The Ultimate Survivor

Catherine Parr is best known as the one who finally outlasted King Henry VIII, but her entire life was a matrimonial marathon. She holds the record as the most-married English queen, tying the knot a staggering four times. After her first two husbands died, she caught the roving eye of the aging, ulcer-ridden King Henry VIII. She actually wanted to marry the dashing Thomas Seymour, but when the King proposes, you don't exactly say no—especially when his last couple of wives lost their heads.

The Close Call

Being Henry's wife was like walking a tightrope over a pit of spikes. Catherine was highly educated, fiercely Protestant, and a bit too opinionated for the King's liking. In 1546, she nearly signed her own death warrant by arguing theology with Henry. Conservatives at court drew up an arrest warrant, but Catherine discovered it, threw herself at Henry's mercy, and convinced him she only debated him to "take his mind off his painful leg." It worked, and she kept her head attached to her neck.

A Macabre Afterlife

After Henry kicked the bucket, Catherine finally married her true love, Thomas Seymour, only to die tragically of "childbed fever" in 1548. But her story gets a lot stranger after she was buried at Sudeley Castle.

• In 1782, her lead coffin was unearthed, and witnesses found her body perfectly preserved—flesh still white and moist.
• Victorian souvenir hunters repeatedly opened her coffin, eventually leaving her remains exposed to rot.
• In one particularly bizarre incident, drunken revelers dug her up just to pull her hair and steal her teeth.

Ultimately, this brilliant, trailblazing Queen—the first Englishwoman to publish a book under her own name—spent centuries being treated like a macabre tourist attraction.