Despite James being husband number four, Jane is in no doubt that this is the marriage that will endure. “James is my soulmate,” she says. But she’s still in touch with her first three husbands. She married theatre director Michael Attenborough, son of Richard, when she was 20. “We were simply too young. But when his sister and niece perished in the Boxing Day tsunami, I was the second or third person he called. She regards second husband Geoffrey Planer (brother of actor Nigel) as her best friend. “He’s illustrated the five children’s books James and I have written about twin cats.” So why did the marriage fail? “Geep- that’s what I call him- didn’t want to come to America and I was being offered work in Hollywood. And then he found somebody else. I love him dearly but, to be honest, I don’t regard that or my first marriage as proper marriages at all.” She feels differently about third husband David Flynn. “He gave me Katie and Sean as well as Jenni from his first marriage. He had a lot of problems, but he’s sober now and happy. I have enormous affection for him.” She takes little prompting to say how very good a time this is, even though her Dutch-born mother, Mieke, is worryingly frail following a stroke just after Christmas. “But she’s in good hands,” says Jane, “and pain-free. I ring her every day. She can’t talk now so I just chat away.” She also visits her mother, who is in care in Middlesex, as often as possible. On the work front, there is a major new role for Jane in the offing. Before then, she will be seen in Blind Dating, a film directed by her husband and in which she plays a psychiatrist fond of undressing in front of her blind client. Daughter Katie appears in the same movie. Jane has also finished filming an upcoming episode in the Miss Marple series. “I’d love to work here more,” she says. But the woman dubbed Queen of the Mini-Series is kept busy in America,.

Two years ago, she took US citizenship,. “I want to be able to vote where I live,” she explains. “But I’m still also a British citizen- and, of course, I’ll always be English.” Just like the house in which we’re sitting. “St Catherine’s has such an amazing, calm aura. My love for it has less to do with its size or how grand it may be perceived. It’s all to do with its unique environment, somewhere that represents all that’s best about England.” She glances at her watch and claps her hands. “Right,” she announces, “lunch is being served in the Orangery.” That’s lunch for 32 people, the meticulous planning of such an event carefully shielded from her many guests. “Oh, this is very much a help-yourself kind of a house,” says Jane Seymour, the meal apparently materializing by magic. As if. Interview: Richard Barber ‘Photos: Alan Olley