[233] At the time of Katharine’s marriage, her brother, Lord Parr, was on the Scottish border as Warden of the Marches; and a few days after the wedding the new Queen-Consort wrote to him from Oatlands saying 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 desires to inform her brother of it, as the person who has most cause to rejoice thereat. She requires him to let her hear sometimes of his health as friendly as if she had not been called to this honour.” (Henry VIII. Calendar, vol. 18, part 1.)
[234] It depends upon a metrical family history written by Katharine’s cousin, Sir Thomas Throckmorton.
[235] The document is in the Record Office. About half way down the margin is written, “For your daughter.” At the top is written, “Lady Latimer.”
[236] The author of the Chronicle of Henry VIII. thus portrays Katharine’s character: “She was quieter than any of the young wives the King had, and as she knew more of the world she always got on pleasantly with the King and had no caprices. She had much honour to Lady Mary and the wives of the nobles, but she kept her ladies very strictly.... The King was very well satisfied with her.”
[237] Many years afterwards when Parr, then Marquis of Northampton and a leading anti-Catholic, was with other nobles urging Queen Elizabeth to drop shilly-shally and get married in earnest, the Queen, who was of course playing a deep game which they did not understand, turned upon Parr in a rage and told him that he was a nice fellow to talk about marriage, considering how he had managed his own matrimonial affairs. (Hume, “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.”)
[238] Record Office. Henry VIII. Calendar, vol. 18, part 1.
[239] Spanish State Papers, Calendar, vol. 6, part 2. The author of the Chronicle of Henry VIII. (Guaras) says that the King ordered Anne to come to the wedding, but if that be the case there is no record of her presence; though all the other guests and witnesses are enumerated in the notarial deed attesting the marriage. The Spanish chronicler puts into Anne’s mouth, as a sign of her indifference, a somewhat ill-natured gibe at the “burden that Madam Katharine hath taken upon herself,” explaining that she referred to the King’s immense bulk. “The King was so fat that such a man had never been seen. Three of the biggest men that could be found could get inside his doublet.” Anne’s trouble with regard to her brother was soon at an end. The Emperor’s troops crushed him completely, and in September he begged for mercy on his knees, receiving the disputed duchies from Charles as an imperial fief. Anne’s mother, who had stoutly resisted the Emperor’s claims upon her duchies, died of grief during the campaign.
[240] Strype’s “Memorials of Cranmer.”
[241] Strype’s “Memorials,” Foxe’s “Acts and Monuments,” and Burnet; all of whom followed the account given by Cranmer’s secretary Morice as to Cranmer’s part.
[242] Morice’s anecdotes in “Narratives of the Reformation,” Camden Society. See also Strype’s “Memorials” and Foxe. The MS. record of the whole investigation is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. I am indebted for this fact to my friend Dr. James Gairdner, C.B.