‘it was so sad for henry; she made him happiest’

aethelfleds:

It’s always said that Jane Seymour died giving birth to Edward. Like baby Edward came out and oops she’s gone. I think we should stop portraying it like that because Jane really suffered so much longer. There’s a couple theories of what actually killed her, but whatever it was caused a horrific infection, probably blood poisoning, and delirium. And she lingered for TWO. WEEKS. It’s almost treated as a joke, like “yeah when Henry finally found a wife that gave him a son she died hahahaha.” But imagine the unspeakable pain and exhaustion she went through. In a lot of cases of maternal mortality at this time we don’t have much detail at all, but with Jane we have a bit more than usual. And I think that gives us a lot of insight into what pregnancy and childbirth was like for medieval/Tudor women. They endured not only labor with no pain relief, but the psychological effects of knowing they could very well die trying to bring their children into the world. And we just don’t acknowledge that? We never think about the physical and mental fortitude it took for our female ancestors to go through that. Just because it was considered their role in life or their dynastic duty doesn’t mean the humanity of women was invented with modern obstetrics.