June 4 – Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, is proclaimed queen

I should imagine there was a great deal of shock and possible resentment from those who had served Anne Boleyn, Margery Horsman for one who had served Anne must have been quite friendly with her and Lady Rochford her sister in law, she had lost her dashing and clever husband and there must have been a very deep feeling of bitterness, because they must have been aware their previous mistress had been killed so the king could put Jane on the throne, many of Anne’s household but not have liked her very much we do not know, but she had been very friendly with lady Wingfield and Lady Worcester, and Jane was her sister in law, indeed how does one carry on, yet they could do nothing they had to suppress their feelings but Jane especially, looking at the insipid face of the new queen could do nothing but compare her to Anne how witty and lively she had been and how both she and George had lit up the court, it was said after their deaths it was a much duller place without them, and young Weston was gone, Norris and Smeton who had sang and danced and played music so gracefully, now they had a new mistress to serve a quiet and Chapyus regarded her as haughty, woman who liked to sew most of the time and was a die hard Catholic, Anne had surrounded herself with reformists, Nicholas Bourbon for one who was a tutor for her young nephew Henry Carey, she had been a good friend and patron of Thomas Cranmer who also was a reformist,, who had wept bitterly at her death, he had legalised the kings marriage to Anne then had to declare it invalid, how did he feel about a new queen taking the place of the mistress he had revered above all others? The court must have been a very quiet solemn place, Sir Thomas Wyatt had been caught up in the fall of Anne Boleyn but was released, and his long poem on the deaths of his friends and old love is one of the saddest in English literature, many gazing at Jane must have said the same thing over ‘what on earth does the king see in her? But her gentle nature did win others round and we know physical appearance is not everything, the king this time was getting old and he had had enough of passion he needed to sire a son, and Jane coming from a fertile family of a quiet unobtrusive manner seemed the ideal candidate, yet it shocked England and the continent in 1536, and continues to shock us to this day, that the sudden obliteration of his second queen and the introduction of his next queen took place barely two and half weeks later, indeed his engagement to Anne Boleyn’s lady in waiting took place the day after her execution but one would have thought he would have waited at least a year for decency’s sake, before becoming wed again and appearing with a new queen, but such was his need for a Prince he cast his honour and his personal reputation to the wind.