Travel is people. You may go abroad to see the famous sites, but what you remember best are the people you meet. Among them, like unex-pected treasure, are a few memorable contacts that will make your travels unique, special, and delightful. "People" is devoted to some of those you may come in contact with during your Home At First travels.

This article first appeared in Autumn 2011.

— SIXTH OF A SERIES —
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A COMMONER WHO BECAME QUEEN. Katherine Parr was the fourth commoner of the six wives of KING HENRY VIII of England (the others: #2 ANNE BOLEYN, #3 JANE SEYMOUR, #5 KATHRYN HOWARD). She was born in London in 1512 into a titled family from Kendal in the LAKE DISTRICT in England’s northwest. Her mother, Lady Parr (née Maud Green) worked in the service of Henry’s first wife, QUEEN CATHERINE OF ARAGON, who was godmother of her daughter and namesake Katherine Parr. Katherine’s father, Sir Thomas Parr, was a friend of King Henry and a fixture at the court until his death late in 1517. Although her family had well-established blood ties to the nobility and was well-to-do, Katherine did not become wealthy until the death of her second husband.

Full-length portrait of Katherine Parr
circa 1545 attributed to the unknown
court artist Master John.

LIKE HENRY, SHE WAS MARRIED MULTIPLE TIMES. Katherine had four husbands (King Henry VIII was her third), and was widowed three times. She was first married at age 17 to Sir Edward Borough, a young nobleman in his twenties. The young couple lived with his wealthy family at their medieval manor house in the eastern Midlands. When her husband died following a prolonged illness in 1533 — after just three years of marriage and before inheriting a title and fortune — Katherine left her in-laws with only a minor inheritance income and returned to Westmoreland County, a widow at 21.

A sketch attributed to court painter Hans
Holbein possibly of young Katherine Parr
as 'Lady BOROW' (Borough).
 

SHE WAS IMPRISONED BY RELIGIOUS REBELS. Katherine did not wait long to marry again, this time to a man of about forty: Richard Neville, Lord Latimer, nearly twice her age, but already wealthy and titled. The time of their marriage — summer 1534 — was a tumultuous time in England. In pursuit of a male heir, in 1533 King Henry VIII had declared his 24-year marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon null and void so he could marry Anne Boleyn. The Roman Catholic Church refused to grant Henry’s request for annulment from his first queen. To get his way, Henry separated from the Church of Rome and declared himself head of the new Church in England. Although Henry’s interest in starting the Anglican Church was more political than theological, many interpreted his creation of the Church of England as an act of the Protestant Reformation begun in Germany by Martin Luther only fifteen years earlier.

LADY Katherine Parr at the time of her marriage to Lord Latimer. Portrait by an unknown artist from Lambeth Palace collection. (portrait identity not certain)
 

SNAPE CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE. KATHERINE PARR AND HER
STEP-CHILDREN WERE IMPRISONED HERE DURING 1537.
 

          Katherine Parr’s second husband did not support the king’s establishment of an English church and the separation from Rome. When Henry challenged Lord Latimer to demonstrate his loyalty by helping suppress a Catholic rebellion, he agreed. Rebels captured and imprisoned Katherine and her husband’s children at Snape Castle, NORTH YORKSHIRE, during the first four months of 1537. After being rescued by her husband, the family fled northern

England for the relative safety of London. But Lord Latimer was still under suspicion of being a Catholic sympathizer, and his reputation was transferred to his wife. Latimer’s health failed in 1542, and he died in March of 1543. Meanwhile, Katherine used family connections with the court to become an attendant to the daughter of Henry and Queen Catherine of Aragon, the future (Catholic) Queen (Bloody) Mary.
 

WHEN HENRY VIII MARRIED KATHERINE, HE MADE HER BOYFRIEND DISAPPEAR. The king first noticed his future sixth bride when she returned to the royal household in the service of Princess Mary following the death of her second husband. Following his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Henry was married for about 3 years to Anne Boleyn (beheaded 1536 in The Tower), then about a year to Jane Seymour (died 1537 of complications following childbirth), 7 months to ANNE OF CLEVES (annulled 1540), and a year and a half to Kathryn Howard (beheaded February, 1542, in The Tower). Henry remained unmarried for about a year and a half before he took Katherine Parr as his sixth wife in July, 1543. Katherine, who had been a second-time widow for fewer than six months, had not been deep in mourning for Lord Latimer when Henry VIII married her. She had met the never-before-married Sir Thomas Seymour at court and begun a relationship with him shortly after her second husband’s death. But Katherine had also caught the king’s eye. Still young at 31 years old, Katherine was still capable of

Thomas Seymour, fourth husband and
true love (?) of Katherine parr. AFTER
TAKING KATHERINE AS HIS SIXTH WIFE,
HENRY VIII SENT SEYMOUR TO Holland.

KATHARINE WAS EMPOWERED TO RULE BRITAIN DURING HENRY’S ABSENCE. Born a commoner, albeit one with court ties, Katherine could not officially reign as Henry’s royal queen. However, although only a queen consort, Katherine Parr was the first Queen of England to also be titled Queen of Ireland, as Henry VIII had orchestrated his proclamation as King of Ireland by the Irish Parliament in 1541-42.
          But, as queen or queen consort, Katherine took on important responsibilities for Henry and England. Having cared for the children of her previous husband, Lord Latimer, during their imprisonment in North Yorkshire, Katherine was a good step-mother who had earned the love and respect of her step-children. She used this experience effectively with the three royal children of Henry VIII, earning the trust of the young heir to the throne, and helping reconcile the older girls, Mary and Elizabeth, with their father, from whom they had been estranged since the birth of Edward to Jane Seymour. This reconciliation helped the daughters gain reinstatement as legitimate children, and become reinstated as heirs to the throne, to become the first non-married

In this painting by an unknown artist, King Henry
VIII — in his deathbed — indicates his son, Edward VI,
as his successor. Below them lies the Pope, rendered
unconscious or dead by Protestant teachings:
"the wordE of the Lord ENDURETH FOR EVER", HIS
TUNIC SHOWING THE LEGEND, "ALL FLESHE IS GRASSE."

Queens to rule as monarchs of England (excepting the short, contested reigns of Queen Matilda in 1141 and Queen Jane in 1553).
          Katherine Parr also ruled on her husband’s behalf during his absence. When Henry led his army on a final military adventure in France in 1544, he appointed Katherine as his regent — his substitute left to rule in his place — to oversee Britain and Ireland while he was away. Katherine proved an active queen, sending troops to put down a French-backed rebellion in Scotland. Katherine’s active role as regent may have impressed the future Queen Elizabeth I who observed her stepmother at close range as a member of the household.
          Like many British people at the time, Katherine was caught up in the often violent religious struggle between Henry VIII’s newly formed Church of England (Protestant) and the traditional Roman Catholic Church. As Queen, she wrote two treatises which sprung from her religious beliefs, showing Katherine likely more theologically Protestant than Henry VIII himself. But the 

controversy regarding her true religious beliefs continued to plague her even though she was Queen consort to King Henry VIII. When her 3½  year marriage to the king ended with Henry’s death, the controversies swirling around Katherine Parr did not end.
 

FOLLOWING HENRY’S DEATH, KATHERINE HELPED RAISE TWO QUEENS-TO-BE. Following the king’s death in early 1547, Katherine secretly remarried within six months to Sir Thomas Seymour, an old beau and brother of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third queen and mother of Henry’s long-sought male heir, King Edward VI. Two of Henry’s children, Princess Mary and young King Edward, criticized their stepmother’s brief mourning and quick re-marriage as scandalous. Despite her detractors, the Dowager Queen Katherine and new husband Sir Thomas Seymour determined to maintain close ties with the royal family. They brought Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and her cousin, Lady Jane Grey, to their COTSWOLDS home, Sudeley Castle. Katherine promised to educate the young princesses in preparation for the court. Rumors spread that Sir Thomas pursued 15-year-old Princess Elizabeth romantically, and Elizabeth was removed to the care of Sir

Katherine Parr, in a portrait by court artist William
Scrots made about 1546, within a year of Henry VIII's
death and within about two years of her own.

Anthony Denny’s manor in Cheshunt north of LONDON. Both princesses later became Queens of England, although Lady Jane Grey never ruled during her nine-day reign and was beheaded in THE TOWER OF LONDON.
 

Lady Jane Grey — Queen of England for 9 Days
following the death of Edward VI — was
confined to the Tower of London and
ultimately beheaded their on orders of
Queen (Bloody) Mary in 1554. Jane was tutored
by Katherine Parr and Sir Thomas Seymour at
Sudeley Castle. She served as chief mourner
at the funeral of Katherine Parr. Ironically,
she met the same fate as her mentor, Thomas
Seymour: execution for treason by beheading
at the Tower of London. Detail from the
painting "The Execution of Lady Jane Grey"
by Paul Delaroche (1833).

KATHERINE DIED SOON AFTER BEARING HER ONLY CHILD. HER FINAL HUSBAND WAS BEHEADED SOON THEREAFTER. Despite three marriages, Katherine remained childless until the age of 36, when she presented her fourth husband with a daughter, Mary Seymour. Sadly, Katherine died on September 5, 1548, six days after giving birth, of childbed fever — infections due to unsanitary conditions during birth. Childbed fever had also killed Queen Jane Seymour following the birth of Prince Edward. The fates were no kinder to Katherine’s final husband. Sir Thomas Seymour, charged in a plot to gain the throne of England for his protégé Lady Jane Grey (following the death of Katherine Parr) by promoting her marriage to his nephew, King Edward VI (or possibly by influencing the sickly boy-king to name Lady Jane his successor), and by attempting to kidnap King Edward from Hampton Court, was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason, and summarily executed in the Tower six months after the death of Katherine Parr.
          Katherine Parr lived the last two years of her life at Sir Thomas Seymour's Sudeley Castle until her death at age 36. She was buried at the castle. Her grave lay undisturbed and largely forgotten for almost 250 years when it was re-

Sudeley Castle, near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, was Katherine Parr's final home, and is her final rest. The castle and
 its gardens may be visited, and is easily reached from Home At First's Cotswolds lodgings. Photo courtesy Sudeley Castle.
 

EPILOGUE: Visitors can still trace Tudor times at preserved locations throughout ENGLAND, including the THE TOWER OF LONDON, Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, Hampton Court Palace, and Katherine Parr’s Sudeley Castle. More information about these and other Tudor time capsules, see: TUDORS ON LOCATION.

Live like a Queen when you come to London.
Stay at HOME AT FIRST’s Apartments at St. Katharine’s Marina.
They’re all named after their famous neighbors at the
Tower of London next door: the wives of Henry VIII.
For example, see HOME AT FIRST's Kathryn Howard Apartment.
 

— END OF PART SIX —
LEARN ABOUT HENRY VIII & ALL SIX OF HIS WIVES: