A Brief History
In early 2015, a new book made the fantastic claim that Henry VIII nearly divorced his sixth and final wife to take on a seventh one! In Henry VIII’s Last Love by David Baldwin, it is asserted that Henry was planning to divorce Catherine Parr to marry another widow, Catherine Willoughby.
Digging Deeper
Contrary to what one may assume, however, the title of this article does not refer to Catherine Willoughby but to Queen Catherine Parr herself. “What?!” you might ask yourself in confusion, “how could this wife be forgotten, especially since she is always portrayed in all movies, shows and series depicting the six wives of King Henry the Eighth?” Let me explain…
Though at 31 still relatively young when she married Henry, Catherine Parr has always been portrayed as more a nurse to the ailing king than a lover. Had it not been for her near arrest for heresy, her tenure as Queen Consort would have gone down in the history books as been quite boring indeed. Granted though she did rule as Regent while her husband fought in France and even published three books, the first queen to do so; but these facts just do not seem to have been enough for her to make a lasting impression. The various dramas that surrounded all of his previous wives eluded her, that is, however, until Henry died. Still, her shenanigans as Queen Dowager did not make her any more memorable. Or, perhaps, they contributed to others wanting to disassociate from her.
After three supposedly sexless marriages and still within the grieving period, Catherine Parr let her hormones get the best of her and rushed into marriage with the dashing Thomas Seymour. Good manners and protocol aside, it was now time to experience life. Shock whom it may! She then retired to the country to enjoy her wedded and soon pregnant state. Her husband, however, quickly came to realize that despite being a widowed queen, she could not offer him what he hoped for in terms of advancement and political power, which was made clear when she was forced to hand over her royal jewels to the wife of the Lord Protector. He then turned his attention to his wife’s ward, Lady Elizabeth, the sister of the new king, but his plots involving her eventually led to his beheading.
By this time, though, Catherine was already dead, having died in childbirth. Her daughter Mary survived, but there is no mention of her after the age of 2. Either she died young or there truly was no interest in her. As for Catherine, as little she was cared for in the last few years of her life, she was cared for even less after death. In fact, after the chapel she had been buried in at Sudeley Castle had been left in ruins following the English Civil War, her coffin was left displaced and opened on multiple occasions, even being manhandled by a bunch of drunks and buried upside down at one point!
And lastly one very good piece of evidence how little her contemporaries or historians desired to remember her can be found in her portraiture. Strangely enough, Catherine Parr is probably one of Henry VIII’s more painted wives. All Tudor fans are familiar with this portrait, the standard one:
(Of course, had the artist not taken the time to write her name on the canvas, who knows whom this would have been believed to be of.)
Tudor enthusiasts may also know this miniature:
What is less known, however, is that these three portraits, often attributed to being of Lady Jane Grey, are likely also representations of Catherine Parr.
Evidence supporting this is the queenly jewelry, jewelry the teenaged Jane had no time to get her hands on during her short reign, and the fact that the lady’s face displays certain signs of aging, such as the beginnings of jowls, typical of 30+ year olds.
There are two explanations here; 1) either no one cared to remember that these were of Queen Catherine Parr; or 2) they were so desperate to have images of the 9-day queen.
So, how did it come to pass that Henry VIII’s surviving wife fell into both contemporary and historical obscurity? Was it due to the fact that she was “boring?” In other words, not enough drama as queen? The other wives had claims to fame: Catherine of Aragon for resisting the divorce; Anne Boleyn for being beheaded; Jane Seymour for giving birth to the son and heir; Anne of Cleves for her famous portrait; and Catherine Howard for being a trollop; Or, had Catherine Parr offended too greatly by not observing the mourning period following Henry’s death? Did the scandal caused by her husband’s pursuit of Lady Elizabeth tarnish her remaining memory and reputation? If you have any ideas how Catherine Parr became the forgotten wife, please share them in the comments. It seems that though she outlived him, not even she managed to survive Henry VIII.
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Historical Evidence
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