26. Rejected by Both Princesses, Seymour Settled For Marrying Their Stepmother
When Seymour’s marriage proposal was rejected by princesses Elizabeth and Mary, he simply moved down the ladder to the next closest royal marital link, and made his moves on their stepmother and the late king’s widow: his former lover, Katherine Parr. The dust had hardly settled on Henry VIII’s grave before Thomas set about the rekindling the romance that had been interrupted when the late king swooped in and snatched Katherine Parr from Seymour. The former lovers were married within six months of the king’s death – a scandalously brief period of mourning, that set tongues wagging.