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Authors: Suzannah Lipscomb
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unremarkable. The Imperial ambassador to England, Eustace Chapuys, described her as ‘of middle stature and no great beauty, so fair that one would call her rather plain than otherwise’, and ‘not a woman of great wit’. Her pre-eminent quality was her docile, modest and amenable nature. Her motto, ‘Bound to obey and serve’, epitomises her nicely.
It is possible that Henry met Jane in September 1535, when he visited Wolf Hall, but she is not mentioned in any accounts by name until 10 February 1536, when Chapuys reported that after Anne Boleyn’s miscarriage in January 1536 Henry had sent ‘great presents’ to Jane. In March, he records that she had refused a purse of coins and letter sent by the King. This last action, perhaps cunning in its coyness, has been taken by some historians to indicate that Jane was no mere submissive fool, and was manipulating Henry into marrying her, as Anne before her had done. But there is little other evidence of anything beyond a cheerful, bovine tractability to Jane. No doubt after the fierce, opinionated andpassionate Anne, this demeanour was part of Jane’s appeal — she could hardly have been more different.
Henry could literally not wait to marry her. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer issued a dispensation for marriage (Henry and Jane were fifth cousins) on 19 May 1536, the very day of Anne’s execution. The couple were betrothed the following day and married privately at Whitehall Palace on 30 May. She was the first wife to whom Henry could convince himself he was legitimately and unquestionably married (both his previous marriages, to Katherine and Anne, having been annulled). Henry may therefore have intended for her to be crowned, but an outbreak of plague in London and her subsequent pregnancy removed any opportunity.
Of her short reign, we know that she went on progress with Henry to Kent in the summer of 1536, and spent an enjoyable Christmas at Whitehall. She encouraged Henry to be reconciled with Princess Mary, and rumour has it that she once begged Henry to save the abbeys during the huge rebellion of October 1536, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace [see P ONTEFRACT C ASTLE ], but was warned by him not to meddle in politics as her predecessor had done.
By February 1537, it was known that she was pregnant. The quickening — the first movement of the baby in the womb, thought by the Tudors to mark the beginning of life — was celebrated on 27 May, Trinity Sunday. On 16 September, she retired into her rooms on the second floor at Hampton Court, for her ‘lying-in’ (women in Tudor times retired to a closed, dark and warm environment to await the birth), and after a terrible labour of two days and three nights, she gave birth to a healthy son at 2 a.m. on 12 October. He was baptised Edward three days later. For Henry, it was the greatest gift Jane could ever have given him, but it cost her everything. She never rose from her childbed and died on 24 October 1537, probably of puerperal fever and septicaemia. She was twenty-eight.
Henry was devastated. He wrote to Francis I of France, ‘Divine Providence has mingled my joy with the bitterness of the death of her who brought me this happiness.’ He wore black mourning clothes well beyond the expected time, until February 1538.
Her body was eviscerated and embalmed (her heart and innards were buried in the chapel at Hampton Court), and Jane lay in state until 12 November, when her funeral procession took her body to Windsor for burial. Through her untimely death, she earned a perpetual sanctity in the eyes of the King. It is no wonder, then, that Henry chose to be buried next to her. He joined her a decade later. Having died on 28 January, he was buried on 16 February 1547.
There is a rather gruesome story about Henry VIII’s corpse. Two nineteenth-century writers, apparently quoting lost original documents, recorded that two weeks after Henry’s death, while his coffin lay in state at St George’s, his body exploded
It is possible that Henry met Jane in September 1535, when he visited Wolf Hall, but she is not mentioned in any accounts by name until 10 February 1536, when Chapuys reported that after Anne Boleyn’s miscarriage in January 1536 Henry had sent ‘great presents’ to Jane. In March, he records that she had refused a purse of coins and letter sent by the King. This last action, perhaps cunning in its coyness, has been taken by some historians to indicate that Jane was no mere submissive fool, and was manipulating Henry into marrying her, as Anne before her had done. But there is little other evidence of anything beyond a cheerful, bovine tractability to Jane. No doubt after the fierce, opinionated andpassionate Anne, this demeanour was part of Jane’s appeal — she could hardly have been more different.
Henry could literally not wait to marry her. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer issued a dispensation for marriage (Henry and Jane were fifth cousins) on 19 May 1536, the very day of Anne’s execution. The couple were betrothed the following day and married privately at Whitehall Palace on 30 May. She was the first wife to whom Henry could convince himself he was legitimately and unquestionably married (both his previous marriages, to Katherine and Anne, having been annulled). Henry may therefore have intended for her to be crowned, but an outbreak of plague in London and her subsequent pregnancy removed any opportunity.
Of her short reign, we know that she went on progress with Henry to Kent in the summer of 1536, and spent an enjoyable Christmas at Whitehall. She encouraged Henry to be reconciled with Princess Mary, and rumour has it that she once begged Henry to save the abbeys during the huge rebellion of October 1536, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace [see P ONTEFRACT C ASTLE ], but was warned by him not to meddle in politics as her predecessor had done.
By February 1537, it was known that she was pregnant. The quickening — the first movement of the baby in the womb, thought by the Tudors to mark the beginning of life — was celebrated on 27 May, Trinity Sunday. On 16 September, she retired into her rooms on the second floor at Hampton Court, for her ‘lying-in’ (women in Tudor times retired to a closed, dark and warm environment to await the birth), and after a terrible labour of two days and three nights, she gave birth to a healthy son at 2 a.m. on 12 October. He was baptised Edward three days later. For Henry, it was the greatest gift Jane could ever have given him, but it cost her everything. She never rose from her childbed and died on 24 October 1537, probably of puerperal fever and septicaemia. She was twenty-eight.
Henry was devastated. He wrote to Francis I of France, ‘Divine Providence has mingled my joy with the bitterness of the death of her who brought me this happiness.’ He wore black mourning clothes well beyond the expected time, until February 1538.
Her body was eviscerated and embalmed (her heart and innards were buried in the chapel at Hampton Court), and Jane lay in state until 12 November, when her funeral procession took her body to Windsor for burial. Through her untimely death, she earned a perpetual sanctity in the eyes of the King. It is no wonder, then, that Henry chose to be buried next to her. He joined her a decade later. Having died on 28 January, he was buried on 16 February 1547.
There is a rather gruesome story about Henry VIII’s corpse. Two nineteenth-century writers, apparently quoting lost original documents, recorded that two weeks after Henry’s death, while his coffin lay in state at St George’s, his body exploded
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