Doomed Queens (27 page)

CAUTIONARY MORAL

There are no Rules for love.

1537

redictably, Henry VIII went shopping among his wife’s employees for his third queen. This time the lucky winner was Jane Seymour.

Jane served as lady-in-waiting to both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Aside from waiting to replace her employer, what exactly did a lady-in-waiting do? During Jane’s lifetime, their duties included dressing the queen, readying her for bed, and even wiping her mouth. There were a lot of them, too—over a hundred ladies served Catherine of Aragon.

By the time the king noticed Jane, she was well into her late twenties, a veritable Renaissance spinster. Soon after his marriage to Anne, Henry sent Jane a purse of gold sovereigns. She was wise enough to send it back with a canny message. Jane dramatically threw herself on her knees and begged the king to remember that she had “no greater riches in the world than her honour… if he wished to make her some present in money she begged it might be when God enabled her to make some honourable match.” In other words, Jane stole a play from Queen Anne’s playbook. And it worked.

Henry wasted no time in wedding Jane. While Anne was on her knees awaiting the executioner’s sword, the king was publicly celebrating his engagement to Jane. The public did not approve. Despite this, the couple waited only eleven days after Anne’s execution to marry. Henry, having been burned twice, decided to postpone Jane’s coronation until after she coughed up a son.

After the brilliant and beautiful but tempestuous Anne Boleyn, Henry found Jane a soothing change. Jane was plain and boring—a pallid Mrs. de Winter to Anne’s vibrant but dead Rebecca. One courtier described Queen Jane as being of “middle height and nobody thinks she has much beauty. Her complexion is so whitish that she may be called rather pale.” If Jane had any spunk, she learned to suppress it early in their marriage. After the only time she challenged Henry, he reminded her what had happened to his first two wives, effectively squelching future differences. Some believe that Henry was encouraged to wed Jane by those sympathetic to the Catholic Church; the queen was known for her pious adherence to traditional beliefs. If this was true, she was unable to influence him greatly.

Like a good doormat, Jane chose as her motto “Bound to serve and obey.” Which she did—unlike Henry’s two previous queens, she gave him his long-desired male heir, who was conceived eight months after their nuptials. However, she did not emerge unscathed. Jane Seymour died of postnatal complications three weeks after the birth of Edward VI in 1537.

CAUTIONARY MORAL

Before you usurp your employer,
consider the downside.

LIFE AFTER DEATH

Henry deemed Jane his only “true wife,” presumably because she provided him with an heir and then died before he tired of her. He arranged to be buried next to her. As for his son Edward, he already knew Greek and Latin by his seventh birthday. Alas, Edward’s brain was stronger than his body—he died at the age of fifteen from tuberculosis.

Portrait of Edward VI as a cute baby.

1542

f the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different outcome, Henry VIII was certifiable. As he had with wives number two and three, Henry plucked his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, from his consorts’ ladies-in-waiting. But crazy as he was, Henry had good reason to shop local: No one else would marry him.

After the demise of Jane Seymour, the king tried to choose a bride for political advantage among Europe’s most eligible princesses. Most demurred—because of the deaths of his first three queens, Henry had acquired the reputation of a blue-blooded Bluebeard. One reluctant candidate was Christina of Milan. She reportedly told Henry that if she had two heads, she would gladly give him one. Anne of Cleves, a princess from Germany, bravely embraced Scheherazade as her role model and decided she was up to the challenge. Fortunately for Anne No. 2, Henry only annulled their marriage after declaring her sexually repulsive—he simply couldn’t get it up for her.