‘Twentieth-century historians had little time for her, and what attention they did spare her was largely dismissive; she was a dupe, the tool of her brothers, or if she wasn’t, then she was a cold-hearted usurper who hadn’t batted an eye during Anne’s arrest and execution and went on to marry Henry anyway. (How exactly she was supposed to politely break the engagement isn’t clear). David Starkey dislikes her intensely, and makes it clear, and even Eric Ives, usually quite even-handed, can’t resist making some jabs at Jane’s “servile” choice of motto, as well as her appearance; after quoting John Russell on Jane Seymour’s “rich apparel”, he comments that “Anyone familiar with Holbein’s portrait of Jane Seymour might be forgiven for feeling that she needed all the help she could get.” He also makes it clear that in his opinion Jane’s “modesty” was entirely a ploy to bring in the highest bidder. Alison Weir, in The Lady In The Tower, admits that it’s impossible to know just how involved Jane was in the coup that brought Anne down, but nonetheless makes sure to inform the reader that Jane was “plump and insipid”, that where “Anne was witty and feisty, Jane was studiedly humble and demure; and where Anne was flirtatious by nature, Jane made a great show of her meekness and virtue.”
Although Antonia Fraser makes a reasonable argument in The Wives Of Henry VIII that Jane was not necessarily any of those things, but may simply have been expressing her own genuine feelings and opinions, the last century in general has not been kind to Jane; she’s become an odd, contradictory mixture of stupidity and cunning, powerlessness and hypnotic ability to make the king of England do something unprecedented in history. While Jane could not have been the plaster angel of her early portrayals, recent ones do, I think, go too far in the other direction, assuming a mindset and a degree of power which she simply would not have possessed.’
Queen Jane Seymour: Bound To Obey And Serve
