Wolf Hall: Home of the Seymours

The Seymour's main residence was at Wolf Hall; it was here that Jane Seymour (third wife of Henry VIII) was born. There is very little left of the building that was inhabited by a rising family that would become a powerful fraction at court. But the Seymour family left Wolf Hall and no longer lived there in 1575 - instead the estate was used to house servants until it could no longer be inhabited at all.

It was at Wolf Hall that Henry VIII stayed in September 1535 and started courting Jane Seymour. It is possible that the newly married royal couple held a celebration party in the barn belonging to the estate. When the barn burned down in the middle of 1920's it still had the hooks on which tapestries used for the celebration hung. After the executions of Thomas and Edward Seymour, the family's fortunes fell as drastic as they had risen - there was no longer a point in trying to improve the family seat of a family that no longer possessed any power.

The barn in which the wedding of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour was celebrated

The Seymour Family

The Seymour family became the leading family after the fall of the Boleyns. Like their predecessors, their power came from the King's affection for a woman in their family - in this case Jane Seymour. Since Jane did the convenient thing and died after giving the King a son, the Seymour family remained in favour even after the death of the Seymour Queen. The patriarch of the family was John Seymour but it was his children that led the Seymour to the fame and power that comes from the love of a Tudor.

But the main figures of power from the Seymour family after Jane's death was her brothers Thomas and Edward who both ended their lives on the scaffold - sent there by their nephew, a half-Seymour.

From the left: Thomas Seymour (beheaded), Edward Seymour (beheaded), Jane Seymour (died in child bed), Anne Stanhope/Seymour and Edward VI (died of tuberculosis) - half Tudor, half Seymour.