labour which lasted several days, likely due to the position of the baby. Due to these complications, the young Queen died on 24 October 1537 [2].
Resources:
Weir, A. (2007). The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
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