Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr

by Linda Porter

  Najera had first been granted an audience with Henry, it being customary for the king and his consort to receive such dignitaries separately. After a few apposite comments about the king, such as the observation that ‘for many centuries there has never been a Christian Prince nor infidel who has ordered so many executions, as well of his immediate relations, as of gentlemen, clergy and other persons, for having spoken against his proceedings’, the secretary passed on to more pleasant matters. Accompanied by Katherine’s brother, William, earl of Essex, and the earl of Surrey, Najera went ‘to the chamber of the Queen, who was accompanied by the Princess Mary … Many ladies attended the Queen, amongst them a daughter of the Queen of Scotland [this was Lady Margaret Douglas] …’ The duke had then kissed Katherine’s hand and she received him ‘in an animated manner. From thence they conducted the duke to another apartment, where stood another canopy of brocade, with a chair of the same. The Queen entered with the Princesses and having seated herself, she commanded the Duke to sit down, and musicians with violins were introduced. The Queen danced first with her brother, very gracefully; then the Princess Mary and the Princess of Scotland danced with other gentlemen, and many other ladies did the same.’ But de Gante was especially impressed by a Venetian gentleman of the king’s household who danced so lightly that he appeared to have wings on his feet. He went on: ‘After the dancing was finished (which lasted several hours) the Queen entered again into her chamber, having previously called one of the noblemen who spoke Spanish, to offer in her name some presents to the Duke, who again kissed her hand; and on his requesting the same of the Princess Mary, she would by no means permit it, but offered him her lips …’ This does not mean that Mary was especially forward in her behaviour; it was noted in the fifteenth century that English women kissed on the lips. But it does provide a glimpse of the princess completely at odds with her historical reputation as a gloomy hysteric.

  The secretary went on to give a full description of Katherine’s demeanour and clothes. She had, he said, ‘a lively and pleasing appearance and is praised as a virtuous woman. She was dressed in a robe of cloth of gold and a petticoat of brocade with sleeves lined with crimson satin and trimmed with three-piled crimson velvet: her train was more than two yards long. Suspended from her neck were two crosses, and a jewel of very rich diamonds and in her head-dress were many and beautiful ones. Her girdle was of gold with large pendants.’18

  It is a superb description of a woman who relished such occasions, knew instinctively how to put people at their ease and was not afraid to behave with the right mixture of elegance and restraint. In short, it was a triumphant performance, perhaps all the more remarkable for the fact that, as Ambassador Chapuys himself recorded, Katherine was ‘slightly indisposed’ at the time. Whatever her ailment, the queen had not allowed it to get in the way of the occasion. And she had ‘particularly inquired after Your Imperial Majesty’, Chapuys reported to Charles V.19 No wonder that, at this point, the ambassador clearly considered Katherine to be an imperialist at heart. He may have been riddled with gout, as was the emperor himself, but he and the rather formal duke of Najera were delighted with the queen.

  PERSONAL APPEARANCES at state occasions were an expected part of a queen’s life but there were many other areas in which she could leave her mark, and although Katherine relished visibility, she also valued her own comforts and the ability to decide how these could be shaped. Her attitude to property, both those she lived in and owned, is a further indication of the kind of queen she wished to be. Katherine recognized the importance of the queen’s role as landowner and, with typical thoroughness, set about ordering a complete survey of her properties. She was especially keen to preserve her forests and parks and was not at all impressed by the conditions reported in a number of them, notably the forest at Gillingham in Dorset, which had suffered decay and neglect. The new queen demanded in no uncertain terms that it receive attention: ‘We … are not willing such unlawful demeanour be used in any our said forest nor parks and especially not within our said forest and park’, she wrote sternly.20 This attention to detail may in part be explained by Katherine’s background; she had, after all, helped run Lord Latimer’s household and so she had a good knowledge of what was involved in running estates efficiently.

  We do not know whether Katherine actually visited Gillingham. Its distance from London, as with several of her other properties, meant that she was reliant on her employees to manage them well. But there were others that she could influence directly, particularly where her own comfort was concerned. At Hampton Court, where she had become queen of England and where she spent a considerable amount of time in the first year of her marriage, Katherine undertook a major architectural project, consisting of extensive alterations to the queen’s apartments. These were originally ranged along the east side of the inner court and formed part of the royal family’s private lodging. The rooms had been altered and extended for Jane Seymour, who had spent only the weeks of her confinement in them and died less than two weeks after giving birth to Prince Edward. Their connotations were sad and an air of what might have been hung over them, as well as the more earthy odours coming up from the kitchen directly below the queen’s Privy Chamber. Warmth in winter was all very well, but Katherine Parr had married Henry at the height of summer and her olfactory senses were not pleased by the location of her bedchamber. She may also have wished to avoid competing with the ghost of Jane, the one queen who had provided Henry with a son and whose memory he probably held dearer than he had the living woman. Katherine’s solution was to move, and to do so quickly. Less than six months after her marriage, she occupied a completely new set of apartments around the south-east corner of the outer court, incorporating some of Wolsey’s original building of 1526.

  There must have been a great deal of noise and activity (presumably much of it undertaken in the autumn months when the king and queen were on progress in the Home Counties) as major structural alterations were made. Ceilings were raised, walls built up, partitions installed and stairs built so that the new apartments could be reached directly from the courtyard below. Katherine accepted that accessibility was important and that the public part of her role was vital, but she wanted a greater sense of space and some privacy, which had become increasingly difficult in the old arrangement. Katherine was not accustomed to the press of people seeking audiences, the demands of a lifestyle that had to be regimented in order to make the court run smoothly, the constant travelling from one manor or palace to another. During the first six months of 1544, Katherine lived in fifteen different manors. As queen, she was almost always on view, even if only to her female staff. Small wonder she sought to establish a place that was distinctly hers at Hampton Court.21 The new lodgings also had a tranquil southern aspect, looking out over the sunken fishponds and flowerbeds. But at Hampton Court, as elsewhere, she was never alone, except perhaps in her own thoughts and in prayer. Her household, whether in full complement or a smaller, travelling staff, was always with her.

  THE COMPOSITION of this household was one of Katherine’s immediate preoccupations after her marriage. As with previous queens, it combined personal appointments, a kind of inner sanctum, with professional civil servants, many of whom had served court for many years. However, the death of the long-serving lord chamberlain of the queen consort’s household, the earl of Rutland, only two months after Katherine’s wedding, opened the door immediately for the new queen’s relations. The countess of Rutland, so influential over female appointments, retired from court after her husband’s death. Her role passed effectively to the queen’s sister, Anne, who became chief gentlewoman of her chamber. Lord Parr of Horton, the queen’s elderly uncle, replaced Rutland. Ill-health meant that he was not often at court, but his niece was determined he should have the post and that his advice and support should be available if needed. Parr’s daughter, Lady Maud Lane, became one of the queen’s ladies and a close confidante. The Latimer connection was also represented, with both Mar
garet Neville and Lucy Somerset, Katherine’s stepdaughter-in-law, included among her attendants.

  These four ladies probably had the most intimate relationship with Katherine when she first became queen. Lady Margaret Douglas, the charming and lively survivor of two failed love affairs and her uncle the king’s associated wrath, was also a close confidante, as were Lady Mary Parr, the queen’s aunt by marriage, Jane, Viscountess Lisle, Lady Joan Denny and Lady Elizabeth Tyrwhit. Katherine Brandon, the duchess of Suffolk, became a friend, but though she was present at the marriage ceremony her influence seems not to have been significant until 1545.

  The composition of the Privy Chamber changed over time as new ladies took the place of those who died or retired. Margaret Neville, for example, died in 1545. It has been pointed out that a significant number of the ladies were the wives of men who themselves held office at court and that the ladies probably owed their own positions as much to their marital circumstances as anything else.22 Yet the king does not seem to have considered some of the complement a sufficient ornament to his wife, or the office of queen. He wrote to her from France in the autumn of 1544 that ‘Where she asks his pleasure as to accepting certain ladies into her chamber in lieu of some that are sick, he remits their acceptance to her own choice; and although some that she names are too weak to serve, they may pass the time with her at play.’23 This singularly patronizing comment suggests that Henry had scant idea of how his wife and her circle actually passed their time. In due course, he would find out.

  To be at court with Queen Katherine, to serve in her household and share in the wealth and influence that she now possessed was a fine opportunity for her relatives, and also for the northern families who had been clients of the Parrs since the fifteenth century, as Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (a half-cousin) remembered very well:

  Lo, then my brethren Clement, George and I

  Did seek, as youth do still in court to be

  Each other state, as base, we did defy

  Compared with court, this nurse of dignity

  Tis truly said, no fishing to the seas

  No serving to a king’s, if you can please …24

  The rise of the Parrs was not so overtly political as that of the Boleyns, nor was it mired in controversy; though some may have sneered at it, most kept quiet.25 Places were found for servants from Snape and from the extended family of Maud Parr’s northern relatives. Their most notable representative was Mary Odell, a chamberer who sometimes actually shared the queen’s bed.

  Among the more interesting peripheral appointments was that of Henry Seymour, brother of Sir Thomas, as Katherine’s carver. How frequently he performed this role, which was largely ceremonial, we do not know. Probably not too much should be read into the appointment. The Seymours were keen to preserve their place in public service and Katherine would have had a much more frequent reminder of her erstwhile suitor in the person of Edward Seymour’s wife, Anne, who was a lady-in-waiting.

  The professional civil servants dealt primarily with the day-to-day running of the queen’s household. Sir Thomas Arundell, her chancellor and auditor, was a very experienced courtier, originally from Cornwall, who had married Katherine Howard’s sister, Margaret. This connection apparently did him no harm. Sir Edmund Walsingham, former lieutenant of the Tower of London, became the queen’s vice-chamberlain in 1544. He had done well out of his time in the Tower and had guarded many famous prisoners, including Anne Boleyn, Thomas More and Katherine Howard, though he was not greatly liked, perhaps because of his former office. Sir Philip Hoby, the receiver for foreign receipts, has been described as ‘the quintessential lay Tudor diplomatic representative’; his extensive European travels and knowledge of languages provided a useful background. His office in Katherine’s household was an important stepping-stone for him in a career that peaked under Edward VI. Wymond Carew, a Cornishman like Arundell, was brother-in-law of Sir Anthony Denny and served as Katherine’s treasurer. The queen’s eventual comptroller was Sir Robert Tyrwhit, a distant northern relative and husband of Lady Elizabeth Tyrwhit, who first served Katherine as her master of the horse.26

  The efficiency of these gentlemen is, however, open to question. At the end of her first six months as Henry’s consort Katherine signed off her accounts, but thereafter this was evidently deemed to be inappropriate for a queen. Thereafter, her auditor did it for her. Perhaps this was unfortunate, since the financial officers seem to have been very slow and Katherine apparently did not ask enough questions about this aspect of her household. Stephen Vaughan, an English diplomat in Antwerp, struggled long and desperately to get payment owed to his wife, who had served in Katherine’s chamber. She had died of the plague, leaving him with several small children to bring up alone. At the end of 1544 he was writing to William Paget, the king’s secretary, asking him not merely to help him find another wife but, more urgently, to get the queen to pay what she owed him: ‘about £360 for labour and stuff of my wife’s, wherein she spent her life, and has owed it since her first being Queen’. He begged Paget to ‘remind Mr Arundell, her grace’s chancellor, and Mr Bucler, her secretary, of it’.27 Neither responded with any alacrity, but then Katherine herself was not quick to settle bills.

  Walter Bucler, Katherine’s secretary, spent considerable amounts of his time abroad. Henry VIII used him on diplomatic missions to the Protestant princes of Germany and he was a known supporter of religious reform, as was Hoby. So, increasingly, were many members of the queen’s household, both male and female. Yet it would be wrong to see Katherine’s establishment as being comprehensively ‘evangelical’, as those who espoused the furtherance of religious change are now normally described. The bishop of Chichester, the queen’s almoner, was a moderate traditionalist who was deprived of office under Edward VI and restored by Queen Mary, at whose coronation he preached. And William Harper, the clerk of the queen’s closet, was a religious conservative from the west of England. His duties involved a great deal of day-to-day contact with the queen, as he did most of her secretarial work and even ordered flowers on her behalf. Nor did all Katherine’s ladies veer towards what would become Protestantism, though those probably closest to her were all well-educated women for whom religious study was to become a serious preoccupation.

  KATHERINE’S inner life and her personal beliefs when she married Henry VIII have been the topic of much debate. The precise nature of her beliefs in July 1543 is unclear. She has been characterized as ‘a woman with a mission’, her zeal for religious reform already in place, underpinning her acceptance of Henry and her entire approach to being queen of England.28 But is this really the case? In fact, we know nothing of Katherine’s beliefs at the time of her marriage. It is easy to look back and see a direction that fits in with subsequent events. In this interpretation, Katherine is a clever, committed reformer at the point when she becomes queen. Indeed, the opportunity to do God’s work, to be His agent, is the rationale for accepting Henry in the first place. She is already a believer in religious change but now sees, through a process of gradual revelation, the opportunity to achieve much more: to uphold the reformers against the conservatives and to take the process, which might otherwise have stalled, to a further level.

  It is unlikely the truth is so straightforward. Katherine’s family (who were probably her prime consideration when she agreed to marry the king) were associated with reform but not ostentatiously so. We can certainly wonder what impact Lord Borough’s more vehement support for new ideas might have had on his daughter-in-law back in the early 1530s but it seems unlikely to have been entirely positive. Presumably Katherine did socialize with Sir Francis Bigod, another outspoken partisan of reform, while she was married to Lord Latimer, but we simply do not know how close their acquaintance was or what she thought of him. He was a prospective father-in-law to young Margaret Neville, rather than a mentor to Katherine. On the other hand, Lord Latimer is generally viewed as a religious conservative, yet it was his New Testament in English that Katherine still had
in her possession when she died, which must surely mean that Latimer approved of reading the Bible in the vernacular.

  It seems safe to say that when she married Henry there was nothing about Katherine that set alarm bells ringing with him or with conservatives like Stephen Gardiner. But she may, of course, have been good at concealing her hand, a trait that would present her as a conniving woman and not an entirely appealing one. She was certainly seen as pious but that was entirely proper in a woman of her class and background. The more serious tone of her court, in contrast with the levity associated with Katherine Howard, brought forth favourable comments. One of her legal advisers, Francis Goldsmith, wrote to her on his appointment that she had ‘made every day like Sunday, a thing hitherto unheard of, especially in a royal palace … God has so formed her mind for pious studies, that she considers everything of small value compared to Christ … Her piety cherishes the religion long since introduced not without great labour to the palace.’29 This fulsome praise, originally written in Latin, probably tells us more about Goldsmith than it does about Katherine and, in addition, there is debate about its precise dating. In the first eighteen months of her marriage, Katherine was so busy balancing a number of priorities that it is hard to believe that making every day like Sunday was really one of them. Her ideas, like her grasp of queenship, were developing throughout this time but that does not mean she came to the marriage with religious reform as her main objective. She lived in complicated and fast-moving times and her initial aims were surely to secure the king’s love and confidence.