Jane Seymour
It was a bitter moment for Anne Boleyn when she saw that what she herself had done to poor Catherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour was about to do to her.
1536
King Henry VIII 1509-1547
It was a bitter moment for Anne Boleyn when she saw that what she herself had done to poor Catherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour was about to do to her.
1536
King Henry VIII 1509-1547
Jane Seymour, sister of the Duke of Somerset, was maid of honour to Queen Catherine, wife of King Henry VIII, and later to Queen Anne, who took Catherine’s place and crown in 1533. To Anne’s consternation, and apparently to her surprise, Jane supplanted her in Henry’s affections and within a fortnight of Anne’s execution in 1536, Henry and Jane were married.
abridged and emended
JANE SEYMOUR, daughter to Sir John Seymour, knight, (honourably descended from the lords Beauchamps),* was (as by all concurring probabilities is collected) born at Wulf-hall in this county,* and after was married to king Henry the Eighth.*
It is currently traditioned, that at her first coming to court, queen Anne Boleyn, espying a jewel pendant about her neck, snatched thereat (desirous to see, the other unwilling to show it,) and casually hurt her hand with her own violence;* but it grieved her heart more, when she perceived it the king’s picture by himself bestowed upon her, who from this day forward dated her own declining, and the other’s ascending, in her husband’s affection.
* In English, the surname Beauchamp (originally French) is pronounced ‘Beecham’, and Fuller’s phrase ‘the lords Beauchamps’ should be read as ‘the lords Beecham’. When Roger Seymour (-?1361) married Cecily Beauchamp (?-1393), heiress of John IV de Beauchamp, 3rd Baron Beauchamp (1330-1361), the Seymours inherited the Beauchamp family seat of Hatch Beauchamp, and on Jane’s marriage to Henry in 1536 her brother Edward was created Earl of Beauchamp.
* Wulfhall or Wolfhall was a manor house in Burbage, Wiltshire, owned by the Seymour family. After Jane died the family fell from favour and her brother Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, was executed in 1552. By 1571 the house had been abandoned, and barely a trace of it remains visible.
* Henry was betrothed to Jane on May 20th, 1536, the day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded. They were married ten days later and she was publicly proclaimed Queen on June 4th.
* Jane was appointed maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, in 1532. After Anne became Queen in Catherine’s place in 1533, Jane served her in the same capacity, so new jewellery would be instantly seen and remarked upon.