The Life of Jane Seymour | Third Wife of Henry VIII

From History Calling

The life of JANE SEYMOUR took her from relative obscurity at her family’s home at Wolf Hall, to lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, to the Queen of England as the third wife of Henry VIII, the mother of Edward VI and then a place as one of the most famous women in history. What do we know about the real Jane Seymour though? In this six wives documentary from History Calling we look at this Tudor Queen who is remembered as the meek and mild one and as a rather plain, comparatively uneducated woman who displaced Anne Boleyn in Henry’s affections, gave him his longed for male heir, then died tragically from childbirth complications just twelve days later at Hampton Court Palace. She is also the only one of Henry VIII’s wives to be buried with him at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, cementing her reputation with some as the favourite wife of Henry VIII. She chose the phrase ‘bound to serve and obey’ as her motto, but was Jane really as simple or as nice as some historians and TV shows would have you believe, or was she a calculating, home wrecker Queen who helped to destroy Henry and Anne’s marriage and send Anne to the scaffold? What was she like as a Queen as well and how successful was her marriage to Henry VIII? I’ll answer these questions as well as looking at how Jane was remembered by Henry after death through her inclusion in the famous Whitehall Mural and The Family of Henry VIII portrait. I’ll also look at her Hans Holbein portrait to see what the real Jane Seymour looked like.