Heterogametic Sex

By lex, on January 30th, 2012

England’s King Henry VIII famously went through six wives on his way to finding one that would deliver a male heir for the throne. Poor Catherine of Aragon was a political marriage that didn’t quite take, although her daughter Mary would survive to give Ann Boleyn’s Elizabeth a hard time. Elizabeth I was their only issue and would go on to make any mother proud, but Ann lost three subsequent pregnancies to miscarriage, and her head soon followed. Jane Seymour gave birth to the heir Henry craved, but lost her life doing so. Ann of Cleves probably got the best of the bargain when Henry – by this time morbidly obese and oozing – declared he liked her not, and had the marriage annulled. Catherine Howard lost her heart to another man, and her head followed. Catherine Parr survived the king’s fatal attractions chiefly by outliving him – he died two and half years after their marriage.