Jane Seymour (1509-1537) was the third wife of King Henry VIII of England. She is remembered as being a good, quiet and conservative wife. More importantly to Henry, she gave birth to his first male heir, the future King Edward VI.

Jane Seymour, the daughter of Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth, was twenty-five in 1535 when Henry VIII began to show an interest in her. He was visiting her family's home, Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire. Hers was a country family of the higher classes, descended from Edward III. She was intelligent, but quiet and the very example of purity. She was known equally for her porcelain skin--despite her love of gardening and the outdoors--and her kind heart.

Jane served as a lady-in-waiting to both of her predecessors, Catherine of Aragon, beginning in 1529, and then Anne Boleyn. As Francis Hackett wrote in Henry the VIII: The Personal History of...