Katharine Parr had been first married as a mere child to the old Lord Borough of Gainsborough, and had been left a widow before she was seventeen. She then married Lord Latimer, who died in 1543, and was immediately sought in marriage by Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of the king's third wife, who became Lord High Admiral in Edward's reign. Katharine undoubtedly intended to become his wife, but as she afterwards wrote, her "will was over-ruled by a higher power."
On the 20th June of the same year, Lady Latimer and her sister Mrs.
Herbert were at court "with my Lady Mary's Grace and my Lady
Elizabeth," and the next mention of her is in a licence of Thomas,
Archbishop of Canterbury, "authorised thereto by parliament to Henry
VIII. (who has deigned to marry the Lady Katharine, late wife of Lord
Latimer deceased) to have the marriage solemnised in any church,
chapel, or oratory, without the issue of banns." It took place on the
12th July following, in an upper oratory called the Queen's Privy
Closet, within the honour of Hampton Court, Gardiner, Bishop of
Winchester, officiating.
"Anne of Cleves [wrote Chapuys to Charles V.], would like to be in her sherte [shroud] so to speak, with her mother, having especially taken great grief and despair at the king's espousal of this last wife, who is not nearly so beautiful as she, besides that there is no hope of issue, seeing that she had none with her two former husbands."
Others, besides the poor, discarded Lady Anne were also in tribulation, and a letter from one of the Lutherans in England to Henry Bullinger, the reformer, reports that "the king has within these two months burnt three godly men in one day. For in July he married the widow of a nobleman named Latimer, and he is always wont to celebrate his nuptials by some wickedness of this kind."
But Katharine herself was glad exceedingly, and told Lord Parr that "it having pleased God to incline the king to take her as his wife, which is the greatest joy and comfort that could happen to her, she informs her brother of it as the person who has most cause to rejoice thereat, and requires him to let her sometimes hear of his health, as friendly as if she had not been called to this honour."
Wriothesley, in forwarding this letter from the queen, Lord Parr's "gracious lady and kind sister," doubts not but that he will thank God, and frame himself to be more and more an ornament to Her Majesty.
The marriage was in every way satisfactory. Katharine was twenty-six, about one year younger than the Lady Mary, and was by universal fame reported "a prudent, beautiful, and virtuous lady." The royal family had reason to be grateful for her influence over the king, whom she persuaded to restore both Mary and Elizabeth to their rank. To Edward she was a second mother, and Henry seems to have looked upon her with something akin to respect, appointing her regent when he crossed the Channel to invade France in 1544.
She offended him, however, on one occasion, by venturing to express a difference of opinion on a religious question, and it was said that articles of heresy were drawn up against her. "A good hearing it is," exclaimed Henry, "when women become such clerks; and a thing much to my comfort to come in mine old days to be taught by my wife! Her prudence and tact saved her life, if it was ever seriously in danger."
Henry's sordid tragedy was played out on the 28th January 1547, when the tyrant breathed his last, and left his two wives and two daughters to unravel the skein which he had so persistently entangled for them. Katharine Parr took her fate immediately into her own hands, and thirty-five days after Henry's death, secretly married her former admirer, Sir Thomas, now Lord Seymour, who was described by Hayward as "fierce in courage, courtly in fashion, in personage stately, in voice magnificent, but somewhat empty in matter." The union was not a happy one, owing mainly to Seymour's intrigues with the Princess Elizabeth, a circumstance that was thought to have shortened Katharine's life. The ci-devant queen died at Sudeley Castle, after having given birth to a daughter, in August 1548, aged thirty-six.
After the one tragic episode in her life, the course of Anne of Cleves ran smoothly enough. Mary befriended her always, and made her quondam stepmother a prominent figure at her coronation. She frequently paid her visits, and treated her with all the respect imaginable. Anne never left England after her ill-starred arrival, ending her days peacefully in 1557.