Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr (41 page)

The queen’s life focused once more on family and occasions of state. Henry was glad to parade her when the French admiral Claude d’Annebaut arrived in England in August for the official signing of the treaty hammered out by Gardiner early in the year. This was no Field of Cloth of Gold, but it was still a magnificent affair and Henry was determined that both Katherine and his daughter Mary should look their very best. Nor was Katherine’s family forgotten. Her brother received the admiral and his entourage, which numbered nearly 1,000 men, at Greenwich
Palace and Cuthbert Tunstall would have lodged him at his London residence, Durham House, but it had recently been damaged by fire. Instead, d’Annebaut lodged with the bishop of London, Edmund Bonner, until he and his party were conveyed downriver to Hampton Court where the king, queen and royal children awaited them.

Flashing jewels that the king had supplied from the extensive royal collection, Katherine was every inch the Tudor consort. Henry VIII had called a halt to her literary career but he seems to have taken great pleasure in acknowledging her importance to him as wife and queen. He showered her with precious stones and clothes and luxurious accessories. The royal accounts show that she ordered, at this time, numerous pairs of Spanish gloves from ‘Mark Milliner’, including two pairs of ‘perfumed gloves of crimson velvet and purple, trimmed with buttons of diamonds and rubies’. There was also a ‘collar of crimson velvet trimmed with lace of gold’ and numerous pairs of golden aglets (which were used to fasten clothing) beribboned and bejewelled. And shortly after Anne Askew’s death, the king gave orders that

John Lange, jeweller of Paris, and Giles Lange, his son, [have] licence to bring or sell into the king’s dominions . . . all manner jewels and precious stones, as well set in gold and embroidered in garments as unset, all manner goldsmiths work or gold and silver, all manner sorts of skins and furs of sables . . . new gentlesses of what fashion or value the same be . . . in gold or otherwise as he . . . shall think best for the pleasure of us, our dearest wife, the queen, our nobles, gentlemen and other.
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Once more, Katherine accompanied the king on an autumn tour of southern England, which involved hunting and feasting. In a sign that she was still in need of intellectual stimulation, she began to learn Spanish. But she did not leave Henry’s side until early December, and then the parting was his choice, not hers. The king had passed a golden few months with his wife, but as
the chill of winter began to bite, Henry’s intimations of his own mortality grew stronger. His failing health must have been apparent to Katherine, but she could not gainsay his will. For most of December, throughout Christmas and into the New Year, the king closeted himself with a small circle of advisers at Whitehall. Outwardly, the prospect of his imminent death was not openly conceded, least of all by Henry himself. But he knew that time was running out. He must make arrangements for his son’s minority, without distractions. So Katherine and Mary passed Christmas without him. ‘The queen and court’, reported Van der Delft, the imperial ambassador, ‘have gone to Greenwich, although she has never before left him on a solemn occasion.’
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Small wonder, then, that Katherine had sent a double portrait of the king and herself to his heir. She did not want to be forgotten and was trying to put down a marker for her own place in any future regime. But, as the French ambassadors told Francis I, she was kept away from her husband. Writing on the same day that Edward thanked his stepmother for her New Year’s gift, they noted that they had learned

from several good quarters that this king’s health is much better than for more than 15 days past. He seems to have been very ill and in great danger owing to his legs, which have had to be cauterized. During that time he let himself be seen by very few persons. Neither the queen nor the Lady Mary could see him, nor do we know that they will now do so. We have great reason to conjecture that, whatever his health, it can only be bad and will not last long.
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It was not so bad, however, that the king had ceased to rule. In the last days of his reign he moved decisively, some would say vindictively against the forces of conservatism, refusing to remember Bishop Gardiner in his will or to give him a role as his son’s adviser when Edward became king. And, irritated by the pretensions of the Howard family, he imprisoned both the earl of Surrey and his father, the duke of Norfolk, in the Tower, on
charges of treason. Surrey was executed a matter of days before the king’s demise but the old duke, a major figure in English politics in the first half of the sixteenth century, was saved by the king’s death. It must have given him a grim satisfaction to know that he had bested his monarch at last.

We do not know whether Katherine saw Henry again after the beginning of December, 1546. Her apartments at Whitehall were prepared for her return there on 11 January and though it has often been assumed that she did not, in fact, take up residence there again, her letter to her stepson quoted earlier is signed from Westminster, not Greenwich.
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However, no evidence survives that she was allowed to see her husband in his final days. Henry was not a man who liked scenes and he was working hard, against the clock, with Hertford, Paget and Denny, to assure the future shape of English government. These men had their own reasons for keeping the queen away. In his physical weakness, mindful as they were of his affection for Katherine, there was always the possibility that she might persuade him to a course of action that did not sit well with their own ambitions. A death-bed parting between husband and wife therefore seems extremely unlikely.

In fact, it fell to Anthony Denny on Thursday 27 January 1547 to tell the king that ‘in man’s judgement, you are not like to live’. Faced with this reality, Henry’s thoughts turned to his immortal soul. He believed, he said, ‘the mercy of Christ is able to pardon me all my sins, yes, though they were greater than they be’. But he did not ask for his wife, and prevaricated even on whether he would see a priest, saying that if it were to be any, it should be Dr Cranmer. He would, however, sleep for a while before he made up his mind.
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By the time Cranmer, summoned from Croydon on a bitter night, arrived in the royal bedchamber, Henry could no longer speak. All he apparently could do, when the archbishop exhorted him to show some sign that he died in the faith of Christ, was to squeeze Cranmer’s hand. In this simple gesture the king demonstrated, at the last, his commitment to the religious changes in
England that he had guided, sometimes in seemingly contradictory fashion, over the previous twenty years. Shortly after, in the small hours of 28 January 1547, he died.

Katherine’s third husband had been a giant of a man. To this day, whatever one thinks of him, he dominates the history of England. The queen must have known, when they broke the news of his death to her, that her life without him would be profoundly different.

‘Set doubts aside
And to some sporting fall’

From a poem written by Sir Thomas Seymour for Katherine Parr

D
RESSED IN BLUE VELVET
and wearing a widow’s ring of gold with a death’s head on it, Katherine watched the obsequies for Henry VIII from her private chapel, the Queen’s Closet, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Henry’s interment beside Jane Seymour, on 16 February 1547, marked the end of a magnificent and costly funeral. Vast amounts of black cloth had been ordered for the mourners, for Henry’s household servants, his wife’s ladies, and the households of Mary and Elizabeth, as well as black velvet for his two daughters themselves.
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The procession conveying the king’s coffin from Westminster to Windsor was made up of more than 1,000 horsemen and hundreds of mourners on foot. It was four miles long and attracted crowds of onlookers. Stopping overnight at the former convent at Syon in Middlesex, the cortè arrived at Windsor in the early afternoon of the 15th. Masses and dirges for the king’s soul had been said along the route but the main service, the Requiem Mass, did not start until the following day. Bishop Gardiner officiated, assisted by the bishops of Ely and London.
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Although Henry VIII had died holding Archbishop Cranmer’s hand, the man who had helped
the king split with Rome took no part in his funeral. For the good of his soul, Henry wanted the familiar Latin forms of the old religion, not the simplified English rites of the reformers.

It is interesting to speculate on what must have been passing through Katherine’s mind as she witnessed these events. Dislike of Gardiner and distaste that the form of the ceremony did not sit well with her own beliefs was probably tempered by a natural grief for her husband’s passing. And there must have been other, more earthly and immediate concerns: questions about her own interests now she was dowager queen and, most crucial of all, the future of her relationship with the nine-year-old boy who would be crowned king of England in four days’ time. She had pinned her hopes on continuing to be a strong presence in Edward’s life, maintaining her influence over his development and acting as his regent, with the advice and support of a Privy Council. But now, after only two and a half weeks of widowhood, she was a deeply frustrated woman.

To her dismay, she had learned that the clock would not be turned back to 1544. Henry VIII had spoken of her with affection in the will that had been drawn up a month before his death. Katherine was, he said, his ‘entirely beloved wife’ and he had left her very comfortably, if not exactly generously, supported from a monetary point of view. ‘The queen shall have’, he commanded, ‘
£
3,000 in plate, jewels and stuff, beside what she shall please to take of what she has already, and further receive in money
£
1,000 besides the enjoyment of her jointure.’ She would always be served and waited on as befitted a queen, with a large household and all her dower properties.
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Her manors at Hanworth and Chelsea were fine houses set in beautiful grounds, both big enough to support a household that numbered well over a hundred people. She could still exercise patronage, continue her writing, live a life of privilege and comfort. In the government of the realm and in the upbringing of her stepson she would, however, play no further part. Power would not be hers. It had passed elsewhere.

We do not know exactly when Katherine learned of her exclusion, or by what means. Nor is it possible to say when she was told of Henry’s death. The information may have been imparted all at once, but it seems more likely that the full realization of her situation did not dawn on her immediately. Henry VIII’s death was not made public until three days after his demise. During that time, Denny, Paget and Edward Seymour, working closely together, contrived to maintain the appearance that the king was still alive. Denny’s position in the Privy Chamber meant that he controlled physical access to the inner sanctum, where Henry’s body lay stiffening in the great bed where he had breathed his last in the early hours of 28 January. The normal rhythms of the royal day continued, as food was taken in and ceremony observed. But behind the scenes, as this brilliant deception was enacted, there was a great deal of activity. The politicians to whom the dead king had entrusted the direction of England were determined to ensure a smooth, unchallenged passage to the new regime, and this involved careful planning. Two things were of paramount importance: possession of Henry’s will and control of the new king’s person. Katherine had neither of these. But Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford and the elder of Edward VI’s two uncles, did.