Jane Seymour Part II

It's hard to get a picture of Jane’s personality. There are no letters from Henry to her, and her reign as queen was very short. She caused no scandals, and died when her child was a newborn..She engaged in flirtation with Henry, which infuriated Anne Boleyn. Anne was afraid that having lost her baby in January, Henry was angry that she had again failed to provide him with an heir. Katherine had died in January so if he were to end his marriage to Anne, people would not say that he had to return to Katherine…There are stories of Anne berating Jane for accepting a present from Henry of a locket.. but Henry is supposed to have told his angry wife that she should shut her eyes to his mistresses, as Katherine had done. Anne herself was behaving eccentrically in the months after her miscarriage… She flirted with the young men of her circle, encouraging them to declare their love for her… Her marriage to Henry was under strain and this was playing with fire. There was a convention of “courtly love” where young men professed admiration for the queen, but Anne was not a royal like Katherine had been and she did not seem to be able to keep the playing and flirting at a sensible level. She encouraged it and then became frightened. She found that young Mark Smeaton, one of her musicians, was also “sighing for love of her” and told him that she could not speak to him as to one of the court gentlemen, as he was an inferior person. But her conduct did give a wrong impression. Jane may have believed that Anne was guilty of adultery.