The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr

by Jean Plaidy

  The Duchess smiled and suckled her baby.

  Later she talked to her husband.

  “I shall never be happy while your brother lives,” she declared.

  “Would you wish his death then?”

  “As I would the death of all who stood to harm you, my lord.”

  “And the Queen?” he asked.

  “The Queen is a foolish woman. I fear her influence, but not herself. They say she is a bitter woman who cares not whether she lives or dies. Oh, my lord, a woman in her state and of her age…who has never before had a child…”

  “Yes, my love?”

  The Duchess shrugged her shoulders. “I do not know. But it would not greatly surprise me if she did not survive the ordeal before her.”

  “That is what you hope.”

  “I like her not. But it is your brother whom I fear.”

  “My dear wife,” said the Duke, “even if we proved a case against him, the King would put up a fight for his beloved uncle.”

  “The King! He is but a feeble boy.”

  “Feeble in body, but not so in mind. He puts on dignity with each day. If he is but a boy, he is a Tudor; and you know well the strength of his father.”

  She was silent for a while, then she said: “If the Queen were to die, and it could be shown that the Admiral had helped to bring about her death, the King might not feel so kindly toward his favorite uncle.”

  “Thomas bring about her death! Nay! He is a philanderer, but he would not murder his wife.”

  “She is sad, I hear. She cares not whether she lives or dies. This is due to her husband’s treatment of her.”

  The Protector bent over his wife to look at his newborn son.

  He smiled at the Duchess, and their eyes were alight with a kindred ambition.

  IN HER LYING-IN CHAMBER at the Castle of Sudley, Katharine lay, her body torn in agony. But no bodily agony could compare with the distress of her mind.

  All through those paindazed hours she was aware of the cloud about her; she was aware that the happy life, the thought of which had sustained her through all her miseries, was nothing more than a myth and an illusion.

  Thomas, waiting for the birth of his child, paced back and forth from room to room.

  “No news yet? No news?” he demanded. “By God’s precious soul, how long…how long?”

  Some of those who loved the Queen longed to tell her of his distress, but they knew that she would have no faith in it. She no longer believed in him; all his protestations had failed to move her. He had lied to her; he had deceived her; and she would never trust him again.

  It was on the last day of August, when the heat was stifling, that Katharine’s daughter was born.

  “A girl!” The words spread through the Castle.

  It was a disappointment; everyone had confidently hoped for a boy. The astrologers had prophesied that there would be a son for the Admiral. He had believed that prophecy; he had gone about boasting of the son he would have, a finer, stronger, more handsome boy than the one just born to his brother’s wife.

  And now…agirl!

  But Thomas would not show his disappointment. Full of remorse for the hurts he had inflicted on Katharine, he longed to assure her of his love and devotion.

  Elizabeth was far away at Hatfield now, and he would think only of Katharine, his beloved wife. He would make her understand that it was possible for a man such as himself to be fond of more than one woman at a time. And what, he asked himself, was his lighthearted desire for Elizabeth compared with the deeprooted tenderness he felt for his wife?

  He went to her chamber; he kissed her tenderly, and most solicitously he inquired regarding her health. He took the child in his arms and paced the apartment with her.

  “Why, bless us, Kate, I’d rather this girl than all the boys in Christendom.”

  But the magic failed to work now; the charm was useless. It was like a pretty tinkling toy, and she had grown out of her desire for such.

  She watched him with solemn, brooding eyes.

  He knelt by the bed: “Get well, Kate. Get well, sweetheart. There is no joy for me in this life if thou sharest it not with me.”

  And she watched him coldly, with disbelieving eyes.

  A strangeness had come to her since the birth of her child. There was a fever upon her, and she who had so passionately longed for the child, seemed now to have forgotten its existence.

  She lay listless, staring about her with eyes that seemed to see nothing, to have no interest in anyone or anything.

  In vain her women tried to rouse her from this terrible lethargy.

  “Your Majesty, look at the beautiful little girl. See, she has your eyes. That much is obvious already.”

  But she did not answer. She lay there, staring before her as though it were another woman’s child they held out to her. Little Jane Grey came to her bedside, but she did not seem to know Jane.

  “What ails her?” asked the little girl.

  “By my faith,” said one of the women, “I fear she will die of her melancholy.”

  The doctors came, but they could not rouse her. They could do nothing to disperse her fever.

  A FEW DAYS AFTER the birth of the child, Thomas came into the bedchamber, his brow wrinkled, all jauntiness gone.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, “how fares it with thee now?”

  She did not answer him.

  “Kate… my dearest Kate, it is Thomas. Look at me, my love. Smile at me. Tell me you love me.”

  She turned her head from him.

  She spoke suddenly, but not to Thomas. “Lady Tyrwhit,” she cried out, “is that you?”

  Lady Tyrwhit, who had been in attendance since the birth of the child, came to the bedside. She knelt and took the Queen’s burning hand in hers.

  “Lady Tyrwhit, I fear such things within me that I do not think I shall leave this bed.”

  Thomas knelt and took her other hand. She turned her head to look at him, but she did not seem to recognize him.

  “Lady Tyrwhit,” she continued, “I am not well-handled. Those about me care not for me. Oh, I am most unhappy, Lady Tyrwhit, because those I have loved, love me not. They mock me. They laugh at my love. Mayhap they laugh now at my grief. They wait for my death that they may be with others. The more good I do to them, the less good they would do to me.”

  “Sweetheart, sweetheart!” cried Thomas. “I would do you no harm.”

  She spoke to him then. “I do not think you speak the truth, my lord.”

  “Kate… Kate… have you forgotten how we have loved?”

  “No, my lord, but you have given me some very shrewd taunts. My Lady Tyrwhit, I do not think I shall live. I do not wish to live.”

  The Admiral turned appealingly to Lady Tyrwhit. “How can I comfort her? How can I assure her of my devotion?”

  Lady Tyrwhit was sorry for him, even while she remembered that his conduct with the Lady Elizabeth had brought his wife to this pass.

  “I shall lie on the bed beside her,” he said. “I will pacify her. I will bring back her peace of mind. I will assure her…”

  “Nay,” said Katharine. “It is over now. I shall die. There is no need for me to live longer.”

  “What of the love you have for me?” he cried. “What of our child?”

  But she looked bewildered, as though she did not know of what child he spoke.

  “I will lie beside you, sweetheart,” he said.

  “No,” she said fearfully. “No!”

  “She must not be disturbed so,” said Lady Tyrwhit.

  Thomas stood back, helpless, filled with wretchedness and remorse.

  Katharine closed her eyes.

  “Leave her to sleep,” said Lady Tyrwhit. “That will restore her peace of mind better than aught else.”

  And Katharine lay, listening to the voices about her. She seemed to hear whispering voices everywhere. She seemed to see the flushed face of the youthful Princess and her husband’s eyes gleaming as they looke
d at the girl.

  She thought she heard voices which told her that the rumors were true. He had wanted Elizabeth; Elizabeth was the greater prize; but he had accepted the Queen…temporarily.

  Temporarily he had accepted the Queen. And later…he would take Elizabeth.

  The voices went on and on in her imagination.

  She no longer wished to live. She believed herself to be unloved and unwanted; and the tragedy was that, no matter what might happen in the future, no matter what assurances were made, she would never believe them. She could never believe in anything again.

  She had set up an idol and worshipped it; she saw now that it had feet of clay.

  There was darkness near to her; it beckoned, offering peace.

  “Come,” it seemed to say. “It is what you need. It is what you wish for yourself. It is what he wishes for you.”

  And she felt that she was drifting forward into that peace.

  ON A SUNNY SEPTEMBER day the gentlemen and esquires of the Queen’s household carried the leaden chest, in which lay Katharine Parr, into the little chapel attached to the Castle of Sudley.

  The walls of the chapel were hung with black cloth, and on them, to remind the assembly that this lady had been a Queen, were not only the arms of the Seymours, but also those of King Henry the Eighth whose sixth wife she had been.

  After the birth of her daughter she had died, having, some said, no wish to live. Others went further and said that she had been hastened to her death.

  Lady Jane Grey, one of the Queen’s chief mourners, listened to the service conducted by the Queen’s cofferer and recalled what she knew of the life of this lady whom she had loved; she remembered those alarming days when she had been the King’s wife, and the strange good chance which had led Nan to the courtyard when Wriothesley had dropped the all-important paper; and it seemed to Jane that God preserved some men and women from disaster whilst He guided the footsteps of others toward it, so that it seemed that each had a destiny to fulfill here on Earth.

  What of herself? she wondered fleetingly; and in the stifling atmosphere of the chapel she shivered. Her father was ambitious, and there were plans being made to encircle her head with a crown. How could she, a young girl, know what fate awaited her?

  Dear Queen Katharine! she thought. I shall never see her again. Never hear her gentle voice…never see her sweet smile…

  Now they were carrying the coffin out of the chapel. Soon they would bury it, and it would be goodbye… goodbye for ever to Queen Katharine Parr.

  THE RUMORS WERE spreading all over the land. How did Katharine Parr meet her death? There were unpleasant stories which came from those intimate with the Queen’s household and who knew of her husband’s light behavior toward a royal Princess who had lived under his roof.

  Why did the Queen die?

  The Princess Elizabeth would be an excellent match for the ambitious Admiral.

  The stories grew in wildness. Some said that a midwife had told a tale of being led blindfold to a quiet house that she might deliver a baby. She knew the mother must be a person of high degree, though she could not say more of who she was, except that she was young, fair and imperious. She might well have been a Princess.

  The Duchess of Somerset listened to these stories. They amused her; more, they delighted her. But the story she liked best was that which insisted that the Lord High Admiral had decided to rid himself of his wife by poison, and that this was the explanation of her sudden death.

  For, as she said to her husband, although the King would be loath to sign the death warrant of his beloved uncle whom he idealized, if he could be convinced that his idol had poisoned the beloved stepmother, he might be more ready to put pen to that necessary document.

  It was easy to spread such rumors. They ran through the capital, through the provinces, through the countryside, like fire that is unchecked.

  Katharine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry the Eighth, is dead. She married a fourth husband. Was that wise? The Admiral was such an ambitious man. And what part had the Princess Elizabeth played in this affair?

  So men and women stopped to talk in the streets of this matter.

  “Queen Katharine Parr is dead. Her husband killed her…for the sake of the Princess Elizabeth. He waited until the child was born… then he poisoned her.”

  He poisoned her! That became the simple cry which emanated from all the rumors.

  The words held a menace, and the shadow of the ax deepened over the heads of those who had lived close to the King’s sixth wife.

  THE END

  About the Book

  KATHARINE PARR married young to an older gentleman. Again in her second marriage, the caring Katharine nursed an elderly husband. Now in her thirties and a rich widow, Katharine longs to marry again—this time for love. The handsome and exciting Thomas Seymour promises Katharine a life of romance and happiness, and she eagerly accepts. King Henry VIII, meanwhile, is lonely after “putting away” his fifth wife, and begins to look for another. It is Katharine Parr who catches his eye—and is thrown into a life of danger and intrigue as the sixth wife of the fickle and ruthless Henry VIII.

  Katharine’s skills as a nurse serve her well with the ailing king, who relies on her to make him comfortable. But as the years pass, no sons are born, and no amount of nursing can distract the restless king from the knowledge that the time to produce more heirs is growing short. Amid religious strife in the court and the country, Katharine’s Protestantism makes her vulnerable to powerful nobles who would remove her from the throne, standing ready to provide the king with grounds to arrest the queen. Katharine and her companions live in constant fear of the king’s displeasure, which they know could lead quickly to execution. As Henry’s health worsens, they dare to hope that the queen will once again be a widow, and once again be free.

  Katharine Parr’s story is one of forebearance and fear, of hope and heartbreak. When at last the queen is free to reunite with Thomas, she can finally let down her guard and begin the life she has longed for. But Katharine, who has survived constant threat of arrest at court, is finally undone by the man who has vowed to protect her.

  Questions for Discussion

  Katharine urged her second husband, Lord Latimer, to downplay his religious convictions in order to avoid the king’s punishment. How far does she follow her own advice to keep dangerous opinions quiet from the court? Does she become bolder as her years with Henry pass? Why?

  Katharine and her sister Anne agree that the wedding ring around Katharine’s finger is akin to a noose around her neck. Does this overstate the case? Does Katharine also derive benefits from the throne? Based on Katharine’s experience, is marriage to Henry a survivable state—or was it luck that saved her in the end?

  In describing Henry’s style of leadership, Plaidy says that Henry threatens the nobility and courts the commoners. The reader experiences Henry’s reign through the eyes of the court. How do you imagine a commoner would view Henry VIII?

  When Katharine asks the king for favors, Henry is pleased to be able to grant her that which he himself quietly wants, allowing him to feel at once benevolent and relieved. Do you think Katharine is aware of this dynamic? Does she orchestrate this dialogue to any degree, or is she sincerely appealing for favors on her own behalf?

  Do Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward—bound by their relationship to the king but by little else—consider themselves a family? How would you describe their life in the palace? Having seen Henry’s queens come and go, why do you think the royal children allow themselves to become so attached to Katharine Parr?

  Discuss Katharine’s friendship with Jane Grey. Why is the queen so fond of the young girl? Is Katharine a good role model for Jane? If Jane were to become Edward’s queen, what lessons from Katharine would help her in her role? Are there any ways in which Katharine’s example would be detrimental to the pair?

  Dr. London’s plot to forge documents implicating Katharine as a heretic is foiled when Katharine takes a hand in
her own fate, sending a message to those who would destroy her that this queen will not easily be put away. Does this bold and intelligent image ring true throughout Katharine’s reign as queen consort?

  The author often takes us inside Henry’s head to witness the suspicions, longings, and justifications that lead him to act so unpredictably. Does this narrative device work to make him more sympathetic as a character, or more dangerous? Do his feelings about conscience and fraternity with God sound like insanity, or are they understandable as the musings of a man accustomed to great power?

  Elizabeth has many of the characteristics that made her father a strong and respected ruler. Does she also have qualities that could lead her to repeat Henry’s cruelty? What do you see as weaknesses?

  Anne Askew is in many ways a dangerous friend for Katharine to have. Why does Katharine risk so much to help her? Does Katharine relate to her friend’s religious zeal, or is she just trying to help a friend in need? Is she in any way responsible for Anne’s fate?

  Henry VIII is described as a man of many moods and a fierce will. Henry himself repeatedly declares, “A king is still a man.” Amid his many personas—sensualist, sovereign, diplomat, conqueror, husband, patient, father—can you identify one “real” Henry? How would he describe himself? What might Henry the man have been like if he were not king?

  After reading Wriothesley’s warrant for her arrest, Katharine despairs until Thomas Seymour urges her to fight for her life. Why does she not fight before this? Does she realize her advantage in having found the lost scroll, or could she have made more of the opportunity?

  What does Thomas find so alluring about Elizabeth? How big a part of the appeal is her place in line for the throne? Without her political stature, would Thomas have risked so much to seduce her? How do Katharine and Elizabeth compare in his eyes?