“I embraced ignorance as perfect knowledge; and knowledge seemed to me superfluous and vain. I had little regard for God’s Word, but gave myself to vanities and shadows of the world. I forsook Him, in whom is all truth, and followed the vain, foolish imaginations of my own heart. I covered my sins with the pretense of holiness. I called superstition, “godly meaning”, and true holiness, “error”.” — Kateryn Parr
© 2024 Meg McGath. All research and original commentary belong to the author.
Written by Meg McGath
The official date of the letter is actually confusing. It was either written while Katherine Parr was Queen Regent in 1544 or as Dowager Queen in 1547.
The messenger mentioned in the letter is most likely Walter Erle, groom of the Queen’s privy chamber, who also served as her musician on the virginals, but possible Robert Cooch, steward of her wine cellar whose skill in music was commended by Parr’s chaplain, John Pankhurst.
Also mentioned in the letter is Francis Mallet who became chaplain to the Princess Mary in 1544 leaving the employment of Parr. (Wikipedia)
While the reasons are many, most notable and most beloved lady, that readily invite me at this time to writing, still nothing quite so much moves me as care for your health, which as I hope it is the best, so I very greatly desire to be made of certain of it. Wherefore, I send you this messenger who, I judge, will be very pleasing to you both because of his skill in music, in which, I am not unaware, you as well as I delight exceedingly, and also because he, having been in service to me, can report to you most certainty on my whole state and health. And truly, before this day it was in my mind to have made a journey to you and greeted you in person, but indeed not all things answer to my will: I hope now that, at a very early day this winter, you will be visiting us. Then which truly nothing will be a greater joy or a greater pleasure.
Since, however, as I have heard, the last touch has now been put by Mallet on Erasmus’s work On John (which he saw through translation), and nothing else now remain except some due attention and care to be applied in correcting it, I pray you to send to me this very fine and very useful work, now emended by Mallet or someone of yours, that it may be given to the press in its time. And further, that you signify whether you wish it to go out most happily into the light under your name, or whether rather by an unknown author. To which work really, in my opinion, you will be seen to do an injury, if you refuse the book to be transmitted to posterity on the authority of your name: for the most accurate translating of which you have undertaken so many labors for the highest good of the commonwealth; and more than these (as is well enough known) you would have undertaken, if the health of tour body had permitted. Since no one does not know the amount of sweat that you have laboriously put into this work, I do not see why you should reject the praise that all confer on you deservedly. However, I leave this whole matter to your prudence, so that whatever position you wish to take, I will esteem it most greatly to be approved.
As for the sum of money you sent to me as a gift, I thank you exceedingly. I pray the most good and most great God that He will think it fit to bless you perpetually with true and unblemished happiness: in whom, indeed, may you fare well a very long while. From Hanworth September 20.
You most devoted and most loving,
Katherine the Queen KP
Katherine Parr: Works and Correspondence by Katherine Parr, Janel Mueller (Google eBook preview)
© 2024 Meg McGath. All research and original commentary belong to the author.
Written by Meg McGath
During her regency in 1544, Queen Kateryn Parr issued five proclamations. The following was written on the 18th of September in 1544. The proclamation was made at the outbreak of plague to keep people who had been exposed away from the court at Oking (Woking) Palace in Surrey where she and the children of the King resided.
No. 19 The Queen Regent’s proclamation that no person exposed to the plague may come to court, September 18, 1544
[Headed] The 36th year of Henry VIII. 1544.
A proclamation that no person, in whose house the infection of the plague doth reign, shall repair to the court.
King Henry VIII to the mayor, alderman, and the citizens of London, greetings. We charge you that
Forasmuch as the Queen’s highness, General Regent of the realm in the King’s majesty’s absence, hath been incredibly informed that the infection of the plague reigneth in sundry parts within these the cities of London and Westmister, whereby great danger might ensure to her grace’s person, the Prince’s grace, and the other the King’s majesty’s children, in case any of the inhabitants of the said cities, who have had the infection in their houses, or have resorted to any infected persons, or dwell near any place where the infection is or lately hath been, should repair to court or permit any of those which attend in the court to enter their houses:
Her highness straitly chargeth and commandeth that no manner of person or persons, in whose houses the plague is or hath been, or have resorted to any other infected persons, or dwell near any place where the infection is or lately hath been, do from henceforth repair to the court, or do suffer any of the attendant of the said court to enter their houses where the infection hath been, upon pain of her grace’s indignation, and further punishment at her highness’s pleasure.
And of this, under the applicable legal penalty, let nothing to all be omitted. By Katherine, Queen of England, and its General Regent. From Oking, the eighteenth day of September, the thirty-sixth year of our reign.
Here is one of the documents found at the National Archives from 1547, after the death of Henry that was signed “Kateryn the quene Regente-KP”
Image credit: Elizabeth Norton
Source: Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence By Katherine Parr, Janel Mueller · 2011 (Google eBook)
© 2024 Meg McGath. All research and original commentary belong to the author.
I love how much people dismiss Queen Kateryn Parr. There may be evidence that she WAS supposed to be Regent for Edward VI. See her signature AFTER Henry died.
She was apparently signing as “Kateryn, the quene regente KP”. The theory goes that she was indeed made Regent for her stepson, King Edward VI. Which would make sense with the use of her signature. It is believed that Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Kateryn’s brother the Marquess of Northampton, her brother-in-law the Earl of Pembroke and the council ousted her and rewrote the will. She would have made a wonderful Queen Regent. She proved she was capable of being Regent while Henry went to war with France. Perhaps she would have lived longer and prevented the succession from being rewritten. She gets credit for the placement of Princesses Mary & Elizabeth back into the line of succession behind their brother in 1545. That succession act seems to have overwritten or they disregarded King Edward’s will and supported the actual heir to the throne, Mary. Mary WAS the rightful heir. Jane was further down the approved line of succession. Why would you accept someone below the status of the actual daughters of King Edward’s father, Henry VIII? Kateryn Parr’s brother and brother in law were again involved in matters of the state and actually pulled off putting Lady Jane Grey on the throne for 9 days! Jane somehow outranked her own mother who was STILL alive and technically would have been the next heiress to the throne after Princesses Mary & Elizabeth. I never understood that. The Protestants feared the Catholic “Bloody Mary” (her nickname was started as Protestant propaganda, the pro Queen Elizabeth movement, lol) would try to return the country to the Pope and Catholicism. Mary was deeply religious. Kateryn Parr and Mary got on despite differences in matters like religion. Parr’s mother, Lady Maud, had served Mary’s own mother, Queen Katherine of Aragon, the first wife and crowned Queen consort to King Henry. The two women were pretty close. The Parrs backed Queen Katherine of Aragon when her lady in waiting became the Kings new obsession. Parr let Mary be and encouraged her every chance she could. One could argue she loved Mary more than Elizabeth. Heck, Kateryn named her only daughter and child, Mary, before the queen passed on 5 September 1548. Don’t think there were any other important Marys. The French Queen, Mary Tudor, had died long before Parr became Queen. Pretty sure it’s not after The Virgin Mary. Protestants aren’t that attached to her, right? I was raised Catholic, so I honestly don’t know. Anyway, Queen Kateryn Parr was VERY important. Read a book. She wasn’t an ex-queen. She remained Queen (consort) of England, Ireland, and France until she died. She was the LAST Tudor Queen Consort as King Edward died young. She was also the FIRST Queen of Ireland. Her funeral was the FIRST Protestant funeral for a Queen. Her mourner was none other than Lady Jane Grey, who would have probably stayed with Kateryn had the queen lived. Having Parr around seemed to pacify things. She knew how to handle tricky and dangerous situations. For Gods sake, she almost lost her head after she spoke with the King. It was overheard by the queens enemy, Bishop Gardiner, who saw an opportunity to “get rid” of Kateryn. I mean why not? He already KILLED TWO WIVES!! Lordy, so Gardiner tried to fuck with the Kings head. Saying shit like “it is a petty thing when a woman should instruct her husband” or some stupid sexist bs! Story goes, Kateryn was warned by an anonymous source who found her death warrant lying on the ground. YEAH RIGHT!! That’s straight up narcissistic abuse, my man!! Why do I feel like Henry set her up to test her loyalty? He was such a theatrical douche bag. No, no love for King Henry here. I have yet to see the film “Firebrand” which follows the reign of Kateryn as queen consort and queen Regente I believe. It’s based off Elizabeth Freemantle’s “Queen’s Gambit”. Anyway, Kateryn talked her way out of being arrested or worse by stroking the Kings ego and basically submitting to him just to fuvking survive. Imagine going through this marriage without psych meds like Benzos. I do believe they dabbled in potions however and she was known to “treat” melancholy with herbs from the gardens. Sudeley Castle where she is buried has a garden full of deadly herbs. Physic gardens. I have photos somewhere…
My page: Queen Catherine Parr
© 2024 Meg McGath. All research and original commentary belong to the author.
7 September 1548: THE FUNERAL of the Dowager Queen Katherine Parr. It was the first Protestant funeral held in English. Her chief mourner was Lady Jane Grey. She was buried in St Mary’s Chapel on the grounds of Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, England.
‘A Breviate of the Internment of the lady Katherine Parr, Queen Dowager, late wife to King Henry VIII, and after, wife to Sir Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, and High Admiral of England.
Item – On Wednesday, the fifth of September, between two and three of the clock in the morning, died the aforesaid lady, late Queen Dowager, at the castle of Sudeley in Gloucestershire, 1548, and lieth buried in the chapel of the said castle.
Item – She was cered and chested in lead accordingly, and so remained in her privy chamber until things were in a readiness.
Hereafter followeth the provision in the chapel.
Item – It was hanged with black cloth garnished with escutcheons of marriages viz. King Henry VIII and her in pale, under the crown; her own in lozenge, under the crown; also the arms of the Lord Admiral and hers in pale, without crown.
Items – Rails covered with black cloth for the mourners to sit in, with stools and cushions accordingly, without either hearse, majesty’s valence, or tapers – saving two tapers whereon were two escutcheons, which stood upon the corpse during the service.
The order in proceeding to the chapel.
First, two conductors in black, with black staves.
Then, gentlemen and esquires.
Then, knights.
Then, officers of houshold, with their white staves.
Then, the gentlemen ushers.
Then, Somerset Herald in the King’s coat.
Then, the corpse borne by six gentlemen in black gowns, with their hoods on their heads.
Then, eleven staff torches borne on each side by yeomen about the corpse, and at each corner a knight for assistance – four, with their hoods on their heads.
Then, the Lady Jane, daughter to the lord Marquis Dorset, chief mourner, led by a estate, her train borne up by a young lady.
Then, six other lady mourners, two and two.
Then, all ladies and gentlewomen, two and two.
Then yeomen, three and three in a rank.
Then, all other following.
The manner of the service in the church.
Item – When the corpse was set within the rails, and the mourners placed, the whole choir began, and sung certain Psalms in English, and read three lessons. And after the third lesson the mourners, according to their degrees and as it is accustomed, offered into the alms-box. And when they had all done, all other, as gentlemen or gentlewomen, that would.
The offering done, Doctor Coverdale, the Queen’s almoner, began his sermon, which was very good and godly. And in one place thereof, he took a occasion to declare unto the people how that there should none there think, say, nor spread abroad that the offering which was there done, was done anything to profit the dead, but for the poor only. And also the lights which were carried and stood about the corpse were for the honor of the person, and for none other intent nor purpose. And so went through with his sermon, and made a godly prayer. And the whole church answered, and prayed the same with him in the end. The sermon done, the corpse was buried, during which time the choir sung Te Deum in English.
And this done, after dinner the mourners and the rest that would, retruned homeward again. All which aforesaid was done in a morning.’
(p.180-182, ‘Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence’ edited by Janel Mueller.)
[Endorsed] The queen’s Grace to the King’s majesty 25 August 1544
[Addressed] To the King’s most excellency majesty
Pleaseth it your majesty to be advertised: albeit I had at this present none occurrences of importance to be signified unto your highness, your realm being, thanks to almighty God, in very good order and quiet: yet, foreasmuch as Richard Higham is at this time dispatched hence unto your majesty with a mass of twenty thousand pounds, I thought it my duty to advertise your majesty of the sending of the same, praying almighty God to send your majesty continuance of health and most prosperous success in all your highness’s most notable enterprises.
My Lord Prince and the rest of your majesty’s children be in very good health. And thus, with my most humble commendations unto your majesty, I pray almighty God have the same in His most blessed keeping. From your majesty’s honor of Hampton Court, the twenty-fifth of August, the thirty-sixth year of your majesty’s most noble reign.
Your grace’s most humble, loving wife and servant,
Kateryn the quene, KP
Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondences edited by Janel Mueller, 2011. (Google eBooks preview)
It was in August of 1544 that the General Regent is recorded as signing her letter “Kateryn the quene Regente, KP” keeping with her signature of “Kateryn the quene, KP” as consort.
Source: “Henry VIII: July 1544, 21-25.” Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 19 Part 1, January-July 1544. Eds. James Gairdner, and R H Brodie. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1903. 581-596. British History Online. Web. 26 August 2023. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol19/no1/pp581-596.
A rare portrait of Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII and an accomplished woman in her own right, shattered records yesterday (June 5) to become the most expensive Tudor painting of all time. Selling to a U.K. collector at Sotheby’s Old Master & 19th Century Paintings Evening Auction, the work realized $4.4 million, more than four times its initial high estimate.
Observer: A Rare Portrait of Henry VIII’s Sixth Wife Breaks Auction Records
The Jersey portrait is one of only two surviving contemporary portraits of Queen Katherine Parr, the other being the slightly earlier, related full-length in the National Portrait Gallery previously mentioned. In both, the Queen’s jewellery is of further significance in identifying the sitter. In the 1960s both paintings were identified as likenesses of Lady Jane Grey by Strong, largely on the basis of comparison with an engraving in Henry Holland’s Herwologia Anglica of 1620, and a portrait at Seaton Delaval – which appears to be a derivation of the present work, on canvas, dating to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and erroneously called ‘Lady Jane’.4Throughout the nineteenth century and until Strong’s publication, the Jersey portrait was in fact also erroneously identified as Queen Mary I. Both portraits were correctly reidentified in 1996 by Susan James (see Literature) on account of the jewellery the sitter is shown wearing, specifically the distinctive crown-headed brooch which appears on her bodice (fig. 2). This brooch, which may have been made for Katherine by her favourite goldsmith, the Dutch jeweller Peter Richardson, is traceable through three Tudor lists of jewels dating to before, during, and after Katherine’s time as Queen, one of which is entitled: ‘The Quene’s Jewells in a cofer having written upon it, “the Quene’s Juelles”’ [sic], and for all of which there is good evidence pointing to Katherine Parr’s ownership (the earliest list of 1542 is an inventory of the jewels belonging to Catherine Howard, which subsequently passed to her successor).5
The last list, from 1550, describes the brooch as ‘one ouche or flower with a crown containing two diamonds, one ruby, one emerald; the crown being garnished with diamonds, three pearls pendant.’6 Interestingly, overpaint in the full-length portrait at the National Portrait Gallery now means that the square-cut emerald there appears red, but the brooch’s true character is plainly obvious in the present painting, where all the precious stones are clearly distinguished from one another. The accuracy of the depiction of the brooch – thus underlining the portrait’s royal status and sovereignty of the sitter – is further corroborated by its description in the jewel list of Elizabeth I, to whom the brooch passed with the rest of the royal jewellery in 1587, which specifies that the crown is ‘garnished with XV small diamonds’7 – all fifteen stones are clearly discernible here. At Elizabeth’s death the brooch passed to Anne of Denmark, queen of James I; it is found in her jewellery inventory of 1606, but an annotation recounts that in 1609, having lost the two triangular-cut diamonds, the brooch was broken up for ‘the making of Gold plate’.8
In the full-length portrait, and in a slightly later half-length portrait from the late sixteenth century, previously attributed to William Scrots (also in the National Portrait Gallery; fig. 3),9Katherine wears a pendant – probably another brooch adapted to be worn on a necklace – which may be identified as that described in the 1542 list of Catherine Howard’s jewels: ‘oone other Ooche of Golde wherein is averey feir large ruby and a rounde diamond with a verey feir peerle hangyng at the same [sic].’10 The pendant in the present portrait, by contrast, would appear also to include an emerald; nor does the sitter wear the girdle of antique cameos that appears in the full-length painting, and which is also identifiable in the 1542 list. Instead, here Katherine’s waist is encircled by a belt of large pearls and diamonds in gold settings, with pomanders and small antique urn-shaped pendants, which, together with the matching adornment to the line of her bodice across the chest and the pattern of her necklace, bears a remarkable similarity to that in a portrait of Elizabeth I, when Princess, in the Royal Collection, at Windsor.11The portrait of Princess Elizabeth and the Jersey portrait of Katherine also share similar embroidery in the sleeves and both sitters wear almost identical diamond rings, which display the latest styles in diamond cutting – the table-cut and pointed cut – which were symbolic of fidelity, though the pattern of their display follows that in the the portrait of Katherine in the National Portrait Gallery. Unlike either of these other two portraits, however, the jewels in Katherine’s cuffs, and the pomanders on her girdle, in the Jersey portrait are all inscribed multiple times with the words ‘LAVS DEVS’ (‘praise God’).
Sotheby’s
Attributed to Master John: Portrait of Katherine Parr (1512-1548), Queen of England and Ireland
To Queen Katherine Parr, the king’s letter congratulatory, upon her marriage with the Lord Admiral
We thank you heartily, not only for the gentle acceptation of our suit moved unto you, but also for the loving accomplishing of the same, wherein you have declared, not only a desire to gratify us, but also moved us to declare the good will, likewise, that we bear to you in all your requests. Wherefore, ye shall not need to fear any grief to come or to suspect lack of aide in need, seeing that he, being mine uncle, is of so good a nature that he will not be troublesome by any means unto you, and I of such mind, that, for divers just causes, I must favour you.
But even as without cause you merely require help against him whom you have put in trust with the carriage of these letters, so may I merely return the same request unto you, to provide that he may live with you also without grief, which hath given him wholly unto you; and I will so provide for you both, that if hereafter any grief befall, I shall be a sufficient succour in your godly and praiseworthy enterprises.
Fare ye well, with much increase of honour and virtue in Christ.
From St James, the 25th day of June
Edward
Letters of the Kings of England: Now First Collected from the Originals in Royal Archives, and from Other Authentic Sources, Private as Well as Public · Volume 2 By James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps · 1846
Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence By Katherine Parr, editor Janel Mueller · 2011, pg 147
Right dear and well-beloved brother, we great you well. Letting you wit that when it hath pleased almighty God of His goodness to incline the King’s majesty in such wise towards me, as it hath pleased his highness to take me of all others, most unworthy, to his wife, which is, as of reason it ought to be, the greatest joy and comfort that could happen to me in this world:
To the intent, you being my natural brother, may rejoice with me in the goodness of God and of his majesty, as the person who by nature hath most cause of the same, I thought meet to give your this advertisement. And to require you to let me sometime hear of your health as friendly as you would have done, if God and his majesty had not called me to this honor: which, I assure you, shall be much to my comfort. Given at my lord’s manor of Oatlands, the twentieth of July, the thirty-fifth year of his majesty’s most noble reign.
Kateryn, the quene
Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondences, editor Janel Mueller. University of Chicago, 2011. pg 46.
Letter signed (“Kateryn the queen”), to her brother William Parr,
ANNOUNCING HER MARRIAGE TO KING HENRY VIII, explaining that “It hath pleased Almighty god of his goodness to incline the Kinges ma[jes]tes harte in suche wise towards me”, celebrating an event which is “the greatest Joye and comfort that could happen to me in this world”, and inviting her brother to “rejoyse with me in the goodness of god and of his Ma[jes]te”, 1 page, oblong folio, Oatlands, 20 July 1543, integral address leaf (“To our right der and entirely beloved Brother the Lord Parre Lord Warden of the Marches…”), docketed, fragile at folds, crude repair to marginal tear, spotting
HENRY VIII’S FINAL QUEEN ANNOUNCES HER MARRIAGE TO THE KING. This remarkable letter was written just days after the marriage between the aging Henry VIII and his final Queen. The wedding ceremony had taken place on 12 July in the Queen’s Closet at Hampton Court Palace, attended by only 18 people. The couple immediately started on the court’s summer progress and this letter was written from the first stop on their journey, Oatlands Palace in Surrey.
Description of Lot from Sotheby’s
The letter is up for auction. I noticed that this is not her handwriting and her signature is not followed by her maiden initials KP. Did the initials come later in her reign as queen?
By Meg Mcgath, 22 March 2023 *be kind and if you find info here…leave breadcrumbs. Thanks!*
Lady Maud Parr, (6 April 1492 – 1 December 1531) was the wife of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal, Knt. She was the daughter and substantial coheiress of Sir Thomas Green of Greens Norton, Northamptonshire. The Greens had inhabited Greens Norton since the fourteenth century. Green was the last male heir, having had two daughters. Her mother is named as Joan or Jane Fogge. However, I haven’t been able to prove her parentage. According to Linda Porter, Katherine Parr is a great-granddaughter of Sir John Fogge. When asked for a source, Porter said it came from Dr Susan James. In her biography on Katherine, Susan James states, “he [Green] had made an advantageous with the granddaughter of Sir John Fogge, treasurer of the Royal household under Edward IV”. Fogge was married to Alice Haute (or Hawte), a lady and cousin to Edward’s queen, Elizabeth. By her father, Maud descended from King Edward I of England multiple times. Her sister, Anne, would marry Sir Nicholas Vaux (later Baron). Vaux married firstly to Maud’s would be mother-in-law, the widowed Lady Elizabeth Parr, by whom he had three daughters including Lady Katherine Throckmorton, wife to Sir George of Coughton. Her father spent his last days in the Tower and died in 1506 trumped up on charges of treason.
Ten months after the death of her father, the fifteen year old Maud became a ward of Thomas Parr of Kendal (c.1471/1478 (see notes)-1517) a man nearly twice her age. Around 1508, Maud married to Thomas, son of Sir William Parr of Kendal (1434-1483) and Elizabeth FitzHugh (1455/65-1508), later Lady Vaux. At the time, he was thirty seven while she was about sixteen. He would become Sheriff of Northamptonshire, master of the wards and comptroller to King Henry VIII. He would become a Vice chamberlain of Katherine of Aragon’s household. When Princess Mary was christened, he was one of the four men to hold the canopy over her. He would become a coheir to the Barony of FitzHugh in 1512 and received half the lands of his cousin, George, 7th Baron (d.1512). Had he lived, he most likely would have received the actual title as a favored courtier. The barony is still in abeyance.
Maud became a lady to Queen Katherine of Aragon along with Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of the future Queen Anne. It seems as though the Parrs and Boleyns were indeed in the same circle around the king—something rarely noted! Both Thomas Boleyn and Thomas Parr were knighted in 1509 at the coronation of King Henry VIII and Queen Katherine of Aragon.
Maud’s relationship with the Queen was a relationship that went much deeper than “giddy pleasure”. Both knew what it was like to lose a child in stillbirths and in infancy. It was Katherine Parr’s mother, Maud, who shared in the horrible miscarriages and deaths in which Queen Katherine would endure from 1511 to 1518. The two bonded over the issue and became close because of it. Lady Parr became pregnant shortly after her marriage to Sir Thomas Parr. Most people think that Katherine Parr, the future queen and last wife of Henry, was the first to be born to the Parrs; not so. In or about 1509, a boy was born to Maud and Thomas. The happiness of delivering an heir to the Parr family was short lived as the baby died shortly after — no name was ever recorded. It would be another four years before Maud is recorded as becoming pregnant again. In 1512, Maud finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She was christened Katherine, after the queen, and speculations are that Queen Katherine was her godmother. In about 1513, Maud would finally give birth to a healthy baby boy who was named William. Then again in 1515, Maud would give birth to another daughter named Anne, possibly after Maud’s sister.
In or about 1517, Maud became pregnant again. It was in autumn of that year that her husband, Sir Thomas, died at his home in Blackfriars of the sweating sickness. Maud was left a young widow at 25, with three small children to provide for. It is believed that the stress from his death caused the baby to be lost or die shortly after birth. No further record of the child is recorded. In a way Maud might have been relieved. He left a will, dated 7 November, for his wife and children leaving dowry’s and his inheritance to his only son, William, but as he died before any of his children were of age, Maud along with Cuthbert Tunstall, their uncle Sir William Parr, and Dr. Melton were made executors. He left £400 apiece as marriage portions for his two daughters. He provided for another son and if the baby was “any more daughters”, he stated “she [Maud] shall marry them at her own cost”. In his will, Parr mentions a signet ring given to him by the King which illustrates how close he was to him. He was buried in St. Anne’s Church, Blackfriars, beneath an elaborate tomb. His tomb read, “Pray for the soul of Sir Thomas Parr, knight of the king’s body, Henry the eigth, master of his wards…and…Sheriff…who deceased the 11th day of November in the 9th year of the reign of our sovereign Lord at London, in the Black Friars..” Maud chose not to remarry for fear of jeopardizing the huge inheritance she held in trust for her children. She carefully supervised the education of her children and studiously arranged their marriages.
In October 1519, Maud was given her own quarters at court. From 7 to 24 June 1520, Maud attended the queen at The Field of the Cloth of Gold, the meeting between King Henry VIII and King Francis I of France. Her sister, Anne, now Lady Vaux, and her husband, Nicholas, along with her other in laws, Lord Parr of Horton and his wife, were also present.
According to this article, which states no sources,
“In 1522, Maud was assessed for a “loan” to the King for the French Wars, of 1,000 marks, a very substantial sum, the same as the amount provided by Lord Clifford. She appears in the various household accounts of Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon as entitled to breakfast at Crown expense and to suits of livery for her servants, as well as lodgings, which were very hard to come by.
In 1523, Maud started writing letters to find a suitable husband for her daughter, Katherine. Henry le Scrope (c.1511-25 March 1525), son and heir to Sir Henry le Scrope, 7th Baron Scrope of Bolton by his wife Mabel Dacre, was a cousin. The negotiations lead to nothing. By 1529, Maud found a match for her daughter in Sir Edward Borough, son of Sir Thomas.
When regulations for the Royal household were drawn up at Eltham, in 1526, Lady Parr, Lady Willoughby and Jane, Lady Guildford were assigned lodgings on “the queen’s side” of the palace. If an emergency arose, yeoman were sent with letters from the queen “warning the ladies to come to the court”. Maud was still listed, along with only five other ladies, which included the King’s sister, as having the privilege of having permanent suites in 1526. Maud was friendly with the King as well—her husband had been a favored courtier—and gifted him a coat of Kendal cloth in 1530. She was gifted miniatures of the King and Queen from the Queen herself.
In the summer of 1530, Maud visited her daughter, now Lady Katherine Borough, in Lincolnshire. She stayed at her own manor in Maltby, which was eighteen miles from Old Gainsborough Hall. It is thought that her presence there influenced Sir Thomas Borough to give his son, Edward, a property in Kirton-in-Lindsey. This gave Katherine an opportunity to manage a household of her own.
Maud continued her position at court as one of Katherine of Aragon’s principal ladies and stayed close to the Queen even when her relationship with the king started to decline. Henry’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn, one of the Queen’s ladies, became apparent and inevitably the ladies began to take sides. In these times, Queen Katherine never lost the loyalty and affection of women like Maud Parr, Gertrude Courtenay, and Elizabeth Boleyn, who had been with the Queen since the first years of her reign. At the time of her death, Maud was still attending Queen Katherine.
Maud died on 1 December 1531 at age thirty nine and is buried in St. Ann’s Church, Blackfriars Church, London, England beside her husband.
“My body to be buried in the church of the Blackfriars, London. Whereas I have indebted myself for the preferment of my son and heir, William Parr, as well to the king for the marriage of my said son. As to my lord of Essex for the marriage of my lady Bourchier, daughter and heir apparent to the said Earl. Anne, my daughter, Sir William Parr, Knt., my brother, Katherine Borough, my daughter, Thomas Pickering, Esq., my cousin and steward of my house.”
In her will, dated 20 May 1529, Maud designated that she wanted to be buried Blackfriars where her husband lies if she dies in London, or within twenty miles. Otherwise, she could be buried where her executors think most convenient. Maud left her daughter, Katherine, a jeweled cipher pendant in the shape of an ‘M’. Maud also left Katherine a cross of diamonds with a pendant pearl, a cache of loose pearls, and, ironically, a jeweled portrait of Henry VIII. To her daughter, Anne, she left 400 marks in plate and a third share of her jewels. The whole fortune, Lady Parr had directed, was to be securely chested up ‘in coffers locked with divers locks, whereof every one of them my executors and my … daughter Anne to have every of them a key’. ‘And there’, Lady Parr’s will continued, ‘it to remain till it ought to be delivered unto her’ on her marriage. She also provided 400 marks for the founding of schools and “the marrying of maidens and especial my poor kinswomen”. Cuthbert Tunstall, who was the principal executor of Maud’s will, she left to “my goode Lorde Cuthberd Tunstall, Bisshop of London…a ring with a ruby”. Tunstall had been an executor of her late husband’s will as well. An illegitimate son of Sir Thomas of Thurland Castle, he was a great-nephew of Alice Tunstall, paternal grandmother to Sir Thomas Parr. To her daughter-in-law, Anne, she left substantial amounts of jewelry, “to my lady Bourchier when she lieth with my son” as a bribe to get the marriage consummated. Maud also left a bracelet set with red jacinth to her son, William. She begs him “to wear it for my sake”. Maud was also stated in her will, “I have endetted myself in divers summes for the preferment of my sonne and heire William Parr as well”. For her cousin, Alice Cruse, and Thomas Parr’s niece, Elizabeth Woodhull or Odell, Maud left “at the lest oon hundrythe li”. She wills her “apparrell [to] be made in vestments and other ornaments of the churche” for distribution to three different parish churches which lay close to lands that she controlled. She bequeathed money to the Friars of Northampton. For centuries, historians have confused the first husband of her daughter, Katherine, with his elder grandfather, Edward, the 2nd Baron Borough or Burgh of Gainsborough (d.August 1528). He was declared insane and was never called to Parliament as the 2nd Baron Borough. Some sources mistakenly state she was just a child at the time of her wedding in 1526. Katherine’s actual husband, Sir Edward Borough (d.1533), was the eldest son and heir of the 2nd Baron’s eldest son and heir, Sir Thomas Borough, who would become the 1st Baron Borough under a new writ in December 1529. Katherine and Edward were married in 1529. At the time, Thomas Borough was still only a knight. Maud mentions in her will, Sir Thomas, father of the younger Edward, saying ‘I am indebted to Sir Thomas Borough, knight, for the marriage of my daughter‘. Edward was the eldest son and heir to his father, Sir Thomas, Baron Borough. He would die in 1533. Maud’s will was proved 14 December 1531.
Maud and Thomas had three children to survive infancy.
Katherine or “Kateryn” (1512-1548), later Queen of England and Ireland, would marry four times. In 1529, Katherine married Sir Edward Borough. He died in 1533. In 1534, Katherine became “Lady Latimer” as the wife to a cousin of the family, Sir John Neville, 3rd Baron Latimer (of Snape Castle). He was dead by March 1543. A few months later, on 12 July, Katherine married King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace. The king died in January 1547. In May of that year, Katherine secretly wed Sir Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour (d.1549) of Sudeley Castle, a previous suitor from 1543. Their love letters still survive. By Seymour, Katherine had a daughter, Mary. Katherine died 5 September 1548. Seymour would be executed 20 March 1549 for countless treasonous acts against the crown (his nephew was King Edward VI).
William (1514-1571) married on 9 February 1527, at the chapel of the manor of Stanstead in Essex, to Anne Bourchier, suo jure 7th Baroness Bourchier (d. 26 January 1571), only child and heiress of Henry Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Essex (d.1540). In 1541, she eloped from him, stating that “she would live as she lusted”. Susan James states the next year, Parr secured a legal separation. James also states that on 13 March 1543, a bill was passed in Parliament condemning Anne’s adulterous behavior and declaring any children bastards. Wikipedia states “On 17 April 1543 their marriage was annulled by an Act of Parliament and any of her children “born during esposels between Lord and Lady Parr””(there were none) were declared bastards. The source is G. E. Cokayne, ”The Complete Peerage”, n.s., Vol.IX, p.672, note (b). I have not been able to access The Complete Peerage to confirm. On 31 March 1551, a private bill was passed in Parliament annulling Parr’s marriage to Anne. She predeceased Parr by a few months. William married Elisabeth Brooke (1526-1565), a daughter of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham of Cobham Hall in Kent, by his wife Anne Bray. A commission ruled in favour of his divorce from Anne shortly after he married Elizabeth Brooke in 1547, but Somerset punished Parr for his marriage by removing him from the Privy Council and ordering him to leave Elizabeth. The divorce was finally granted in 1551, and his marriage to Elizabeth was made legal. On 31 Mar 1552, a bill passed in Parliament declaring the marriage of Anne Bourchier and Parr null and void. Their marriage was declared invalid in 1553 under Queen Mary and valid again in 1558 under Queen Elizabeth who adored William. Each change of monarch, and religion, changed Elizabeth’s status. She died in 1565. William married Helena Snakenborg in May 1571 in Elizabeth’s presence in the queen’s closet at Whitehall Palace with pomp and circumstance. Parr would die 28 October 1571.
Anne (1515-1552) who married Sir William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke in 1538. They had three children: Henry, Edward, and Anne. They are ancestors to the current Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, Earl of Carnarvon, Earl of Powis, Marquess of Abergavenny, and other nobility.
Notes
Porter, James, and Mueller state Thomas Parr was born in 1478. However, in James’s biography of Katherine, she states he was 37 at the time of his marriage to Maud Green in 1508. So that would be about 1471, right?
References
Susan James. “Catherine Parr: Henry VIII’s Last Love”, 2010. Google eBook (preview)
Susan James. Women’s Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603: Authority, Influence and Material Culture, 2016. Google eBook (preview)
Meg McGath. “Childbearing: Queen Katherine of Aragon and Lady Maud Parr”, 2012.
Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence, ed. Janel Mueller, 2011. Google eBook (preview)
Sir Nicholas Nicolas. Testamenta Vetusta: being illustrations from wills, of manners, customs, … as well as of the descents and possessions of many distinguished families. From the Reign of Henry II. to the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Volume 2, 1826. Google eBook
Elizabeth Norton. “Catherine Parr
Wife, Widow, Mother, Survivor, the Story of the Last Queen of Henry VIII”, 2010. Google eBook (preview)
Linda Porter. Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henry VIII (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin Publishing, 2010)
Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 2nd Edition, 2011. Google eBook (preview)
Gareth Russell. Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII, 2017. Pg 215. Google eBook (preview)
Agnes Strickland. Lives of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest With Anecdotes of Their Courts, Volumes 4-5, 1860. Pg 16. Google eBook
Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty, ed. Aidan Norrie, Carolyn Harris, Danna R. Messer, Elena Woodacre, J. L. Laynesmith, 2022. Google eBook (preview)
The Antiquary: A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Past, volume 24, 1891. Google eBook
The Reliquary, Volume 21, 1881. Google eBook
tudorqueen6 by Meg McGath 