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Not much is known about Jane Seymour – a fact that is painfully apparent in this sparsely written “biography” of Henry VIII’s third wife. The eldest daughter of a member of the “country gentry” and his “thin-stream-of-royal-blood” wife, Jane’s early years were spent in obscurity. In the late 1520’s, a family connection with Sir Francis Bryan got her a place at court with Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon and the rest, as they say, is history.


Norton examines Jane’s life pretty much in chronological fashion and goes quickly through the required explanations of Henry’s disposal of wives number one (Catherine of Aragon) and two (Anne Boleyn). But when it comes to relating the events of Jane’s life, the lack of documentation as to those facts leads to a number of sentences with the words “might have been”, “possibly”, “probably”, “could have”, “may have” and “likely”. Although some of the inferences as to Jane’s whereabouts and actions may make sense, the truth of the matter is that for much of it, no one knows for sure and the amount of speculation the author is forced to take leads me to suspect that she was simply trying to cash in on the current interest in all things Tudor.

Given the above, I was rather puzzled when the author began describing how Jane felt about certain things. True, there are some “must have felts”, but in many instances the “must have” is dropped and we are told how Jane felt. Hmmm. Compounding the problem is the lazy method of documenting sources. Rather than attributing a specific fact, sentence or quotation to a particular source (by using standard footnotes/endnotes), a list of sources for each chapter are simply noted in the back with some narrative attempt to link the source to a certain passage.   I found the whole thing - at 158 pages - to be less than impressive.

Three things kept me from giving this book a lower rating:

1. A decent explanation of Jane’s claim of royal blood through her mother (although a family tree would have been a nice addition);

2. A decent summary explanation of the Pilgrimage of Grace; and

3. A good number of pictures and other illustrations

Rating: Disappointing (2 stars)

In case the FTC asks: I ordered this book from the UK shortly after it was published last year. I only paid $10 for it; otherwise, I would not have considered it money well spent.