#probably bcus chapuys' dispatches are so long-winded it's easy to miss stuff)

[fideidefenswhore]

“In July, the ‘most Serene Queen of England’ received, along with Henry wedding congratulations from the Venetian Doge, who informed her she would be visited by the ambassador Zucato to deliver this same message in person. Although Zucato was carefully instructed as to how he was to present himself at the court of Henry VIII, there is no record of Jane having an audience with him. 

In essence, any desired intervention into politics by the Queen or her ambitious family, to assert herself in any political role was denied her by the king who seems consistently to have ‘boxed’ her into a very passive, ‘silent partnership’. The ultimate definition or image of Jane’s limitations came in the form of threat from Henry in October 1536:

During the rebellion of the northern Counties, the Pilgrimage of Grace, Jane is reputed to have begged her husband to restore the abbeys under suppression for she “...said to the king that perhaps God had permitted rebellion for ruining so many churches, to which he replied by telling her to attend to other things, reminding her [of] the last queen....”

She had indeed watched and been part of the process that judicially murdered Anne Boleyn for the satisfaction of the king; Jane Seymour knew full well that Henry was very capable of removing her should she give him cause to do so. There is reason to wonder how this moment became public knowledge, [however], if one reviews the [evidence], Jane had for five months made repeated attempts to interfere [in political concerns] and was consistently placed into another role by [Henry VIII]. After five months Henry himself determined the end of her attempts by pointedly reminding her where own position originated; after October 1536, Jane Seymour did indeed tend to other things and limited her exercise of authority to the female realm of the Queen’s chambers.

For her party at court Jane Seymour was probably not the diplomatic success they had hoped for: the king withheld that power from the Seymour faction. They rose in rank and favor without her help although she was possibly, until she bore the redemption of a male heir, a disappointment to them politically.”

Jane, The Quene (Pamela M. Gross)