4: The Six Wives of Henry VIII Part 1

Welcome to Illiquid History! Today we are talking about the War of the Roses and the six wives of Henry VIII. We start with Catherine of Aragon, who married Henry's son, Arthur, but he died. Catherine then married Henry and they had a good marriage, but she couldn't produce a male heir. Henry wanted to divorce her and marry Anne Boleyn. Catherine fought against the divorce but eventually died. Anne Boleyn became Henry's second wife, but their marriage also ended tragically. Welcome to Illiquid History! Welcome back! We are two women who are very ill-equipped to talk about history, but we're doing it anyway. We're doing it anyway, dammit. Because we like it. Yeah, history is cool. It's rad, yo. Oh my god. You hatin' me yet? Oh. Never. Never. We've been friends for like 20 years, if we haven't already said that. So I just want to go ahead and apologize. Like we said last episode, I am real struggling with allergies right now. I have some ginger tea to try to open up my sinuses, but I'm sorry if I sound like death. I don't feel like it, I just sound like it. I feel. So. I was very excited to talk about today's subject. I recently saw a musical about this, and I was so excited. And I've been talking. It sounded so cool. I've been talking everyone's ears off about this subject, because now I feel like I know a lot about it. So, should I, should we just go ahead and jump on in? And then we'll talk about, we'll discuss what our subject is today. Yes. Let's set the scene first. Okay. Enter, England. War of the Roses, 1455. Ah, we're the Lancasters, and we have the rightful claim to the throne of England. No, we're the Yorks, and we have the rightful claim to the throne. I, Edward of York, capture King Henry VI. You cad! We're going to fight about it for 32 years! For 32 years, there is a major civil war in England, where the Yorks take the throne from the Lancasters. Many battles are won and lost. War ends in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth. You cannot take the throne from me! I am King Edward III! Oh yeah? I, Edward Tudor, have at thee! They bow as Edward is killed. There you go, sir! Here's the crown! The crown is taken off Edward's head. Thank you! Henceforth, I will be known as King Henry VII, and my wife will be the previous king's niece, and we will unite the houses of Lancaster and York. Peace will be brought to us forevermore! Alright, Emily, before going too deep into it, what do you think today's episode is about? Well, I'm not quite sure. There's a lot going on in 1455 with the War of the Roses, but I'm assuming it has to do with King Henry VII? Yes, a little bit. So, we are entering into the Tudor times. I was about to say Victorian England, but that's literally not true at all, because it's the Tudor era. Literally not Victorian. I'm stupid. I'm sorry. Illy quip. We're illy quip. We're not professional! No, we are not. So, what I'm going to be talking about today is the six wives of Henry VIII. Ooh! And I'm so excited. I feel like when this subject is talked about, a lot of the focus is on Henry VIII. And he was a very important figurehead at the time. Of course, he was the king for a long time. And I feel like the story of his wives is really glossed over. Yeah. So, I want to make sure that I'm doing what's right, and I'm really getting into all the stories of each of these six women, who all have one thing in common. So, this will be a two-parter episode, because I have almost 20 pages of notes. And there's a lot of wives. Yes, there's six of them. So, I'll be covering the first two on this episode, and next week will be the last four. So, without any further ado, we'll go ahead and jump in. So, we open with the first wife, who is Catherine of Aragon. She was born December 16, 1485. She was a princess. She was the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. So, King Ferdinand ruled Aragon, Queen Isabella ruled Catalina, and their marriage united the two halves of Spain. And fun fact, this is the same king and queen that sent Columbus off on his famous mission. That's so cool! Yeah. Also, I said Catalina, I meant Castile. Isabella of Castile. Catherine of Aragon's real name was Catalina. But she was known as Catherine, because her anglicized name. So, what's also really fun is that Catherine was distantly related to the Lancaster line through her mother. So, she had a little bit of English royalty in her. That's cool. She's got a lot of bling going on. Yes. A lot of jewelry. She looks very fancy. Yes, she was a very fancy lady. So, Catherine of Aragon, she was extremely educated in multiple languages. She spoke at least four. I'll get into it later, but she was a paragon of education. So, negotiations to marry Henry VII's son, Arthur, started when both Catherine and Arthur were both infants. And Arthur is Henry VII's first born son. So, I think the documentary I watched, she was one year old when negotiations for them to marry began. Arthur was also one. So, they were both infants. Because it's all about alliances. I know. It's so gross. Yeah, it's weird. So, a treaty was written in 1489 that Spain and England were like, yeah, we're bros. We're bros. We're going to ally our countries with our babies. And we're totally not going to renege on this deal. Which almost happened a couple times. So, in 1497, the marriage was officially agreed upon, but they were still not even teenagers yet. In 1499, there was a proxy marriage, and then Catherine and Arthur were officially married when they were 15 in 1501. Yeah. Yeah, 15 was the marrying age in this time period. So, they were both 15 in 1501, and they were both married. Less than five months later, Arthur died of sweating sickness. They both contracted it, but Arthur ended up dying. And it's either influenza, anthrax, or some form of hantavirus. Which are all very bad ways to go. Yeah. So, now Arthur's dead. And now the alliance is like, uh-oh, what's going to happen? So, actually, Catherine's parents were like, hey, we still want to keep this alliance going strong. Can Catherine marry your other son, Henry? And they were like, cool. But he was also still a child at the time. How old was he at the time? About 10. Ew! Yeah. He was only 10, and everyone was cool with this. But they were going to wait until he was of marrying age. They were not going to marry a 15-year-old to a 10-year-old. No, but they'll marry a 15-year-old to a 20-year-old. Ew. Okay, so, Henry was an ex-born son, and he was a successor to the throne, which he did end up taking over when Henry VII died in 1509. So, this is Henry VIII. So, before this happened, there was a lot of drama that went on that I'm not going to cover, but a lot of stuff in Spain with Catherine's family. A lot happened. I'm not going to go into it. While all this was going on, Catherine is a 16-year-old widow, and is all by herself in England. She actually never returned to Spain when she got married. Oh. When Henry VII died, Prince Henry and Catherine married when he was 17, and she was 23. So, they held off because, again, weird things happening, so they ended up waiting until he was 17. They were both coronated on the same day. Their marriage was actually really great. They both really loved each other. They were both really excited to get married to each other, which, you know, that's great. Cool. Something else that's really cool. So, Catherine was the unofficial ambassador for Spain, and always wanted to make sure that Spain's interests were taken care of. So, this was super helpful, as her nephew became the new Holy Roman Emperor after her father died. He ruled over Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, and a lot of Italy. So, you know, it's a very powerful family you've got here. He was the most powerful European monarch in centuries. And he does come back later in the story. So, Henry VIII hated France, and was leading a war campaign over there. And Catherine served as Governor of the Realm and Captain General of England. Just fucking badass, honestly. Yeah. And she actually, there was a Scottish invasion that was going on, and she responded super quickly to it, and was able to disintegrate the invasion. Sorry, I'm bumping into my table. I'm like so pumped, I'm like shaking, and I'm like, I gotta keep it inside, I gotta keep it contained. I'm so excited to talk about this finally. Okay, so, she fended off the Scottish. Catherine was very pious, very Catholic. She was described as tenacious, loud spoken, extremely intelligent. She was very proud of her Spanish heritage. Yes, ma'am. Yes, she was a huge advocate for education, and campaigned for girls and women's education. Yes, ma'am. Yes, she was a big supporter of local colleges, and was friends with many leading intellectuals at the time. Yeah, she's really amazing. So, she's married to Henry VIII for about the first 10 to 15 years. Their marriage was awesome. They were very affectionate, they were both very popular. Henry VIII was super athletic, he was charismatic, the people loved him. He was super fancy. He actually spent the most money on clothes. He made a law that you had to dress a certain way, based on your social class, at risk of fine or death. What? Dude, not everybody can afford Air Jordans, like chill. Yeah, yeah, but only the king could wear Air Jordans. If you wore Air Jordans, he would kill you. Oh, no. There's a dress code to life? Yes, there is, based on your social class. Because some of the lesser nobles were trying to dress as fancy as Henry VIII, and he was like, no. You cannot do me. He was very fancy. Unfortunately, Catherine suffered from a lot of miscarriages and stillbirths. At one point, she did give birth to a son, but he only lived for a couple weeks. Her only surviving child was Mary, who eventually became Queen Mary I of England. Henry doted on Mary, but he became bitter towards Catherine as she had still not produced a male heir. And while Catherine was pregnant, the multiple times she was pregnant, Henry had affairs. It was seen at the time that this is sort of acceptable, because it was believed that if a woman had sex while she was pregnant, it would hurt the fetus. But, you know, men can't just not have sex. While their wife is pregnant. So, they could get mistresses. So, enter Elizabeth Blunt. She was one of Catherine's handmaidens. This is also a pattern that you will see. So she actually gave birth to Henry's firstborn son, Henry Fitzroy. And Henry VIII gave him the name Fitzroy, which literally means son of the king. And Henry VIII doted on this boy. And there are actually talks that Henry would make him a legitimate heir if he couldn't get a legitimate son. He loved this kid. But he was a bastard child. And bastard children at the time did not have any rights. They were not seen as equitable members of society. Right. They weren't in line for the throne at all. Right. No succession. So, everyone knew kings had mistresses and paramours. And it was sort of accepted. But it was also seen as a lack of self-control. So, like, everyone knew what happened. Everyone was like, yeah, it's a thing. But also, like, it's not the best. So, Catherine is suffering all these miscarriages. And then Henry starts to believe it's a punishment by God. And apparently there's a line in the Bible that says you cannot marry your brother's wife. Brother's wife. Because now she is your sister. And that's incest. Oh. So, all the miscarriages and him not having a son was a punishment by God. But Catherine said that she and Arthur never consummated their marriage. There's no biblical law being broken. And she insisted that. And there was never any proof that they did or didn't. Okay. So, and this is at a time when a married couple invites the court into their room. Right. To witness them having sex on their marriage night. Everything was witnessed. Everything was witnessed. So, there was no evidence that they actually did ever consummate the marriage. So. So, now Catherine, at this time, she's about 40. Because she's older than Henry. Right. And Henry wants a cooler, younger wife who could bear him a son. Anne Boleyn. In 1526. So, Anne was one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting. Her sister Mary was one of Henry VIII's mistresses. And it's rumored even their mother was one of his mistresses. Oh. Yeah. So, Henry and Anne's affair lasted about seven years. So, it's debated if they actually slept together. She denied that they ever were physical in that way. And she never got pregnant during that time. But then they're like, well, how does she keep him so enticed for so long? Because it's a seven-year affair. Right. Maybe some other things happened. Anyway. So, Henry wants to marry Anne. But he can't divorce Catherine. And he even tried to marry Anne anyway, but that's bigamy. Which is heavily frowned upon by the Catholic Church. Right. And Catherine was pissed. Absolutely pissed. They were married for 18 years. Henry formally declares that their marriage is a sin and is unlawful due to the above reasons. Which Catherine calls bullshit on. Yeah, because she should. Yeah. Because this is a legitimate marriage. And I am inclined to believe her because she is a pious Catholic. And I don't think that she would intentionally break a biblical law. No. Like, just for her own personal gain. I don't think that's not who she was. So, Catherine wrote to her nephew, who is a Holy Roman Emperor. He had recently captured Rome and had imprisoned the Pope. And so now there's no way that the Pope was going to annul their marriage. Because they pissed off the Pope! Yeah. Oh no! But now Henry can't ask the Pope to annul their marriage because he's Catherine's nephew's prisoner. So, Henry started working on legal justifications to grant the divorce. Like, he called everyone he knew to try to think of a way to weasel out of this marriage. The Pope did send a, it's called a legate, and I assume it's some kind of representative, to England. And Catherine shared with him that she and Arthur never consummated their marriage. Henry's whole scheme was null. They were not breaking any weird laws that he had drummed up. Right. Eventually, Catherine and Henry went to Rome to appeal their cases before the papacy. Little was known, little is known about what was said. No one thought to write it down. But according to record, Catherine knelt down before Henry, said that she had been a faithful, loving wife for almost 20 years. Then fucked off. And the people were like, wait, wait, wait, come back. She went, nope. And walked out of that room. Yeah, because fuck him. Fuck him! Yeah, I mean, this is so embarrassing, too. So, while they're at court in England, Henry started bringing Anne around more and more. And Catherine was so embarrassed, of course. Yeah. But she, you know, was like, not going to let it get to her. She remained dignified. Anne's family was also very invested in helping Henry get his divorce, obviously. Yeah, they're trying to get. Without any further of their standing. Yeah, they're trying to get all of his fancy money. Right, and it's very common for the queen to appoint her family members into her own court, or the king's court. Right. So, one guy thought of the idea that the English church was not under Roman jurisdiction. The English church ruled by the king of England. And the king is only secondary to God. So, Henry could grant himself the divorce. I hate these people. And thus, the Church of England was created. I hate these people. So, this is also at the time the Protestant Reformation was sweeping through Europe. I don't know if you've heard of a man named Martin Luther. Yes. Yeah, so, this kind of started with him. But a lot of people were pissed off at Catholicism. So, this was just another kind of incentive. And Henry was like, we can use this to my advantage. So, Catherine was double, mega pissed. And insisted that Rome had religious supremacy, because it's Rome, and that's the pope. And the marriage was a legitimate marriage. Yeah, like, I don't have anything against divorce, but this dude is just pissing me off. Yeah. So, in 1531, Catherine is ordered to leave the royal palace. She never saw Mary again, her daughter. Her only surviving child. She never saw her again. That's so sad. And at one point, I don't think I wrote this down, but Mary ended up getting really, really sick. And Henry wouldn't let Catherine come see her. So, by the summer of 1532, Anne basically took Catherine's place in court, and was acting as queen. They were married, Anne and Henry were married in late 1532, secretly. And then there was an official marriage in 1533. Wow. And Henry and Catherine's marriage was annulled. And Henry and Anne's marriage was retroactively officially recognized. Wow. And this just fucking sucks so bad. So, Catherine had to fight to keep Mary a legitimate heir, because of the separation. And Anne was trying to get Mary listed as a bastard child, because of the divorce. I don't like Anne. I don't like Anne. So, Henry offered Catherine the title of Princess Dowager. And I looked up what Dowager meant, and it usually means like a widow. Okay. And she refused it. She was like, no, I'm not a widow, and I'm not a princess. I'm a queen. Yeah. And she tried to get the papacy to publicly announce the separation, but just didn't really go anywhere. But the, I can't think of the word, like the people that they ruled over. Right. Their subjects were really upset, because everyone loved Catherine. She was a very popular queen. Anne was a lot less popular. And one of the documentaries I watched described her reception as tepid. So, then there was, after this, there was a government order that Anne's, any children born by Anne, while she was married to Henry, would come before Catherine's in the line of succession, which Catherine refused to acknowledge or sign. Right. Because, yeah, she was even further isolated and had a very restricted life. And that's where I put when Mary got sick, Henry wouldn't let Catherine come and see her. Catherine continued to fight against the annulment. She reached out to religious leaders, but she did die in 1536. In her autopsy, her heart was described as black and damaged, and it's suspected that it was a side effect of a skin cancer. Bless her. She was buried at Peterborough Abbey. No monuments were erected at her grave site. She was a Queen of England. She was a Queen of England for 20 years. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But Mary eventually became Queen of England in 1553. Good. I'm glad Mary kicked everybody's butt. It was complicated, but we're not going into that right now. Yeah. So that's Catherine's story. Poor Catherine. I love her and I am so sad for her. Yeah, it's really shitty. But honestly, Anne Boleyn didn't have much better of a life, which we're about to go into. So Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife. She was born around 1501 to a very successful and prominent family. Her mother was one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting. Anne was very intelligent. She was very talented. She actually served as lady-in-waiting to Margaret of Austria in 1513 in the Netherlands, and the Dutch court loved her. And she was told to serve under Mary Tudor, who's Henry VIII's sister, when she married King Louis XII in France. So Anne and her sister Mary traveled to France, and Anne ended up coming very close to the Queen. And she actually acted as an interpreter between the Queen and her stepdaughter and became very close to both of them. She served for seven years in the stepdaughter's court. Wow. Anne was fluent in English and French. I'm trying to scroll. There we go. So Anne returned to England in 1522, and she was considered a fashion icon, which means she just came from France. So, obviously, she was graceful, she was poised, and she was charming. And even though that didn't like her very much, could not deny. Mary, whose ancestor was a little promiscuous, she had a reputation both in France and in England. She was Henry's mistress for several years. And that may have furthered their father's career, but the affair ended in 1525. So there were talks for Anne to be married to a man named James Butler. She was like, nah. Then she had a courtship with a man named Henry Percy, who was Count of Northumberland, but they never got married. Then there's Henry Wyatt, who was her next love interest, and was in Henry VIII's court, but he wasn't married. Yeah. But their relationship was flirtatious at best, it never got physical, but there were rumors, there were some rumors that she was a little promiscuous. And had several relationships with men outside of the marriage, which comes back. So, like what was mentioned earlier, Anne was one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting. And she ended up gaining Henry's attention. She refused to become his mistress, like physical mistress, and would only sleep with the man who was her husband. But Henry was hopelessly in love with Anne. First she kind of rebuked his advances, but I mean, this is the king, you know. She did end up returning his affections. Not all of the church things are happening. Henry is trying to annul the marriage with Catherine. So, Henry and Anne were officially married in 1533, but there were rumors that Anne was already pregnant. Because her daughter was born seven months later. Her daughter, Elizabeth, eventually became Queen Elizabeth I. Wow. We've got some royal ladies here. For her coronation, Anne took Catherine's barge. I don't know what that really means. But she destroyed, like, Catherine's coat of arms. And put her own on there. What a bitch. Which was really rude. Yeah, it was really rude. And the public was not happy. Of course not. Because they really liked Catherine. The same year that they were married, Henry got another mistress. What? What a dickhole. Henry sucks. He sucks. So, Anne was, she actually was very charitable. She was very charitable to the poor. She was a religious reformist. She was super into the Protestant Reformation. So, I think at the time, it was very traditional and very Catholic to read your Bible in Latin. But she was like, nah, I'm going to read it in English and French. Which was revolutionary. Especially for a woman to read it in English and French. So, at first, when they got married, Anne tried to diminish contact between Henry and his first daughter, Mary. But that didn't really work. Because Mary, she had her shit together. Good for her. Yes, ma'am. She comes up over and over again in this story. And she has people she likes and she has people she does not like. She does not like Anne. Anne tried to befriend Mary because she couldn't get her to go away. But she was like, I will be your friend if you say that your parents had never been married. And Mary was like, fuck you. How old was Mary at this time? I want to say she was probably a teenager. So, she knew what was going on. Or a young woman. No, she knew exactly what was going on. But Henry did end up delegitimizing Mary in favor of Elizabeth. So, Anne suffered two more miscarriages after she had Elizabeth. And she still had not produced a son. At one point, she tried to get one of Henry's mistresses to run out of court because she was really jealous. And that super backfire did not end well. After the second miscarriage, Henry accused Anne of being involved in the occult. Which is not good. This is in the 1530s. I hate this man so much. Yeah. So, in 1536, there were accusations of adultery and witchcraft made against Anne. She was arrested and sent to the Tower of London as well as her brother and other suspected lovers. Wait a minute. Her brother and other suspected lovers. Her brother wasn't a lover, right? It was actually rumored. No. Yeah. There were rumors that there was incest going on. No. Don't know if it actually happened. Right. I mean, but still just the thought. Yes. Yes. So, all men involved were found guilty and were hung, drawn, and quartered. Damn. They're all dead. So, Anne was also charged with a plot to assassinate the king in order to marry one of her accused lovers. Also, while this was going on. There's an also? Yes. Also, at this time, a woman named Jane Seymour caught Henry's attention and she was one of Anne's ladies in waiting. Get rid of the ladies in waiting. I know. The ladies in waiting are Henry's buffet line of mistresses. Oh. And that's a very crude way to say it. I hate it, but it's the truth. It's true. He doesn't look outside the court. He's not having to go anywhere. He's literally just going to his current wife's ladies in waiting. Ladies in waiting. Yep. And Jane Seymour comes back because she's his third wife. Anyway. What the fuck? Yeah. So, Anne was put on trial. She had no counsel. I think it was her own father and her uncle sat on the jury against her. Against her? Mm-hmm. Because they had to because the king was accusing her. Oh, man. So, Anne really tried her hardest to prove her innocence, but she was found guilty because the court did not want to go against the king. I don't know if you remember me talking about Henry Percy. Yes. A contract was found, quote-unquote, don't know if this is a real contract or not, which declared Anne's marriage to Henry VIII illegitimate. And their marriage was annulled because this contract was saying that Anne and Henry Percy had been intimately involved. Oh. Her own uncle said that she should either be burned at the stake or beheaded for the act of treason. And Anne died in 1536 by beheading. It was so hard. Now, not that I'm saying that I like Anne because she obviously was kind of a bitch. But it was hard being a woman back then because this poor lady is having miscarriage after miscarriage, which is not uncommon for that time because the lack of modern medicine and such. And she's being accused of witchcraft and incest and going against the king for something her body is doing naturally. It's disgusting. Yep. They were only married for three years. Oh, my God. And also around this time, I think in 1536, Henry Fitzroy also died. And he was, I think, like an older boy. Like, I think he was in Adelaide at like 12 or so. So now Henry has no male sons. Within 24 hours of Anne's death, Henry was betrothed to Jane Seymour. What a bitch. Oh, my God, I hate this man. I hated him before. Do you remember there was a song that we learned in elementary school about his wives during history class? I don't remember the song. I just remember it being there and how half of them just got beheaded. Do you vaguely remember that? Well, the only thing I can think of is from the play Six. And that goes divorce, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Spoiler alert. But I don't remember that. It was something along those lines where it was... Wow. 24 hours? Within 24 hours of her death, they were engaged. So he basically watched her head roll, turned around, and is like, you're my wife now. Hey, Jane. What up? What's up, Jane? You want to be number three? She was like, yes. Don't say yes. You just watched the last wife's head roll off the... Oh, what the... Don't do it. We'll get into Jane. Don't do it, Jane. Jane's an interesting lady. Jane is an interesting lady. We will get into her next week. So we're going to end on... This episode actually was a lot faster than I thought it would be. But I already said it. We're just going to do two. Okay. We want to go ahead and do Jane Seymour. We can go ahead and do Jane Seymour. We're only at 35 minutes. Surprise. We're doing a third wife. Yay. Bonus. Okay. So before I get into Jane, I added this because I thought it was super interesting and it is relevant. So I mentioned earlier, Henry was very athletic and he loved jousting. That was his thing. In 1536, so I don't know if it was before or after he married Jane, but he was almost fatally injured. He straight up almost died. Prior to the accident, he was jubilant and athletic and charismatic and everyone loved him. After the accident, everyone said that he was a different person. He was paranoid. He was depressed. He was angrier. One source I read said that this is when he became tyrant. I didn't write it down because it wasn't relevant to my research, but I was watching, I think it was Oversimplified, an Oversimplified video on Henry VIII on YouTube. Henry loved chopping off people's heads and he killed up to 72,000 people by beheading during his reign for one reason or another. Yeah, it was really bad. He liked his shoes, apparently. I thought this was interesting. So he was constantly in pain because of his injury, which bothered him for the rest of his life. But he used horoscopes and astrology to predict and treat his ailments. He was a cancer, by the way. So at the Hanson Court Palace, I included a picture of the notes and we'll post on Instagram. There's this astrological clock. It is beautiful. This was built in the 1530s. Henry VIII got this clock built for him. It tracks the phases of the sun and moon. It tells time. It has the signs of the zodiac. Oh my gosh, it's absolutely beautiful. I don't know how to read it, but I want it. I see May and I see how it's split up into... It almost reminds me of the Mayan calendar look, but if it was converted to horoscopes. It's round and there's a sundial thingy that goes around, you can tell. That's interesting. We'll post a picture of it. I saw it in one of the documentaries. I watched it and showed it moving. I was like, oh, that's so amazing. We should go there sometime. We should make podcast trips and go to these places if we can. I'll ask my sister. My sister lives in the UK. I'll see if she can take us. Yes. The only qualified one in the family. She is qualified. She is equipped. We're going to jump into Jane Seymour, who is Henry VIII's third wife. She was born between 1507 and 1508. She was the seventh child and the first daughter. No one cared to write anything about her early life. How dare she be a girl and not one of the first three kids? Yes. Her family, they were fine. Her father was a local sheriff. He was the justice of the peace. Her mother was distantly related to royalty. I feel like everyone was, though. Her education was not as rigorous as her brother's. Her family was not very wealthy. She could read and write her name. She knew a little French and Latin. She could dance. She could ride horses. She hunted. She was an amazing seamstress and needle worker. I like her so far. Legendary, yes. She was groomed for running a household of respectful, but not noble, status and class. She was also a devout Catholic. She was described as kind and gentle and shy. She was described as being plain, which is pretty rude, I think. That is rude. What? Just because she's not dripping in jewels and stuff doesn't mean she's not an interesting person. Just her physical appearance, especially when compared to Henry's other wives, she's considered the plain one. That's so rude. What? She was a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon around the same time that Anne Boleyn was a lady-in-waiting. Jane saw all of this shit go down, but she was like, I'm going to keep my mouth shut. I'm going to keep my opinions to myself, which is very smart of her. Good for her. She's got a head on her. She does. She does have a head on her shoulders. Apparently, Jane was also devoted to Catherine and Mary. She was very upset about everything that was going on. Yeah, of course. Jumping forward, in 1536, Jane's affair with Henry became known while Anne was going through her third pregnancy, like I said. It may have been going on for a while. Kind of like Anne, Jane refused to sleep with Henry. He would give her gifts, shower her with tokens of affection, stuff like that. As far as anyone can tell, nothing actually physical happened. Also, one of the sources I watched said that Jane might have been a little shit to Anne. I feel like Anne deserved it with the way she was just handling the whole Catherine thing. Yeah. You know, don't throw our grins around. Yeah. Jane may have rubbed it in Anne's face a little bit. Jane's family, they had risen to power independently of her affair with Henry, but they may have not done anything to discourage it. Right. I mean, what's a little more power, right? Right. This is kind of a funny story. So at one point, Henry sent a knight with a letter in gold for Jane, and she tearfully and piously refused, saying she couldn't compromise her honor, that she had to wait until marriage. But it was weird because she had been accepting Henry's gifts all this time, but now she isn't anymore. I don't know. But Henry respected her wishes, and he would not meet with Jane without a chaperone present, usually which is one of her brothers. And apparently he, so Henry kicked out one of the top members of his court who had a room next to Henry, kicked him out, moved in one of Jane's brothers, so Jane can come visit her brother, and Henry just had to go like right next door so they could visit each other. Oh my God. Could you imagine being that high member, like serving your king for years and him being like, I need you to move because I got a booty call moving in. It's not even the booty call. The brother. The brother. The brother of the booty call. So I could get the booty call here to marry me after I kill my current wife. Oh man. What a mess. So yeah. Yeah. So, and drama. So, like I said, Jane and Henry were engaged the day after Anne's death and they were married two weeks later. They don't wait, do they? Damn. No. So Jane insists on Mary and Henry reconciling because she wanted Mary to be Henry's heir again. Because remember, Jane loves Mary. She's devoted to her. Yeah, good for Jane. So Henry refused and even threatened to kill Mary if Jane didn't drop it. Okay. What an asshole. Yeah. But Jane continued to be very close to Mary. Jane became pregnant in 1537, pretty quickly after their marriage. She was in labor for 36 hours. In 1537. All right. I was in labor for 16 hours and I had a C-section and I thought I was going to die. It was, and I had an epidural. We were not having a good time. I could not imagine. 36 hours. And you know what's sad? You know what's sad? Fun fact. My mammal was in labor with my uncle for four days. Oh, my God. Only 16 before they gave her a C-section. They just, four days. She went to, yeah, she went to labor on her own birthday and then stayed in labor for four days. Fucking sucks. Shit obviously hadn't gotten much better. At least that's not. No. And I saw something. Apparently a C-section may have been attempted at one point, but in those days women did not survive C-sections. No. If you were saving the baby and not the mother. Right. At that point. I think what the documentary I watched says is that Henry would have rather had saved Jane than save the baby. Wow. Well, I mean, I hate to put it this way, but I guess he had lost so many babies already. He did. And I'll get to it later, but Henry really, truly adored Jane. She's referred to as his favorite wife. Oh. Okay. So he had a heart somewhere down in there. He did. A little bit of one. Yeah. Yeah. So men were not allowed in the birthing chambers typically. This was a midwife job. Right. But because she was having a lot of complications, Henry allowed his own, like, physicians and courtiers into the room. And this may have led to her death. Oh. So the men in the room may have had certain opinions on Jane's aftercare. And she may have not, like, undergone certain procedures that were very common at the time because men had opinions on them. I'm going to keep my opinions on men's opinions to myself because I don't feel like our male audience would like them so much. Maybe not. Maybe not. But in the documentary I watched, like, historians did say that this may, no one knows for sure, but it may have led to her death. Well. So Jane did find. I'm sorry. I was going to say, just a quick Google search. Last time I looked it up, before modern medicine, 60% of women died in childbirth. Like, this was so common that you can't even really, people just didn't even write it down because they're like, well, we lost another one. Like, it's just sad. I think at this time one in three women died in childbirth. How did our race even, like, how did us as humans, like, evolve? Yeah. No, it's really crazy to think about. Yeah. Seriously. So she did eventually give birth to Henry VIII's first and only legitimate male heir, Edward, who would eventually become Edward VI. She died 12 days later, likely due to an infection caused by remaining placenta in her womb, which was very common at the time. Right. Henry was devastated by her death. He did not remarry for two years after she died. Wow. That's a long time for him. Which is a long time for him, seeing as he waited one day from his last wife's death. Oh, my God. So Jane didn't even get to be coronated as soon. Oh, bless. She did not live long enough. So she is remembered as Henry's most loved wife. History paints Jane as a quiet, pious, meek woman with the strongest of scruples and honor. I think she's a little bit more pragmatic than history remembers her as. She was able to align herself when appropriate. She kept her mouth shut when she needed to. She was calculated. She was very calculated. Yeah. So that is all I have for today's episode. Wow. Thank you for sharing all this. I cannot wait to get into the other three. We have three more lives. Three more lives. This is fascinating. If you haven't seen the play six, I highly recommend it. It is so much fun. It's not the most accurate. Like in the play, and maybe this is just something I missed in my research, but the Catherine of Aragon character kept saying she was shipped to a nunnery. But in all the sources that I, I mean, I just watched documentaries. I didn't read anything. But I didn't see anything about her being shipped to a nunnery. So I don't know. That's wild. Anyway. Yeah. So that's all I have. Don't forget to check out our Instagram at illequippedhistory. And we also have a Gmail, illequippedhistory at gmail.com. No spaces, no dashes. Please send us nice things. If you want us to cover a subject and we like it, we'll cover it. If you want to just tell us how we're doing, nice things only, please. Yes. Constructive criticism. Constructive criticism. 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