Catherine Parr Part II

After the marriage, Catherine enjoyed the “perks” of being queen, dressed well, and did her best to soothe and amuse the increasingly elderly and poorly King.  Henry was now very overweight and his health was declining. He had been very depressed by the infidelity of Catherine Howard, and his new wife knew that she had to tread carefully to entertain and cheer him.  Henry’s increasing ill temper and his behavior towards his other wives, was enough to frighten many ladies… Some princesses had been very reluctant to consider him as a husband, in spite of his being a King.  He had killed 2 of his wives, divorced two and it was said by some that Jane Seymour had died because she had not been well looked after in childbirth… or that Henry had been willing to sacrifice her in order to have a male heir.

Catharine was fond of the royal children and did her best to reunite Henry with them.  He had not been close to his two daughters for some time but Catherine tried to have them brought to court more often and to re establish a relationship with their father.   In spite of Mary’s being a devout and somewhat bigoted Catholic and Catherine’s being an ardent Reformer, they became friends.  Catherine grew close to the young Elizabeth, and was involved in her education.

Henry respected his wife’s intelligence, though he was less committed to the cause of Protestantism.  He appointed her Regent in 1544 when he was away on a military campaign.

But in 1546, Catherine’s loyalty to the Reformists came close to ending her career as Queen. Conservative Catholics at court were anxious to ensure that when Henry died, England did not fall to Protestantism.  But Edward, his heir had been educated by Protestants and his uncle Edward Seymour, was likely to be Regent.   Stephen Gardiner and other Catholics acted against Anne Askew, a “heretic” woman who knew Catherine, and hoped that she would reveal under torture that the queen shared her beliefs and had heretical books which she read and which were forbidden.   Anne however did not crack under torture and Catherine found a paper which warned her of the plot against her.  She realized that she had been too overt in talking about her religious beliefs and that she was in danger of losing Henry’s favor and possibly her life.  She threw herself on his mercy, and told him that she had only argued with him on religion, in order to “learn from his superior intelligence” and to take his mind off the pain in his bad leg.  Henry turned on the Catholic plotters and dismissed them, leaving his Protestant courtiers in the ascendant.  He and Catherine made up their quarrel and were “perfect friends” again.

Catherine was more discreet, in the last years of Henry’s life.  He died in 1547, and she was then free to remarry.  She had bene left comfortably off and her old suitor Thomas Seymour was still free.   However he was an ambitious and somewhat erratic, not very intelligent man... He was probably in love with Catherine but he also toyed with the idea of marrying one of Henry’s daughters, and forming an alliance with the Royal family.  However he settled for a marriage with Catherine but it had to be performed in secret.  Catherine was still in mourning for her Royal husband but she was so in love with Thomas and so eager to make up for the difficult years as Henry’s wife, that she hurried into the marriage.

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