Jane’s short, successful career and her tragic end caught the public’s imagination, and she was celebrated in popular ballads long after she was dust. She had achieved nearly everything she set out to do: she had given the King the son he so desperately needed, she had helped to restore the Lady Mary to the succession and her father’s affections, and she had used her influence to bring about the advancement of her family. She had provided the King with a family life for the first time in years, and had meddled hardly at all in matters of religion or politics. His grief at her death is testimony of his love for her. It was, in every respect, the most successful of his six marriages, and it was the only one to result in a surviving male heir. Alison Weir 

RIP Jane Seymour, d. 24 October 1537