Today’s post is a fascinating guest article from historical novelist Suzannah Dunn, whose latest novel, The May Bride, is narrated by Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour.
Be sure to leave a comment after Suzannah’s guest post for your chance to win 1 of 5 copies of Suzannah’s novel!
This giveaway has now ended!
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Over to Suzannah Dunn…
Chances are, if you’re a Tudor afficionado, you’ve come across the Seymour family scandal of the 1520s. But you’re probably thinking: Remind me again? It’s not your fault: there’s almost nothing, officially, to know. As far as I’m aware, the historical record gives us only this: Edward Seymour – eldest brother of Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane, and, ultimately, Lord Protector of England during the reign of Henry and Jane’s young son – repudiated his first wife, Katherine Fillol/Filiol, sometime in the early years of their marriage, sending her to a nunnery and disinheriting their two infant sons. His reason? Well, for that, we have only the rumour that he believed she’d had an affair with his father.
Edward Seymour, c. 1537.
Perhaps you think that kind of carry-on was normal for the Tudors: repudiated wives, nunneries. But far from it – although, interestingly, another man, at exactly this time, was trying very hard to set aside his own wife. ‘Man’, ‘wife’? King, queen, no less: Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Try as the king might, though, it took him seven years and the wrenching of England from Rome, and even then you couldn’t really have called it a success.
No, what happened at Wolfhall was drastic even then, and particularly so for a family such as Edward’s. The Seymours of the 1520s were not who they’d become in the following two decades thanks in different ways to Edward and his maverick younger brother, Thomas. The Seymours of Katherine Filliol’s time were by all accounts well-respected country people; the father was Justice of the Peace for Wiltshire. They weren’t at court, didn’t keep company with the characters we read about, the characters who still, from five hundred years back, grab our attention.
Thomas Seymour
And Edward himself: I simply couldn’t square this awful story with what I knew of him. He was ambitious in what I think of as the right way, by which I mean he was hardworking, diplomatic, capable and cautious. You can debate the success or otherwise of his years as de facto ruler of England, but there’s no denying that the far-reaching changes of Edward VI’s reign – crucial in shaping English culture as we recognise it today – happened under his protectorate. He was nothing if not forward-thinking.
A man, surely, I felt, who’d have gone to any lengths to avoid personal scandal. But, then, in a sense that’s exactly what he did, because how better to deal with a supposedly errant wife than to shut her up in a nunnery.
So, what’s the truth of it? What’s a matter of historical record? Katherine was co-heiress (with her sister) of Sir William Filliol/Fillol, of Woodlands at Horton, in Dorset, which was within fifty miles of the Seymour’s Wiltshire home of Wolfhall. Edward and Katherine married in the early 1520s, when they themselves were in their early twenties, and went on to have two sons (John and Edward). In 1527, Katherine’s father re-wrote his will shortly before his death to stipulate that neither Katherine nor Edward nor their children receive ‘parts or parcell’ of his estate, and that Katherine receive an annual pension of £40 on condition that she live in ‘some honest house of Relegion of wymen’. By an Act of Parliament in 1530, Edward had the terms of that will set aside. He was re-married by 1536, which can only mean that Katherine had either died or become a nun. In 1540, he received a grant through Parliament permitting him to alter his succession to the children of his second wife.
The rumour of adultery comes from a marginal note in Vincent’s Baronage, added well after the deaths of everyone concerned, which translates from the Latin to claim that Katherine was ‘repudiated’ because, after the marriage, she had ‘known the father’.
And there we have it; that’s all what we have.
Just think of what we don’t know. Did Katherine and Edward marry for love? As newlyweds, where did they live? – at Wolfhall? And then what really did happen? was it really as the Latin scribble has it? And if so, how did it happen? (Perhaps we shouldn’t assume that if there was a liaison, it was consensual on Katherine’s part.) And – sorry to be indelicate – how much of it happened? – how long was it going on? When? And then how did it ever come to light? What did Katherine admit to, what did she deny or attempt to explain away? Who did or didn’t believe her? How did Edward’s father answer the accusation? What sanctions – if any – did he face, and how did he live it down, both inside and outside the family? How did Edward, himself, live it down? – because he certainly did, going from strength to strength. Where did Katherine go, and what were the terms of her confinement? Did she ever see her sons, and what did they grow up knowing? What was her ultimate fate?
And those two little boys? In my experience, that’s what people most often want to know, and history books do give us an answer of sorts. Both sons are said to have been with Edward in the Tower when he was indicted for treason (on largely trumped up charges) in the late 1540s, John dying there (of illness) a few months after his father’s execution. Edward Junior became High Sheriff of Devon: in other words, he seems to have gone on to have a respectable career, and, indeed, family life, because after the death of the 7th Duke of Somerset in the eighteenth century, the line of descendancy reverted so that it is from him, Katherine’s second son, that the current Duke is descended.
As for all those unanswered questions, here’s what I think…My guess is that Katherine and Edward did marry for love, or at least something like it, because they married at an age that was, for their class, relatively young; neither would have been under pressure to marry at that time. Edward could have – and, in the light of what happened, should have – waited until he’d begun to make a career for himself at court; he could have then married one of the in-crowd. His second wife – the scarily ambitious Anne Stanhope – was an ideal match for him.
I suspect the young newlyweds did live at Wolfhall, and I wonder if the few months that Edward spent away in France (having joined the Duke of Suffolk’s brief, unsuccessful campaign of 1527), had something to do with what went wrong. I’ve read that Edward discovered poems written for his wife by his father, but as far as I know, that’s unsubstantiated. What is true, though, is that Seymour senior was friends, when younger, with the poet John Skelton. A few words, here, about Edward’s father, John: he’d ‘married up’, and was younger than his wife; I calculate that he’d have been in his mid-forties at the time of the scandal. Not old, then, as it’s easy to assume. I’ve come across a claim that he had an illegitimate son before he married, but, actually, that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
And Katherine: where did she end up? Well, she was a Dorset girl living in Wiltshire. Two of England’s wealthiest, most powerful nunneries were in Dorset and Wiltshire: Shaftesbury and Wilton. But whether a repudiated wife from a prominent family would be sent to a major house, as befitted her origins, or, on the contrary, precisely because of those origins, buried away somewhere obscure, I don’t know. Forty pounds per year, though, compares favourably with the Prioress of Shaftesbury’s pension of twenty pounds per year, and the Prioress of Wilton’s ten, almost a decade later at the time of dissolution.
Reading and thinking my way through all this, I began developing my own take on what might’ve happened that was so catastrophic at Wolfhall in the mid-1520s. Something was dawning on me. Dates are patchy, but Jane Seymour was most likely around fifteen when her brother married and seventeen when the terrible situation blew up at home. Mid-teens when her father was accused of fathering a child with his own daughter-in-law.
Jane Seymour by Hans Holbein the Younger
What do we know of the Jane who endured this calamity? Almost nothing – which actually, I think, tells us a lot. She was the eldest girl in a large family, but with three older brothers: heavily imposed-upon in the domestic sphere, almost certainly, and overshadowed. Those brothers of hers were notably handsome, but to judge from the Holbein portrait of Jane when she became queen, she was – to say the least – no looker. There’s no record of her having travelling or lived away from home during her girlhood nor having been educated beyond, presumably, the basics. In adulthood, she was, reputedly, traditional in her religious leanings, and her needlework was much admired. She was a spinster in her late twenties when the king turned his attention to her. I don’t think it’d be too wide of the mark to describe her as shy.
A shy, plain fifteen year old joined at Wolfhall by the bride of the brother who was fast becoming a star. It intrigued me, the relationship between those two girls. Jane was at a formative age, and I couldn’t help but imagine her in thrall to Katherine. What, then, did Jane know – or not know – of what went wrong? In the aftermath, when Katherine was despatched to a nunnery, Jane went to Catherine of Aragon, that gentlest and most pious of queens: Jane appears in records of the queen’s household from around this time. Which, ironically, was exactly when the king made his first, tentative move to persuade his queen to stand down, step aside, pursue a religious vocation. How bizarre that Jane should come – perhaps for refuge, perhaps for rehabilitation – from a home in which exactly that had just happened, only to have to witness the same all over again, but writ large. Very large, because Catherine of Aragon was no Dorset girl; she was a princess of the Holy Roman Empire, crowned queen of England, loyal spouse of two decades’ standing and mother of the sole heir to the throne. She had right on her side and she knew it. She wasn’t going to go quietly. Thus ensued seven long desperate years of resistance, which Jane, close at hand, would have witnessed and lived through.
Before long, what had started for me as a fascination with how and why Katherine Filliol was more or less wiped from history had grown to become as much about her plain, shy little sister-in-law, Jane Seymour: how and why Jane had ended up best able of all the women in England to take the throne the day after Anne Boleyn had knelt for the executioner.
Great article. It’s very interesting to know more about the Seymour family!
Thanks for the fabulous giveaway opportunity.
I get my hands on every Tudor book I can. The more I read the more I am fascinated by the history. I would love to win the book and if I don’t….I’m getting it anyway!!!
Thanks Natalie!!!!!
Great article, I would love to read this book!!!!
Thanks Natalie for sharing!!
It will be wonderful to read a book about Jane.
I would love to win this book, but if I don’t I will be definitely buying it.
Many thanks for the post and the opportunity.
Hi!!!!!!!! I´m very happy with this giveaway, I´ve read The Confessions of Katherine Howard, by Suzannah and it was a great read!
I want to win this book!!!!! please!!!!!! please!!!!!!please!!!
I´m crossing my fingers!!!
Good luck everyone!!!!
What an opportunity, if I don´t win this book, I would buy it anyway!!!
Thanks natalie for your excellents post, always updating my tudor knowledge!!!
Ahhh another reason I need to win the lottery!! Too many books far too little free time!
What a great article!!! The book sounds fantastic! I love this site, always so much info and I enjoy learning about Tudor times.. Thank You!
Great idea for a book. I have always been fascinated by how different Henry’s wives were.!
I hope I Could win this book!, not only for me, but also for my granddaughter who is a great Tudor fan!
Thanks Natalie, your blog gathers several family generations!!! 🙂
love when I find new information. Thank you for sharing, and great article!
I absolutely love the show THE TUDORS! But I also know the writers took alot of creative liberties so I have purchased several books about the Tudors to start seperating the fiction from the facts. Can I please, please, pleeeease have this book to add to my library???
Great article, I would love to win the book, not only for me, but also for my girlfriend.
We are both a great Tudor fans! thanks for the chance!
This book sounds so interesting! I love learning as much about the Tudor family as I can find, you may say I am slightly obsessed. English history has encouraged me to pursue a Ph.D. in European History, especially the history of the royal families.
This book sounds so intriguing! I love learning new facts about the Tudors, and it seems as though there will plenty here. Can’t wait to read it!
Sounds like a great book. I cannot wait to add it to my collection.
The Tudors will never cease to fascinate. I am really looking forward to reading this book
This book sounds so interesting, I would love to win this to add to my Tudor collection!
Thanks for the awesome giveaway! 🙂
I´m reading The Queen of Subtleties, by Suzannah, (I can not believe the coincidence) and I would love to read all of her books!
I have been obsessed with the Tudors since I was a teenager, I am really looking forward to this book, I love reading about them!
I loved the interview and can’t wait to read the book. I’ve already bought and read many Tudor books but like others who are “addicted” I can’t get enough!!!
Congratulations Natalie, I am sure I am not the only one of who visits your site appreciates all your hard work that you put into the Tudor Trail, which gives a great insight to these fascinating people, and much enjoyment and knowledge to its visitors. Thank you.
It is a pleasure to be a part of it!
This novel sounds like a fantastic read, and is already on my to-read list! I am so excited about discovering an author whom i have not encountered before, hence i would love to be entered for this giveaway.
Thank you x
another exciting book to get my hands on, how wonderful!!!
I am so happy that I found this website! I have spent at least an hour everyday enjoying the contents. Contests such as this one are a bonus! Thanks!
Thank you for the chance you give us to win this book. I sometimes find it hard to get books from my library on the Tudors. As many of us in this blog would love to win a copy of this book, I never read anything by Suzannah Dunn!
Thanks Natalie and Suzannah too! 😉
What a great article – I’ve always wondered about the mystery of Katherine Filiol, so I’d love to be in with a chance to win this book.
I would love to have a copy of this!
I have only read about Jane in books about Anne or Henry so it would be great to read about life and events from Janes perspective. Great website Natalie aleays something new to learn about.
I devour every morsel I can about the Tudor and Elizabethan Age, so am soooooooo looking forward to this book…..one way or the other! Would love a free book! My husband would thank you….!
Great article, and looks to be a great read. Jane Seymour the real love of Henry from the looks of it, gave him the son he desired, and fulfilled the Tudor dream of continuing the line. Alas wasn’t meant to be the way Henry had envisioned.
I am a history lover and the Tudors are my favorite part of history to read about and research!!! I tryto read everything about the Tudors I can get my hands on!!!
I remember watching the Keith Mitchell “Six Wives of Henry VIII” as a child and being quite confused about the Seymour father-son relationship, a confusion that the coded line “I hear you’ve danced again, old man, with your son’s wife” did little to explain. Over the years, for all that I am well-read in Tudor histories, it never occurred to me to inquire further about the events of this sexual scandal. So thank you very, very much for igniting a new interest for me! Very, very fascinating information.
I’m NEW to the world of Anne Boleyn.
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! I would love to win a copy of this book – I’m a mature age student just starting out on a new journey – a bridging course to get me into an Arts Degree.
My interest lays in Aglophilia – inparticular working in Britain in the area of Heritage and Conservation (preservation) of buildings of historical importance.
Although I live in Sydney Australia – I feel led to the University of York in England – therefore! An introduction to this famous historical era of England would be most advantageous because it could open up a new door to where I lead….
Love all things Tudor would love this book 🙂
Can’t wait to read this book. I have really enjoyed Suzannah’s other books. Also my mediaeval and Tudor thirst needs quenching more than ever since I discovered a (weak) link to Catherine Howard in my husband’s family tree.
Such intrigue! A Tudor Wives Reality Show!
Would really love to win a copy of this book! On my Amazon wish list so if not fortunate enough will have to hope I’m allowed a little treat 🙂
Sounds like a wonderful read. Would love to read more about Jan and the Seymour family!
Excellent article great to find more information on the Seymour Family, and for an independent look at them, Jane is my second favourite of Henrys wives and there’s not alot out there to read about so this has helped me a good bit. Thank you.
I’d love to win, I’m really excited about this novel as I’ve read so little about Jane Seymour compared to Henry’s other wives! This is definitely going onto my ‘to read’ list x
Mirry
impracticalarch@gmail.com
I read everything I can find on the Tudor era. Would love to add this to my library. Thanks!
Enjoyed this very much
Thank you for all your entries! Five winners will now be randomly selected and contacted via email Good Luck! Natalie