Here Lieth A Phoenix: Jane Seymour, Queen of England

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Rise of the Seymour Queen
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    Her conduct, first as a royal lady-in-waiting and later as a queen, indicates that she was more of a steel magnolia - a fragrant, seemingly fragile, ultra-feminine exterior concealing a tensile core.

    Jane Seymour, queen for only seventeen months, had not expected the changes in her life: she had been a low-ranking noblewoman who had served the previous two wives of her husband the king before God had decided to grant her the honor of queenship. This was a task she took to with great enthusiasm although she had been careful to not express this to her lord husband, who had not liked it when she tried to step out of what she had pretended to be in front of him. Well maybe this was a bit of a false statement - she had never lied to her husband but she had shown only one simplified side of a complex and multifaceted woman because she feared greatly having her head removed from her body or exiled to a cold castle without her loved ones beside her (which had happened to his previous wives). But with the death of her husband (which secretly relieved her as she had never truly loved him but she was never going to say that to anybody) and the birth of her twins who were christened Edward and Henry, she was finally ready to shine and become the phoenix she was truly destined to become...


    @EdwardRex thank you for helping me out on the miscellaneous thread
     
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    • Jane's Regency
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    Jane seized power as regent by eliminating those that could potentially oppose her: her brothers and her stepdaughters. Well it was debatable to her on whether or not little Elizabeth was even Henry's daughter seeing as her mother had been executed on charges of witchcraft, adultery and incest and she secretly believed this but it was clear that the little girl had Henry's facial features and it would not harm her to treat the girl with a little kindness, seeing as her predecessor had not treated Mary with any kind of maternal love that was desperately needed in girls their age. So she paid large sums of money to the upkeep of little Elizabeth and even allowed her to inherit her mother's title of Marquess of Pembroke. And her other stepdaughter Mary was of a good age to be married, even if she was still technically illegitimate, but that could be reversed. Jane wanted to ship Mary abroad as far as possible so she would never pose a threat to her sons as she still did not fully trust her stepdaughter who was descended from powerful royals, an ancestry which her own children could never dream of boasting about. It was not difficult to fake another document stating that Mary was not illegitimate but merely ranked behind the children of Jane (which was true anyway) nor was it difficult to offer her brothers Edward and Thomas some dukedoms (Somerset and Richmond respectively) to ensure they were far away maintaining their estates and therefore could not interfere in court.
     
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    • Queen Mother of England
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    As queen mother Jane had a lot of power, she was careful to use it in a way that could be justified as fulfilling Henry's wishes. She reconciled with Rome using the excuse of Anne Boleyn's witchcraft as having seduced him away from the rightful religion. She also took care to surround her children and stepdaughters with the most devout Catholics that could be found, not so difficult for Mary who was already very pious, but for Elizabeth she thought she might need a stronger guiding hand, after all she didn't know what kind of heresy her mother had instilled in the girl's head. She could not fully reverse what her husband did, but she could make a start. She patronized for Latin bibles and, in her own hand, wrote a series of treatises on defending doctrinal positions such as the sacraments and pious practices which had been attacked by the Protestants. She had been meek and mild during Henry's lifetime but she proved to be very uncompromising on the matter of religion. This appealed her to her stepdaughter Mary all the more, and both women formed a strong bond, despite Jane's lack of trust and fear of Mary's maternal family.
     
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    • Marriages & Illnesses
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    The year of 1538 brought about three marriages: her stepdaughter Mary had left to marry the dauphin of France, Henry, after his first wife Catherine de Medici died while giving birth to a daughter (who would be named Catherine, agreed on by both Henry and Mary), her brother Thomas married Dorothy Hastings of Huntingdon, and her son Henry had a proxy ceremony with the dauphin's daughter Catherine of Valois. Her own marriage, though, had ended and she never intended to remarry and subjugate herself to the will of another man (although she doubted anyone would dare - she was, until her sons married, still the first lady of England).

    She fell ill as a result of the sweating sickness towards Christmas 1538 and although she would survive, she would never fully recover; this episode of the sweating sickness would take away both the women who could claim the title of Duchess of Richmond (Mary Howard and Dorothy Hastings), but she would hear that she now had a step-grandson in the form of Mary Tudor's newest son, named Henry after both his father and grandfather. Mary had written that she and her husband, despite her Spanish ties, got along well and were very attracted to each other. Perhaps even in love. Delighted with herself for being the architect of this marriage, she used the money saved from no longer needing to pay for Mary's household to pay for Elizabeth's. It would have been what Henry would want, she was sure - and that would trump what she, herself, would want. The child was five now, and very clever for her age; were it not for her mother being who she was, Jane would have adored her. As it stood, she refused to let Elizabeth address her as a child would address their mother.
     
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    • FalconHonour

    FalconHonour

    1-800-wandsthetic said:
    Do you have good ideas for the children's marriages?
    Click to expand...
    The Emperor's youngest daughter Joanna is only two years older than Edward. As is Lucretia Maria de Este, and her younger sister Eleonore is exactly his age.

    Looking at Ferdinand of Austria's children, Eleanor, Margaret or Barbara are all around the right age, born between 1535 and 1539...

    Looking North, if Jane can swallow a Lutheran match, the two eldest Swedish Princesses are the right age.

    As for Henry, if Jane Grey doesn't have a brother TTL, he could marry her and take the Suffolk/Dorset lands.
     
    ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    FalconHonour said:
    The Emperor's youngest daughter Joanna is only two years older than Edward. As is Lucretia Maria de Este, and her younger sister Eleonore is exactly his age.

    Looking at Ferdinand of Austria's children, Eleanor, Margaret or Barbara are all around the right age, born between 1535 and 1539...

    Looking North, if Jane can swallow a Lutheran match, the two eldest Swedish Princesses are the right age.

    As for Henry, if Jane Grey doesn't have a brother TTL, he could marry her and take the Suffolk/Dorset lands.
    Click to expand...
    Ooh, thank you - I was thinking Henry marries MQOS while Edward marries ITTL Catherine of Valois, but I like your idea of an archduchess as queen, that would be fun. So far the TL is plausible, right? Because I admit I am not that knowledgeable on this period but this idea refused to leave me...
     
    Alliances & Tensions
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    Jane was ultimately forced to submit to a regency council as she had been unaware that her husband had left in his will possible regents for their sons. Though she had neutralized her brothers, who were far away from court with their new estates, she did not manage to fully achieve what she wanted, which was to exploit her new authority over her son. She was supposed to rule collectively, by majority decision, with like and equal charge. She did not much like this idea. Despite this, she was still able to preside over Edward's council, decide policy, and control state business and patronage. Henry had left the country in a precarious state with the rest of Europe, which vexed her, as it meant she had to pick up the slack with a dozen men who she saw as incompetent. The challenges she faced were complex and difficult to comprehend, but she would rise to the occasion as best she could, as God had commanded.
     
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    • Jane & Elizabeth
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    Her next significant action was to have Lady Elizabeth, the new Marquess of Pembroke (as she would never see the girl as a princess) brought to court to be raised alongside her half-brothers. She had carried Edward and Henry's chrisoms but this was not enough to earn Jane's full trust. Yes, she knew Elizabeth was but a young child but Jane vividly remembered how Anne Boleyn had gone from just another lady who had served Queen Katherine alongside Jane to the whore that had scandalously ruined Christendom (which she would never forgive her for) and she feared the influence of Elizabeth's relatives. Thomas Boleyn was an old man now with only one daughter left alive (and this daughter had in fact been exiled on the order of her sister which won her the sympathy of Jane) but the Howard clan seemed to breed like rabbits and had many connections which did not suit Jane's aims...she did not yet know how to deal with that on top of the idiots on the regency council angering her on a regular basis, trying to introduce heretic nonsense to her precious sons...well at least the Lady Elizabeth showed great affection to Edward and Henry and her household appeared to know what was good for them and kept their head down. Maybe Jane would send her some little toys, it would be good to win over the girl if anything happened to her sons (as she knew well how easy it was for Tudor boys to die)...
     
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    • Jane the Catholic Queen
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    There had been good reason for Martin Luther to call Jane an enemy of the gospel, an epithet she was proud to claim. He had taken such pride in the Boleyn whore and her daughter and it pleased Jane greatly to have the daughter in question under her thumb, raised as a good Catholic. Elizabeth was invited to court and listened to mass alongside her stepmother and half-brothers. She would need to instruct the girl in the value of her chastity for even as a small child she had heard some courtiers praise the child's good looks. Jane would need to provide her with some different clothes. Yes she herself was not a particularly great beauty but it had served her well in guarding her virtue. She was also very concerned with what she was hearing about Protestantism rising across entire swathes of Europe, a fact which disgusted her, but she would first stick to saving England before aiming quite so high...
     
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    • Jane #1 and #2
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Mary Tudor (her late sister-in-law) and first cousin once removed of Edward VI and Henry, Duke of York, was a very pretty child who was another possible claimant to the English throne. Her mother, Frances Brandon had been a very devout and outspoken Protestant, well at least she was until she had stayed in the Tower away from her husband for six months. Queen Jane personally thought it did the woman a great deal of good to be away from an innocent child who she could sway and brainwash (and the feeling was mutual as both women saw in each other a dangerous threat that could not be easily wiped out) and she would welcome the younger Jane to court, providing her with some good Catholic tutors. Jane the queen mother had instinctual suspicion for anyone with their own claim to the throne that could possibly be supported over her son's due to the chaos that her late husband had left his succession line into. Sure Henry had thought that it was not so likely that a woman could claim the throne but Jane knew that the reason she was even queen was because of Elizabeth of York, who had a much stronger claim compared to her husband who had been descended from a bastard line (and Mary, with her Lancastrian blood on both sides of her family and was very popular even though she was now the dauphine of France, still scared her a little as although she was away from England she now had much more power than before, but she swore to herself that was not Anne Boleyn and she would never take it out on her as it was not like Mary could have controlled who her parents were). But Jane Seymour knew that Jane Grey who was now heiress to the lands of Suffolk and Dorset after the deaths of her parents would need to be loyal to her cousin or she could be a formidable opponent to the young king...





    (NOTE: As the POD is in 1537 this has butterflied away her younger sisters. Henry Grey and Frances Brandon have both died leaving her a young orphaned and VERY rich girl who would be perfect wife for the duke of York.)
     
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    • Tudor Family Tree
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    • ordinarylittleme

    ordinarylittleme

    Henry VIII (1491-1537) m. 1509 Katherine of Aragon (1485-1536) ann. 1533 [a] m. 1533 Anne Boleyn (1501/07-1536) ann. 1536 m. 1536 Jane Seymour (b. 1508) [c] p. Elizabeth Blount (b. 1498/1500/1502) [d]

    1a. Mary (b. 1516) m. Henry, Dauphin of France (b. 1519)
    - Henry of France (b. 1538)
    2d. Henry Fitzroy (1519-1536)
    3b. Elizabeth (b. 1533)
    4c. Edward VI (b. 1537)
    5c. Henry, Duke of York (b. 1537)
     
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