Jane Seymour (c. 1508-1537) was Henry VIII's third wife and the only one to give him the son he had sought for more than twenty years, the future Edward VI. Queen for barely seventeen months, she died days after giving birth, and the king always remembered her as his "true wife", even choosing to be buried beside her.
A lady of the court
Jane was born around 1508 at Wulfhall in Wiltshire, daughter of Sir John Seymour, a knight of the minor nobility, and Margery Wentworth. She did not receive a refined education: she could barely read and write, but excelled at needlework and household management. She came to court as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon and then to the new queen, Anne Boleyn. Described by contemporaries as pale, modest and reserved, she was the opposite of the brilliant, ambitious Anne.
From Anne Boleyn's fall to the throne
In 1535, during a royal visit to Wulfhall, Henry VIII began to take an interest in her. His marriage to Anne Boleyn was by then in crisis: the queen had given the king a daughter, Elizabeth, but not a son, and in January 1536 had miscarried. The Seymour family and Anne's enemies at court, including Thomas Cromwell, encouraged the king's interest. Jane, well advised, rejected Henry's advances and refused his gifts, making it clear she would give herself only in marriage. In May 1536 Anne Boleyn was arrested, tried and beheaded in the Tower of London. The next day the king was betrothed to Jane, and on 30 May he married her at Whitehall Palace.
Her motto was Bound to obey and serve. Jane was never officially crowned, because the ceremony was postponed owing to plague in London. As queen she tried to reconcile the king with his elder daughter, Mary, who had been banished after the annulment of her mother's marriage, and according to some sources she interceded, in vain, for the Catholic rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536.
The longed-for heir
On 12 October 1537, at Hampton Court Palace, after a very long labour, Jane gave birth to a son, Edward. The country celebrated with bonfires and bells. But days later the queen fell ill, probably with puerperal fever, and died on 24 October, not yet thirty. She was buried in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Henry VIII mourned her for months, did not remarry for more than two years and, on his death in 1547, chose to be buried beside her. In a famous painting commissioned years later, the king had the royal family depicted with Jane at his side, although she had long been dead.
Her son reigned as Edward VI from 1547 to 1553, dying at fifteen. Jane's brothers played leading roles: Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, was Lord Protector during his nephew's minority, and Thomas Seymour married the king's widow, Catherine Parr; both ended on the block.
Jane Seymour today
Jane is often described as Henry's "docile" wife, but historians point out that she navigated a dangerous court with skill. She is a central figure in Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall and its sequels, named after the Seymour family home. Her portrait by Hans Holbein is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. See also Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves.