Hi history lovers and welcome or welcome back to the channel where I bring you new videos
every Friday on all aspects of history. Today on History Calling we’re looking at the
funeral of a queen, specifically Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII. Jane was unique
amongst Henry’s wives for being the only one to die on the job, while she was still
his acknowledged consort. This video will look at how events unfolded after her death
and up until her burial, taking into consideration how Protestant or Catholic the funeral was
and when and why her tomb was disturbed in the centuries since she was placed in it.
It will even include a picture of her coffin in situ. If you’re interested in the funerals
of Henry’s wives, do check out my video on Anne of Cleves’ funeral and on the executions
and exhumation of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. They’re linked below in the description
box. If you love learning about history, Tudor or otherwise, please subscribe to the channel
and switch on the notification bell so that YouTube lets you know every time I upload.
The description box also contains links to my Instagram account and to books, movies,
documentaries and TV shows about Jane’s life. Finally, I’ve had some questions about
subtitles on my videos. These can be switched on and off using this button at the bottom
of each video, which says CC, short for closed captions.
Jane Seymour married Henry VIII on 30 May 1536, just eleven days after the execution
of his second wife, Anne Boleyn. By early 1537 the King and his new Queen had conceived
what would be their only child together and on 16 September Jane took to her chamber in
Hampton Court Palace to await the birth. After a lengthy and difficult labour, at 2am on
12 October she delivered a healthy son, Prince Edward. Both parents were ecstatic at the
arrival of Henry’s long awaited male heir and at first Jane seemed to recover from the
birth. Within days however it was clear that all was not well. Most likely suffering from
what was known as childbed fever (though I’ve seen food poisoning floated as a possible
problem as well), the Queen became delirious and at about midnight on 24 October, she died
in the same room in which she had given birth to Edward.
By all accounts, Henry was grief stricken. He appointed the Duke of Norfolk and Sir William
Pawlet to oversee the arrangements for Jane’s burial, then ‘he himself retired to a solitary
place to pass his sorrows’. The chronicler Edward Hall offers a little more detail, saying
that Henry withdrew to ‘Westminster wher he mourned and kept him selfe close and secret
a great while’. The first thing done with Jane’s body was to have it embalmed in preparation
for its lying in state and eventual burial. According to a contemporary account, the Queen’s
entrails were removed by a wax-chandler ‘with searing, balming, spicing, and trammeling
in cloth’ then her body was placed in a lead coffin which ‘the plumber leaded, soldered,
and chested’. The entrails ‘were honourably interred in the chapel’ of Hampton Court
Palace where the new Prince had been christened just a week and a half earlier on 15th, but
the rest of Jane’s body seems to have stayed where it was, for we next hear that on Friday
26 October ‘there was provided in the chamber of presence a hearse [which at this point
in time meant a kind of framework which would sit over the top of a coffin, rather than
something to transport it on] with 21 tapers about it, &c., and the corpse conveyed, in
honourable wise, from the place where she died, and laid beneath the hearse. All the
ladies and gentlewomen "put off their rich apparel, doing on their mourning habit and
white kerchers hanging over their heads and shoulders," and there knelt about the hearse
during mass afore noon and Dirige [which is a chant for the dead] after; there was also
a watch kept nightly until the last day of the month.’
Jane’s lying in state was not completed in the presence chamber however, for on the
afternoon of 31 October her body was moved again, this time to the Chapel. The route
between the two rooms, as well as the Chapel itself, were ‘hung with black cloth and
garnished with rich images’ and Jane was conveyed there with great ceremony. This was
done in the presence of ‘the King's officers and servants standing in double rank from
the chamber to the chapel with torches, not lighted, whilst the bp. of Carlisle, her almoner,
assisted by the bp. of Chichester, dean of the Chapel and the subdean, entered the chamber
and did the ceremonies, as sensing with holy water and De profundis [which means ‘out
of the depths’ and which is the name given to Psalm 130 because it opens with those words].
That done, torches were lighted and the procession formed; first the cross with priests, two
and two, then gentlemen, esquires, pursuivants and heralds, then the noblemen, then Gaiter,
then the earl of Rutland, the Queen's chamberlain, and duke of Norfolk, then the corpse, then
the chief mourner, the lady Marquis of Exeter "in place of the lady Mary [meaning Henry’s
daughter, Mary Tudor] as then accrased assisted by two noblemen as earls," then 8 noble ladies,
mourners’.
When the body arrived in the chapel, it was placed under another hearse which had been
constructed there, this one ‘garnished with 8 banner-rolls of descents’ including those
of the King and Queen. With this done, the Lancaster Herald asked those present to pray
for the soul of the departed Jane, then ‘Dirige was sung and all departed to the Queen's chamber.
Watch was kept every night in the chapel by priests, gentlemen-ushers and officers of
arms who, in the morning, early, were relieved by ladies and went to breakfast, which was
provided "as two chines of beef with bread ale and wine thereto sufficient." Then began
Laudes [meaning music]; and at 9 a.m. the lady Mary, chief mourner, and the others proceeded
to the chapel.’ The next day, Thursday 1 November an offering mass was performed ‘at
which everyone offered a piece of gold. Then after dinner and consultation with the cofferer
and other chief clerks of the Household about the provision to be made, Dirige was solemnly
sung by the bishop of Chichester.’ Over the following 11 days masses were performed
in the Chapel every day by a variety of abbots and officiants, then finally, on 12 November,
it was time to take Jane to her final resting place.
We have conflicting reports for the day the body was moved. Edward Hall says that this
was done on 8 November. However another chronicler, Charles Wriothesley, as well as a report in
the Heralds’ College manuscript, which is found in the Letters and Papers of the reign
of Henry VIII and which is the main source I’ve been using up to now, both say the
12th. The fact that there’s a detailed list of all those who officiated over the masses
said in the Chapel between the 1st and 11th November also indicates beyond a reasonable
doubt that the 12th was the day in which the body was moved. Jane’s remains (barring
the aforementioned entrails), were loaded onto what the Heralds’ College manuscript
calls a chair and what I think we can imagine as a kind of wagon or chariot and pulled to
Windsor Castle by six horses. We have no image of what this looked like, however this picture
of the funeral procession of her mother-in-law, Elizabeth of York, who died in 1503, offers
some idea of the scale of the operation. The body was attended by 14 men carrying banners
and a huge assortment of England’s aristocracy, including Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
Henry Grey the Marquis of Dorset, and the earls of Surrey, Westmorland, Wiltshire and
Sussex. Mary was there as chief mourner and was attended by Lords Montague and Clifford.
There were also countless members of the royal household including gentleman ushers, officers
of arms, sergeants at arms and riders for the horses. When the procession finally began,
the way was led by two men holding black staves followed by:
200 poor men wearing the Queen's badges, who at Colbrooke, Exton (sic, Eton), and Windsor
stood on each side of the street with their torches. Then came minstrels and trumpets,
strangers and ambassadors' servants, the cross with priests, knights, chaplains, abbots,
barons and bishops, councillors and head officers, viscounts and earls. Lord Cromwell lord Privy
Seal with the French ambassador Mons. de Schatelon. The lord Chancellor with the ambassador of
the Emperor "last come." The cross of the archbishop of Canterbury borne before him
by his chaplain; and he himself with the Emperor's ambassador "longest being here." Then Clarencieux
and Garter, the Queen's almoner, the chamberlains to the King and Queen, the earl of Oxford,
High-Chamberlain, the duke of Norfolk, High-Marshal. Then the corpse surrounded by banners borne
by Sir Wm. Muschame, lord Hungerford, lord Mordaunt, lord Bray and lord Mountjoy; assisted
by the earls of Sussex and Westmorland, marquis [of] Dorset, the earls of Wiltshire and Surrey
and duke of Suffolk. Then my lady Mary, chief mourner, her horse trapped in black velvet
and assisted by lords Clifford and Montague. Noble ladies following.
I won’t bore you with a long list of these noble ladies, but suffice to say there were
a lot of them, despite the fact that a large number of gentlewomen had been sent on ahead
to Windsor, rather than having them ride in the procession. After the ladies came Sir
William Kingston (who as Constable of the Tower of London had overseen the execution
and burial of Anne Boleyn the year before), then:
the King's vice-chamberlain and captain of the Guard, followed by the Guard—three and
three—and all other noblemen's servants. Two almoners were appointed to distribute
alms by the way. At Colbroke the corpse was reverently received; and so forth at Eaton,
where the bp. of Lincoln, the bp. of Carlisle "provost of the said college," and all the
priests, clerks, and children received it with caps and tapers in their hands. At Windsor
the mayor and brethren met it at the bridge-foot with lighted torches, and so passed to the
College.
We have some additional details of what this procession looked like from Charles Wriothesley
and it bore some similarities with the later funeral of Elizbeth I, which you see here.
He tells us that the chariot carrying the body was covered in black velvet and had ‘a
picture of the sayde Queene richelye apparelled lyke a Queene, with a riche crowne of golde
on her head, lyinge above on the coffin of the sayde corps’. The mourners were all
attired in black as well and the gentlemen and priests of Henry’s Chapel sang funeral
obsequies throughout the journey. When the body finally made it to St George’s Chapel,
it was taken in via the west door and underneath a canopy with Mary following. Her train was
borne by none other than Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford, the widow of Anne Boleyn’s brother
George. For more on her ultimate fate (spoiler alert, it wasn’t good), see my video on
the double execution of Katherine Howard and Lady Rochford in 1542. I’ll leave that linked
on screen and in the description box.
Once the body was in place inside the Chapel a dirige was performed and a number of lessons
read by several prelates. The nobles present then went to Windsor Castle. The next day
the mourners returned for the final ceremony at which point:
There was a solemne masse of requiem sunge by the Archbishopp of Canterburie; [that’s
Thomas Cranmer] and the Bishop of Worcester, called Dr Latimer, made a notable sermon;
and at the offertorie all the estates offered rich palls of clothe of golde.’
By 12 noon, Jane’s lead coffin, housed inside another of wood, had been lowered into the
crypt beneath the choir in the Chapel, where it remains to this day. With the funeral obsequies
over, the mourners retuned to the Castle where they enjoyed a great feast.
The funeral wasn’t the only sign of the country’s mourning that day. Back in the
capital that same afternoon:
there was a solemne herse made at Powles [meaning St Paul's Cathedral] in London, and a solemne
dirige done there by Powles queere, the Major of London beinge there present with the alldermen
and sheriffes, and all the major’s officers and the sheriffes sergeantes, mourninge all
in blacke gownes, and all the craftes of the cittie of London in their lyveries; allso
there was a knyll rongen in everie parishe churche in London, from 12 of the clocke at
noone tyll six of the clocke at night, with all the bells ringinge in everye parishe churche
solemne peales, from 3 of the clocke tyll the knylls ceased; and allso a solempne dirige
songen in everye parishe churche in London, and in everie churche of freeres, monkes,
and chanons, about London; and, the morrowe after, a solemne masse of requiem in all the
sayde churches, with all the bells ringinge, from 9 of the clocke in the morninge tyll
noone; allso there was a solemne masse of requiem done at Powles, and all Powles queere
offeringe at the same masse, the major, aldermen, and sheriffes, and the wardeins of everie
crafte of the cittie of London; and, after the sayde masse, the major and aldermen goeinge
aboute the herse sayenge “De profundis,” with all the craftes of the cittie followinge,
everie one after their degrees, prayinge for the sowle of the sayde Queene.
So what can we learn from this extravagant funeral procession? First, that despite the
break from Rome, there should be no doubt that Henry was still a practising Catholic
(Jane too) and that this was a Catholic funeral, as the many masses said over the body and
the prayers for Jane’s soul indicate. Second, the fact that Henry wasn’t there and didn’t
personally organise the funeral means nothing. It was standard practice for a reigning monarch
to not attend a funeral, even of their own spouse and a monarch always had people to
delegate the enormous task of organising such an event to. Henry’s absence is why Mary
acted as chief mourner as she was female like the deceased and the highest ranking woman
in the family and indeed the land, despite her ambiguous position after being declared
illegitimate. She also loved Jane and it was reported that she was grief stricken at the
loss of a step mother who had helped to reconcile her with her father. Third, can we see this
funeral as merely a matter of form, or as a sign of Henry’s great love for Jane? I
think it’s a little of both. Certainly, it would have looked in very poor taste to
give her much less considering she was his Queen and the mother of his heir, but Henry
does genuinely seem to have taken Jane’s death quite hard. I say ‘quite’, because
I’m not sure how hard Henry really took anyone’s death. He wore mourning for her
into the new year, but already there were plans afoot to find another wife for him.
I also suspect part of his grief over loosing Jane stemmed from the fact that while he was
used to leaving his wives, he wasn’t used to being left by them and he usually had the
next one lined up, ready to go. Jane unexpectedly dying therefore caught him off guard. Still,
he always had a sentimental attachment to the woman who had finally given him the legitimate
son he so desperately craved and when Henry himself died in 1547, he was buried next to
her. This brings us to the final chapter in the story of Jane’s body and burial – the
repeated re-openings of her tomb.
If you’ve seen my video on whether Henry VIII exploded after death (I’ll leave it
linked on screen and below just in case you haven’t), you’ll know that Jane’s tomb
has been opened at least 5 times since her burial. The first was to inter her husband
in 1547. The second was in 1649 to deposit the remains of the executed King Charles I.
A third time occurred at some point during the 1680s or 1690s so that the vault could
receive the remains of one of Queen Anne Stuart’s many children (I have a video on her tragic
childbearing record which I’ll leave linked below for you). The fourth was when the vault
was discovered during work on the Chapel in 1813. This discovery was accidental, as the
vault was unmarked at this point, as you can see from this 19th century image of the interior
of the Chapel. On 1 April that year, a group of men, including the Prince Regent (the future
George IV) entered the tomb and saw all the coffins.
Henry’s was broken, with the skeleton visible and the visitors deliberately opened Charles’
to look at the corpse and confirm its identity (which seems a bit pointless give that there
was a plaque on it saying that it held Charles, but anyway). Jane’s and the baby’s coffins
were intact and left in peace, for the Prince Regent declared that ‘mere curiosity’
wasn’t a sufficient reason to touch the Queen’s remains. This visit eventually led
to the fifth and final known opening in 1888, when relics taken from the coffin of Charles
I during the 1813 opening were replaced in the presence of and with the assistance of
the then Prince of Wales. From this opening we have a description of the condition of
Jane’s coffin. It reads: ‘The outer wooden coffin of Queen Jane had quite fallen away,
but the leaden coffin was perfect and unimpaired.’ A watercolour was also painted of the condition
of all the coffins in the vault, which you can see here. Jane’s is on the far right
of the image, with Henry in the middle and Charles on the left, surmounted by the tiny
coffin of his great-grandchild.
Nowadays the vault in which Jane and the others lie is marked by a marble slab in the floor
with each of their details on it. You can see it in this old photograph of the choir
of the Chapel (which I know isn’t very clear, but I literally could not find a modern public
domain, or Creative Commons image of this, because you’re not allowed to take pictures
in the Chapel nowadays). This slab was placed there in 1837, though some research suggests
that it’s actually slightly to the west of the vault. This may have been done by accident;
or to protect the vault’s exact location, or for reasons of symmetry, so that the slab
is in the middle of the floor. Barring maintenance work on the Chapel, it seems unlikely the
occupants of the vault will be disturbed again and this is almost certainly the end of the
tale of Jane’s death and burial. If you enjoyed this video please remember to give
it a like and subscribe to the channel and let me know in the comments’ section if
you believe Jane’s elaborate funeral was a sign of love from Henry, or just a matter
of form, or a combination of both. I’ll be back next week with a new video, and until
then, keep learning.