The third in the line of wives to Henry VIII was Jane Seymour, the wife that arguably Henry was the most in love with as when the king died in 1547 he was buried beside Jane in Windsor Castle. Born in 1508/09 in Wiltshire, Jane was lady in waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn and first captured the attention of the King at court. It is clear that Henry was very much in love with Jane, and wanted to marry her urgently as to produce the son and heir he had long hoped for. Within one day of Anne’s death and execution Jane and the king were engaged and eventually wed. Just over a year later in 1537 Jane was pregnant with Henry’s first and last son, the son that he had craved for so long during his reign. However, as the rhyme goes, the happiness of the king and his queen was not to last and Jane died only two weeks after giving birth to the heir to the throne, Edward. After only a short marriage Jane was buried in St. Georges chapel at Windsor castle, leaving her husband in mourning. Jane’s legacy compared to the other wives of Henry is limited seeing as she spent little time as the wife of the King, and in fact wasn’t even crowned at a coronation as Queen of England. However what Jane did achieve was that she gave Henry the long hoped for heir, an issue which had gripped the country and the court for many years. General feeling was that Jane was kind of heart and caring towards those at court and around her, shown in her encouraging Henry to let the princesses Mary and Elizabeth back to court and rekindle their relationship with their father. Jane may not have been the most influential of all the Tudor wives, but she gave Henry a son and heir and brought some temporary peace to the Tudor dynasty.
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