So tell us about what you've found in terms of Jane and religion.

Yes.

So Jane and religion.

This is another area where I very much tried to myth bust because most people, most historians, most accounts of Jane will portray her as a sort of ardent religious conservative.

You know, they talk about her wanting to turn the clock back on the Reformation, you know, bring the Pope back, be very, very conservative in her religion.

And actually, when you trace that back, the earliest reference I could find to Jane as a religious conservative is actually the 1970s BBC television drama starring Keith Michelle and Stally Brass as Jane Seymour.

And that's one where Henry calls her his little nun and sort of implies that she wanted to enter a religious life.

Library, actually, but in the Royal Collection, effectively.

So what evidence exists to suggest that she was one of the youngest of the Seymour siblings?

Okay, so I'm pretty certain that she was.

And this has proved more contentious than I thought it was going to be, that having her as the younger sister of Elizabeth Seymour, because people are very wedded to the idea that Elizabeth Seymour is younger.

Partly that's because of the portrait.

There's obviously a portrait that is currently identified as Elizabeth Seymour, which says she's 21 years old.

If that age is correct, that woman's not Elizabeth Seymour.

She's not 21 years old in the start of the 1540s when the dress kind of works for the painting.

So what evidence actually exists to tell us that she was a committed humanist and therefore keen on church reform?

And I feel like there's always been this question about birth order when it comes to the Seymours and maybe what Jane's early life actually looked like.

Yeah, yeah.

So actually, what has surprised me is actually the birth order has come out as sort of super controversial in the book, because I...

Jane's not the eldest daughter I mean she obviously isn't and that shocks a lot of people because a lot of people want Elizabeth Seymour to be younger the reason for that is the portrait so there's that portrait that gets labeled as Elizabeth Seymour you know sort of wearing dark clothes she does look a lot like Jane facially in this portrait but it's from the close and late 1530s possibly early 1540s and it says on it that this woman is age 21 so if that's Elizabeth Seymour then she must be quite a bit younger than Jane but if that age is accurate it's probably not Elizabeth Seymour because actually for that to be Elizabeth Seymour she needs to have given birth when she's about 12 years old maybe 13 you know back you know with her first child and you know her first husband is a man in his 50s um you know if if If Sir Anthony Uhtred arrived to marry, you know, at the Seymours at Wolf Hall and said, I want to marry your 11-year-old daughter, and there's an older Jane there who's not married, they're not going to say, yeah, go for it, take Elizabeth.

You know, even in the 16th century, that's not going to happen.

So there are loads of hints that Elizabeth is older than Jane, huge numbers.

I mean, Edward is clearly the oldest sibling, but hints for, you know, Elizabeth being older.

Like what surprised you the most while you were researching for this book?

What are her first few months as Queen like?

Yeah, so filled with parties.

She gets displayed publicly.

Like with most of his queens, Henry VIII doesn't really announce it.

He just simply, one day he walks in and there's Jane as queen.

And everyone who kind of already knew suddenly goes, oh, yep, she's queen now.

So she does a formal entry into London.

Well, what about her famously close relationship to Catherine's daughter and Jane's oldest stepdaughter, Mary, who was 20 when Jane became her stepmother? True or false?

But I suppose the next question is, how many of these offenders were caught and put to death?

So again, I mean, it's a much more complicated story than we perhaps know about when we think about Bonfire Night, because it's fairly well known that Guy Fawkes is apprehended.

He's the first member of the plot to be captured.

He's actually captured in the cellar underneath the House of Parliament, just as he's sort of preparing to light the fuse.

So he is taken off and tortured.

And of course, when the other plotters realize that Guy Fawkes has been taken and the game is up, they all set about fleeing London.

And a group of them head up to Warwickshire and they end up at Holbeach House there, which belongs to a member of the Catholic gentry who's agreed to put them up.

That's lifeaudio.com forward slash The Good Word.