Henry VIII's most illustrious wife

Today marks the anniversary of the death of a woman who ruled England as regent and shaped the destiny of three of its monarchs.  Catherine Parr is often written off as the dumpy, plain, dull wife who married Henry VIII at the end of his life when his grumpiness, fatness and dictatorial tendencies had reached their peak.  Victorian biographers portrayed her tending the wounds on his legs and reading him stories as he creaked towards death.  For many she is number six on the list, labeled as survived on the run down of the fates of the wives of the merry monarch.  But the reality is far more interesting than that.  Catherine ruled England for her husband, reconciled him to his daughters, sorted out the succession crisis brewing as Henry's health ebbed away and most amazingly of all, she managed to persuade him not to cut off her head.  Catherine Parr can claim to be the most illustrious of Henry's wives and one of the greatest queen consorts in English history.

 

Kate the great - the last of Henry VIII's wives was more than a match for him.  She became the most solid mother figure that either Edward VI or Elizabeth I had ever known

 

Katherine Parr was number six on a long list but she was far from a carbon copy of Henry's other wives.  There are superficial similarities.  Like Katherine Howard she, too, was named after Henry's first wife, Catherine Parr.  Like Jane Seymour she came from lowly noble stock - her father was a minor noble called Sir Thomas Parr while her mother, Maud Green, was the daughter of another Sir.  Like Anne of Cleves she was well versed in the art of making and keeping a comfortable home.  But scratch beneath the surface and the clues as to why Catherine Parr was able to survive her marriage to Henry VIII and wield power over his children are all there.

Catherine Parr married Henry in 1543 when she was 31 - the oldest of his brides

 

It's the things she had in common with Henry's first two wives that provide the earliest indications of why she ended up being more than a match for her husband.  Like Catherine of Aragon, she had been married before and this made a huge difference to the way in which she handled history's most difficult to please husband.  While Catherine of Aragon denied that her union with Arthur, Prince of Wales had ever been consummated, she couldn't deny that they had lived at the head of a household as husband and wife for six months.  She had begun to learn the art of running a household and of commanding the areas of their joint lives where she, as a woman, was expected to hold sway.  She had started to develop her own court and those political bonds that linked courtiers and saw great competition for favour.  And she had learned how to behave towards a husband in front of that household.  They were all lessons that Catherine Parr had practiced as well before she took the wedding vows that made her queen.  Knowing how to be the wife of an important man was vital to survival in Henry's court.  Anne Boleyn, for all her charm and intelligence, never worked out that once queen she had to adopt a different, more subservient persona to her husband - at least in public.  And her cousin, Catherine Howard, went one step further with indiscretions that were all but semi-public.  While Catherine Parr's first two husbands were minor aristocracy, they still had households to command and appearances to keep up.  Catherine's twenty years as a wife before her marriage to the king were vital in keeping her wedding ring on her finger not to mention her head on her shoulders.

 

Anne Boleyn had much in common with Catherine Parr but didn't share her common sense - perhaps the main reason she lost her head while Catherine kept hers

And like Anne Boleyn, Catherine Parr was a staunch believer in the new Protestant religion then sweeping Europe.  This adherence to a new form of worship singled her out in those times.  While Henry had created a Church of England to allow him to divorce Catherine of Aragon, he never gave up his original way of believing.  But Anne and Catherine Parr were far more engrossed in the reforming nature of the new way of faith.  Catherine Parr went so far as to publish works on it.  And Henry, for all his domineering ways, liked his wives to be bright.  Catherine, like Anne, had a mind of her own.  Luckily for her, she knew when to show it and when to keep it to herself.

Henry VIII enjoyed a challenge but not if he was going to keep losing to the challenger

 

But for that strong streak of tact running through her, the anniversary of her death might fall on a different day.  Because at some point in 1545, Henry VIII became annoyed at his wife's preaching and chattering about religion and began to listen to those who wanted rid of the queen.  By that point, Catherine had assumed power not concentrated in a consort's hands for the best part of three decades.  She had been appointed regent for her husband when he went to France in 1544 and managed the council so well that she was able to issue proclamations in her own name and do pretty much as she saw fit.  The only other time Henry had appointed a wife to rule in his place was in 1513 when Catherine of Aragon ruled his kingdom for him while he was on a French military campaign.  But while the first Catherine had then sunk into the background again when her still young and fit husband returned, the last Catherine retained a huge amount of influence as her Henry was older and less fit.  Her power annoyed many and a plot against her began.

 

Catherine of Aragon, like Catherine Parr, was trusted enough by her husband to run his country for him while he went on military campaign

Her Protestant beliefs were also causing suspicion and two of the king's counselors began to turn him against her.  But when Catherine learned that they had managed to get her husband to agree to an arrest warrant to take her into custody while her beliefs and possessions were examined, she did what no one else had ever done.  She talked Henry out of an execution.  Catherine took to her bed, claiming she was ill and no one was allowed near her.  She then threw herself on her king and told him that she had only become so well versed in these new, reforming opinions so that she could talk to him and take his mind off his sore legs.  It worked.  When the soldiers with the arrest warrant found her in the garden with the king the following day, Henry sent them packing.  And Catherine did what Anne never did.  She went back to quiet, meek, mild and subservient and outlived Henry.

Catherine Parr had been a great influence on Edward VI during her marriage to his father but was all but cut out of his life and upbinging on Henry VIII's death

 

Her death, eighteen months after that of the king, was a shock.  But then she spent her widowhood surprising everyone. She had married within months of Henry's demise.  Before her marriage to the king, rumours at court linked her to the brother of Henry VIII's dead third wife.  Thomas Seymour was a stunner - unlike sister, Jane, who had been described as plain on more than one occasion - and whispers linked his name to that of Catherine until the king took a fancy to her and sent him abroad for a while.  On the king's death she made Mr Seymour her fourth husband and for the first time in almost twenty years of marriage, Catherine became pregnant.  She gave birth to a little girl called Mary at the end of August but died of puerperal fever on September 5th 1548.  She is buried at the romantic castle where she lived with Thomas Seymour. 

The barn at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, the romantic castle where Catherine Parr spent the last few months of her life

 

The real story of Catherine and Thomas is for another blog post or two or three.  This one is to mark the amazing career of a woman who was queen of England for just three and a half years but whose legacy is huge.  Because Catherine's other advantage, having been a wife, was understanding how families worked.  And as she had been a good stepmother to the children of her second husband, so she repeated the work with those of her third.  In her time as wife to Henry VIII, he was reconciled to his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.  And Edward, his son by Jane Seymour, referred to her as his Lady Mother.  Catherine also had a deep interest in education and her encouragement in particular of Elizabeth's learning led to some crediting the girl born Miss Parr with the creation of one of England's greatest monarchs.

Elizabeth I was shaped in many ways by Catherine Parr

 

Her death was mourned by all three of her royal stepchildren and her funeral was led by another royal figure who had gone to her last home at Sudeley Castle to learn and find comfort in Catherine's warm embrace.  Lady Jane Grey's guardianship rested with Thomas Seymour and the young girl spent a happy few months under the tutelage of the dowager queen at Sudeley.  When Catherine was buried there in September 1548, Jane was chief mourner.

 

Catherine Parr, Queen of England, 1543 - 1547

Catherine didn't have the sex appeal, sizzle or searing ambition of Anne Boleyn and there's no doubt that had Anne not nabbed herself the King of England then Catherine would never have won a consort's crown either.  Anne opened up the possibility that just about anyone with the right connections could be Queen of England regardless of a lack of blue blood.  When Catherine Parr was born in 1512 the idea that she might rule the land she lived in was absurd.  On her death she had not only proved herself an able monarch but she'd created three more in her own image as well.