Season 3, Episode 4 of The Tudors dramatizes the long-awaited birth of Prince Edward and the tragic death of Jane Seymour, while escalating political tensions between Henry VIII and his rival Reginald Pole. The episode presents emotional scenes of rebellion, execution, and royal succession, but alters key historical facts, especially regarding the Pilgrimage of Grace, the execution of Robert Aske, the actions of Charles Brandon, and the true circumstances of Jane Seymour’s labor and death. Here’s what the show changed, exaggerated, or invented, and what really happened in Tudor England.

In This Post:

• Who Was Cardinal Pole?
• Mass Slaughter in the North
• Robert Aske’s Death
• What Killed Jane Seymour?
• Edward’s Christening

Episode 4: The Death of a Queen

Before we get into things, let’s remember that in 1537, instead of being a hunk, Henry VIII looked like this:

He was 45, which for Tudor times was considered “old.” The average life expectancy was anywhere from 35 to 65. Thanks to his uncontrolled diabetes, Henry VIII only lived to be 55; his father Henry VII made it to 52, and his grandfather Edward IV died at 40. Sir Thomas Howard making it to 80 was almost unheard of for the period!

His advanced age is why Henry was insistent on a male heir. He knew he might not live for much longer, so he needed at least one son (preferably two or more off Jane) and a regent he could trust to carry forward the Tudor dynasty.

Henry felt the weight of what his father had ‘won’ pressing down on him and had a tremendous desire not to let their legacy die with him. He had no faith in a daughter’s ability to succeed him to the throne, so he never even considered Mary could rule in his place. The collective memory of the disaster between Empress Maude and her cousin, King Stephen, in the 1100s was still strong; Henry feared that, like Maud, if he left the throne to Mary, one of her Plantagenet cousins would usurp her and start another several decades long war for this throne.

Who Was Cardinal Pole?

Just a reminder that this series’ Cardinal Reginald Pole is the son of Margaret Plantagenet Pole, daughter of George Plantagenet, one of the three Sons of York. (Edward IV became king; George was drowned in a vat of wine for treason; and Richard III lost the throne to Henry Tudor.) By this time, Henry VII had gotten rid of Margaret’s brother. Her sons were the only remaining legitimate heirs to the York throne, but her long-term service to the Tudor household, her favoritism of and loyalty to Elizabeth of York, and her friendship with Catherine of Aragon had made her feel fairly secure within her position at court.

For a time after her husband Sir Richard Pole died, Margaret had so many debts that she was forced to enter a nunnery with her children to survive. She remained there until Henry VII died, and Catherine of Aragon and a young Henry VIII restored her to her place at court. But in the meantime, she gave her son, Reginald, to the Church. He never forgave her for this, and it is this man that we meet as an adult, a significant contender for the throne, and an oppositionist to Henry’s rejection of the Roman Church.

In the series, Henry sees him as a traitor and hears from Cromwell that he has written and published a pamphlet intended to rekindle rebellion against Henry. This isn’t entirely true. Pole wrote a 280-page letter to Henry in which he told him to repent; he ridiculed Henry’s apologists and asked if they thought a corrupt king (Henry) was any better than a corrupt Pope. He chastised Henry for making a laughingstock of the nobility, of not loving his subjects by depriving them of their connection to Rome, accused him of robbing the clergy, and of executing “the best men of your kingdom” (Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More). He compared Henry to the Turks, regarding him being a great ‘enemy’ of Christianity. But this document was not published within either of their lifetimes.

Mass Slaughter in the North?

Charles Brandon rides into the north to commit mass slaughter against the rebels and to kill ‘men, women, and children’ as ordered by his king. The latter was not true; knights and nobles in those times saw killing the innocent (women and children) as dishonorable. Henry and his knights considered themselves honorable, no matter how heinous their behavior.

Far from killing ‘thousands’ in retaliation for the uprising, about 220 people were executed, with only one woman among them. Most of the people killed were monks and priests, then the gentry and middle class (and some of them could barter their way free if they had anything with which to bribe Sir Thomas Howard or the king). Lord Darcy was executed to threaten the rest of the nobility, most of whom fell in line. They were not rounded up at random from among the peasants, but selectively chosen for having been active in the rebellion and/or being men of property from which the crown might profit by seizing their assets.

Brandon has scaffolds built and hangs hundreds of people in the middle of nowhere, but executions were always held in public in the local town square, and the bodies displayed nearby—sometimes hacked into pieces and nailed over castle ramparts or above the central arch into a town. It’s gruesome to think about, but that’s how they did it in the old days.

Henry Sends Sir Francis Bryan after Reginald Pole

Henry is tired of the threat Cardinal Pole poses to him, so he commissions Sir Francis Bryan to go after him. This is true, since Sir Francis carried out many ‘private matters’ for the king (he wasn’t the royal enforcer the way Sir Thomas Lovell was for Henry VII, but came close). Francis was an opportunist who would turn on anyone for anything if it kept him in royal favor. But rather than hiring men to assassinate his rival for the throne, Henry wanted Pole alive, to make an example of him and force him to bend the knee. His men ‘threatened’ Pole enough that he spent the next several years in hiding, avoiding public appearances, and only gradually making his way back to Rome in secret.

Robert Aske’s Death

Historians agree Robert Aske was hung in chains, but disagree on whether he died quickly, or if it took days, or if he was dismembered as a traitor. Some say he hung off the tower, dying slowly, over the course of a week; others say Henry accepted his final request to be killed before being dismembered, and that after he was hung for a time, they drew him up and ran him through.

The series is trying to duplicate the emotional arc it gave us with Sir Thomas More, but it’s an uphill battle, because we have had little time to get to know Robert Aske, other than to think of him as naïve and too trusting of the king’s honorable nature. He has some nice scenes with his wife and daughter, and we feel bad for him here, hanging out in his cell already wrapped in chains so he can feel the weight of what is about to happen to him. They spare him an agonizing death with the implication that his neck breaks as soon as he steps off the tower.

Aske was visited by a priest, but to elicit a confession from him, rather than to support him in his hour of death.

There’s no evidence that Princess Mary gave Aske a jewel Jane Seymour passed to her, nor that the priest ever gifted it to Aske’s wife.

Brandon is at his execution, rather than Sir Thomas Howard.

What Killed Jane Seymour?

There’s a nice throwaway line about how Lady Lisle wants a place for one of her daughters at court, and Jane agrees; actually, Lady Lisle paid for that position at court with a ‘gift’ of quails to staunch the queen’s appetite. Many such exchanges happened at court, where you got what you wanted with an expensive gift. She mentions that new ladies at court must have two gowns, one of satin and the other damask. Jane knew how expensive were, so she did not ‘demand’ her ladies upgrade their wardrobes, except to prohibit French fashions, since she associated them with Anne Boleyn.

Contrary to the show, Mary Tudor was not present when Jane Seymour went into labor. Unmarried women were not allowed in the birthing room, in case they saw something inappropriate.

It’s true Jane had a long labor (two days and three nights), maybe because Edward was not in the right position; the show has the physician preparing to deliver the child through a Cesarian, which would have been a death sentence in the 1500s. They were unaware of germs and did not have clean instruments; they only resorted to a C-section if they were certain the woman was dying already and hoped to save the child.

Jane lived for two weeks after Edward’s birth, but fell ill shortly after the christening. No one knows what killed her; it could have been a retained placenta (it did not separate from her womb, and poisoned her blood), a perpetual fever, a bacterial infection, or a pulmonary embolism (a blockage that moves through the lungs to constrict breathing). Jane dies rather quickly here, but it took longer in Tudor times. She worsened, she recovered a little, and finally slipped away, to the distress of the court.

Edward’s Christening

Royal baptisms happened within a couple of days after birth in Tudor times because so many infants died soon after being born. Catholics believed that unless you were baptized, your soul could not enter heaven. Children who died without being baptized would never find their way there, but also would not suffer the punishments of hell, because they were innocent and had no time to commit mortal sins. They went into “infant limbo,” a state of natural, painless, eternal happiness, but also had no awareness of God.

Henry was not at his son’s baptism, but Princess Mary stood in as Edward’s godmother, in a beautiful dress of silver, and Elizabeth attended with Edward Seymour. Baby Edward child entered the church in style, beneath a canopy held by half a dozen noblemen, including his uncle, Thomas Seymour. After the service, they carried him into his mother’s room, where she and Henry welcomed him.  

Minor Thoughts:

• Henry remarks that if given a choice between saving Jane’s life and that of his son, he could not choose; but many sources suggest he chose to save the child because he could find another wife.
• Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, pitches the idea of marrying Mary off to Don Louis of Portugal, with no mention of the age difference between them (ten years) or that Don Louis already had a mistress and a six-year-old illegitimate son.
• Jane is upset about nobles giving the king bribes to purchase the suppressed abbeys and that the king asks no questions so long as he receives his 10% share of the profit. This is indeed what happened to the abbeys; Cromwell sold them off to leading landowners who wanted to reap the revenues from their tenants.
• I love Mary and Elizabeth’s scene before the christening, in which Mary says boys are more important than girls, and her sister disagrees. It’s nice foreshadowing of their personalities.
• Jane’s death music is one of the prettiest scores in the entire series’ soundtrack.

Curious what personality types feature in The Tudors? Check out my analysis here!

This article is part of my Historical Accuracy in Historical TV Shows & Movies series, where I break down the real history behind popular historical dramas.

About the Author: Charity Bishop writes historical fiction, historical fantasy, and suspense novels that explores the darkness in human hearts, and the light that refuses to be extinguished. Discover her books.