In 1536, Jane Seymour became Henry VIII’s third wife. Anne Boleyn, the second of the six, had the first inklings of it when she found Jane, her maid of honour, wearing a locket that proved to be an intimate gift from the king. She wrenched it from her rival’s neck but gained no more than a cut hand.

An Act of Parliament passed on Henry’s marriage to Jane in 1536 reveals that both court and nobility were strongly behind the project, and made it plain that she was chosen for her looks and as a likely mother of a son. In due course a son came, Edward, but to Henry’s lasting grief Jane died barely ten days later.

116 words