Survived (From the Archive)

Catherine Parr was the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/noblebloodtales — Noble Blood merch https://store.dftba.com/collections/noble-blood — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840578/anatomyalovestory' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250861016/immortalityalovestory' See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Listener discretion advised. Hello, this is Dana Schwartz, host of Noble Blood. This is the last week of my maternity leave and the last episode in our series, Revisiting the Wives of King Henry VIII. Today, we're talking about his final wife, the woman who survived, Catherine Parr. But Catherine's future, back when she was married to the king, was far from secure, and surviving Henry required cunning and the ability to manage a volatile and aging king.

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  Enjoy. It was an incredibly dangerous thing to be a woman in the 16th century who disagreed with her husband. A woman named Anne Askew was born in 1521 in Lincolnshire. When she was 15 years old, her sister died. Her sister had been engaged to a man named Thomas Kime, and to save money on the dowries and negotiations, Anne's father simply substituted Anne in to marry her sister's fiance. One daughter was as good as the next.

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  Thomas Kyrm was a Catholic, and he quickly realized that his young wife was a devout Protestant. He would enter the room to find her studying the Bible, or reciting verses quietly to herself that she was trying to memorize. Anne publicly challenged the idea of transubstantiation, the notion that when taking Holy Communion, the wafer and wine literally transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ. Word got around town. Other women began avoiding Anne in the streets and the shops. Though Thomas Kyrm and Anne had two young children,

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  he kicked her out of the house for her beliefs. Anne was not put off. Unmoored but not undeterred, she moved to London, and sticking with her maiden name, began to preach. A woman preaching is bad enough. A woman preaching heretical ideas cause enough for arrest. In 1546, Anne Askew was 25 years old, and she was brought to the Tower of London, where she was tortured on the rack by men who demanded to know what other high-born women shared her beliefs.

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  The torture was brutal and unceasing, lasting months.

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  By the time Anne was finally brought to be burned at the stake, she had to be carried in a chair, because she could no longer walk.

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  Anne was burned along with three other Protestants. Funnily enough, one of the men executed with her was John Lassels. That name might sound a little familiar to you if you had listened to my episode about Catherine Howard. John Lassels had been the one who reported the young queen's licentious past, which led to her beheading. It's said by those who watched Anne's burning that she was incredibly brave, that she didn't cry out until the flames reached her chest. A supporter had managed to secretly slip her gunpowder to hide in her dress,

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  which exploded, killing Anne and the three men quickly and mercifully. Even through all of her torture, Anne never gave up any names of any other prominent Protestant women, but the torturers were really only interested in one name. They wanted Anne to implicate Catherine Parr, King Henry VIII's sixth and final wife. Catherine had already upset many at court for the strength of her evangelical views, and her enemies were looking for any excuse to bring her down. It wouldn't take much.

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  Gossip in court was that the king had already grown frustrated with the way his wife debated him on matters of religion. Ambassadors wrote that he had already been casting his eye around for wife number seven. Being the wife of King Henry VIII was like holding a fistful of gunpowder. It would only take a spark for an explosion and a quick death. Catherine Parr's intelligence had put her in danger, but it would also be the key to her survival.

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  I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Catherine Parr was seventeen when she married a man named Edward Burrow, but the marriage didn't last long. Three years later, Edward Burrow had died, and Catherine Parr was a young, childless widow. But she was also a young, childless widow who came from a prominent family, and that meant that a year later, her family had the connections to marry her off once again, this time to a man named John Neville, Lord Latimer of Snape. Two Harry Potter names in one.

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  Side note, I looked it up, J.K. Rowling did name Snape after a village, but it wasn't that village.

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  Latimer was forty-three, with two teenage children, only a few years younger than Catherine herself, twenty-one. But maturity came easily to Catherine Parr, who spoke and wrote English, French, and Italian, who was already reading religious doctrine that her Catholic husband no doubt wouldn't have approved of, if he had been home long enough to notice. It was Latimer's religious beliefs that got the couple into trouble in the end. They lived in Yorkshire, and Latimer was roped into helping the Catholic rebels during the Pilgrimage of Grace Rebellion in 1536. Though high-born Latimer was never actually charged, and he managed to escape any real

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  consequences, with just a slap on the wrist, his reputation deteriorated, and soon after, so did his health. Catherine found that she not only had the skill to run a large household, she also had the inclination. With her husband weakening, the family moved down to Worcester, to get out of the troublingly rebellious north, and to be closer to Catherine's family at court, where her brother William and her sister Anne were both members of the royal household. Catherine tended to her ailing husband, ran his household, raised his children from his

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  previous marriage, and also began to make friends at court, including the Queen, Jane Seymour. "Just stay away from my brother," Jane teased, "Thomas is on the lookout for a rich widow." Thomas Seymour was a few things: he was handsome, definitely, charming, absolutely, also socially ambitious. Catherine Parr noticed him, of course she noticed him, how could she not? Everyone in court noticed Thomas Seymour, the Queen's brother. But Catherine's husband, weak as he was, wasn't dead yet, and Catherine always floated

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  above even a whiff of scandal.

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  There aren't even rumors of thoughts of impropriety on her part. Catherine was just a well-liked, smart, pretty presence at court who cared dutifully for her ailing husband. Rather than flirt, she spent most of her time with Princess Mary Tudor, Henry VIII's daughter. Catherine Parr's mother had been a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, Mary's mother. So the two had known each other when they were children. But as adults, they reunited over their shared love of academia. Though Catherine's leanings were evangelical, and Mary was a devout Catholic, it didn't affect their friendship at all.

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  Mary encouraged Catherine to read the Bible, and helped her with the Latin that Catherine had never learned as a child. Catherine wasn't born a boy, and she wasn't born a royal, and so her education had been decent but far from comprehensive. It was her own natural curiosity that turned her into an avid reader and an avid writer. By the time her husband died, Catherine found herself in a strange and rare position. She was still young, thirty-one, twice widowed, orphaned, and with the inheritance of her husband's estate, independently wealthy.

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  Her only responsibility was taking care of her almost-grown stepdaughter whom she adored. She was a woman with money and her entire life ahead of her. Her parents were both dead, and so she had no obligations to marry for anything except love. At thirty-one, Catherine Parr's life could finally begin. And so Catherine Parr could finally look at Thomas Seymour. And she found him, looking back at her, smiling that charming smile, and making her secretly grateful in spite of everything that life had landed her here, exactly where she belonged.

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  It had been a busy few years at court. Since Catherine Parr and her husband had arrived from Yorkshire, King Henry VIII had finally gotten his son, although it led to the death of his queen Jane Seymour. He had sent away for another bride, received Anne of Cleves, and forced a divorce because he didn't find her attractive enough. He married Catherine Howard, was humiliated by her lasciviousness, and had her arrested and beheaded. King Henry VIII was tired. It would be another year as a widower before Henry would begin to look in earnest for a new wife. By this point,

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  Henry VIII had finally evolved into what you most likely already imagine when you hear the words "King Henry VIII", a caricature of a man probably eating a giant turkey leg. King Henry VIII's waist had ballooned to 53 inches, which required specially-made doublets large enough so that three men could stand comfortably inside them. The ulcers on Henry's legs had turned to open rot. From records of his household, we know that the endlessly weeping pus meant that he needed to order a brand-new pair of hose for every single day of the year.

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  Marrying the teenager Catherine Howard had been a mistake. He knew that now. She was too young, too frivolous. It had been a decision made out of lust. Now, for his sixth wife, he needed someone of absolutely unimpeachable character. Someone like Catherine Parr. She was wiser, older, but not so old that she couldn't still bear him another son. That was important. In an ideal world, Henry would have two sons. Although Henry's failing health meant that he could no longer plausibly blame his impotence on a woman being too unattractive or having allegedly saggy breasts,

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  he still wanted another boy, a Duke of York, to ensure that his lineage was secure. Henry needed a queen to manage the household and manage his moods and tempers. And, well, though he hated to admit it, he was lonely. Henry had always loved the company of women, loves discussion and praise and witty banter and praise, and mostly praise. Was it so wrong that in his final years he wanted someone beautiful on his arm and in his bedchamber with whom he could also discuss art and music? Middle age had also made Henry more aware of his formerly estranged daughters, Mary

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  and Elizabeth, the daughters of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, respectively. They say that family is the most important thing, don't they? So if you're going to marry a young wife almost half your age, you should at least do so with the courtesy of choosing someone who's friends with your daughters. It was a month before Catherine Poirot's husband actually died that Henry began sending along letters and gifts. The moment the king's first letter arrived, it was a dagger to the future that Catherine had imagined for herself, a life where she would be free to marry Thomas Seymour, someone that she chose for herself.

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  After two husbands, hadn't she earned that? But when the king chooses you, you don't get a choice.

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  Later, she would write to Thomas Seymour in a letter. "As truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent, the time I was at liberty, to marry you before any man I know."

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  Henry knew that Catherine had been interested in Thomas Seymour, a handsome, athletic man only a few years older than Catherine. He heard the rumors that she loved him, that she wanted to marry him. Henry also didn't care. When he proposed to Catherine Parr, a few months later, a respectful period after the death of her husband, she didn't answer right away. She asked the king if she could have a brief moment to think about it. Henry, amused but good-natured enough, agreed. Usually, one doesn't ask the king to wait before you respond to a question he asks.

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  But this situation wasn't usual. Catherine Parr was within a stoned throw of something most 16th-century women could only dream of: genuine contentment. But Henry's interest in her meant that that vision of the future was already dead. A king wanting to marry you meant that a king got to marry you. That was really what Henry understood full well when he gave Catherine some time to think it over. Sure, he was in his 50s, impotent, rotting. So he had killed two wives and cruelly disposed of two others. He was still the king.

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  Catherine would be giving up her life for a life under a microscope, constantly scrutinized by the entire court, her neck vulnerable to a mercurial king's whims.

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  But in return, she would get a crown and all of the wealth and majesty and power of being the Queen of England. Here's what Catherine knew: Privilege is not the same as freedom. The massive privileges that would be afforded to her by the throne of England would come at a heavy price. She would lose as much as she would gain. But Henry's will was God's will.

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  It was around this time that Henry decided, for no particular reason, that he would send Thomas Seymour out on a new job, a diplomatic posting in Flanders. Catherine never had any decision to make after all. She and the king were married July 12th, 1543, where Henry VIII said, "I do, for the sixth and final time."

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  The role Catherine was to play at court was a delicate one, but she found almost immediately that it was a role she was suited for. Henry wanted a wife to dazzle and entertain his court, to represent the glory of Henry's court back in its prime, all masquerades and games and dances, even though Henry was no longer dancing. But to that end, he gave Catherine money for jewels and clothing, supported her interests in music, and sent fresh flowers to her bedchamber every day. Catherine bathed in milk and herbs. Even though her relationship with Henry wouldn't be the lusty, passionate affair that he had

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  shared with earlier wives, she knew it was her duty, above all else, to be pleasing to him. As queen, she was given the full wardrobe from the dead former queen Catherine Howard. She was stepping into the shoes of her predecessor, literally. Every item needed to be tailored. Catherine Parr was several inches taller than the teenage former queen, but Catherine found she didn't mind wearing the clothes. They were beautiful, for one, but they also made her role as queen feel like a duty, a duty with a uniform, as if she was in the military. Catherine Parr was incredibly well-liked by everyone at court.

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  Well, almost everyone. Another former queen, Anne of Cleves, had quietly hoped that with Catherine Howard gone, King Henry VIII would remarry her. Unfortunately, Henry did not agree. When Anne of Cleves heard that the position of queen had been filled, she murmured that she was surprised the king had married a woman not nearly as beautiful as she.

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  But to everyone else, Catherine Parr was a balm for the chaos at court the preceding few years. She was calm, sensible, kind, smart. Above all, she was competent. That was why, when Henry left to lead a military campaign against France, he left her as regent.

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  Henry, at fifty-three years old, was desperate to regain some of his former glory. And so that meant, despite the advice of his doctors and friends, he would go into battle. He forged an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor, commissioned a customized suit of armor that would fit his considerable size, and left the country in Catherine Parr's capable hands. The victory, if you could call it that, that Henry won three months later, was pretty toothless. Almost immediately afterward, the King of France renewed his friendship with the Holy Roman Emperor and geared up to retaliate in England the following summer.

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  But while Henry was away, Catherine reigned beautifully. She dealt with deserters and Scottish prisoners, managed the supplies and troops being sent to France, and reacted swiftly and decisively to an outbreak of the plague. All the while, she wrote letters to Henry, telling him how deeply she missed him and how much she desired to be in his presence again. The following year Catherine published a book, Prayers or Meditations, the first English book published by a woman under her own name in the country, and the first book ever published by a queen. That Christmas, her stepdaughter Princess Elizabeth,

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  translated it into Latin and French and Italian, and bound the translations in red silk, and gave them to Catherine Parr, as perhaps the most thoughtful Christmas gift heretofore ever given. But still, it wasn't beyond notice that Catherine Parr hadn't borne Henry a son, or even yielded a pregnancy. And although, of course, that wasn't her fault, it still meant that her position as queen wasn't entirely secure. There were rumours in court, there are always rumours, but one particular rumour put Catherine on edge, and soured her normally genial disposition.

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  Henry's best friend, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, died, leaving his wife, a good friend of Catherine's, a widow, and single. And Henry seemed to be spending some time, just a respectful time, nothing untoward, yet, comforting her. Again, nothing but rumours. But the king also seemed to be getting annoyed with Catherine Parr more frequently. Recently, she had taken to arguing with him about theology. When Catherine brought up a hole in one of Henry's arguments, he snapped at her.

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  "It's a good hearing, it is, when women become such clerks, and a thing much to my comfort in my old days, to be taught by a woman." Catherine might have been well-liked as a person in court, but she was evangelical, ordering on Protestant, and she wasn't shy about making her beliefs public. She had enemies, and now, they had ammunition.

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  En 1546, Anne Askew fue torturada por los nombres de otras mujeres de origen alto que compartían sus opiniones hereditarias. Anne no nombró nombres, pero los hombres torturando a ella tenían suficiente para implicar a las mujeres de la Cámara. Habría una búsqueda de literatura hereditaria en sus habitaciones. Afortunadamente, se salió de la cama antes, así que los libros estallaron y los cierres fueron cambiados y nada se encontró. Pero eso no significaba que Catherine no estaba en peligro. Después de todo, existía a la espalda de Henry, y Henry se odiaba sentir amenazado.

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  Después de que Catherine contradiccionó a Henry en debate, un bichero y uno de los ministros de Henry, Roffslay, se dio el momento de conseguir que Henry firmara una orden de arresto para ella, lo que hizo. Ya sea la mala suerte o la mala suerte o un amigo cuidando de ella, se dejó una copia de la orden en el aire, donde Catherine la podía ver. Catherine tenía el beneficio de ser la sexta esposa, de aprender de las mujeres que vinieron antes de ella y sus errores. Henry era extremadamente amable, pero Catherine Parr también sabía que tan pronto como Henry

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  se daba cuenta de una mujer, simplemente la retiraría de su presencia y no le daría la oportunidad de hablar con él. Su tiempo era extremadamente limitado. Llevando una de las vestidas que una vez pertenecía a la feura y muerta Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr fue al rey y hizo lo que necesitaba para salvarse. Gracias, agradeció al rey por su amabilidad que había tomado en compartir sus ideas y sabiduría con ella. Ves, ella estaba solo discutiendo con él como un ejercicio intelectual para él, para

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  que pudiera sacar su mente de su dolor y para que pudiera aprender de él. So, Henry said, "You don't disagree with me then?" "No, of course not," Catherine Parr laughed. "Your Majesty has very much mistaken me, for I have always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord." It was a brilliant turn of tact. Henry swept Catherine Parr onto his knee, reassured her of his love for her, and ordered her jewels and pearls and furs. That afternoon, Rothsley arrived at the Queen's gardens with forty armed men, only to find

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  Catherine sitting on Henry's knee. Henry had forgotten to call off the arrest. "What are you doing?" Henry called. "You dare to insult our Queen with threats? Out!" Rothsley apologized profusely, sweating and bowing. Of course Catherine knew all about the arrest attempt, but Henry didn't know that she knew. "You really don't need to be so hard on him," she said sweetly to her husband. Henry laughed. "Oh, you sweet innocent child! If only you knew how little he deserves this grace you're showing him."

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  Catherine laughed and pulled Henry in for a kiss, thinking somewhere in the back of her mind that the same was true of the grace that she showed Henry.

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  But Catherine wouldn't have too much longer to go as Henry's wife. His health was now fading and fast. Henry was finding it increasingly difficult to walk. He needed to use a ramp to mount his horse. Hunting became impossibly exhausting. Most of the time, Henry was transported from room to room being carried on a chair. His rooms were heavily perfumed at all times, in an attempt to cover the smell of his rotting leg, always wet from his many medicinal baths.

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  That Christmas Catherine Parr, Mary, and Elizabeth were sent away from Whitehall so they wouldn't have to watch the rest of Henry's decline. They would never see him again. Though after the first week of January Catherine returned, she wasn't permitted to see him. Henry died on January 28, 1547. Catherine mourned, of course, but her real sorrow would come only when she saw the will that Henry had rewritten a month before his death. She got plenty of money, an annual allowance, and a stipulation that she be treated as a queen and not a dowager, but she didn't get what she really wanted.

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  She wasn't made regent for the young, nine-year-old King Edward. Her political career was entirely over. Smart as she was, competent as she was, capable as she was, Catherine Parr no longer had any avenue to power. She had come close, being Henry's wife, and for that shining period in 1544 she had tasted it, but now she was just a woman again, put in her place, back where she had started. Being back where she had started wasn't all bad.

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  Four years after she had fallen in love with him, Catherine Parr was finally able to marry Thomas Seymour. It's a bittersweet love story. I like to end it there, without the details that perhaps the marriage had happened a bit too fast and it was unseemly, that she had had to wheedle young King Edward to approve the marriage after it had happened. It's also a sweeter story if we leave out the fact that Thomas Seymour, social climber as he was, had actually tried to court the thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth before marrying Catherine Parr, and that when Elizabeth came to live with her former stepmom and

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  new husband, Thomas, that he would continue molesting her and making sexual overtures, until finally, out of shame and hurt, Catherine Parr had to send young Elizabeth away, never to see her in person again. No, it's a better story if we ended there. The idea that she had lost her love was dutiful to Henry, and then finally got to marry her love and live out the rest of her life in peace. In a different world, Catherine Parr could have led as regent, or even queen, and we could have seen what she would have accomplished. Instead, hers is a story of a woman who fell in love,

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  but was forced into duty instead, but met it with savvy and grace. She survived not out of luck, but because she made sure that she would.

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  That's the story of Catherine Parr's marriage to Henry VIII. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear a short story about what happened when her coffin was unearthed.

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  Catherine Parr was buried beneath Sudley Chapel. But over the next two centuries, the chapel and estate above her fell into ruin. It wasn't until 1782, when the owner of the property and a few visitors were curious enough to force their way down the narrow stone steps and see the crypt that lay beneath. Catherine's lead coffin was exactly as it had been when it was placed there over 230 years prior. Pressed into the lead, the inscription read, "K.P. Here lieth Queen Catherine, wife to King Henry VIII and the wife of Thomas, Lord of Sudley."

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  Curiosity got the better of the visitors, and they pried open the coffin to find the corpse wrapped in waxy linen. They recoiled when they saw what was revealed inside. The coffin had been so airtight that it looked as though Catherine Parr had died only the day before. Her skin was milky white, her hair perfect, her dress still retained color. She might as well have been taking a nap. Horrified, the men shut the lid to the coffin and left, but they had broken the seal and let the air in.

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  By the time Catherine Parr's corpse was excavated again, all that was left was bones. While not only bones, an ivy plant had also managed to grow in the coffin, weaving its way up and around the skull. If you looked at it from certain angles, the ivy plant had curled itself over her skull into a crown. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke.

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  Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Giulia Malani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Reema Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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