Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr

by Linda Porter

  Anne’s death was of no real importance to the enemies of religious reform. There had been martyrs before, and would, no doubt, be others in the future. But in the power struggle that was being played out over the diseased body of the king, it was the living woman that still mattered. Now, at last, was made clear the true motive behind her incarceration. When Richard Rich came to the Tower to interview the prisoner, accompanied by Wriothesley, he did not waste time with theological niceties. Instead, wrote Anne, he ‘charged me upon my obedience to show if I knew any man or woman of my sect. My answer was that I knew none. Then they asked me of my lady of Suffolk, my lady of Sussex, my lady of Hertford, my lady Denny and my lady Fitzwilliam.’ Anne denied any knowledge of the religious convictions of the ladies mentioned. Neither would she name gentlewomen who, Rich contended, had given her money while in prison, though she did eventually acknowledge that she had received support from two men claiming to be acting on behalf of Lady Denny and Lady Hertford. This was the closest her interrogators came to the queen’s Privy Chamber.

  Impatient with her refusal to name names, Rich and Wriothesley decided to resort to torture. The enormity of what they did Anne remembered in her clear, spare prose:

  Then they put me on the rack, because I confessed no ladies or gentlewomen to be of my opinion; and there they kept me a long time, and because I lay still and did not cry, my lord chancellor and Master Rich took pains to rack me with their own hands till I was nigh dead.

  Then the lieutenant [of the Tower] caused me to be loosed from the rack. Immediately, I swooned away, and then they recovered me again. After that I sat two long hours reasoning with my lord chancellor upon the bare floor. But my Lord God, I thank his everlasting goodness, gave me grace to persevere, and will do, I hope, to the very end.24

  The image of this young woman of, perhaps, twenty-five years, her body broken and her eyes half-blinded by the racking, sitting on the floor of a dungeon in the Tower, continuing to argue with Thomas Wriothesley after his hideous personal involvement in her torture, comes powerfully across to us over the centuries. The lord chancellor’s own wife had been devastated by the loss of a baby son a few years earlier. Did he hope, as he turned the rack, to extract some revenge on Katherine Parr and her pompous dismissal of his wife’s grief, by getting this defenceless woman to blurt out the names of the ladies around the queen, even to declare that the queen herself shared her extreme views on the sacrament of the Eucharist? Or was it merely the opportunity to bring down those who threatened his survival in the new order that would come after Henry VIII’s death that propelled him to such barbarity? The torture of a gently-born woman was shocking even to his contemporaries. Fearful that he would be held to account for permitting Anne Askew’s agony, the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Anthony Knevet, took himself off at great speed to lay his account before the king, who, it was reported, ‘seemed not very well to like their extreme handling’. Soon the news of what had been done leaked out, causing revulsion that damaged the government. But mistress Askew had glossed over the fact that Knevet had allowed the torture to proceed in the first place. For this, he must have had a high-level mandate. His alarm that things were going too far may equally have been prompted by resentment that members of the Privy Council were impinging on his area of responsibility. Chillingly, it is certainly possible that the king himself had authorized the violence meted out to Anne.

  She was, in truth, a difficult woman who had never shirked from promoting herself, or from courting trouble. Her supporters apparently encouraged her to write down the process of her examination by the Privy Council and the terrible suffering she endured so patiently afterwards. It is unusual to have such a complete account of this battle with authority from a sixteenth-century woman. But Anne needed little encouragement; she was quite evidently a very confident person, keen to relay her side of the story. She had never sought to hide her beliefs and her failed marriage, which cut her adrift from society, gave her independence as well as vulnerability. She is the antithesis of the submissive wife in Foxe’s account of the queen’s conciliatory exchanges with Henry VIII; the martyrologist, who probably fabricated this part of his story, may well have wanted to underline the differences between the two women. Reforming zeal was admirable, but a strident female who refused authority was not the ideal standardbearer for a new religion. Later Protestant commentators were more comfortable with Anne’s martyrdom and her exhortations to prayer than with her uncompromising self-awareness.

  Anne was given further opportunities to recant, but she remained steadfast. On 26 July 1546 she was burnt at the stake in Smithfield with three male companions, including John Lascelles. Unable to stand because of her injuries, she was conveyed in a chair and held upright at the stake by a chain bound around her waist. The duke of Norfolk and her tormentor, Wriothesley, watched as she died. But also present, in a singular act of public support, was Nicholas Throckmorton, the queen’s cousin and a member of Katherine Parr’s household. It may have been not only sympathy that Throckmorton conveyed, and gratitude for Anne’s silence, but an underlying message that Katherine herself was out of danger. The attempt to compromise her had failed.

  KATHERINE HERSELF had nothing directly to say about the events of the summer of 1546. Yet, even if we discount the veracity of Foxe’s verbatim account of how her downfall was planned and averted, Anne Askew’s fate definitely points to a concerted attempt to incriminate some of the ladies who were closest to Katherine. Furthermore, her own behaviour during these months is indicative of an anxious queen. As early as February, at about the time that the rumours concerning her position were beginning to circulate in the diplomatic community, she ordered new coffers and locks for her chamber. This may, of course, have been simply the result of existing wear and tear, but it does suggest that she felt the need to ensure greater security for her possessions. Early in spring, her uncle, Lord Parr of Horton, who had rarely been at court since she became Henry’s consort, was summoned back to fulfil his role as Katherine’s chamberlain, despite his age and ill-health.25 The queen gave into his safe-keeping a number of books which would, no doubt, have been of great interest to the authorities, since book burnings intensified after a royal proclamation against heretical writings issued on 8 July. These were only reclaimed, by one of her most trusted servants, three months after the death of Henry VIII.26

  Her chagrin may not have been wholly confined to the knowledge that she was a quarry for the bishop of Winchester and his allies. In June 1546, even as she struggled to safeguard her position, negotiations were resumed by the duke of Norfolk for a marriage between Thomas Seymour and Mary Howard, duchess of Richmond. Naturally, the queen did not comment on this development, though it is hard to believe that it improved her emotional wellbeing. But, as in the 1530s, nothing came of the discussions. The duchess’s brother, the earl of Surrey, despite being sympathetic to reform (one of his gentlemen was Anne Askew’s cousin), was not keen on this resurrected alliance and seems to have knocked it on the head. So his sister once more failed to become Lady Seymour, and Katherine’s former suitor remained free.

  And what of the king in all this? The interweaving of fact and fiction in this story of plot and persecution leaves his part in proceedings, and, indeed, his attitude towards his wife, far from clear. The most likely explanation seems to be the one that lies just below the surface of Foxe’s hyperbole. Henry was well known for his capriciousness, a characteristic that was intensified by his physical decline. All the evidence points to the fact that his wife had begun to irritate him, not so much by her beliefs as by her frequent contending with him in public. Over-confidence in her hold on the king mingled with unbridled enthusiasm about her religious studies caused her to presume too much on his goodwill. One lesson Katherine seems to have forgotten from the experience of her predecessors was how swiftly that goodwill could disappear. She was still charming, attractive and healthy, but she was childless and increasingly opinionated. These last two weaknesses rankled with the
king. It may well be that he took the opportunity offered to him by the conservatives, whispering in his ear, to put his wife in her place. When he perceived that this game might go too far, he drew back from it by making sure that the queen was alerted to the threat and giving her an opportunity to remove compromising literature from her chamber. For Henry knew that the attempt to incriminate the queen’s ladies was an attack on their husbands, as much as the queen herself, and he was not minded to give Gardiner and his allies the upper hand. In fact, the conservative campaign had even targeted his own servants and he was furious when one of his favourites, George Blagge, whom he called his ‘pig’, was imprisoned in Newgate and sentenced to be burnt. Blagge was pardoned, but the king did not forgive Wriothesley for, as he put it, ‘coming so near to him, even to his Privy Chamber’.27 Henry, though ailing, was still no fool. The attack on his queen was also, indirectly, an attack on him.

  In the end, Katherine had been saved because this old man, so often represented as a monster in his last days, loved his sixth wife. He had grown tired of marital failure and he appreciated what Katherine had brought to his life and his family. So she survived. Yet the queen’s position had been weakened by the efforts to bring her down and she was unable to recover it fully. This, though she did not know it at the time, was to be a benefit for both her enemies and for those ambitious men whose wives continued in her service.

  From late summer to early winter in 1546, the royal marriage returned to the harmony that had been such an important feature of its first six months. Katherine became again the adored stepmother and indulged wife. Prince Edward, who was at court in August, wrote frequently to her. Beneath his characteristic tone of obsequious stiffness, there are still the glimpses of genuine affection. Her countenance, he said, ‘excites my love’. ‘When at court with the king,’ he wrote, ‘I received so many benefits from your majesty that I can hardly grasp them.’ He could not repay them but he rejoiced to hear of her progress in virtue and goodness and he wanted her to know that he wrote ‘both for love and duty’.28 Katherine, keen to ensure that her hold over her stepson was not diminishing and to reinforce her regal status as queen of England, sent the prince a twin portrait of herself and Henry VIII as a New Year’s gift at the beginning of 1547. Acknowledging his letter of thanks, the queen said she was ‘gratified by your appreciation of my little New Year’s gift, hoping that you will meditate upon the distinguished deeds of your father, whose portrait you are so pleased to have, and his many virtues’.29

  The queen’s life focused once more on family and occasions of state. Henry was glad to parade her when the French admiral Claude d’Annebaut arrived in England in August for the official signing of the treaty hammered out by Gardiner early in the year. This was no Field of Cloth of Gold, but it was still a magnificent affair and Henry was determined that both Katherine and his daughter Mary should look their very best. Nor was Katherine’s family forgotten. Her brother received the admiral and his entourage, which numbered nearly 1,000 men, at Greenwich Palace and Cuthbert Tunstall would have lodged him at his London residence, Durham House, but it had recently been damaged by fire. Instead, d’Annebaut lodged with the bishop of London, Edmund Bonner, until he and his party were conveyed downriver to Hampton Court where the king, queen and royal children awaited them.

  Flashing jewels that the king had supplied from the extensive royal collection, Katherine was every inch the Tudor consort. Henry VIII had called a halt to her literary career but he seems to have taken great pleasure in acknowledging her importance to him as wife and queen. He showered her with precious stones and clothes and luxurious accessories. The royal accounts show that she ordered, at this time, numerous pairs of Spanish gloves from ‘Mark Milliner’, including two pairs of ‘perfumed gloves of crimson velvet and purple, trimmed with buttons of diamonds and rubies’. There was also a ‘collar of crimson velvet trimmed with lace of gold’ and numerous pairs of golden aglets (which were used to fasten clothing) beribboned and bejewelled. And shortly after Anne Askew’s death, the king gave orders that

  John Lange, jeweller of Paris, and Giles Lange, his son, [have] licence to bring or sell into the king’s dominions … all manner jewels and precious stones, as well set in gold and embroidered in garments as unset, all manner goldsmiths work or gold and silver, all manner sorts of skins and furs of sables … new gentlesses of what fashion or value the same be … in gold or otherwise as he … shall think best for the pleasure of us, our dearest wife, the queen, our nobles, gentlemen and other.30

  Once more, Katherine accompanied the king on an autumn tour of southern England, which involved hunting and feasting. In a sign that she was still in need of intellectual stimulation, she began to learn Spanish. But she did not leave Henry’s side until early December, and then the parting was his choice, not hers. The king had passed a golden few months with his wife, but as the chill of winter began to bite, Henry’s intimations of his own mortality grew stronger. His failing health must have been apparent to Katherine, but she could not gainsay his will. For most of December, throughout Christmas and into the New Year, the king closeted himself with a small circle of advisers at Whitehall. Outwardly, the prospect of his imminent death was not openly conceded, least of all by Henry himself. But he knew that time was running out. He must make arrangements for his son’s minority, without distractions. So Katherine and Mary passed Christmas without him. ‘The queen and court’, reported Van der Delft, the imperial ambassador, ‘have gone to Greenwich, although she has never before left him on a solemn occasion.’31 Small wonder, then, that Katherine had sent a double portrait of the king and herself to his heir. She did not want to be forgotten and was trying to put down a marker for her own place in any future regime. But, as the French ambassadors told Francis I, she was kept away from her husband. Writing on the same day that Edward thanked his stepmother for her New Year’s gift, they noted that they had learned

  from several good quarters that this king’s health is much better than for more than 15 days past. He seems to have been very ill and in great danger owing to his legs, which have had to be cauterized. During that time he let himself be seen by very few persons. Neither the queen nor the Lady Mary could see him, nor do we know that they will now do so. We have great reason to conjecture that, whatever his health, it can only be bad and will not last long.32

  It was not so bad, however, that the king had ceased to rule. In the last days of his reign he moved decisively, some would say vindictively against the forces of conservatism, refusing to remember Bishop Gardiner in his will or to give him a role as his son’s adviser when Edward became king. And, irritated by the pretensions of the Howard family, he imprisoned both the earl of Surrey and his father, the duke of Norfolk, in the Tower, on charges of treason. Surrey was executed a matter of days before the king’s demise but the old duke, a major figure in English politics in the first half of the sixteenth century, was saved by the king’s death. It must have given him a grim satisfaction to know that he had bested his monarch at last.

  We do not know whether Katherine saw Henry again after the beginning of December, 1546. Her apartments at Whitehall were prepared for her return there on 11 January and though it has often been assumed that she did not, in fact, take up residence there again, her letter to her stepson quoted earlier is signed from Westminster, not Greenwich.33 However, no evidence survives that she was allowed to see her husband in his final days. Henry was not a man who liked scenes and he was working hard, against the clock, with Hertford, Paget and Denny, to assure the future shape of English government. These men had their own reasons for keeping the queen away. In his physical weakness, mindful as they were of his affection for Katherine, there was always the possibility that she might persuade him to a course of action that did not sit well with their own ambitions. A deathbed parting between husband and wife therefore seems extremely unlikely.

  In fact, it fell to Anthony Denny on Thursday 27 January 1547 to tell the king that ‘in man’s judg
ement, you are not like to live’. Faced with this reality, Henry’s thoughts turned to his immortal soul. He believed, he said, ‘the mercy of Christ is able to pardon me all my sins, yes, though they were greater than they be’. But he did not ask for his wife, and prevaricated even on whether he would see a priest, saying that if it were to be any, it should be Dr Cranmer. He would, however, sleep for a while before he made up his mind.34

  By the time Cranmer, summoned from Croydon on a bitter night, arrived in the royal bedchamber, Henry could no longer speak. All he apparently could do, when the archbishop exhorted him to show some sign that he died in the faith of Christ, was to squeeze Cranmer’s hand. In this simple gesture the king demonstrated, at the last, his commitment to the religious changes in England that he had guided, sometimes in seemingly contradictory fashion, over the previous twenty years. Shortly after, in the small hours of 28 January 1547, he died.

  Katherine’s third husband had been a giant of a man. To this day, whatever one thinks of him, he dominates the history of England. The queen must have known, when they broke the news of his death to her, that her life without him would be profoundly different.