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Jane Seymour
Queen Consort of England
Jane Seymour
Spouse	Henry VIII
Issue	Edward VI
Father	John Seymour
Mother	Margaret Wentworth

Jane Seymour (1507/1508 – 24 October 1537) was the third wife of Henry VIII. She died of post-natal complications following the birth of her only child, Edward VI. She was also King Henry VIII's fifth cousin three times removed.

fuck me sideways

In film

• Jane was first portrayed in film in the 1920 German film Anne Boleyn by Aud Edege Nissen.
• Thirteen years later, Wendy Barrie played a Jane opposite Charles Laughton's Henry VIII in Alexander Korda's highly-acclaimed masterpiece The Private Life of Henry VIII.
• It was not until 1969 that Jane Seymour appeared in the screen again, and it was this time only for a few minutes in Hal B. Wallis' Oscar-winning Anne of the Thousand Days. Jane was played by Lesley Paterson, opposite Richard Burton as Henry VIII. Towards the movie's end, Anne Boleyn (played by Canadian actress Geneviève Bujold) dismisses her as a woman with "the face of a simpering sheep and the manners - but not the morals."
• A year later, as part of the series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, a 90-minute BBC television drama, the segment titled "Jane Seymour" presented her as a shy but honest introvert, devoted to her husband. Henry was played by Keith Michell, and Jane by Anne Stallybrass.
• In 1973, this interpretation of Jane was repeated in Henry VIII and his Six Wives, in which Keith Michell reprised his role from the BBC drama; on this occasion Jane Seymour was played by Jane Asher.
• Jane was played by Charlotte Roach in Dr. David Starkey's documentary series on Henry's queens in 2001.
• Jane appeared briefly, played by Naomi Benson, in the BBC television drama The Other Boleyn Girl, opposite Jared Harris as Henry VIII and Jodhi May as Anne Boleyn.
• In October 2003, in the 2-part ITV drama Henry VIII, Ray Winstone starred as the king. Part 2 charted the king's life from his marriage to Jane Seymour (played by Emilia Fox) until his funeral in 1547. Jane was presented as a woman of moral courage and integrity.

In song

The English ballad The Death of Queen Jane (Child #170) is about the death of Jane Seymour following the birth of Prince Edward. The story as related in the ballad is historically inaccurate, but apparently reflects the popular view at the time of the events surrounding her death. The historical fact is that Prince Edward was born naturally, and that his mother succumbed to infection and died twelve days later.

In the ballad, during long labour, Queen Jane repeatedly asks that her side be opened to save the baby. In most versions, she is refused repeatedly until finally someone -- usually King Henry -- succumbs to her pleas and allows the surgery that results in her death.

Most versions of the song end with the contrast between the joy of the birth of the Prince and the grief of the death of the Queen.

From version 170A:

The baby was christened with joy and much mirth,

Whilst poor Queen Jane's body lay cold under earth:

There was ringing and singing and mourning all day,

The Princess Elizabeth went weeping away

The song Lady Jane by the Rolling Stones also holds some connection. The song can be interpreted as Henry's sadness over the loss of Jane, because she was the only wife who actually gave him a much-wanted son, and yet her life was the price of the achievement. The song also mentions a 'Lady Anne' and that fact that the narrator can't be expected to love her when he has, or had, Lady Jane. Anne of Cleves followed Jane Seymour, and Henry quickly divorced her (on the much more fickle ground that she was not attractive).

Rick Wakeman had a pipe-organ based instrumental with Seymour's name on the concept album The Six Wives of Henry VIII. It was made to sound mainly like a typical song from her lifetime, save for a synthesiser solo and drums.

Historiography

Jane was widely praised as "the fairest, the discreetest, and the most meritous of all Henry VIII's wives" in the centuries after her death. One historian, however, took serious umbrage to this view in the 19th century. Victorian scholar Agnes Strickland, author of encyclopaedic studies of French, Scottish, and English royal women, said that the story of "Anne Boleyn's last agonised hours" and Henry VIII's swift remarriage to Jane Seymour "is repulsive enough, but it becomes tenfold more abhorrent when the woman who caused the whole tragedy is loaded with panegyric."

Modern historians, particularly Alison Weir and Lady Antonia Fraser, paint a favourable portrait of a woman of discretion and good-sense -- "a strong-minded matriarch in the making," says Weir. Others are not convinced.

Hester W. Chapman and Professor Eric Ives resurrected Strickland's view of Jane Seymour, and believe she played a crucial and conscious role in the cold-blooded plot to bring Anne Boleyn to the executioner's block. Dr. David Starkey and Karen Lindsey are both relatively dismissive of Jane's importance in comparison to that of Henry's other queens -- particularly Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr. Joanna Denny, Marie Louise Bruce and Carolly Erickson also -understandably- refrain from giving overly-sympathetic accounts of Jane's life and career.

Lineage

References

1. ^ Lundy, Darryl, thePeerage, retrieved October 27, 2007
2. ^ Lundy, Darryl, thePeerage, retrieved October 27, 2007
3. ^ Lundy, Darryl, thePeerage, retrieved October 27, 2007
4. ^ Lundy, Darryl, thePeerage, retrieved October 27, 2007
5. Lundy, Darryl, thePeerage, retrieved October 27, 2007
6. ^ Lundy, Darryl, thePeerage, retrieved October 27, 2007
7. ^ Lundy, Darryl, thePeerage, retrieved October 27, 2007

• The Six Wives of Henry VIII: Jane Seymour 1508-1537

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