Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr (21 page)

His personal beliefs were firmly fixed on a ‘middle way’ in religion. This had been made clear in a letter written to the ambassador in France in 1540. The occasion was the fall of Cromwell (who had been accused of fomenting heresy) but the message was clear: ‘the king’s majesty hath of long season travailed, and yet most godly travaileth, to establish such an order in matters of religion, as, neither declining on the right hand nor on the left hand’.
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To underline this approach, three religious radicals and three Catholics were executed at the same time. One of the Catholics was Richard Featherstone, tutor to Princess Mary since she was nine years old. The following year, the princess’s former Lady Governess, the countess of Salisbury, was beheaded in the Tower, as the king made sure that all those who had supported his elder daughter, and the Catholic opposition she represented, were eliminated. Politics and religion were inextricable, for above all else, the king wanted unity and the maintenance of an orthodoxy that was unique to Henrician England. His was ‘a middle way neither Lutheran nor traditionally Catholic’. The king had fully endorsed the destruction of shrines, removal of images, cessation of pilgrimages and the assault on superstition that characterized the first phase of the Reformation in England. He had dissolved the monasteries and, through the wholescale distribution of their lands, set in motion a major change to English society.

Yet Henry could not be reconciled to the teaching of Martin Luther. The distaste he had felt as a young man for the German reformer never faded. The king maintained the straightforward piety in religious observance that was so important to his daughter Mary – a vital link between the two of them that has often been overlooked. Henry heard Mass regularly. It was an important part of his daily life and he could not be shaken in his belief in transubstantiation. This belief in the Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the Mass was a fundamental point of difference between Henry and the reformers. But it was not the only one. Justification by faith alone did not convince him, either. He believed there must be more to salvation and would not accept that good works and charity did not play their part in the redemption of the soul.

These convictions were incorporated into new instructions for the clergy of England issued in spring 1543. Known as
The King’s Book
, they had been commissioned in 1540 as a replacement to
The Bishop’s Book
of 1538. Often seen as a setback for the cause of reform,
The King’s Book
(or
A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man
, to give the work its proper name), was, in fact, the result of lengthy discussions among all Henry’s bishops. The work did not diverge so far from its predecessor as has been supposed but there were those, including Archbishop Cranmer, who wanted further reform and hoped that the process started in the 1530s would be an evolving one. The king saw things differently in 1543 and was committed to safeguarding the equilibrium in religious matters that he had striven so hard, and so bloodily, to effect. This was made clear in the preface to
The King’s Book
, which begins:

Like as in the time of darkness and ignorance, finding our people seduced and drawn from the truth by hypocrisy and superstition, we by the help of God and his word have travailed to purge and cleanse our realm from the apparent enormities of the same; wherein, by opening of God’s truth,
with setting forth and publishing of the scriptures, our labours (thanks be to God) have not been void and frustrate; so now, perceiving that in the time of knowledge the Devil (who ceaseth not at all times to vex the world) hath attempted to return again . . . into the house purged and cleansed . . .
we find entered into our people’s hearts an inclination to sinister understanding of scripture, presumption, arrogancy, carnal liberty and contention
; we be therefore constrained, for the reformation of them in time, and for avoiding of such diversity in opinions as by the said evil spirits as might be engendered, to set forth, with the advice of our clergy, such a doctrine . . . with the principal articles of our religion, as whereby all men may uniformly be led and taught the true understanding of that which is necessary for every Christian man to know . . .’
¹⁹

He did not mention that Christian women could be similarly contaminated by a ‘sinister understanding’ of the scriptures but the italicized phrases are eerily prescient of his alleged reaction to Katherine Parr’s religious interests three years later. Katherine’s personal beliefs in 1543 were still developing and there was nothing about this aspect of her life that troubled the king.

Henry knew that the issue of further reform divided his churchmen and the shifting groupings of those around him at court. Perhaps that did not displease him; and if the conservatives wanted to think they were in the ascendant, he would humour them, for a while. But while the year of his marriage to Katherine Parr was for a long time viewed as the nadir of the evangelicals, recent scholarship has shown that this is too simplistic an interpretation.
²⁰
It amused Henry to keep people in check, and possibly the choice of his new wife figured in these considerations. She was the widow of a staunch supporter of the old faith but her brother was aligned with the reformers. It was not obvious where Katherine herself stood, but her character, unostentatious piety and virtue were unassailable.

English religious policy remained fluid throughout the 1540s
and it should be remembered that the overwhelming majority of the king’s subjects were content to follow his lead and to acknowledge him as Supreme Head of the Church. And in 1543 religion was far from being the king’s only preoccupation. He still kept a very close eye on international developments. The Reformation had long since become a major factor in European affairs, complicating traditional rivalries. Henry (a heretic, but at least a Christian one, unlike the Turks with whom France had sided against Emperor Charles V) sat on the sidelines for much of his reign, courted from time to time by both sides but trusted by neither. He liked to think of himself as an important player in Europe, but in truth he was not. England had not been involved in a war on the Continent for many years, though there were scares of an invasion in the late 1530s, when it was feared that France and the Holy Roman Empire might unite to impose the old Catholic order on England. This threat receded, but relations with France remained uneasy, in part because of the situation in Scotland. The northern border was a constant headache for Henry. His dealings with his nephew, the flamboyant, promiscuous but still very Catholic King James V, were always difficult. He may have physically borne a strong similarity to the young Henry VIII but James was keen to govern Scotland well after the inevitable difficulties of his long minority and he meant to do so without interference from his relatives. The Scottish king resented English bullying and his uncle’s ill-disguised aim of imposing his will on the Stuart monarchy. He would not agree to become a client of the Tudors, despite the fact that his mother, Margaret, was Henry VIII’s elder sister. But she died in 1541 and James was not, in any case, on good terms with her.

By the autumn of 1542, James V’s determination to push the English away from his borders led to the campaign that had called Lord Latimer back to the north. It was to prove a disaster for the Scots. On 24 November a raiding party of Scots, consisting of many of the nobility who had joined James’s 18,000-strong army, found itself cut off amid the salt marshes and rising tide of
the river Esk, in the aptly named ‘debatable lands’ of the border. Facing them was a force of experienced English lancers under Sir Thomas Wharton.
²¹
Though Wharton’s force was much smaller, amounting to no more than 3,000 men in total, it wreaked havoc on those involved in an ill-considered advance. At the ensuing battle of Solway Moss many Scots were captured and their army put to flight. James V, who was not actually at the battle, retired to Edinburgh, with a view to re-grouping. He had certainly not given up and was hopeful that his French queen would produce an heir. At the beginning of December, his wife, Mary of Guise, gave birth to a daughter. James never saw the child. By that time he was already unwell with a disease that progressed at shocking speed. Following swiftly on the news of Wharton’s success against the Scots, Henry VIII soon learned, presumably without much real sorrow, of the death of his nephew.

The story that James, on his deathbed, had observed of the state of Scotland and his baby daughter’s arrival, ‘It began with a lass and it will end with a lass’ is probably apocryphal. But, for Henry VIII, the birth of Mary Queen of Scots, in a mourning and deeply divided kingdom, was an unlooked-for opportunity and one he meant to use to good effect. His plan, to marry the little girl to his own son, Prince Edward, amounted to an annexation of Scotland. As a ploy, it was ahead of its time. Though uniting the two crowns was an obvious solution to centuries of low-level but wearingly destructive combat along the border, the French were not yet ready to lose their influence in Scotland. Mary of Guise was from a powerful faction at the French court and though many Scottish nobles disliked her, there was insufficient support for Henry VIII among the Scottish aristocracy for the king to be able to gain control immediately of the infant Queen of Scots. He knew that he needed to consolidate and extend his influence in Scotland before his policy could be brought to successful fruition. A massive military invasion and occupation was simply out of the question.

As the frigid weather lifted, Henry had much to keep him
occupied. He was accustomed to upheaval, opposition, foreign threat, obloquy, failed marriages and unreliable nobles. He knew that, for all his efforts, he had only one male heir, who was still a child. The likelihood of a lengthy minority, such as the Scots now faced, was impossible to ignore. The question of the succession had to be addressed, and his personal life stabilized. He wanted to marry again. At some point unknown, but probably not later than April, he asked Lady Latimer to be his wife. She did not give him an immediate reply and so he waited, while she grappled with her emotions, though it is unlikely that he ever gave any serious consideration to the thought that she might refuse him.

Katherine was faced with a truth that must have seemed overwhelming at first. Thomas Seymour was exciting and promised a personal happiness quite different from her previous husbands. But the king was the king. He offered Katherine and her family power and wealth undreamed of when the Parrs of Kendal set out on their tortuous road to advancement eighty years before. Ultimately, he could not be denied. In fact, he was so convinced that he had made the right choice that he allowed Katherine a lengthy period to respond to his proposal of marriage. During that time, probably spent at her home in the Charterhouse, she had ample opportunity to contemplate what she would lose and also what she would gain. Subsequently, she acknowledged her anguish, but at the time she was prudent enough to keep it well within the circle of her immediate family.

Thomas Seymour, whose attentions to Katherine may have heightened the king’s own interest, was wise enough to know that he should leave the field clear. Katherine would not be his, or, at least, not yet. If he had to give her up, losing her to Henry was less of a disappointment than if she had chosen anyone else. Perhaps Seymour looked to the future. The king was elderly, in progressively bad health and his wife would probably survive him, unless unexpected illness or death in childbirth intervened. If the king should pass away first, she would not be
merely Lady Latimer, the widow of a provincial lord who had displeased his monarch, but Queen Katherine, and would retain her royal status. His disappointment may well have been leavened somewhat by the realization that Katherine was worth waiting for, in more ways than one.

Plans were already afoot for Seymour to resume his diplomatic career. As early as 10 March, Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, noted that he was to be sent back to the Netherlands as Henry’s representative there. In fact, he did not leave until early May, which suggests that the king did not view him as a serious rival. He may, if we attribute more devious motives to Henry, have wished to dangle Seymour under Katherine’s nose while she debated his proposal, as a test of her judgement and Seymour’s self-control. More likely, the delay was caused by quite extraneous factors such as the overall diplomatic situation and the inevitable slowness of decision-making. Seymour had accepted that he must do as he was bid. There were no histrionics. But Katherine had yet to agree that she would be the king’s sixth wife.

It cannot have been easy for her, since it was so far removed from what she really wanted. Neither can it have been a complete surprise. Henry had not picked her name from a list and it is inconceivable that she did not know of his interest. Later, she wrote that reflection and prayer had caused her, eventually, to see that it was God’s will that she became queen: ‘Howbeit,’ she wrote in 1547 to Thomas Seymour, ‘God withstood my will therein most vehemently for a time, and through his grace and goodness made that possible which seemeth to me most impossible; that was, made me to renounce utterly mine own will, and to follow his will most willingly.’ It had been, she acknowledged, a long struggle. ‘It were too long to write all the process of this matter. If I live, I shall declare it to you myself.’
²²

How much of this was intended to convince herself, as justification for the path she had taken, is open to question. But it does speak of a passionate nature eventually reaching an
accommodation with reality through what Katherine perceived to be God’s will. It does not necessarily mean, as has often been thought, that Katherine was already being influenced by religious reformers who had persuaded her that she was the vessel through which the changes to religion in England could be safeguarded, and even progressed still farther. Far more likely is that, at the time, she had followed the encouragement of her family and recognized the privileges and riches (as well as the dangers) that came with being Henry’s consort. Her quandary was a serious one, and, being a woman of her times, she wished to assign the final decision to God’s will, rather than earthly considerations.