My review of Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love, by Elizabeth Norton

Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love

by Elizabeth Norton

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I enjoyed this take on Henry VIII's male-heir-bearing wife. Since 'Plain Jane' Seymour has been traditionally passed down to us as a bland, pious, selfless creature devoted to wifely obedience, this book makes for interesting reading considering that, like Henry's other wives, Jane was not so cut and dried as once thought. There are several sides to every historical monarch and consort.

While Jane was indeed pious and obedient, she could not only also mistily seduce but had a mind not heretofore sufficiently credited. She could perhaps be as shrewd as any aspiring queen consort, in her demurest of ways: as they say, 'it's always the quiet ones you have to watch ...'

Jane knew how to work the system minus the shrewish histrionics or diplomatic clumsiness of her bewitchingly beauteous but hard-faced predecessor, Anne Boleyn. Perhaps she had learnt close-up, on the job, from Anne's mistakes, being her silent but observant Mistress of the Bedchamber.   

What I particularly like about Elizabeth Norton's telling is the woman's eye view of her which, as I've argued a lot, gets us much closer inside the psyche of the subject than plain dry academia. Whilst much of this 'Jane must have thought/felt ...' material supplied here is, arguably, speculative, it is rationally reasoned and well sourced.

I was fascinated, left feeling more knowledgeable, with a more three-dimensional picture of the woman, and entertained while not to the point of feeling as if I'd sat through a melodrama. Thankfully this does not extend to sensationalism. It sticks within the boundaries of credible theory supported by hard enough data.

If Jane was as calculating as some now opine, then she clearly needed to be in a court where heads could literally roll at the drop of a hat. Whatever the truth about her she maintained dignity, composure and humility, the eternal mark of a smart and classy woman who commands our respect from the grave, from where she remains forever this legendary king's sweetheart and heroine in his glorious historic chapter.