Catherine Parr

Twice-widowed at thirty-one and intellectually serious in a way none of her predecessors had been, she became the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII. She published two devotional works in her own name — the first English queen to publish under her own authority — and reconciled the king with his disinherited daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Surviving Henry, she promptly married Thomas Seymour but died in childbirth within eighteen months.