Death Of Queen Jane: A Song History
"The Death of Queen Jane" is Child ballad 170 (Roud 77), in which a queen endures a long and dangerous labour, pleads to have the child cut from her, is refused by the king, and dies after the baby is born.[1] Its story is generally linked to Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, who gave birth to the future Edward VI on 12 October 1537 and died on 24 October.[1] The surgery in the ballad rests on rumour: stories of a caesarean circulated early, but one historian cited by the Ballad Index judges an operation unlikely, since it was then usually fatal to the mother and Jane lived on for twelve days, and accounts of what actually killed her differ, from childbed fever to bleeding after the birth.[1] Child himself found no good authority for the surgery and concluded that the birth had been a natural one.[2] A ballad called "The Lamentation of Queen Jane" was registered for printing in 1560, though it may have concerned Lady Jane Grey, and the earliest text noted by the Ballad Index dates from Percy in 1776.[1]
Wenceslaus Hollar, Iohanna Seymovr Regina Henri (Jane Seynour, Queen of Henry VIII), etching; only state, 1648. Jane Seymour, the queen the ballad is generally linked to.
Child printed nine texts, and Bertrand Bronson later gathered ten sung versions in his Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads.[1] The song travelled to America, where Cecil Sharp took down versions in the Southern Appalachians and Bascom Lamar Lunsford recorded a short fragment for the Library of Congress.[1] When Sharp told a Kentucky singer in 1917 that the ballad rested on real events, the singer said they had "always said it must be true because it is so beautiful."[2]
Peggy Seeger recorded a version built from two of Sharp's Appalachian texts in 1962.[2] Joan Baez included it on her Vanguard album Joan Baez/5.[3] In 1971 Dáithí Sproule wrote a new melody for the words, first recorded by the Bothy Band in 1978 and since taken up by many singers, among them Oscar Isaac in the 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis.[2] Neal Hellman includes it in Mountain Dulcimer Arrangements From Both Sides Of The Atlantic, a collection of 35 arrangements for mountain dulcimer, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]
Sources
- The Traditional Ballad Index: "Death of Queen Jane, The [Child 170]".
- Mainly Norfolk: "The Death of Queen Jane / Queen Jane".
- Ace Records: "Joan Baez/5".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Neal Hellman, Mountain Dulcimer Arrangements From Both Sides Of The Atlantic".
- Image: Wenceslaus Hollar, Iohanna Seymovr Regina Henri (Jane Seynour, Queen of Henry VIII), etching; only state, 1648. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.