POISONED BY HER LOVER?

Wife No6: CATHERINE PARR

ALREADY married and widowed twice, the attractive 31-year-old was forced to drop her romance with Thomas Seymour, Jane’s brother, when Henry decided to make her his sixth wife.

She wed the king in 1543 and took over as regent while Henry was fighting in France. Brainy and sharp-tongued, she was the first queen to publish a book, about religion. Before backing down, Henry drew up an arrest warrant for her over another work.

When he died in 1547, aged 55, Catherine wed Thomas. But it’s said she caught him in clinches with Henry’s 14-year-old daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I.

Catherine died the next year after the birth of her only child. Her last words were to accuse Seymour of poisoning her.

When her coffin was found at Sudeley Castle, Glos, in 1782 her body was almost perfectly preserved.