Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love [Kindle Edition]

I loved this book. Jane Seymour has always been my favourite of Henry VIII's wives and it has always been hard to find information on her. I liked the first half as I found the information about Jane's family interesting. I also thought it was well written and Norton's writing style always keeps me wanting to read more. I particularly like her use of quotes and she gives you a feel for the real Jane, especially in her discussion of her role in Anne Boleyn's death. The best part of the book was definitely the section on Jane as queen. I really enjoyed reading about Jane's religious beliefs and her opinion on the Pilgrimage of Grace. I also thought that Norton provided the best summary on the Pilgrimage of Grace that I have read so far. My favourite chapter was on Princess Mary, who I have also always been interested in. I was intrigued by Jane's role in bringing Mary back to court.

I have read about Jane in other books on the six wives in general but it always feels as though she is a bit of an afterthought, once the writer has gone through the more exciting stories of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. It was refreshing to read a book focussed solely on Jane and I though it added a new viewpoint to read about Anne Boleyn's fall from Jane's point of view for the first time. The book is not very long, which is a shame, but it is full of really interesting information about Jane Seymour and I would highly recommend it.

I was so excited about ordering "Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love" by Elizabeth Norton because it really is the only Jane Seymour biography available - all the other Jane Seymour books seem to be fictional accounts of her life. However, I wasn't impressed by the first few chapters because I thought they were very flimsy and talked about what Jane MAY have done and where she MAY have been. I understand that Jane Seymour is a hard character to research because there actually isn't much information about her before she became Henry's third wife but still, she could have been anywhere really!!

But, the good news is that the book gets better and is actually a great read and goes some way to dispelling those myths about how Jane was meek, mild and demure. Norton points out that "the real Jane was a shrewd politician and a strong character. Jane could not have won the king without a ruthless streak and her ambition was as great as Anne Boleyn's". What we need to remember is that Jane saw, by being a maid to both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, how these women treated the king and how he treated them. She learned that she had to be the good, mild-mannered traditional woman to tempt the king after he had lost interest in the feisty argumentative Anne but she also learned from Anne that she needed to keep hold of her "virtue" if she was to hold the king's interest.

This book, in the end, really does give you a deeper understanding of this woman who history really has ignored and yet who was the "usurper", stealing the King from Anne Boleyn. The information on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Jane's religious beliefs and her horror of how Henry treated the uprising, her pregnancy, death and legacy, is all first class. A great read for Tudor history lovers.

I thoroughly loved this biography of Queen Jane Seymour, as there aren't many around! It is lovely because it focuses completely on Jane's story, giving you all the facts and details which you need. Okay, so that author didn't have a lot of material to work with for the early years of Jane Seymour, but Elizabeth Norton still made it extremely interesting, allowing the reader to come up with their own conclusions.

There is no doubt that Jane is a very fascinating lady, helped by the fact that we don't know a lot about her (unfortunately). But when the book did turn to the well documented area of Jane's life, (marriage, reign, pregnancy etc), the author still made it extremely lively, informative and simple.

This book definately helps all those history/Tudor fans out there understand a little bit more about Henry's third queen and so I highly recommend it!