The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr

by Jean Plaidy

The King had stumped to his window and watched the progress of the gallant young man as he made his way toward the river.

  Whither was he going? wondered Henry. It was to meet a woman, doubtless. Henry smiled slyly. Not the Princess Elizabeth, for certain. He had not been unaware of the fear he had planted in Seymour. The gallant sailor would be a little less gallant in that direction and keep his eyes from straying too high.

  The King was so curious that he had one of Sir Thomas’s gentlemen brought to him.

  “Whither goes your master this day?” he asked.

  “To London, Your Majesty.”

  “And why to London?”

  “On business, as far as I know, Your Majesty.”

  “What business? Out with it, knave. You know his errand and you would be wise to tell it.”

  “My Lord King, if it pleases you, he has gone to call on Lady Latimer.”

  The King smiled. “You may go. It is our wish that you tell not your master that we were interested in his journey. It will go ill with you if you do.”

  Lady Latimer, mused the King, when the man had left. He knew her well. Kate Parr, he called her, for he remembered her as Parr’s girl. He had noticed her when she came to court, and he had liked her. She had been a good wife, first to Borough and then to Latimer. A sedate and virtuous lady. The kind of woman he liked to see about the court. And why was it he had not seen her at court? Ah, mourning Latimer, he supposed.

  So Seymour was visiting her. To what end? Wealthy widow. Very wealthy widow. Those Seymours were the most avaricious men in the kingdom.

  The King laughed. He believed that Seymour, knowing now that the Princess Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey were out of reach, was turning to the more mature charms of the widow.

  Seymour could always make the King laugh; perhaps that was why the latter liked him. But even as Henry laughed, he grew solemn. She was a charming woman, this Katharine Parr. A good, virtuous and not uncomely woman, the sort the King liked to see at his court. A good influence on others. She had been friendly with the Princess Mary, and that meant that she was a sober, religious lady, having similar interests to those of his twenty-seven-year-old daughter.

  Kate Parr and Tom Seymour. Incongruous!

  Later, when he was closeted with his Primate, Thomas Cranmer, discussing State affairs, the King said suddenly: “The morals of the court distress me. I would like to see it influenced by our virtuous matrons. There is one…Katharine Parr…recently widowed. Latimer, was it not? He died a short while ago. She is a good woman and she would be an influence for good with our young maidens. I do not see her at court as often as I should like.”

  Cranmer lowered his eyes. He was like a frightened stag, always on the alert for the chase to begin. He had seen Thomas Cromwell fall, and he could not forget it.

  Latimer! he thought now. The noble lord had been involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace, as had Katharine Parr’s relatives, the Throckmortons. They were staunch Catholics, and Cranmer must be continually on guard against the influence of Catholic thought on the King. Yet of late Latimer’s widow had been turning toward the new faith, which was dear to Cranmer. A Protestant lady’s influence on the King would make Cranmer happy, while it would certainly discomfit his enemies—Norfolk, Gardiner and Wriothesley.

  Cranmer said: “Your Grace, we should command this lady to come to court.”

  The King nodded.

  “Let it be done,” he said. “Let it be done.”

  IN THE OAK-PANELED room of the Latimer mansion, Thomas Seymour was bowing over the hand of Katharine Parr.

  “I have waited for this moment for…for…” Seymour lifted his handsome eyes to Katharine’s face. It was a trick of the gallant gentleman, who was rarely lost for words, to feign a nervousness which made him tonguetied. It was a trick which never failed to please the lady he was trying to impress.

  “For?” prompted Katharine.

  “Since I last saw you.” He smiled and boldly drew her to the window-seat, keeping her hand in his.

  “Do you find it pleasant to be in London, fair lady, after the monotony of Yorkshire?”

  “I had too much to do in Yorkshire to find life monotonous there.”

  “But did you not, when you so nobly nursed your husband, long for court life?”

  “No. I was happy. Except…”

  “Except?”

  “I thought of that time when I knew great fear. Not a day would pass when I would not be startled out of my wits by a knock on a door or a sight of a rider in the courtyard. I would look through a window and say to myself: ‘Can it be a messenger from the King?’”

  “And, your lord husband, did he tremble with you?”

  “He did not. He seemed insensible to danger. He was a brave man.”

  “Too sick, I’ll wager, too concerned with fighting death to fear the King’s anger.”

  “And then …” she said, “the King pardoned him.”

  “The King’s pardon!” Seymour laughed. “The King’s smiles are like April sunshine, Kate.”

  “I hear he is moody and depressed these days.”

  “The King! Aye. And looking for a wife.”

  “May God preserve the poor, unfortunate lady on whom his choice falls.”

  Seymour raised his eyebrows in mock horror. “Treason, Kate!” he said.

  “I know I should be careful. I speak too rashly.”

  “Rashness? That is a fault I share with you. But ’tis truth you speak. What woman would be eager to share the King’s throne since poor little Howard’s head rolled in the straw?”

  “Poor child. So young. So beautiful… and to die thus!”

  “Caution!” Seymour took the opportunity to put his face close to hers on a pretext of whispering. “Master Wriothesley hath his spies everywhere, they say. I will tell you something: All through the court people are whispering, asking each other on whom the King’s choice will fall. Age creeps on the royal body. Once he was a raging lion; now he is a sick one. The same desires, the same mighty bulk, but a sick lion who stays at home to lick his poor, wounded limbs when once he would have led the chase. Such a state of affairs has not been beneficial to the royal temper.”

  “’ Tis you who are incautious now.”

  “I ever was, and ’tis true I am more so now. Do you know why? It is because you are sitting near me. You are as beautiful as the sun on the sea, Kate. Oh, I beg of you keep clear of His Majesty’s roaming eye.”

  She laughed. “You are mocking me. I have been a wife twice already.”

  “Nay! You have never been a wife. You have been twice a nurse. My lord Latimer was old enough to have been your grandsire.”

  “He was good to me.”

  “Good to his nurse! Oh, Kate, you know not how fair you are. Again I say, strive not to catch the King’s eye.”

  “I am thirty years old.”

  “And look but twenty. But why talk of the King and his marriages? The marriages of others might make better talk.”

  Katharine looked at him earnestly. It was difficult to believe what she so longed to believe. He was too charming, too handsome; and she, as she had pointed out to him, was thirty years old, and twice widowed. No, it was to some fresh and beautiful young girl that he would turn.

  “Which… which marriage had you in mind?” she asked.

  He put his arm about her then and kissed her heartily on the mouth. “My own!” he cried.

  “Yours?” She made an attempt to struggle, but she could put no heart into it because this was where she longed to be, with him beside her, his arms about her, listening to words which she longed to hear more than any in the world. “Since… when did you contemplate marriage?”

  “From the moment I set eyes on you,” was his prompt reply. “That was when I began to think of marriage.”

  “You forget I am so lately a widow.”

  “Nay, sweet Kate—scarce a widow since you were never a wife. Sicknurse! That was you, Kate.”

  “But… should I think
of marriage with my husband scarce cold in his grave?”

  “Bah! He is lucky to be there, Kate. The King never forgives those who work against him. Better, when one is a sick old man, to die in bed than rot in chains as Constable did. He was a fool, that husband of yours.”

  Katharine would not allow even the man she loved to speak against the man she had married. “He did what he believed to be right,” she said warmly. “The cause of Rome was very near his heart and he supported it.”

  “A man’s a fool who’ll support the Pope’s cause against the King’s when he lives within reach of the King’s wrath and out of reach of the Pope’s succor.”

  “We are not all as ambitious, mayhap, as Sir Thomas Seymour.”

  “Ambitious? I?”

  Katharine drew herself away from him and said with a touch of coldness in her voice: “I have heard it whispered that you are very ambitious indeed, and that you have aspired to make an advantageous marriage.”

  “’ Tis true,” he said, “that I seek an advantageous marriage. I seek the advantages that a happy marriage could bring me. I seek the advantage of marriage with the woman I love.”

  “And who might that be? The Princess Elizabeth?”

  “The Princess Elizabeth!” Seymour’s expression was a masterpiece of astonishment. “I…marry a Princess! Come, Kate, you’re dreaming.”

  “So the reason you have remained a bachelor so long is not because you wait for one whom you would marry to reach a marriageable age?”

  “The reason I have remained a bachelor for so long is that the woman I wish to marry is only now free to marry me.”

  “I wish I knew that it was true!” she sighed.

  He laughed and held her closer to him.

  “Kate! Kate!” he chided. “You are mad to speak thus. Could you be jealous of a child?”

  She smiled contentedly. “It is said that those who study the ways of ambition learn patience,” she reminded him.

  “Patience! It was never a virtue of mine. That is why I’ll not wait a moment longer before I kiss those lips.”

  How pleasant it was there in the room with its windows overlooking the courtyard, and with him beside her promising such joy as she had never known.

  They talked of the future which would be theirs.

  “But we must wait awhile,” insisted Katharine. “I dare not marry yet. It is too soon.”

  Seymour feigned impatience, but he was not sorry that there must be a time of waiting. He could not get the picture of the red-headed Princess out of his mind. She had such a white skin and a coquettish air, he fancied, when she looked his way. Not yet ten years old and a coquette already, and not insensible to the outstanding attractions of a man old enough to be her father.

  He was not averse to waiting, for, in this age of surprises, events came thick and fast, and one could never be sure what would happen next.

  “I warn you,” said Seymour, “I shall not wait too long.”

  “Nor should I wish to, for now I know your mind I could not bear to.”

  They talked once more of the life they would share. They would escape into the country as often as possible, for there were great joys, she would show him, to be found in the simple life.

  When at length he left her, she stood at her window watching him for as long as was possible. It seemed to her that her happiness was almost too great. Perhaps she felt thus because she had waited so long for it. Yet thirty was not so old. He did not think so.

  She tried to work at her embroidery, to read a little from her book of devotions, to write; but it was impossible; she could think of nothing but the happy promise of the future. The marriages which had been arranged for her, and which had brought friendship and riches, were over; and now she could make the romantic marriage which would bring her that perfect contentment of which she had often dreamed.

  It was later that day when a messenger arrived from the court. The King missed the company of Lady Latimer, and he had discovered that he desired it. Lady Latimer would therefore present herself at court without delay.

  THERE WAS SPECULATION among the courtiers.

  Lady Latimer had arrived with a few attendants, and the King had noticeably singled her out for his special attention. On every possible occasion he extolled the piety of those women who, in their kindness and sympathy, nursed their husbands through sickness. The King’s ideal of womanhood was now Lady Latimer. There seemed to be only one person at court who did not grasp the situation, and this was Katharine herself. It was due to modesty, for she could not believe that the King would really regard her as a possible Queen. She was sure that she lacked all the gay, spirited fascination of Anne Boleyn, all the young beauty of Catharine Howard. Even Jane Seymour had had a pale beauty of her own. And I, Katharine told herself, am no more handsome than the Lady of Cleves; and the King would have none of her. It was true that Anne of Cleves had had strange, rough manners and awkward speech and that her skin was pitted from smallpox; but at least she had been the sister of the Duke of Cleves and of importance in European politics. But what had Katharine Parr to offer a man who had always demanded outstanding physical attraction or political assets in his wives?

  What she heard concerning this matter must be merely court gossip, and Katharine would not allow herself to be disturbed by it. She was not going to relinquish her dreams as readily as that. She was going to marry Thomas Seymour; she loved him and he loved her.

  Nan, who had accompanied her to court, was looking very mournful. Poor Nan! She was a pessimist by nature. Other ladies also threw her compassionate glances. Naturally, the whole court was concerned as to the King’s potential wife, merely because he lacked a wife. They did not realize that when men grew old they thought more often of their comforts than of erotic excitement. Katharine knew. She had had two old husbands.

  She therefore persisted in her dreams of marriage with Thomas and refused to admit to herself that he had seemed to grow aloof, that he was often absent from court, and that when the King was present he scarcely looked her way. It was agreed between them that they must wait for marriage; she had been the one who had insisted on that. Naturally, they must wait for a reasonable time to elapse after the death of Lord Latimer; and until they could announce a date for their marriage it was better to keep silent about it and let none guess that they contemplated it.

  So Katharine went on blithely dreaming.

  Thomas Cranmer watched the progress of events. He was cautious by nature; a man must be cautious in the service of such a master. Lady Latimer was a pleasant woman; she would serve the King well if she could do what most of his wives had failed to do: provide him with sons. Cranmer wished to play the safe game. He would not further the marriage of his master with Katharine Parr; nor would he thwart it. Many men had fallen after taking a hand in the King’s matrimonial affairs. Anne Boleyn had caused the downfall of Wolsey; Anne of Cleves that of Cromwell; and because of the frailty of Catharine Howard, Norfolk and his family were in decline. A statesman must play for safety when the King contemplated marriage.

  Cranmer’s thoughts went back to a longago marriage in which he had been bridegroom to Margaret Anne Osiander. Very charming she had been—the daughter of a Reformer with whom he had conferred when he was in Germany on the King’s business. But that marriage had been declared void, for Cranmer had had to choose between the King and Margaret Anne. Often he despised himself— the coward who longed to be brave, the priest devoted to his religion, yet longing for a wife and family… longing to be a martyr to his beliefs, yet fearing the martyr’s flaming crown.

  So Cranmer would keep as aloof as possible from the King’s affair with Lady Latimer; but he hoped that the marriage would take place, because the lady leaned toward the Protestant faith, and a Protestant Queen was what Cranmer—a Reformer at heart—would have advocated for his King.

  Thus, while keeping aloof, Cranmer prayed for the success of the King with Lady Latimer.

  Stephen Gardiner, the celebrated statesm
an and Bishop of Winchester, saw how matters stood and, as he was unaware of the lady’s religious leanings and remembered the service her late husband, Lord Latimer, had paid to the Catholic cause, he was not against the match. He was an ambitious man, this Gardiner, this statesman and priest. He wished to rule the country, as Secretary of State, through the King; and as a churchman he wished to stamp out those he deemed heretics. There was only one religion for him; and if he accepted the King as head of the Church of England, that was for expediency’s sake; for the rest he wished to support the religion of his youth, which had its roots in Rome.

  And Lady Latimer herself? She was a good woman, not likely to cause trouble to the King’s ministers. Could she give the King a son? He doubted it. The King, it seemed, could not have healthy sons. Not one of his Queens, except Anne Boleyn, had been able to give him a really healthy child. Anne’s other pregnancies had come to nothing, just as had those of Katharine of Aragon. Jane Seymour had had at least one miscarriage. His natural son, whom he had created Duke of Richmond, had died in his teens; Edward, the heir to the throne, caused much anxiety on account of his health. Princess Mary was a sickly woman who suffered frequently. Only the young Princess Elizabeth was a healthy child. Therefore it seemed unlikely that the King would achieve in his declining years what he had failed to accomplish in his youth. Then would the old familiar pattern begin to form? Would he, tiring of yet another partner, desire a new wife and look to his ministers—his long-suffering ministers— to find a way of ridding him of a woman who had become an obstruction?

  If all the young ladies at court dreaded the King’s attentions for fear of the consequences to themselves when they ceased to amuse him, the King’s ministers, remembering the disasters which had befallen their predecessors, also had their fears.

  But the King was ageing; perhaps his sixth marriage would conent him; and as Lord Latimer had been a good Catholic, so, reasoned Gardiner, would his widow be also. If the King wished to marry the lady and if—as surely he must—he no longer expected children, Gardiner would welcome the match.

  He said to Wriothesley when he obtained a private interview with that man: “What think you of this matter of the King and Lady Latimer?”