Leave Jane Seymour alone!
Anne Boleyn was executed on 19 May 1536. Henry VIII was betrothed to Jane Seymour the next day and married her in a private ceremony on 30 May. Jane is often accused of plotting Anne’s death and becoming Queen over a dead body, but is this view backed up by sources?
Jane Seymour undoubtedly had her part in Anne’s downfall - she was coached to tell the King how unpopular his marriage to Anne was, and she was also encouraged to withhold sexual favours. But Jane had no idea that Anne was going to be executed.
It is clear that the anti-Boleyn faction believed it was possible for Henry VIII to annul his marriage to Anne and remarry. Even Lady Mary, the King’s elder daughter, took a keen interest in the unfolding conspiracy, instructing ambassador Eustace Chapuys to “watch the proceedings, and if possible help to accomplish the said divorce”. The conspirators often used the words “dismiss” and “divorce” interchangeably when speaking about Anne’s ruin. This clearly shows that they expected Henry VIII to divorce Anne Boleyn and send her away from court in disgrace.
This clearly points out that everyone expected Henry VIII to divorce Anne and send her away from court in disgrace. At some point, however, the conspiracy turned deadly. Anne believed until the end that the King was only “testing” her and she would survive. She did not. When she was executed on 19 May 1536, Jane Seymour must have been shocked. She was about to marry the man who had just judicially murdered his wife.
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If you like my posts, you’ll love my books! This article was based on Ladies-in-Waiting: Women Who Served Anne Boleyn.
I don’t know, I’m not going to blame Jane Seymour for Anne’s death, I lay that at Henry’s door, but I do believe the conspirators knew Anne had to die one way or the other. The conspirators would not have dared written or said aloud such words or they themselves would have ended on the scaffold. Plotting the death of the monarch, after all is the charge that sealed Anne’s fate when she related her conversation with Norris to Master Kingston. Henry and Cromwell knew Henry could not afford having another “dismissed”queen in the shadows, casting doubt on the legitimacy of his new marriage. Whether Jane realized what bringing Anne down truly meant, we’ll never know, but having witnessed the disaster of the King’s Great Matter, how could she not have known or at least suspected the outcome? I do also recognize the strong possibility that Jane may not have had a say in any of it, she may have been forced by her family?(I agree we should not pit one wife against the other, I hope I’m not coming off as doing that here, it’s not my intention but this is what I’ve observed from the sources so far❤️🤓📚)