Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr

by Linda Porter

  The views of the archbishop of York, were, however, still opaque, and this was troubling for the king. Perhaps because of his rank and a talent for remaining non-committal, Edward Lee had never before been challenged to reveal his stance. As he himself put it, when examined in 1537 about his time at Pontefract at the start of the uprising: ‘Many lords and gentlemen came to the castle, but the writer did not join in their counsels or mingle with them except at dinner and supper.’ But by early December, when he was back in Pontefract (but not staying in the castle itself) he could no longer hide behind high office and social niceties. The second day of the conference was a Sunday and he was asked to preach at the church of All Saints, below the fortress. This request was conveyed to him by Lord Latimer, who ‘came to him the night before and desired him to speak of the matter, and to be brief, as there was a council at the castle on Sunday at 9 o’clock’.16

  The matter in question was of vital importance to Latimer and all the other pilgrims. Katherine’s husband had himself raised it towards the end of the previous day’s discussions. Lee and the clergy with him should be asked to ‘show their learning whether subjects might lawfully move war in any case against their prince’. Here was a dilemma that went to the very heart of the Pilgrimage, for if the answer was not unequivocally positive, then they were all committing treason. In articulating this, the most crucial of the underlying doubts that beset those gathered at Pontefract, Latimer was brutally exposed. We do not know whether he raised the matter spontaneously or whether he was deputed to do so, but as a piece of ammunition that might be used against him by an angry monarch, it was powerful. Interestingly, it also presages one of the most fundamental issues raised by Protestant reformers two decades later, though the pilgrims were defending traditional religion, rather than attacking it. In effect, they wanted a theological justification for what they had done and might, perhaps, do in the future if their demands were refused.

  Lee, a man not noted for personal courage, was apparently advised by his own entourage not to say anything that would make the situation worse and certainly to do nothing that would provoke his listeners. On 3 December he mounted the pulpit following the early morning Mass on Advent Sunday. We cannot be sure of what he originally intended to say (and possibly neither was he) but his eventual pronouncement, that no man could take up arms without his sovereign’s permission, enraged many of his listeners. The arrival of the Lancaster Herald, Thomas Miller, who was carrying the safe-conduct papers for the meeting the next day at Doncaster, either frightened or emboldened Lee into a pro-government stance. There was such an uproar that the archbishop had to be removed speedily for his own safety. But though this episode cast something of a pall over the Pontefract conference, it did nothing to change the content of the twenty-four articles agreed later the same day for presentation to Norfolk, many of which were enthusiastically supported by the array of influential clergy (including Lee’s chancellor, vicar-general and chaplain) who were consulted.

  This is not surprising, for the Pontefract articles were concerned, above all, with religion. The very first of them, ‘touching our faith’, was to have the heresies of Luther, Wycliff, Hus and a number of other reformers, destroyed. The next stated flatly that the authority invested in the Royal Supremacy must be restored to Rome, as also the authority to appoint bishops. Mary was to be made legitimate ‘and the former statute therein annulled for the danger of the title that might incur to the crown of Scotland’. (If the king could use Scotland as a threat, so could the pilgrims. This fear was one that haunted the Tudor dynasty until the end of its days.) The attack on monasticism was to be halted and the suppressed abbeys ‘to be restored to their houses, lands and goods’. The clergy were to be relieved of the heavy burden of taxation thrust upon them by their monarch. There were some economic concerns, notably about enclosures, and attacks on named government officials: ‘Lord Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, and Sir Richard Rich [who was in charge of the newly created Court of Augmentations, set up to oversee the administration of the monastic dissolutions] to have condign punishment, as subverters of the good laws of the realm and maintainers and inventors of heretics.’ Cromwell’s agents in the north, Legh and Layton, were similarly to be punished ‘for their extortions from religious houses and other abominable acts’. Also significant was the request for ‘a parliament at Nottingham or York, and that shortly’.17

  Clear of purpose and with the full expectations of the commons of the north behind them, Aske, Darcy, Latimer and the other Pilgrimage leaders set off for a further meeting with the duke of Norfolk on Doncaster bridge. The king had berated Norfolk and Admiral Fitzwilliam for sounding so desperate about their situation but, finally, his bluster gave way to an acceptance that a military solution was not an option. The duke was told to agree to the demand for a parliament, though at a place of the monarch’s choosing and not before the end of September 1537, and to issue a free pardon to everyone involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace. There was considerable discussion, which Norfolk handled with assurance, on each of the twenty-four articles, but much was left to be resolved at this distant parliamentary session. The commons were reluctant to disband but Aske and the lords and gentlemen with him, 300 men on horseback, received the royal pardon gratefully on behalf of the northerners massed behind them. There seems to have been a palpable sense of relief among the leaders that they could now go home. Certainly, they wanted to believe the word of a prince.

  Robert Aske went back to Aughton, the place he had set out from some two months before. The king invited him to spend Christmas in London, ostensibly so that he could hear his further advice on how to manage affairs in the north. Henry’s capacity for deception must have been extraordinary. This was a man he despised. He would have his vengeance, but there was no need to hurry.

  Lord Latimer returned to Snape, to rejoin his wife and children, with the immediate danger past. It was not necessarily the merriest of festive seasons for the Latimer family. Two of his brothers, the volatile Marmaduke and the unpredictable Thomas, had participated in the Pilgrimage, possibly with more enthusiasm than he. If Katherine had not already realized it herself, her husband would have left her in no doubt that he needed to restore his standing with the king as soon as possible. The Parrs had renewed their faithful service to the king during this episode but the Nevilles, though pardoned, were still exposed. Latimer knew that he urgently needed to put his case in London. Early in the New Year he was on the road again. He hoped that the worse was over. Unfortunately, it was yet to come.

  LATIMER DID NOT get to London and even if he had, his presence there would not necessarily have worked in his favour. The king ordered him back north, to prepare for military duties on the Scottish border, perhaps as a penance, though Henry and his advisers do seem genuinely to have dreaded the possibility of the Scots taking advantage of the Pilgrimage of Grace to invade. Nor had the unrest in the north gone away. It still rumbled on just beneath the surface, despite the efforts of men like Sir Robert Constable to emphasize the positive outcome of Aske’s Christmas at court: ‘The King,’ he announced in a manifesto on 10 January, ‘has declared by mouth to Robert Aske that we shall have our Parliament at York, and also his Convocation for ordering the Faith … Wherefore, good and loving neighbours, let us stay ourselves and resist those who are disposed to spoil.’ And he added, poignantly, ‘If it had not been for my disease, by which I can neither go nor ride, I would have come and showed you this myself … P.S. The Parliament and the Convocation are to be held at York at Whitsuntide, and also the Queen’s coronation.’18

  Aske and Constable were impressed by the king’s apparently gracious response. After all, he had brought the date of the meeting of parliament forward and even offered to have Queen Jane crowned there. But there were many others who remained unconvinced by the king’s sudden benevolence and who also questioned the good faith of the nobles and gentlemen who had led the Pilgrimage. Latimer’s eagerness to be restored to royal favour could easily be mi
sconstrued as betrayal. Such suspicions made men violent. On 20 January, Lord Latimer wrote an anguished letter to Fitzwilliam, in which he described what had happened to Katherine and his family in his absence, although, tellingly, his first concern was for his own reputation:

  Thank you for your good report of me in my being among the commons against my will. At Buntingford, on my way towards London, there met me a letter from my Lord Chancellor, my Lord Privy Seal and others of the king’s council, signifying that I should tarry in the north, notwithstanding the king’s letter to me to come up, because my lord of Norfolk was dispatched. Forthwith I returned homewards, and now, at Stamford, I learn that the commons of Richmondshire, grieved at my coming up [to London], have entered my house at Snape and will destroy it if I come not home shortly. If I do not please them I know not what they will do with my body and goods, my wife and children. I beg to know the king’s pleasure and shall follow the same whatsoever come of it … If it were the king’s pleasure that I might live on such small lands as I have in the south, I would little care of my lands in the north. I have but small power, having no rule of men under the king and no house that is strong.19

  Katherine and the children were being held hostage in their own home, as surety for Lord Latimer’s continued commitment to the causes for which the northern men had risen. In Richmondshire, and elsewhere, there was deep suspicion of royal assurances. There is no reason to believe that Katherine was physically assaulted, let alone raped. The invaders were angry but participants in the Pilgrimage had acted under clear codes of conduct which were only very occasionally broken. Yet it must have been a most frightening experience, especially coming after months of uncertainty. Her husband had left her because he urgently needed to clear his name in London, but the mere fact of his going put her in further danger. No letters from Katherine at this time survive, but a glimpse of what she must have felt is provided in a letter from Lady Dorothy Darcy, daughter-in-law of the old rebel leader, to her husband on 13 January 1537. There was, she said, great danger, to herself, her children and their goods, ‘the whole country is so fervently set of wilfulness. I beg you to make haste home, which may help to stay the country and put myself and your children in safety. The country hath you in so much jealousy that I know not what I should think or say …’20

  Latimer did return to Snape and the mob dispersed without further destruction to his home and goods. He was unable to stay for long as he was still extremely concerned about clearing his name. The outbreak of new unrest in the East Riding of Yorkshire, led by the maverick knight Sir Francis Bigod (expected, one day, to be Margaret Neville’s father-in-law), added further confusion to the tense atmosphere. Bigod was actually an enthusiastic supporter of the new religious ideas and had opposed the Pilgrimage of Grace when it broke out, but he did not approve of Henry VIII’s role as Head of the Church and he also feared that the king would use the uprising to come down heavily on the entire north of England, turning it into little more than an occupied territory. Unlike Latimer, Constable and Darcy, Bigod did not believe that Henry would keep his promises. His assessment of the king’s good will proved to be accurate, but in taking up arms with John Hallam, one of his tenants, to try to enforce the letter of the Pontefract articles, Bigod sealed the fate of the leading pilgrims. Norfolk was sent once more to the north. There he found widespread unrest throughout the region, but nothing organized on the scale of the preceding October. This allowed him to declare martial law in Cumbria and to proceed with summary executions, which cowed the population. Aske had travelled with him in March 1537, and neither he nor the other pilgrim leaders supported the renewed outbreak of rebellion. Yet this was insufficient to save them. Aske set out one last time for London on 24 March, carrying a letter of commendation from Norfolk. It was not worth the parchment on which it was written. There can scarcely have been a more cynical exercise to lure a marked man to his eventual death. Aske, Darcy and Constable (also summoned to London) were arrested on 7 April for treason and were executed two months later, in June.

  The final failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace was a terrible blow for the monasteries. They were seen as centres of opposition and hothouses of dissent, as well, of course, as sources of wealth. Over the next few years they were all dissolved. Plundered and deserted, they could still not quite be destroyed. The ruins of the finest remain in some of the most sublime settings in the English countryside, a monument to a way of life ruthlessly suppressed. It would probably have greatly irritated Cromwell and the king if they had known that, more than 450 years later, these reminders of monasticism are still visited and enjoyed. For it does not take much imagination to close one’s eyes amidst the peaceful serenity of Fountains Abbey and see the monks still moving there among the stones, or to catch the chant of plainsong drifting on the wind.

  LORD LATIMER was perhaps fortunate to avoid the fate of the eloquent Robert Aske and the elderly lords who had never quite been Henry’s men. His brother Marmaduke spent some time in the Tower of London, writing desperate letters to Cromwell, in which he could not refrain from mentioning the involvement of ‘my lord, my brother’. Then Latimer’s steward, Walter Rawlinson, was accused as a rebel leader in Westmoreland.21 His own conduct, and that of those close to him, was easily characterized as traitorous. But, in the end, perhaps Latimer was not important enough for his life to be forfeit. He also had influential friends and relatives. Besides Fitzwilliam, he appealed to the brother of his second wife, Elizabeth, writing to Sir Christopher Musgrave on 18 January: ‘Recommend me to my Lord Privy Seal [Cromwell], showing him that I was sorry the people spake otherwise than became them of him … I think his Lordship would not be a hinderer of such of their desires as to be reasonable.’ And he went on to reveal, in a few words, the agony he had been through. ‘Though I durst not much contrary them, I did my best to reduce them to conformity to the King’s pleasure. My being among them was a very painful and dangerous time to me. I pray God I never see such again.’22 Heartfelt words, if not the bravest, and, as it happened, Musgrave was out of favour himself.

  The Parr connection, however, was much better placed to help. William Parr had been at Norfolk’s side during the autumn and winter, stout in his defence of the king. But Katherine’s brother generally spent little time in the north, preferring to stay close to the court in London. He left the management of the Parr estates to one of his Strickland cousins. His tenants may well have resented his absenteeism and there are indications that he had been enclosing more of his lands. The prospect of rebellious tenants may well have added to his zeal in opposing the Pilgrimage of Grace. Possibly it was her younger brother’s rising profile at court and the time he spent in military service with Norfolk that influenced the duke (always a man to watch carefully for who was rising and who was falling) to defend Latimer against accusations of treason. He could find nothing of substance against him, Norfolk told Cromwell in June 1537, and had sent him to London to plead his own cause: ‘I cannot discover any evidence other than that he was enforced and no man in more danger of his life …’23

  Katherine’s uncle, Sir William Parr of Horton, had also shown unimpeachable loyalty to the Crown during the rebellion. He had been with the duke of Suffolk in Lincolnshire and supervised the executions at Louth and Horncastle in mid-March. Like his nephew, he realized the value of staying in with those at the top. This meant he tried to ingratiate himself with both Norfolk and Cromwell during the summer of 1537 – not the easiest of courses to follow, though the enmity between the two men was less evident at that point. Parr of Horton’s presence at the execution in Hull of Sir Robert Constable prompted him to share with Cromwell the following confidence:

  At the execution of Constable, my lord of Norfolk showed me he was as much bound to your lordship as ever noblemen could be to another. I answered that I had heard and partly knew how willing you were to further him and his. He replied: ‘Sir William, no man can report more than I know already, for I have found such assured goodness in him to me,
that I never proved the like in any friend before; and in myself and all mine shall be, as long as I live, as ready to do his pleasure as any kinsman he hath.’24

  This gushing manifesto of friendship from a nobleman who could not stand the upstart Cromwell, and was to spend the next three years looking for ways to destroy him, is a telling example of the duplicity that prevailed in Henry VIII’s England.

  Latimer escaped death, but his life was no longer fully his to direct after the Pilgrimage of Grace. Maybe it never really had been, so unpredictable were the times. Having survived, Katherine Parr’s second husband knew he would need to dance to the tune of the king and his ministers for the rest of his days. Keeping on the right side of Thomas Cromwell cost him money and property. He paid small sums in cash every year (he was not especially singled out for this discreet form of blackmail; others paid it, too), and was forced to sell two of his southern manors and the lease of his residence in London. This was more humiliating than financially damaging, especially as even this did not buy peace of mind. But for Katherine, at least, the ordeal of the Pilgrimage of Grace brought one very major benefit. She persuaded her husband that they should move from Snape and distance themselves from the troubles that had such a profound effect on their lives. She had been away from her family for more than seven years, and she no longer wanted to reside permanently in the north of England.