Olga said

I don’t know Gill. I did recently read an article about Henry having kept a few things with the H&A monogram that were inventoried after his death. That makes me think he wanted to keep some part of her with him, perhaps.
But as for Jane I think Henry’s awful treatment of her stemmed more from frustration than anything, and also as a display of dominance. Henry by this point was so completely obsessed with having a son he had let one wife die alone and murdered another. I don’t think he loved Jane, I don’t think she loved him, and I think their whole relationship was a charade. If she hadn’t managed to conceive he would have gotten rid of her as well. I believe none of his wives were crowned after Anne, if Jane had lived she would have been, but only after producing a son. And yeah, maybe he would have loved her if she had lived and given him lots of babies.
I have a feeling he didn’t want to fall madly in love so soon after Anne. I think he wanted, and got, the complete opposite of Anne, the complete opposite of his relationship with her and he wanted a woman he could browbeat into submission. But that’s just a thought.

Actually Olga, Henry did think about tossing Jane aside due to the fact she didn’t get pregnant as quickly as he hoped..If you think about Henry’s ego played a big part here. KOA got pregnant almost straight away when he married her. Anne was pregnant when he married her and he expected the same thing to happen where Jane was concerned, when that didn’t happen, he believed it was her fault not his, after all he’s done his bit she should be pregnant, and he couldn’t get why she wasn’t.
As for loving each other Hmm I think there was a form of affection betweeen them but whether it was love is debatable. In Henry’s case I just think he was glad to have someone who was quiet and happy to sit by the fire, and not argue the toss with him over every little thing. In Jane’s case it was more to do with family than actual love, her brothers were just little fish and because of her they became big fish, who later became sharks, if Jane had survived childbirth and was still around when Eddy became King things may have been different as I think her presence kept them in order.
If Anne had had a son well the possibilities are endless here. It’s fairly possible that the Battle of Solway Moss may not have happened and that James V and Henry may have cemented a peace treaty, by marrying James’s daughter Mary (The infamous Queen of Scots) to Anne’s son.
Mary and Elizabeth were close as children but there was always going to be the bone of contention between them over religion, and in Mary’s case you were Catholic or dead, there were very few exceptions. Which is why I find her attitude toward J.G very strange to fathom.. That’s a whole new ball game..

Anyanka.. Is that possible candidates in Henry’s eyes? I should imagine after he murdered Anne, there would be very few woman left willing to take the risk to put their head in the noose of marriage with Henry. In anycase if he had tossed Jane aside there would be people waiting to pounce on Jane to blame her for Anne’s Murder. I wouldn’t say she would be lynched exactly but certainly her life would be at risk. Afterall where could she go? There were little to no convents left and those that were, were in a shocking state. She could go abroad I suppose and do what exactly?
The Seymour Boys would have lost their chance of crowing over defeating the Howards in their bid for power. There were a lot of Howards and Howard relatives at the court and only 2 Seymour boys, I rather think they would be somehow ousted from court never to Apple polish Henry’s backside again.

Boleynfan said

Gill, perhaps it’s just me agreeing with you about wanting this to be the case, but I do agree that there is a very real possibility that Henry regretted his actions regarding Anne’s death. I believe that Henry deluded himself into thinking the lies that Cromwell fed him–not that Henry was innocent, just that he had the talent of convincing himself of nearly anything. If you look at Henry’s entire life up to 1536, everything he does illustrates his prudishness and moral erectness. Even with the shoddy divorce of CoA, it seems as if he “convinced himself” that she really did not come to him a virgin. In my opinion, this is a theme throughout Henry’s life; he desired himself to be a moral person, but when that interfered with the “easy road,” he convinced himself that in fact the “easy road” WAS the moral path!
So going along with this theory, I would surmise that he was probably the type to, most of the time when thinking of Anne, consider himself a husband scorned and remember her with hatred for her supposed crimes…but then, there must have been those rare occasions on when his true conscience didn’t allow the false justification he had piled on to remain, and heavy with the knowledge that he had gone along with lies and had his wife killed, he would shy away from these thoughts.
So, Gill, I think that maybe due to Henry’s underlying sense of guilt, lent by a nagging conscience, he took his frustration and anger out on his new wife, Jane Seymour. Just my two cents! 🙂

BoleynFan I do feel Henry did regret Anne’s death, but perhaps not until K.H met with the axeman. Anne was the only true love of his life and that love killed her too. Perhaps that is some of the reason to why his temper became so volatile as he had to live with the guilt that he’s killed an innocent woman..All the other deaths at his hand he could justify as being someone else’s fault but not Anne’s, her blood and her death was firmly on his hands and lay solely at his door, and no matter how he tried to justify or blame someone else for her death the more it came back and bit him in the backside.. I actually wonder if some of the reason to why Henry had Cromwell added to the list of his chopping block victims. because Henry could no longer live with the guilt that Cromwell was the one who drummed up the charges against Anne in the first place. I always felt that Cromwell losing his head purely because AOC wasn’t as pretty as he had described to Henry was extremely unfair. That wasn’t his fault he only had the reports of his yes men to go by. If anyone is to blame for the AOC fiasco it was Holbien, being a little to poetic with his paintbrush…Cromwell wasn’t popular but then neither was Wolsey. Both these men had a job to do and they did it, without either of them at the helm of Henry’s spending it went out of control.
Henry I feel simply got rid of Cromwell over the guilt of Anne’s death by killing him he thought the guilt he felt would go away, which of course it didn’t and got magified 100 fold when K.H’s wanton behaviour came to light..Again K.H’s murder was a way of him trying to get rid of the guilt he felt about Anne.
In some ways I also believe that KOA was as entranced by Anne as Henry was, I don’t mean in a sexual way or anything, but look at it this way. KOA’s court circle was rather staid and boring, doing the same things day in day out, and along comes Anne who was clever, merry and fun to be with. Anne showed a different way of life to the way KOA was brought up. She enjoyed philosopical debates, she was a gifted musician and she just had something that perhaps KOA wished she had, had. It doesn’t mean to say she liked Anne as Anne was probably a little too headstrong for KOA’s tastes. KOA saw Henry I feel as an overgrown child and at times annoyed him immensely by not being able to keep up with his pursuits. I believe she didn’t go hunting as much after Mary’s birth so Henry could really only show off his hunting prowess to his freinds and that can’t have been much fun, same as his jousting she did go to those but I don’t think she really enjoyed them, and again with dancing, Henry loved to dance although he would dance with anyone if Anne was KOA proxy (for want of a better word) at least he wouldn’t be looking around so much for other woman to have a midnight fumble with. Anne on the other hand enjoyed hunting, dancing and other outdoor pursuits, so perhaps KOA saw Anne as a sort of companion not just for her but for Henry too.

I suppose if you think about it Jane not getting pregnant almost from the time the I do and I declare them bit was a big blow to Henry massive over inflated ego.. I have mentioned this before before. KOA got pregnant perhaps almost as early as their Wedding Night. Anne was Pregnant when they married. Jane however took months to finally get pregnant, the fault didn’t lay with him however it was Jane. When as Sharon rightly says, Jane uttered the immortal words of “Hey Hubby of my dreams I’m pregnant” she became the perfect woman.
Up until she got pregnant Henry seemed to blame everything on her or so it seems to me and I know he was often verbally abusive with her.
I’m not sure if he actually did clout her one when she became a little to vocal about Mary, but I know that he did tell her to shut her trap or she would suffer Anne Boleyn’s fate and with that she shut her trap..
The fact she had a son I don’t think would have saved her from Henry’s spite and malice because what ever was wrong wth him mentally (after his fall) was part of his nature. If she had lived and had further children I still think he would have verbally abused her. It’s my opinion he got some sort of sadistic pleasure out of watching woman cringing before him.
Woman back then weren’t suppose to have opinions it was a case of do as you told or else situation.. I have to have a giggle if Henry was surrounded by woman in these modern times it’s him that would be cringing on the floor now. We’d all have him sobbing for his mother if we all told him what we thought about him.. As long as I can put the boot in every so often I’d be very happy..

Boleyn said

The fact she had a son I don’t think would have saved her from Henry’s spite and malice because what ever was wrong wth him mentally (after his fall) was part of his nature. If she had lived and had further children I still think he would have verbally abused her. It’s my opinion he got some sort of sadistic pleasure out of watching woman cringing before him.
Woman back then weren’t suppose to have opinions it was a case of do as you told or else situation.. I have to have a giggle if Henry was surrounded by woman in these modern times it’s him that would be cringing on the floor now. We’d all have him sobbing for his mother if we all told him what we thought about him.. As long as I can put the boot in every so often I’d be very happy..

There was a time when Henry had said something to Katherine and she let him have it. He then went and told Anne about it and she let him have it for picking a fight with Katherine for she had warned him he would not win an argument with her. Good times! I don’t exactly remember what the argument was about, but it makes me smile to think that both of these women were not afraid to tell Henry where to get off.
He wanted peace. Henry had had two viragos. He needed docile, and he got it.