Elizabeth Seymour

Jane's sister

Elizabeth Seymour (c. 1518 – ) is a younger daughter of Sir John Seymour of Wulfhall, Wiltshire and Margery Wentworth. Elizabeth and her sister Jane serve in the household of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII.

The story so far…

Week 14: Devil's Spit / A Painter’s Eye

Jane’s sister Lizzie is at court with her husband, the Governor of Jersey, who is some connection of the new queen’s. Lizzie comes packaged into her velvet and lace, her outlines as firm as her sister’s are indefinite and blurred, her eyes bold and hazel and eloquent. Jane whispers in her wake; her eyes are the colour of water, where her thoughts slip past, like gilded fishes too small for hook or net.

Lady Rochford has her opinions: “Lizzie Seymour must have a lover… it cannot be her husband who puts that glow in her cheeks.”

Later Cromwell notices the way the king looks at her, his hand lingering on her waist.

Week 23: The Black Book (Part 2)

Her husband recently dead, she returns to court. Cromwell is strangely pleased to hear she takes the name Bess and not Lizzie, his wife’s name.

Bess summarises Cromwell’s life: ‘Master Cromwell, it cannot always be acts of Parliament and dispatches to ambassadors and revenue and Wales and monks and pirates and traitorous devices and Bibles and oaths and trusts and wards and leases and the price of wool and whether we should pray for the dead. There must sometimes be other topics.’

   He is struck by her overview of his situation. It is as if she has understood his life. He is taken by an impulse to clasp her hand and ask her to marry him.

Week 27: Master of Phantoms (2/5)

In Surrey, Bess attacks Jane’s wardrobe, restyling her headdress so she reminds no one of Anne Boleyn.

Week 28: Master of Phantoms (Part 4/5)

With thoughts of Mary Boleyn fresh in his mind, he thinks idly of Bess Seymour. Then, he checks to make sure that Call-Me cannot read his mind.

Jane Seymour is brought back up to London so that Henry can see her at night. Her sister says she is ‘squirrelling away money in a locked chest, in case the king changes his mind.’ The key is kept in her bosom, Bess says, giving him ‘a merry look.’

Week 34: Wreckage (II) (Part 1/2)

The queen is with her sister, the widowed Bess Oughtred. Cromwell is surprised to discover that Bess knows Latin. He calls her ‘Oughtred’s widow’, ‘in a distant way, as if he never thought of her.’

Week 41: The Image of the King (Part 1/2)

Cromwell tells Richard Riche that Lady Oughtred’s husband ‘left her mean provision. She wants a house of her own.’ The Seymours are looking to marry her to the Earl of Oxford. Cromwell has a better idea.

When Holbein paints Jane, Bess says: ‘I warrant when he married her … she did not look so much like a mushroom.’

Cromwell speaks to Edward Seymour, proposing a match between Bess and Gregory. ‘An alliance in blood, as well as in the council chamber.’ He goes home and tells Gregory: ‘I have found you a bride.’

Week 42: The Image of the King (Part 2/2) / Broken on the Body

Bess has an awkward conversation with her future father-in-law in the queen’s privy gardens: ‘I think there has been a misunderstanding. I am offering my person to one Cromwell only, the one I marry. But which Cromwell is it meant to be?’

Arrangements are made for her marriage and wedding. At Mortlake, Gregory tells Cromwell to stay away from his new wife.

After Jane dies, Bess tells Cromwell that Jane was ‘lucky to become a queen of England, unlucky to die for it.’ She tells him she would rather live than have a great name. ‘Would not you, Lord Cromwell?’