Jane Seymour - Tackling Two Myths About Henry VIIIs Third Queen

March Blog

Hi!

Welcome to the latest history blog article published on my Substack, for paying members. I’ve included a free extract from the article, below. This article is also published in my British History Patreon club.

Extract from this article

To challenge history myths or “received history” can be a controversial thing to do. People get very attached to the first thing they hear and/or hear the most. Nevertheless, here I am about to challenge two popular myths about Jane Seymour.

Looking into the hearts, minds and souls of fellow human beings is decidedly, in fact certainly, tricky to say the least. There will be people that you know today, in person, whose innermost thoughts and motivations you can not truly know and yet we try to do this all the time with figures from the past. We can fall into a false sense of knowing all, simply by virtue of possessing the false assumption of hindsight. In the case of women, even as important as Queens, we must also remember that they have left little of their own voices for us to listen to. So, I think it’s important to get comfortable with never getting to the “truth” because it is an unrealistic and unachievable endpoint.

This does not, however, stop us having in-depth and interesting discussions, and forming our own opinions as to the most likely truth. It is in this spirit that I tackle two popular myths about Jane Seymour. Firstly, she was meek, mild and quiet and secondly, that she was Henry’s favourite wife.

British History is a reader-supported publication. To read the full, illustrated, article please become a paid member for £3.50.