38. Baiting Henry VIII With Jane Seymour
The Seymour family staked their fortunes upon introducing Jane Seymour to the notoriously randy king Henry VIII. She was the opposite of Anne Boleyn – the kind of female praised by contemporaries for correct conduct, while Boleyn had been spirited and wild. After his tumultuous years with Anne, Henry was ready for a change of pace, and he took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. In the spring of 1536, Thomas and Jane Seymour’s elder brother, Edward, was made a gentlemen of the privy chamber. Soon thereafter, Edward, his wife, and his sister Jane, moved into Greenwich Palace, in an apartment that the king could access via a private passage.