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Image courtesy of Private Collection

Twice married and twice widowed, the down-to-earth Catherine offered comfort to Henry in his old age after their marriage in 1543. She outlived him and married for a fourth time.

Henry was 49 and Catherine 19 or 20 when the pair married in 1540, three weeks after his separation from Anne. Accused of extramarital liaisons, Catherine was executed in 1542.

Henry married his first wife, the daughter of Spanish King Ferdinand II and the widow of Henry’s older brother, in 1509. She gave birth to the future Queen Mary I in 1516 but failed to produce Henry’s hoped-for male heir.

Elizabeth I, surrounded by courtiers, on one of her regular summer “progresses” around her kingdom.