by Alison Weir
Before long, both Elizabeth and her sister Mary arrived at court. Their new stepmother must have been a very welcome presence in their lives, especially to Elizabeth, who had for most of her young life lacked a mother's love and guidance. The King had never felt comfortable in the company of Anne Boleyn's precocious daughter, but now, under Katherine Parr's benign influence, he softened and unbent towards her.
Elizabeth was nearly ten. Her early promise had been fulfilled, and she was now as intelligent and sharp-witted as many an adult. Already she showed signs of having inherited her mother's love of flattery and her coquettish manner, as well as her courage. But, although she was temperamental, Elizabeth was not as volatile as Anne Boleyn had been, and her insecure childhood had taught her the value of discretion and dissimulation. Already she spoke several languages and was well grounded in the classics. This impressed Queen Katherine, and she immediately took upon herself the duty of supervising Elizabeth's education; indeed, she was to make such a good job of it that the King would later ask her advice when it came to appointing a suitable tutor for Prince Edward.
Henry's eldest child, the Lady Mary, was again finding it a pleasure to visit the court. She and Katherine Parr soon became great friends, and it is certain that Katherine did much to ease Mary's frustration by according her all the respect due to a princess. She became her confidante in everything except matters of religion, and- being near in age - they shared similar interests.
That left Edward. His visits to court would be less frequent than his sisters', for the King feared he might catch some mortal disease from too great a contact with the world beyond the rigorous standards of hygiene in his nursery. However, this did not prevent Katherine from overseeing his progress or being watchful of those who looked after him. In time, Edward would come to love his stepmother as much as his cold nature allowed him to love anybody; she was perhaps the most gentle influence he knew in his short life. At last there was a degree of harmony in the King's family.
On 12 October 1543, Edward celebrated his sixth birthday, and his royal father decided it was time to begin his formal education. Prior to this date, Edward had been 'brought up among the women', as he later recorded in his journal. Now he was to be handed over to male tutors and governors, chief of whom was a man with reformist views, Dr Richard Cox, a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and the future Bishop of Ely. On the King's orders, the child was to be taught the usual curriculum of the period: classics, theology, languages, mathematics, grammar, and the known sciences, as well as sports and gentlemanly pursuits. Barnaby FitzPatrick, the son of an Irish nobleman, was shortly afterwards appointed Edward's whipping-boy, for it was unthinkable that the heir to the throne be chastised by lesser mortals. Fortunately, the boys became firm friends.
So absorbed was the King in plans for his heir's education and for an invasion of France scheduled for the following summer, that he did not notice fresh trouble brewing in Scotland. Thus the revocation of the Treaty of Greenwich by the Scottish Parliament in December 1543 came as an unpleasant shock to him, as did news that the 'auld alliance' between Scotland and France had been renewed. Henry's rage was terrible indeed. Gone were his hopes of a united Britain, gone his ambition to rule Scotland. Worse still, it had been intimated that his precious son was not good enough for the Scottish Queen. Such insults were not to be borne.
In retaliation, Henry sent an army to Scotland under Lord Hertford with the intention of subduing his rebellious neighbour. He could not afford to leave his northern border open when he took the offensive against the French the following year, and he wished, above all, to teach the Scots a lesson they would never forget. The English army set off just before Christmas to begin its 'rough wooing' of the Queen of Scots, and Hertford executed his master's orders with devastating thoroughness. Leith, Edinburgh and Holyrood were burned, and then he blazed on to Berwick, leaving a trail of destruction and misery along the borders; even today, in such towns as Jedburgh and Melrose, the results of his depredations may still be seen.
The campaign wore on throughout the spring and summer of 1544, while the young Queen Mary was hidden by her mother in a remote abbey. Nor did reports of the destruction appease Henry; in 1545, Hertford was again commanded to attack the Scots, and this time he wrought havoc by sacking, among others, the great abbeys of Dryburgh and Coldingham. At this point, any Scottish nobles who might have been sympathetic to an alliance with England had been alienated, and the Scots had been driven further into the arms of the French. All internal struggles ceased as the aristocratic factions united against England. English raids persisted until Henry's death, and eventually the Scots were obliged to send Queen Mary to France, for fear she might be abducted by the English. There, she would be brought up by the French royal family, and marry into it.
Katherine Parr's first Christmas season as queen was overshadowed by events in Scotland, yet the festivities at Hampton Court were much as usual. On the Sunday before Christmas Lord Parr was created EarlofEssex and the Queen's uncle, another Sir William Parr, was created Lord Parr of Horton and appointed chamberlain to the Queen. After Christmas, however, Henry's leg began to give him trouble, and in January 1544 he suffered several agonising attacks of pain. Chapuys, who was by now himself a virtual invalid and hoped to be going home to Savoy soon, thought that Henry's 'chronic disease' and 'great obesity' were endangering his life and needed careful attention. The King, he reported, was so weak on his legs he could hardly stand. Yet no one dared remonstrate with him about the amount he was eating, nor did they try to prevent him from going about his daily duties as if nothing were wrong with him. His one comfort was the kindness of his wife, who proved as devoted a nurse as she was a companion. He could not praise her enough: evidently the first six months of their marriage had been a success.
On 7 February 1544, as a mark of his esteem, the King passed a new Act of Succession. 'Forasmuch as his Majesty, sithence the death of the late Queen Jane' - Queen Anne and Queen Katherine are not mentioned, for as far as the King was concerned they did not count 'hath taken to wife Katherine, late wife to Lord Latimer, by whom as yet his Majesty hath no issue, but may full well, when it shall please God,' it was provided that, 'if their union might be blessed with offspring', such offspring would be placed after Prince Edward in the order of succession. Failing any issue of the King's present marriage, the Act optimistically - and alarmingly, as far as Katherine was concerned - invested the succession in 'the children [the King] might have by other queens'. After them, would come the Lady Mary and then the Lady Elizabeth. The new Act was generally approved of by the King's subjects, and many hoped that the Queen might yet have a child, although she had now been married for seven months with no sign of pregnancy. As Sir William Paget wrote, 'We trust in God, which hath hitherto preserved his Majesty to his glory and honour and our comfort, to preserve him longer and send him time enough to proceed' to the siring of heirs. It was to prove a vain prayer.
That February, the Queen entertained the Spanish Duke of Najera, who arrived at court on the 17th, and the Lady Mary, who could speak Spanish, was there to assist her. When Eustache Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, escorted the Duke into the Queen's presence, both royal ladies asked courteously for news of the Emperor. Unfortunately, Katherine was not feeling very well, but she put on a brave face and danced 'for the honour of the company'. Chapuys was impressed by her manner towards Mary, and he told the Emperor that she had constantly urged the King to keep Mary as second in line to the throne after Edward in the new Act of Succession.
Also present on that occasion was the Duke of Najera's secretary, Pedro de Gant, who left an account describing how the Duke kissed the Queen's hand on being presented, and of her leading him to another room where he was entertained with music and 'much beautiful dancing'. Katherine danced first with her brother, 'very gracefully', and then the Lady Mary partnered Lady Margaret Douglas and then some of the gentlemen of the court. A Venetian from the King's household danced galliards 'with suc
h extraordinary activity that he seemed to have wings upon his feet - never was a man seen so agile!' The dancing went on for several hours, after which the Queen signalled to a nobleman who spoke Spanish to present some gifts to her guest. Najera again kissed her hand and she retired to her chamber. Pedro de Gant thought her 'graceful', and said she had a 'cheerful countenance; she is praised for her virtue'. On this occasion, she wore an underskirt of cloth of gold beneath a sleeved overdress of brocade lined with crimson satin, the sleeves being lined with crimson velvet, and the train being two yards long. Hanging around her neck were two crosses and a jewel of very magnificent diamonds; there were 'a great number of splendid diamonds in her head-dress' also.
After Najera had left the court, Mary stayed on. She had been occupying her time lately with translating Erasmus's Paraphrases of the Gospel of St John, an exercise of which the Queen heartily approved, for she felt that it became a woman of rank to undertake intellectual pursuits. Also, around this time, Mary sat for her portrait by a certain Master John, who charged her 4.00 for it. This same artist was also commissioned by Katherine Parr to paint another portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery, and said to be of the King's great-niece, Lady Jane Grey, who in 1548 lived in the Queen's household. For a long time this second portrait was thought to be of Katherine herself, but the identification with Jane is said to be proved by the similarity of a brooch worn by the sitter to a brooch on an authenticated engraving of Jane. It is probable that Katherine gave Jane this piece of jewellery, and that the portrait is after all one of the Queen. The lady in the portrait looks more than ten years old, as her figure is quite developed and her jowls sag slightly; facially, she bears a striking resemblance to the Scrots portraitofKatherine Parr and she also wears an identical pendant.
On 22 April 1544, Lord Chancellor Audley died, and the indefatigable Wriothesley replaced him on 3 May. Wriothesley, for all his flattery, did not like Katherine Parr, and later did his best to bring about her downfall. He was not a man of great religious bias, but one who adapted his views to suit the times. His antipathy may have been purely personal. He had helped to bring down both Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard, and seems to have enjoyed political intrigue for its own sake. For the present, he was the political ally of the staunchly conservative Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who suspected the Queen of heresy and was awaiting his opportunity to unseat her. Together, Wriothesley and Gardiner posed a potential threat to Katherine's future as Queen, although fortunately she was aware of their suspicions and careful to give them no cause for complaint.
One of the chief pleasures of queenship, Katherine found, was the ability to help others. To her mind, it was the chief duty of a queen to assist those who came to her in need. Thus, when Lady Hertford grew anxious about her husband, who was absent in Scotland and engaged on a very dangerous mission, Katherine spoke to the King on her behalf, and was able to inform Lady Hertford, in a letter written on 3 June 1544, that her husband would be recalled before Henry set sail for his planned invasion of France. The King's children and some of his other relatives had good reason to be grateful to her also, as did her servants and the humble people who benefited from her charity.
At the end of June, the King and Queen were present at the wedding of the Lady Margaret Douglas to the Earl of Lennox, one of the few remaining Scottish nobles with Anglophile sympathies. This took place in the chapel of Henry's new London palace, which had been built on the site of the old leper hospital of St James, not far from Whitehall. It had been intended as a residence for Anne Boleyn, but she had not lived to see its completion, and it was Katherine Parr who stood by Henry's side when St James's Palace was first used for a state occasion.
Preparations for the invasionofFrance were now so far advanced that the King decided to set out in early July. Before then, however, he accorded his wife the highest honour of all, in token of his trust in her and his respect for her integrity. On 7 July, it was announced in Council that she was to be regent in his absence, and Archbishop Cranmer, Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, Lord Hertford, Dr Thomas Thirlby and Sir William Petre were designated her advisers.
Prior to his departure, Henry also gave instructions about the education of his son. Dr John Cheke, a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and a famous academic with secret Lutheran tendencies, was appointed to supplement Dr Cox 'for the better instruction of the Prince'. Sir Anthony Cooke was also engaged to teach sports and recreational activities. Henry's choice of Cheke was applauded by all the great minds of his day and we may be certain that Katherine Parr had either urged or approved of it. Roger Ascham, who later became tutor to the Lady Elizabeth, called Cheke 'an excellent man, full of learning'.
When Cheke arrived upon the scene, he and Cox drew up a new curriculum of study for the Prince, to include languages, philosophy and 'all liberal sciences' in addition to his usual studies. Already, Edward was an extremely precocious and solemn child; so serious was he that he is known to have laughed out loud in public only once during his life. No doubt this was due to the fact that he was very early on made aware of the great destiny awaiting him, and whose shoes he must one day fill. From birth, he was isolated from the hubbub of court life and over-protected by an anxious father; he had never known the security of a mother's love, and hence grew into a self-contained child. His father was an affectionate yet distant, glittering figure, who must have inspired awe in his son whenever they met. It was left to Katherine Parr to alleviate the little boy's loneliness; it was slow progress, but she eventually won his affection, although it was too late to repair all the damage that had been caused by his early upbringing.
With Elizabeth, Katherine had initially had more success, for this child was eager and able to reciprocate the warmth emanating from her stepmother, even though she was inclined to use it as a stepping stone to the King's favour. Through Katherine's good offices, she too had a new tutor at this time, William Grindal. Yet, early in 1544, a rift occurred between Elizabeth and her father. The cause is not known, yet it was enough to make Henry banish his younger daughter from the court. Queen Katherine did all she could to effect a reconciliation between father and daughter, but the King proved obstinate, and her efforts were in vain. Now he was going abroad with the rift unhealed, and there was nothing that Katherine could do about it.
By the second week in July, the English fleet was ready to sail, and the royal army was mustered at Dover. The Queen accompanied her husband to the port and kissed him farewell on 14 July, when he embarked for France. She then led the whole country in a prayer of intercession for his safety and success which she had composed herself to be read in churches:
O Almighty King and Lord of Hosts, which by Thy angels thereunto appointed dost minister both war and peace . . . our cause now being just, and being enforced to enter the war and battle, we most humbly beseech Thee, O Lord God of Hosts, so to turn the hearts of our enemies to the desire of peace that no Christian blood be spilt. Or else grant, O Lord, that with small effusion of blood and little damage of innocents, we may to Thy glory obtain victory; and that, the wars being ended, we may all with one heart and mind knit together in concord and amity, laud and praise Thee, who livest and reignest, world without end, Amen.
After the King's departure, Katherine returned to Greenwich, there to attend to her duties as regent and await news of her husband and his campaign. She wrote to him regularly throughout their time apart, gentle, touching letters that testify plainly to the lively affection that had grown between them. In the first, she spoke of how much she was missing him:
Although the distance and time and account of days neither is long nor many of your Majesty's absence, yet the wantofyour presence, so much desired and beloved by me, maketh me that I cannot quietly pleasure in anything until I hear from your Majesty. The time seemeth to me very long, with a great desire to know how your Highness hath done since your departing hence, whose prosperity and health I prefer and desire more than mine own. And whereas I know your Majest
y's absence is never without great need, yet love and affection compel me to desire your presence. Again, the same zeal and affection forceth me to be best content with that which is your will and pleasure. Thus love maketh me in all things set apart mine own convenience and pleasure and to embrace most joyfully his will and pleasure whom I love.
She acknowledged herself greatly indebted to God for His benefits bestowed upon her:
even such confidence have I in your Majesty's gentleness, knowing myself never to have done my duty as were requisite and meet for such a noble prince [is this, one wonders, a reference to her seeming inability to conceive a child?], at whose hands I have found and received so much love and goodness that with words I cannot express it.
This said, the Queen concluded, 'lest I should be too tedious to your Majesty,' committing Henry to God's care and governance.
Shortly afterwards, she received a letter from the Lady Elizabeth, bewailing her exile from the court and thanking Katherine for her hitherto fruitless intercession with the King. She had not dared to write to her father, she confessed, and begged her stepmother to send a letter on her behalf, 'praying ever for his sweet benediction' and beseeching God to send him victory over his enemies, 'so that your Highness and I may as soon as possible rejoice in his happy return'.
Absence from his wife had made Henry all the fonder, and when Katherine wrote again, begging him to forgive Elizabeth for her unknown offence and receive the child again at court, he relented, and gave his permission for her to go to Greenwich to keep Katherine company. Mary was already there, which meant that the Queen could extend her own special brand of kindness to both of Henry's daughters at once.
