THE LADY LATIMER
No task is more congenial to the earnest student of history than that
of tracing the origin of some important event, and following its
gradual development from a trivial incident to its culmination in
a great matter destined to alter the fortunes, and even change the
faith, of an entire nation. If we would reach a thorough comprehension
of the chain of events which led up to the proclamation of Jane Grey
as Queen of England, we must now leave her to pursue her Greek and
Latin studies and broider her samplers at Bradgate, while we trace
the earlier fortunes of those who so ruled her destiny as to compel a
simple-hearted and naturally retiring girl to accept a station which,
by the time she was constrained to relinquish it, brought her to the
lowest depths of misfortune and transformed the regal diadem which she
herself had never coveted into a crown of martyrdom.
The Lady Latimer, better known in history as Queen Katherine Parr,
influenced the fortunes of Lady Jane Grey more than is usually
imagined, for it was to her care that the ten-year-old child was
committed (after it had been proposed by the Seymour faction that she
should become Queen-Consort of Edward VI and head of the Protestant
party in England), in order that her education might be directed
and her mind bent towards “the new learning” of which Katherine was
secretly a supporter.
Born in 1513 at that lordly Kendal Castle whose ruins still command one
of the loveliest prospects in Westmoreland, Katherine Parr, though a
simple gentlewoman, could boast royal blood--that of our Anglo-Saxon
kings, inherited from her paternal ancestor Ivo de Talbois, who married
Lucy, the sister of the renowned Earls Morcar and Edwin. She was also
of Plantagenet descent through her great-great-grandmother Alice
Nevill, sister to Cicely Nevill, Duchess of York, a lineage that made
her cousin four times removed to King Henry VIII himself. We will not
enter in detail into the many alliances of the Parr family with the
Nevills, Stricklands, Throckmortons, and Boroughs, but we are safe in
describing it as a wealthy and honourable county stock, much looked up
to in those days.
Katherine’s father, Sir Thomas Parr, married, when his bride was but
little over thirteen, Maud Green, daughter of the rich Sir Thomas Green
of Boughton and Greens-Norton in Northamptonshire. Lady Parr had a
sister, Mary, who, when a mere child, married Lord Vaux of Harrowden,
and, dying without issue, left her splendid fortune to her sister Maud.
Lady Parr’s eldest son, born before his mother was fifteen, was the
celebrated Sir William Parr, ultimately Earl of Essex and Marquess of
Northampton. Her next child mated with Mr. William Herbert, who was
raised to the peerage in 1551 by Edward VI as Earl of Pembroke six
weeks before the death of his wife. Katherine, the third and youngest
child of Sir Thomas and Lady Parr, was destined to occupy the perilous
position of sixth Queen-Consort to King Henry VIII. When she was a mere
child, the proverbial gipsy-woman predicted that “she should one day
wear a crown, and not a cap; and wield a sceptre, not a distaff.”[24]
Sir Thomas Parr died in London in 1517, leaving very scant provision
for his two daughters, the bulk of his fortune having been settled
upon his wife and son; but both young ladies married wealthy men, and
thus were not seriously affected by their lack of means. Anne married
at fifteen; and Katherine, long before she was fourteen, was led to
the hymeneal altar by Lord Borough of Cantley Hall, Gainsborough,
Yorkshire. The bridegroom had already been twice married, and so great
was the disparity of age between the couple that Lady Borough was wont
to call her eldest stepdaughter “little mother.” Two years after her
marriage Katherine became a widow with a very handsome dower. Much
of her time of mourning was spent at Sizergh Castle in Westmoreland,
the seat of her kinsfolk the Stricklands, where she left several fine
specimens of her skill as a needlewoman--notably a gorgeous white satin
quilt embroidered with gold--which are still preserved in an apartment
known as Queen Katherine’s Room.
We are fortunate in possessing a good many portraits of this lady,
and at least one wonderful miniature, formerly in the Strawberry
Hill Collection, and which now belongs to Mr. Brocklehurst-Dent of
Sudeley Castle. This contains a likeness of Henry VIII painted in a
space not bigger than a pin’s head, on a tiny medallion suspended
round the Queen’s neck. A strong magnifying glass is required to do
justice to the beauty of this microscopic miniature within a miniature,
probably the smallest ever executed. Judged by all these portraits
and by contemporary descriptions, Katherine Parr must have been a
pretty little woman with delicate features, an intellectual brow--too
amply developed for beauty--fox-coloured eyes, and a rather cunning
expression about the thin yet flexible mouth. When her body was
disinterred in 1786[25] it was found not to be decomposed, and measured
exactly five feet and three inches. The hair, very long and curling
naturally, was of a fine golden auburn.
[Illustration: QUEEN KATHERINE PARR
AFTER THE PAINTING FORMERLY IN THE POSSESSION OF HORACE WALPOLE]
History does not record the names of the tutors who assisted
Katherine Parr to acquire her remarkable education and numerous
accomplishments. We may suppose that some priest or monk chaplain at
Kendal or Sizergh instructed her in Latin and Greek, in both of which
languages she was proficient. She may have learnt French from Mr.
Bellemain, French tutor to Prince Edward, a pronounced Huguenot, who,
notwithstanding his unorthodoxy, was in high favour at Henry’s Court,
received a pension from Edward after he ascended the throne, and walked
in the young King’s funeral procession. She mastered the language
sufficiently to be able to write it and speak it correctly, and even
to record her sentimental impressions in tolerable verse. Amongst the
MSS at Hatfield there is a curious French poem, partly written by
Katherine and partly by another, probably her teacher. It opens with
the following verse in the Queen’s handwriting:--
“Considerant ma vie miserable
Mon cœur marboin, obstine, intraitable,
Outrecuide tant, que non seullement,
Dieu n’estimoit ny son commandement.”
The concluding verse runs:--
“Qui prepare vous est devinement
Ainsi que le monde eust son commencement
Au Pere au Filz au Saint Esprit soit gloire
Loz et honneur d’eternelle memoire. FINIS.”[26]
Katherine’s handwriting, though clear and legible, is not to be
compared with that of Elizabeth, King Edward, and Jane Grey, who very
probably took lessons in the then much esteemed art of caligraphy from
Dr. Cheke, chief tutor to the Prince, or from Ascham, both famous for
the beauty of their penmanship.
Although very worldly, Katherine Parr was much preoccupied with
theological disputations, and a distinctly evangelical tone pervades
her literary remains; it is nevertheless certain that during the
lifetime of her second husband, Lord Latimer, she was, or pretended
to be, a Catholic, and that during the few years of her married life
with Henry VIII she was a schismatic or “Henryite.” Tact and prudence
were her leading characteristics, and she was both amiable and
conciliatory, though she could, when angered, be extremely vindictive.
Thomas Cromwell’s downfall, usually attributed to the machinations of
Katherine Howard, was in reality mainly due to those of Katherine Parr,
for she it was, as we shall presently see, who opened Henry VIII’s eyes
to the prodigious rapacity and unpopularity of his favourite chancellor.
Lord Latimer, the lady’s second spouse, like Lord Borough, had been
twice married, and when he took her to wife was already the father
of several children. The date of this marriage has not been handed
down to us, but as Latimer lost his second wife in 1526, it could
not have taken place earlier than 1527. He was a staunch Catholic
of the belligerent sort, and a prominent leader of the Pilgrimage
of Grace, an insurrection that broke out in the North of England in
1536 in consequence of the popular displeasure at the suppression of
the monasteries and sequestration of church property. The peasants,
suddenly deprived of the monks’ accustomed charity and driven
to desperation, began a local crusade, which soon assumed large
proportions, their ranks being joined by a great number of noblemen
and gentlemen belonging to the old faith, amongst them the Archbishop
of York, Lord Nevill, Lord Darcy, Lord Latimer, Sir Stephen Hamerton,
Sir Robert Constable, a certain mysterious individual who called
himself the “Earl of Poverty,” and Robert Aske, who though of mean
extraction was nevertheless considered by the rest of his party as
their nominal general. These motley pilgrims increased in numbers
as they swept southwards in picturesque confusion; but despite the
enthusiasm of their members, they seem to have been ill-disciplined
and badly organised, and were presently dispersed at Dunstable, thanks
to the conciliatory attitude of the Duke of Norfolk, whom the King had
empowered to treat with these rebels and disband them. Latimer, who had
been elected their spokesman, withdrew almost immediately and returned
to London, where he soon afterwards resumed his post as Comptroller of
the King’s Household. After this excursion into open revolt against
his sovereign, Lord Latimer evidently deemed it prudent to keep himself
very much in the background: he did not join the second Pilgrimage of
Grace, which broke out in the following February (1537) and terminated
in the execution by sword and fire of some seventy of its more
prominent members, among them old Lord Derby, who was over eighty-three
years of age.
When in London, Lord Latimer inhabited a house situated in the
churchyard of the Charterhouse. The Chartreuse, as it was then called,
was rather a fashionable place of residence, being not far distant
from Clerkenwell, which in King Henry’s time was a sort of Court
suburb, such as Kensington became in the eighteenth century. From a
letter still extant, it would appear that Lord Latimer, like many a
modern nobleman and gentleman, was in the habit of letting his mansion
furnished when he himself was absent at Snape Hall, his country seat
in Yorkshire. Sir John Russell, Lord Privy Seal, who looked meek
enough[27] but was popularly known as “Swearing Russell” on account
of his profane language, wrote in January 1537 requesting Latimer to
allow a friend of his to have the loan of his house in the “Chartreuse”
during his absence. Latimer dared not refuse, but his answer betrays
his reluctant compliance with the request and some temper at the favour
having been asked:--
“RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY ESPECIAL GOOD LORD,--After my most
hearty recommendations had to your good Lordship. Whereas your
Lordship doth desire ... [effaced] of your friends my house within
Chartreuse churchyard, beside so ... [effaced] I assure your
Lordship the getting of a lease of it costs me 100 marcs, besides
other pleasures [_i.e._ “improvements”] that I did to the house;
for it was much my desire to have it, because it stands in good
air, out of press of the city. And I do alway lie there when I come
to London, and I have no other house to lie at. And, also, I have
granted it to farm [_i.e._ “have let it”] to Mr. Nudygate,[28]
son and heir to serjeant Nudygate, to lie in the said house
in my absence; and he to void whensoever I come up to London.
Nevertheless I am contented if it can do your Lordship any pleasure
for your friend, that he lie there forthwith. I seek my lodgings
at this Michaelmas term myself. And as touching my lease, I assure
your Lordship it is not here; but I shall bring it right to your
Lordship at my coming up at this said term, and then and alway I
shall be at your Lordship’s commandment, as knows our Lord, Who
preserve your Lordship in much honour to His pleasure. From Wyke,
in Worcestershire, the last day of September.--Your Lordship’s
assuredly to command,
“JOHN LATIMER”
“To the right honourable and very especial good lord, my Lord Privy
Seal.”[29]
Lord Latimer died in February 1543, a twelvemonth after the execution
of Queen Katherine Howard, leaving his widow the manors of Nunmonkton
and Hamerton for life, and his mansion in the Charterhouse for as
long as she should remain a widow. As soon as her husband was safely
buried in St. Paul’s Churchyard, Katherine began to indulge her leaning
towards what was then known as the “new learning”; and her house
became the resort of the leaders of a movement which was eventually
to complete the Reformation in England. These gentlemen were wont,
it is said, to assemble at regular intervals and hold conferences
on religious subjects in the presence, not only of Katherine and
her household, but of a select circle of great ladies, among them
Katherine’s sister, Anne Herbert, and the charming Katherine, Duchess
of Suffolk, the fourth wife of Lady Jane’s singular grandfather, who
were only too willing, notwithstanding the risk they ran, to sit at
the feet of a Coverdale, a Latimer, or a Parkhurst. Religion, however,
sat lightly on this clever Duchess, who--so brilliant, witty, and
amusing are her letters--might well claim to be the precursor in the
epistolary art of Madame de Sévigné. To these pious gatherings of the
widow Latimer came likewise the haughty and turbulent Anne Stanhope,
Countess of Hertford, who in due time, as wife of the Protector,
was to be Duchess of Somerset and Katherine Parr’s arch-enemy;
Lady Denny,[30] wife of Sir Andrew Denny, Privy Councillor to Henry
VIII; the Lady Fitzwilliam,[31] wife of Sir William Fitzwilliam, and
acknowledged to be one of the ablest women of her time; and the Lady
Tyrwhitt,[32] who came very near martyrdom for her heretical opinions,
in the last year of Henry’s life. The Countess of Sussex,[33] second
wife of Henry Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, was likewise one of Lady
Latimer’s _intimes_. This lady’s alleged familiarity with the black
art eventually led to her being charged with witchcraft, in 1552, and
imprisoned in the Tower, from which durance she was delivered six
months later by order of the Duke of Northumberland. The Marchioness of
Dorset may also have assisted at Lady Latimer’s religious exercises,
which, although noticed by her contemporaries as matters of general
knowledge, seem to have temporarily escaped the unpleasant attention of
King Henry’s chief heretic-hunters. The Lady Frances was certainly on
the most friendly terms with Lady Latimer, and so too was Princess Mary.
Another guest there was at the Charterhouse who probably came when the
house was quiet, the voices of the preachers hushed, and the great
ladies returned to their respective domiciles. This was Sir Thomas
Seymour, the late Queen Jane’s second brother, who was considered the
Adonis of the Court. Lady Latimer seems to have been deeply enamoured
of his good looks and stalwart figure; but it is not unlikely that it
was her rich dower, rather than herself, that tempted Sir Thomas. Be
this as it may, the intimacy which began about this period, paved the
way to the tragic close of the handsome courtier’s chequered career.
Seymour appears to have proposed to the widow three months after Lord
Latimer’s death, and she seems to have rejected him “pleasantly,”
saying “some one higher than he had asked her to be his wife.” For all
that, Sir Thomas had certainly made a deep impression on her heart, a
fact all the more remarkable since he was in every way the opposite to
herself: she was learned and sedate--he was gay and profligate; the
lady loved rich but sober attire--the gentleman blazed with brilliant
satins and silks and cloth of gold and silver, setting his brother
courtiers the fashion as to the wearing of their jewels and the number
of feathers they should sport in their caps. Still, the advantage of
the alliance was obvious, for though not a rich man, he was a great
favourite with the King, his potent brother-in-law, and further, he
was the second member of the rising house of Seymour, which many
predicted--in the event of any accident happening to His Majesty,
whose health was fast declining--would at once assume a preponderating
position at his successor’s Court.
But although Lady Latimer must have been acquainted with every
detail of the conspiracy organised by the Seymours against the
house of Howard, of which the first fruit was the revelation of the
unfortunate Queen Katherine Howard’s misconduct, she does not seem
to have hesitated for a moment in her determination to become Queen
of England, even at the sacrifice of her passion for Thomas Seymour,
which, all-absorbing as it was, never diverted her from the two
great objects of her ambition: her own political influence, and the
ultimate advancement of the Reformation. She cannot be described as a
Protestant, for in her time that word was not yet coined. During her
second husband’s lifetime she must have concealed her “advanced views,”
and when she became Queen she was--outwardly at least--a schismatic,
who attended as many as three and four Masses daily. Henry VIII rarely
heard less than three, and sometimes as many as five Masses every day,
and what is more, obliged every official of his Court and household,
high and low, to do the same. How she first attracted his attention
has never transpired; but as a great Court lady she must have been in
frequent and immediate relations with the sovereign. The first mention
of her personal dealings with King Henry is connected with trouble in
the Throckmorton family. Owing to some dispute over their respective
country seats, Coughton Court and Oursley, which were contiguous to
one another, her maternal aunt’s husband, Sir George Throckmorton,
had incurred Cromwell’s ill-will. Cromwell, with a view to ruining
his opponent, went so far as to accuse him of conspiring against the
King’s supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. According to an MS. ballad
still preserved in the Throckmorton archives, Lady Latimer interceded
with His Majesty for her uncle, and obtained full justice for him. At
the same time she contrived the overthrow of Cromwell, whose title of
Essex was eventually conferred upon her brother, Sir William Parr, who
married Anne Bourchier, only daughter of the last Earl of Essex of the
original branch.
The divorce--based on the futile plea that the King did not find Anne
of Cleves physically attractive[34]--which followed six months after
Henry VIII’s pompous marriage with that lady was accepted by the
philosophical Dutchwoman in a spirit that proved her practical sense
to be stronger than her sentiment. A noble mansion in the country, a
dower of £4000 a year, and precedence over all the great ladies of the
Court, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth excepted, struck her as more
desirable than an anxious and uncertain struggle to retain the crown
matrimonial which, under somewhat similar circumstances, had proved so
sorry a possession to Queen Katherine of Aragon. None the less, the
Reformers took Anne’s humiliation--she was a Lutheran princess--in much
the same spirit as that which possessed the Catholics at the time of
the momentous divorce of Queen Katherine. The accommodating “daughter
of Cleves,” as she now styled herself, continued to receive friendly
visits from the King even in the halcyon days of his brief matrimonial
alliance with Katherine Howard, and shortly after that wretched
woman’s execution an influential party appears to have been bent, in
Reformation interests, on reconciling King Henry with his repudiated
spouse. Anne herself seems to have been not at all averse to the
scheme; and Marillac, the French Ambassador, who favoured it, found her
on one occasion quite hopeful--“in the best of spirits,” and “thinking
only of amusing herself and of her fine clothes.” But when the matter
of a reunion between the King and his discarded wife was formally
proposed to Cranmer by the Duke of Cleves’ Ambassador, it met with a
flat refusal. The Archbishop knew the good-natured lady’s character
too well to doubt that she was never likely to influence the King or
be of the least use in furthering the Reformers’ interests. In the
meantime, Parliament had urged Henry, for his “comfort’s sake,” to take
unto himself another wife; and at the same time, as if to keep him out
of the way, Sir Thomas Seymour was sent on an embassy to the Queen of
Hungary, and did not return to London until some days after Katherine
Parr’s wedding.
The earliest intimation in the State Papers of the King’s connection
with Katherine is in a letter from Lord Lisle, afterwards Duke of
Northumberland, to Sir William Parr, dated Greenwich, 20th June 1543:--
“My lady Latymer, your sister, and Mrs. Herbert be both here in the
Court with my Lady Mary’s grace and my Lady Elizabeth.” Quite a
friendly party!
On 22nd June 1543 the gorgeous State barges streamed up the Thames from
Greenwich to Hampton Court. On 10th July Cranmer issued a licence for
the King to marry Katherine, Lady Latimer, “in any church or chapel
without issue of banns,” and two days later Henry VIII led Lord
Latimer’s widow to the altar of an upper oratory called “the Quynes
Prevey closet” at Hampton Court Palace. After Low Mass, said by Bishop
Gardiner, the consent of both parties was pronounced in English. The
King, taking the fair bride’s right hand, repeated after the Bishop
the words: “I, Henry, take thee, Katherine, to my wedded wife, to have
and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse (_sic_), for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part,
and thereto I plight thee my troth.” Then, unclasping and once more
clasping hands, Katherine likewise said, “I, Katherine, take thee,
Henry, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health
to be bonayr and buxome in bed and at board, till death us do part, and
thereto I plight unto thee my troth.” The putting on of the wedding
ring and offering of gold and silver followed, and after a prayer the
Bishop pronounced the nuptial benediction.
At the wedding were present, amongst others, Lord Hertford and his
Countess; Sir Anthony Browne; Joan, Lady Dudley; Katherine, Duchess
of Suffolk; Lord John Russell; the King’s niece, the Lady Margaret
Douglas; Mrs. Herbert, the Queen’s sister; and last but not least, the
Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, to whom their stepmother made handsome
presents of money. There is no mention of the Dorsets attending the
wedding, though both were in London at the time. Everybody seemed
delighted, even Wriothesley, who went so far as to write to Suffolk,
then with the army in the north, that “on Thursday last the King
had married the Lady Latimer, a lady in his judgment for virtue and
winsomeness and gentleness most mete for His Highness, who never had
such a wife more agreeable to his harte than she is.” Katherine herself
informed her brother, Sir William Parr, that “it had pleased God to
incline the King’s heart to take her as his wife, which was to her the
greatest joy and comfort that could happen.” Wriothesley enclosed this
letter in one of his own in which he entreated Parr to make himself
worthy of such a sister as the new Queen. Chapuys wrote to the Emperor
on 27th July: “My lady of Cleves has taken great grief and despair at
the King’s espousal of this last wife, who is not, she says, nearly so
beautiful as she, and besides that there is no hope of issue, seeing
that she has been twice married before and no children born to her.”
Richard Hills, “Heretic Hills,” as they called him, in a letter to
Bullinger, the Swiss Reformer, who subsequently became the friend of
Lady Jane Grey, and dated from Strasburg on 26th September, makes the
following very characteristic comments on the King’s sixth marriage:--
“No news but that our King has, within these two months as I have
already written to John Bucer, burnt three godly men in one day.
In July he married the widow of a nobleman named Latimer, and,
as you know, he is always wont to celebrate his nuptials by some
wickedness of this kind.”
The victims alluded to are known as the “Windsor martyrs.” They were
men in humble circumstances named Parsons, Testwood, and Filmer.[35] A
fourth, John Marbeck, who was organist at St. George’s Chapel Royal,
was, it is said, reprieved at the instance of Dr. Casson, Bishop of
Salisbury, and of the Queen, who is also credited with having saved
the life of Dr. Haines, Dean of Exeter, of Sir Philip Hoby and his
wife, and of Sir Thomas Carden, who had been denounced by Dr. London as
spreading heresy even within the precincts of the palace. The result of
the Queen’s action was that London and Simmonds, his coadjutor, were
condemned for perjury, and sentenced to ride round Windsor with their
faces to the horses’ tails--a humiliating punishment which is said to
have caused Dr. London’s death--no great loss to humanity.
To save human life and to alleviate suffering is a meritorious act
that brings its own reward; but in spite of this, and although the
newly made Queen was thus enabled to realise her own influence, she
must have found her honeymoon a season full of dread, revealing as
it did the terrible insecurity of lives dependent on the fiat of so
capricious a tyrant as her royal mate.