Jane's early childhood
- till Henry VIII's death in 1547 -

Henry and Frances Dorset were robust and energetic. They spent a great deal of time out of doors and lead a healthy, busy life. The routine that suited them was sometimes too strenous for their daughters, of whom much was required, with the result that both Katherine and Jane were apt to succumb to nervous exhaustion. Mary's birth amounted almost to a disaster: she was a hump-backed dwarf and was very ugly. but although she might prove, in spite of her Tudor blood, to be unmarriageable, they did their best for her by giving her the same education as her sisters and took her about with them. But her futur remained a problem.
Katherine was the beauty of the family. Jane was small, light-haired and neatly made. Her skin was very fair and soon became permanently freckled. But as soon as she passed the first stage of her education she showed herself to be gifted in so many ways that her freckles were overlooked.
Jane was treated as a princess. She and her sisters took their mother's rank; she was adressed as "the Lady Jane", met the King's daughters on equal terms and received the same training. Her background and way of life were more luxurious than those of Mary and Elizabeth, who were brought up economically and sometimes in real hardship. Bradgate was palatial. Its interiors reflected the magnificence, and the modernity, of its outward planning. Dorset's father had been one of the pioneers of the new architecture which provided homes built for the enjoyment of wealth and ease, without regard of defence.
Those who, like the Dorsets, had resident physicians and were able to consult the King's doctors if they wished, were in fact less fortunate than the poorer classes with their homeopathy and herbal remedies. For English medical standards were very low. This may partly have accounted for the tuberculosis which killed Katherine at twenty-eight, and for Jane's nervous debility.
Yet the time-table they began to follow as soon as they could read - from the age of three or four - was not really taxing, for they kept early hours and had plenty of sleep. In country-houses the day began with prayers at six, followed by a breakfast of bread, ale and meat. The young people, having visited their parents, then worked at Greek and Latin till dinner-time. Music, modern languages and classical or Biblical reading lasted till supper; then the girls danced or sat down to their needlework before going to bed at nine. Once or twice a week this programme might be set aside for a whole day's hunting, hawking, or an expedition into Leicester, to be entertained by the mayor and the local gentry.

In her sixth year Lady Jane can be visualized as a girl of twelve or thirteen would be today, able to interchange a few simple Latin phrases and to read Coverdale's Bible to herself. Her nurse, Mrs Ellen, was now her attendant, and helped her other maids to dress her in clothes which exactly copied her elders. In the 1540s these were very elaborate. her favourite hobby was music. She would have liked to practise lute, harp and cithern for more hours than were allowed, and became interested in composition. In her seventh year her first tutor, Dr Harding, began her Greek, Spanish, Italian and French lessons; these had to be fitted in with the writing-master's visits and the time spent learning, not only the Court galliards and pavanes themselves, but the symbolism underlying their movements. It was a full life and, in spite of Frances' harshness, perhaps even a happy life. Then, between her eighth and ninth birtdays, the pattern changed. Her parents' plans for her future materialized. She was sent away from home for two years.

The English custom of boarding out young children consisted of sending those children to larger and wealthier establishments so that they might acquire the habits of the fashionable world. As the Dorsets' position was one of the highest, the only way of raising Jane's social status was to place her with Queen Katherine Parr. They therefore brought her to the notice of the King as soon as it was feasible. The Lady Frances, who was frequently at Court, made it her business to be on friendly terms with the Queen. By the time Henry VIII's health began to fail, and he withdrew from the bustle of Westminster and Whitehall to the comparative seclusion of Windsor and Hampton Court - between the spring of 1546 and his death in January 1547 - the tenor of life in his palaces had so changed that it would have been difficult to introduce his great-niece into the Queen's household. Although it is not clear when Jane left Bradgate, she became known to the Queen, Prince Edward and the Princesses before Henry died. By the time the boy King succeeded and his step-mother had taken up partial residence at Chelsea Palace, Jane had joined her household, and was given precedence of all but her cousins as a princess of the blood.
Her education was thenceforth set in a mould which suited her so well that she never diverged from it. Her establishment in the Queen's circle came at the impressionable age of nine and a half, and its influence prevailed on throughout her life. Katherine Parr, one of the most intelligent and charming women of her day, was, temperamentally, the antithesis of Jane's mother Frances. That Jane became attached to her is obvious, if only her letters and conversation were to reflect those of her kind and gentle patroness, whose character and career were a typical product of the English Reformation.
When she married Henry VIII in July 1543, Katherine Parr was thirty and had been widowed twice. Her first husband was Lord Borough, her second Lord Latimer. Childless, elegant, wealthy and accomplished, she was an ideal wife and stepmother. After Lord Latimer's death she was converted to Protestantism, and her house at Wimbledon became the center of an advanced and learned coterie which included Coverdale, Cranmer and Anne Askew. During this time Katherine was courted by and fell in love with Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England and the brother of the late Queen Jane Seymour, Edward VI's mother. Katherine had been on the point of accepting him when Henry VIII required her hand. So the Admiral, whose career was disastrously intermingled with that of Lady Jane, had to be dismissed. Although he was attached to the Court and well-treated by the King, his position and power counted as nothing beside those of his elder brother, Edward Seymour, who, at his nephew's accession, became Duke of Somerset and Protector of the realm.

To Biography part 3 - Jane and the Seymours

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