Did Henry VIII’s sixth wife narrowly escape the fate of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard?
Catherine Parr faced dangerous accusations, court intrigue, and a plot that had the king’s own signature attached. How did this intelligent and courageous queen outwit her enemies and save her life?
Join me as we unravel this gripping Tudor tale of survival, submission, and political manoeuvring. Catherine’s quick thinking may have saved her, but was it all part of Henry’s plan?
Transcript:
In today’s video, I’m going to be delving into the fascinating and dramatic story of Queen Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, and the very real danger she faced during her marriage to the king.
Was she nearly executed?
Let’s unravel the intrigue, the accusations, and how this remarkable queen narrowly avoided the scaffold. Stay tuned until the end, because this is one story you won’t want to miss!
By the time Catherine Parr became Henry VIII’s sixth wife in 1543, England was a nation divided by religious turmoil. Henry had broken with the authority of Rome, declared himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, overseen the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and survived rebellions against these changes, rebellions like the Pilgrimage of Grace. However, the Reformation was only in his infancy and factions at court were deeply split between conservative Catholics and those of the reformed faith.
Catherine Parr, a highly educated woman, was deeply interested in religious reform and surrounded herself with ladies who shared her views. While Henry himself vacillated between Catholic traditions and Protestant reforms, Catherine’s outspoken views began to attract dangerous attention from conservative factions at court, particularly figures like Bishop Stephen Gardiner and Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley.
Historian Susan James also points out that in 1545, “apparently at the queen’s instigation, secret overtures for a new alliance were made on behalf of the crown to the protestant princes of the Schmalkaldic league” and that Catherine’s own personal secretary was sent as an envoy. James explains that “Although the plan failed to materialize, the queen’s zealous evangelical position combined with her influence on the king, the recent precedent of her regency, and Henry’s deteriorating health to ring alarm bells among religious conservatives at court.” They had to do something about this queen who was such a bad influence on the king. If he died, she could be regent for the young Edward VI, and they couldn’t have that.
This group of Catholic conservatives led by Gardiner and Wriothesley set about plotting. And Catherine was vulnerable. The king was ailing and he was bad-tempered. Catherine’s reformist beliefs, her habit of engaging the king in theological debates, and her attempts to persuade him to reform the church further, had begun to irk him. After one particular debate, the king complained to Gardiner about being taught by his wife, and Gardiner seized the opportunity to bring Catherine down. He knew that Catherine and some of her ladies owned books that the king would view as heretical but he needed proof of her heresy.
A woman named Anne Askew had already come to the attention of the king’s council due to her activities in London, her preaching of the reformed faith. She’d been arrested in 1545, but subsequently released, but in 1546 she was arrested again, arraigned for heresy and condemned to death. Anne was then taken to the Tower of London where she was subjected to torture on the rack at the hands of Gardiner’s right-hand men, Sir Richard Rich and Sir Thomas Wriothesley. Even though she had already been condemned to death, she was racked because Gardiner was determined to link Anne to the queen’s friends, women like Catherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk; Anne Calthorpe, Countess of Sussex, and Anne Stanhope, Countess of Hertford, and Anne was refusing to name names during interrogations.
It was illegal for a woman to be racked but these men must have felt that the ends justified the means. As Anne had already been condemned and she was a gentlewoman, the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Anthony Kingston, refused to continue racking Anne after the first turn. He left the Tower in search of Henry VIII to inform him of this illegal and appalling torture and to seek a pardon for letting it happen. This did not stop Rich and Wriothesley, they simply racked the poor woman themselves until they were stopped by Kingston, who informed that the king had ordered that Anne should be taken off the rack and returned to her prison cell.
The torture failed to elicit any information from Anne, and when Anne was executed she had to be carried to the stake and a seat used to hold up her body, she had been racked so badly.
Despite this plan failing, Gardiner was able to obtain the king’s assent for a bill of articles to be drawn up against Catherine for heresy. According to martyrologist John Foxe, the king told his physician Dr Thomas Wendy what was going on and the signed bill of articles was ‘accidentally’ dropped and found by “some godly person and brought immediately to the queen”. Catherine understandably became hysterical. Heretics were being burnt at the stake and two of the king’s wives had ended their days on the scaffold, surely she was going to be executed as a heretic. The bill, after all, had her husband’s signature on it, she was doomed.
But all was not lost. The king, having heard about his wife’s hysteria, sent Dr Wendy to her, to treat her. The physician advised her to, and I quote from John Foxe, “shew her humble submission to the king” who would be “gracious and favourable to her”. Catherine acted quickly and wisely. She instructed her ladies to get rid of any evidence of heresy, such as the books in her chambers, while she went straight to her husband’s chambers. There, she humbled herself before the king, claiming that her debates were not meant to teach or challenge him but to learn from his superior wisdom and to take his mind off his health problems and pain. The king challenged her at first, saying to her, “You are become a Doctor, Kate, to instruct us (as we take it) and not to be instructed, or directed by us.” But she completely submitted, saying that she thought it “very unseemly & preposterous for the woman to take upon her the office of an instructor or teacher to her Lord and husband” and that a wife should “learn of her husband, & to be taught by him”.
Henry, flattered by this submission, forgave her, embracing her and kissing her and saying that they were “perfect friends” – phew! This moment is a testament to Catherine’s quick thinking and her reading of the situation and the king. She knew how to massage his ego, but it must have cost her dearly to utter those words to him.
But the danger wasn’t over. There was a warrant out for her arrest and it had been signed by the king. And, although he had made up with Catherine, the king didn’t say anything to Gardiner or Wriothesley.
The next day, as the king and queen were enjoying a stroll in the privy garden of Hampton Court Palace, Wriothesley, accompanied by forty guards, set about arresting the queen. The king was furious, shouting at Wriothesley and calling him “Knave! Arrant knave, beast and fool!”. He ordered his panicked advisor out of his sight. The plot had failed and the queen was safe.
Was Catherine nearly executed?
Well, I think she would have said yes. She was being plotted against by influential men, men close to the king, and the king himself had assented to her arrest.
But Elizabeth Norton, author of a biography on Catherine Parr, believes that what happened was more about the king demonstrating that he was in charge than about executing Catherine. Norton points out that when the king had previously decided to rid himself of a wife, he “immediately denied the queen access to his person.”
For example, in May 1536, he had abandoned Anne Boleyn at the May Day joust at Greenwich and travelled to Whitehall, never seeing her again; with Anne of Cleves, he had her removed from court to Richmond and only saw her after the annulment and his marriage to her lady, Catherine Howard; and with Catherine Howard, he’d abandoned her at Hampton Court Palace confined to her apartments, guarded even, and then had her moved to Syon. None of them could get to see him to plead their case, to change his mind. But with his sixth wife, he spoke to a doctor he then sent to her, the bill of articles found its way into the hands of a member of her household, and, when she sought him out, he allowed her into his presence. Catherine was clever, she used her intelligence to save herself, but Henry VIII gave her that opportunity to talk him round. And she had to completely submit to him to save herself, she was put in her place.
And by humiliating Wriothesely, in letting the plot go so far and then launching a public attack on Wriothesley, he put the Catholic conservatives in their place too. Norton writes, “By manipulating both the conservative faction at court and Catherine herself, Henry was able to achieve his ends. He demonstrated to Wriothesley, Gardiner and other members of his court that it was his will that was supreme. He also put Catherine firmly in her place and she never attempted to assert herself politically again during Henry’s reign.” And who can blame her?
Norton compares what happened to Catherine to the plots against Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop Stephen Gardiner. In 1543, members of the king’s privy council plotted against Cranmer and even obtained the king’s permission for his arrest, but the king told Cranmer of the plans to arrest him and gave the archbishop his ring, assuring him that the council would see it as proof of the king’s trust in him. When they went to apprehend Cranmer, the council saw the ring and when they approached the king about it, he told them that the archbishop had his full trust. Norton explains, “The plot against Cranmer had two immediate benefits for the king: it ensured that the archbishop, who had become overbold in his promotion of the reform, was sufficiently scared to ensure that, in public at least, his views accorded with Henry’s. It also demonstrated to the council that Henry was not a man to be toyed with and that it was he who decided who his servants were and if any of them were to be removed from power.”
And it was the same in 1544 with Bishop Stephen Gardiner, who was accused by members of the king’s council like the Duke of Suffolk John Dudley and Edward Seymour of denying the royal supremacy. The king led those council members to believe he would act against Gardiner, supporting his arrest, but, at the same time, allowing Gardiner to have the opportunity to find out and to come and see him to put things right. Again, Henry was showing them all that he was the one in charge.
Was it the same with Catherine? Perhaps so. But had she not submitted to the king, had she not acted so quickly, then I think she could have ended up being executed.
Her survival is a testament to her intelligence, courage, and adaptability. She survived. She outlived the king and was able to marry the man she really loved, Thomas Seymour, and to publish a further religious work after the king’s death. She may not have outlived the king by long, but she was able to have those months of happiness. However much she hated saying those words to the king, however much she didn’t believe what she was saying, those words saved her.
So, was Catherine Parr nearly executed? The evidence strongly suggests that she came dangerously close. Her ability to navigate Henry’s court and outwit her enemies saved her life. Catherine’s story is a powerful example of resilience and political savvy in one of the most perilous periods of English history.
Thank you for watching! If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe for more Tudor history content, and let me know in the comments what you think about Catherine Parr’s brush with death. Was she the luckiest of Henry’s wives, or the smartest? Was she ever really in danger? Let’s discuss! Until next time, take care!
