Vulgar History - How To Lose A Queen In Nine Days, part 3： Catherine Parr

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History Season 3. My name is Anne Foster and this is a feminist 1.00

00:00:20.600 women's history comedy podcast. This season's theme is How to Lose a Queen in Nine Days, 0.98

00:00:27.260 aka the lady jane gray scenario and this is our third episode right yes and

00:00:36.800 and so hopefully by now you're seeing sort of the sort of oniony layers onion like layers of

00:00:45.220 stories that we're looking at because it's not a straight progression of like here's the

00:00:49.580 grandmother here's the mother here's the person it's like here's kind of a bunch of women who

00:00:54.220 were around at the same time who had significant impact on Lady Jane Grey and who she was as a

00:01:00.380 person and what happened to her and so so we've already looked at Mary Tudor we've looked at

00:01:08.520 Catherine Willoughby and when we were talking about Catherine Willoughby we mentioned that

00:01:12.880 she was really good friends with Catherine Parr aka best known as Henry VIII's sixth and final

00:01:19.720 wife and actually they were part of a girl squad renaissance reformation girl squad they were just

00:01:26.340 a group of really smart um really curious very religious women who like to meet and talk about

00:01:33.780 the bible and talk about all the knowledge that they were learning and just being strong independent

00:01:39.640 cool people all together they were mostly named catherine there was a couple of people also named

00:01:45.820 Anne in the group because at this point the name Anne just kind of means woman like if you just

00:01:51.960 have a daughter and you're like what will we call I don't know female Anne was just kind of the name

00:01:56.240 when you didn't know what else to call somebody but the other member of this girl squad was

00:02:00.420 Frances Brandon aka Lady Jane Grey's mom aka Catherine Willoughby's sort of sister slash

00:02:08.880 stepmother but so we're looking at Catherine Parr today because she in fact for a time uh Lady Jane

00:02:18.200 Grey was living with her and she had a substantial effect on Lady Jane Grey's life um because Lady 0.93

00:02:25.480 Jane Grey grew up with this really cool if you think of like like in Sleeping Beauty there's the

00:02:31.080 three the animated film there's the three sort of fairy godmothers who are also cute and they have

00:02:35.660 the little primary colored dresses on i picture the renaissance reformation girl squad being kind

00:02:41.100 of like that just this super cool group of like aunties who are just like super smart really cool

00:02:47.700 and they just sort of helped make lady jane gray into the person who she briefly was so katherine

00:02:55.760 parr also i want to sort of emancipate her from the narrative of she was henry the eighth six wife

00:03:03.060 because as much as I love the musical six and I adore the musical six I got to see it perform live

00:03:10.640 before pandemic shut down the arts industry so good so fun it's a really fresh take my one

00:03:19.320 quibble and in general I just want to let you all know that I'm not a stickler for

00:03:24.660 historical accuracy to the point that it will stop me from enjoying things I enjoy anything

00:03:31.560 that's inspired by history in general the trashier the better personally and six the musical

00:03:38.500 so each of the wives in the musical sort of presents their their situation and the the

00:03:45.260 the creators of the show had a challenge ahead of them to have different genres of music for each

00:03:51.020 wife and also to for each of them to have a different story of what happened between them

00:03:55.000 and Henry and the story that they gave to Catherine Parr is that she was her true love

00:04:02.580 was Thomas Seymour but she had to go be with Henry but she loved Thomas Seymour and I was just kind

00:04:08.580 of like is this the narrative we're doing because in fact Thomas Seymour was a worse husband to her

00:04:14.780 than Henry VIII because twist Catherine Parr had such an interesting and action-packed life

00:04:21.780 and such poor luck with husbands that actually she was married I want to say four times maybe

00:04:30.520 just three times we're going to read through the story and we'll all learn together but like Henry

00:04:34.800 VIII wasn't her only husband and he was not even her worst husband he was not even the most

00:04:39.820 interesting thing or the most tragic thing to happen to her but like I hope when you when we

00:04:47.100 reach the end of the story i'll understand why when i saw how six the musical presented kind of

00:04:52.240 the love story of catherine power and thomas seymour i was just like and pass so she's a very

00:05:00.100 cool person and i'm actually really excited to talk about her not as the sixth in some sort of

00:05:05.820 season of podcast about like just the six wives themselves because outside of that context there's

00:05:11.880 a lot to talk about her that was just a very small part of her life story and that's part of why it's 0.94

00:05:15.740 so interesting about it all so let's dig into it so Catherine Parr was born in 1512 the daughter

00:05:24.480 the oldest child of a wealthy aristocratic family her father was named Thomas and her father was a

00:05:32.000 was a good friend of Henry VIII so at the time that Catherine was born Henry VIII was already

00:05:36.380 king um he was about 20 years old when she was born so he would continue to be about 20 years

00:05:42.720 older than her so her mother was named maude and maude was a lady-in-waiting to the queen who was

00:05:49.220 at this point still catherine of aragon and in fact just to make the generational divide all

00:05:55.740 the creepier catherine power was named in honor of catherine of aragon that's why there's so many

00:06:00.380 catherine's around at this time everybody was named after the queen catherine of aragon was

00:06:05.260 her godmother little did anybody know that this little baby 20 years later was going to be

00:06:11.840 marrying the king. Just a little, there's always going to be some sort of weird generational thing

00:06:17.780 in all these stories. That's a little theme this season, I guess. So Catherine Parr was lucky

00:06:23.580 enough to grow up at a time when the education of young women was seen as a priority for all

00:06:28.120 noble families. Because, well, that's culturally what was happening. And this is partially because

00:06:33.180 Catherine of Aragon's influence, because she herself had been given a really thorough education

00:06:38.280 from her mother and so she just thought that all girls should be well educated and so everybody was

00:06:45.860 because that's what she was a queen and that's what she was modeling for everybody so Catherine

00:06:50.540 Parr was a keen student she learned to speak three languages other than English she could 0.79

00:06:55.400 also speak French, Latin, and Italian and throughout her whole life she kept being a

00:06:59.640 she was a lifelong learner she eagerly learned new languages new information she really she's

00:07:05.740 very intellectual intellectually curious sort of person so when she was 17 years old which was just

00:07:13.940 around when Henry was the midst of trying to extricate himself from his marriage to Catherine

00:07:19.380 Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn the 17 year old Catherine was married to Sir Edward Burr

00:07:25.040 and that's spelled b-u-r-g-h and I feel like it's pronounced burr because that's how Lady Catherine

00:07:33.340 to Berg is said in Pride and Prejudice. So Edward Burr was slightly older than her, likely in his

00:07:42.180 mid-twenties, and their marriage was of the usual arranged variety that would have been mutually

00:07:46.460 beneficial for both families. Nothing unusual here. He was known to be in poor health at the

00:07:54.020 time of the marriage, and he actually died four years later. The couple had no children. So I was

00:07:58.700 right. She does have four husbands. He's the first. So they had no children. So she was a widow 1.00

00:08:03.740 aged 21. And then one year later when she was 22 and just, well, the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

00:08:12.800 of it all, the parallel story that's going on is that Henry was by now married to Anne Boleyn.

00:08:18.340 Catherine Parr was married again in another arranged marriage. Her second husband was named

00:08:23.120 John Neville and he was at least twice her age so she's 22 so he's at least 44 maybe older he was

00:08:29.880 also a baron so marrying him elevated her in rank as she became the mistress of his estate

00:08:36.060 and also stepmother to his two children whose names were John and Margaret so this was during

00:08:44.080 Henry's Anne Boleyn years which again to like vaguely recap a thing that I sort of know but

00:08:50.520 didn't specifically research we're in the reformed religion era um henry has broken with the pope

00:08:59.240 etc but the religion that he liked was really similar to being catholic except for no pope

00:09:05.180 mostly catherine and neville were both catholic which was not which was a dangerous thing to be

00:09:12.440 because henry had changed the religion neville was accused of being involved in the pilgrimage

00:09:19.620 of grace which i talked about last time it was this rebellion led by the catholics against the

00:09:24.580 king a bunch of people were arrested because they they were just revolting against the king

00:09:30.860 for various reasons we'll get into in much more detail later in a subsequent episode of this

00:09:36.900 podcast when i have more time to research it anyway neville was potentially involved with this

00:09:41.740 and so he was arrested in October 1536 three months later so he he was arrested like taken

00:09:49.660 to jail presumably leaving his young young wife back in the castle with her stepchildren who

00:09:56.700 she'd barely just met alone for three months and then after three months he didn't come home but

00:10:03.060 what happened was Catherine and his children her stepchildren were taken hostage so suddenly we're

00:10:08.540 in sort of like a panic room renaissance era situation so with the help of catherine's brother

00:10:15.040 william neville was freed without charge and returned home where he convinced the rebels

00:10:21.960 to free his family which is like impressive that he using words was able to stop his family being

00:10:30.740 held hostage so catherine at this point was 24 years old left alone to manage an estate and

00:10:36.820 support her staff and stepchildren through this extremely traumatic situation so you can already

00:10:41.400 and she was fine like she was up to the challenge so you can already see that she's strong and

00:10:46.560 capable um even at a young age so although her husband neville was found innocent of his charges

00:10:54.040 his association with the rebels tainted him and her for the rest of his life just sort of by

00:11:00.080 association he was apparently blackmailed like literally blackmailed for several years by henry

00:11:06.180 the eighth's right-hand man thomas cromwell so meanwhile like henry the eighth is just like

00:11:10.940 having wives not having wives babies being born whatever by this point when the whole end of

00:11:15.900 cleves situation wrapped up in the sense of that marriage was everyone's like let's pretend that

00:11:23.160 never happened uh the family was able to return to as close to normal as they could because the

00:11:28.780 end of cleves situation wrapped up with cromwell being killed so this normalcy was short-lived

00:11:35.160 because neville fell ill in 1542 the same year catherine howard was executed catherine parr

00:11:42.920 helped care for him so so catherine howard was executed in 1542 and this is where you're like

00:11:50.440 isn't catherine parr going to be henry's next wife like is she not still married to neville

00:11:54.060 so just wait catherine parr helped care for her husband for a year as he was ill and then he died

00:12:01.660 in 1543. So she was left a very wealthy widow and just still just 30 years old. So totally fine to

00:12:09.240 marry again, to take a third husband. The marriage between them seems to have been

00:12:14.480 companionate. Is that a word? Like they clearly got along just fine. She kept his personal Bible

00:12:22.480 with her for the rest of her life to remember him by. So clearly there was some affection there.

00:12:26.880 so what do you do when you're 30 years old super smart ridiculously wealthy and suddenly widowed

00:12:32.580 well if you're Catherine Parr you call up your old friend Lady Mary so Mary the oldest child of

00:12:39.320 Henry and Catherine of Aragon was four years younger than Catherine and they had been friends

00:12:43.960 in childhood because remember Catherine Parr was the goddaughter of Catherine of Aragon so she

00:12:49.340 and Catherine Aragon's daughter Mary would have hung out as as youths so one month after Neville

00:12:57.680 died Mary took Catherine in as a lady-in-waiting so while there Catherine Parr caught the attention

00:13:04.580 of a young courtier named Thomas Seymour aka the brother of Jane Seymour Henry VIII's third wife

00:13:13.280 like this is just were i to draw out the family relationships and marriage relationships between

00:13:19.800 everybody in tudor court it would just look like a giant messy spider web of just everybody is

00:13:27.100 related to everybody constantly catherine parr and thomas seymour apparently fell in love but

00:13:34.500 they couldn't get married because someone else found catherine attractive and that person was

00:13:39.660 king henry the eighth so this is why thomas seymour was suddenly sent to live in the netherlands

00:13:47.120 the king was just like what if i just get rid of when you're the king this is what you can do

00:13:50.960 if you're like oh the person who i like likes this other guy guess i'll just send him to the

00:13:55.620 netherlands and then he was suddenly she was suddenly engaged to marry king henry the eighth

00:14:02.980 she had no choice obviously one does not simply turn down the king especially not this king with

00:14:09.360 all the dead wives in his wake when he wants to marry you you're like great let's do it so their

00:14:17.280 wedding was held on July 12th 1543 and it wasn't well it just seems kind of like the people of

00:14:24.220 England were over it vis-a-vis celebrating Henry VIII's marriages this was his sixth like to them

00:14:29.940 this was getting weird this had long ago gotten weird but Catherine would have known she's super

00:14:36.780 smart really clever and resilient and she lived through the previous five wives and knew that she 0.99

00:14:42.340 needed to watch what she was doing if she didn't want to get executed 0.52

00:14:46.380 so she chose as her motto because queens get to choose a motto and hers was to be useful in all

00:14:54.060 that i do which is like a nice vague sort of nothing sentence that can't really offend anybody

00:14:59.320 but it's also true she made herself useful she used her new power and her role to reward her

00:15:04.680 family and friends, including giving positions at court to her stepchildren, Margaret and John

00:15:09.520 Neville. She also, I mean now as a practiced stepmother, she nurtured good relationships

00:15:17.460 with her three new stepchildren. So Lady Mary, aka her friend, who is 26, Lady Elizabeth,

00:15:25.160 who is 10, and Prince Edward, who is six years old. Her past relationship with Mary and the fact

00:15:30.920 that henry the king liked her allowed her to sort of play mediator and to mend fences between the

00:15:38.200 king and his two oldest daughters because there was the whole him making them illegitimate hard

00:15:44.100 feelings stuff going on so her impressive emotional intelligence brought the royal family back 0.56

00:15:50.140 together sort of parent trap style very impressive about a year after their marriage

00:15:56.880 henry who was like not in good health to the point that he couldn't he had lots of different

00:16:05.920 health problems he had trouble getting out of bed to the extent that he like invented a machine like

00:16:10.620 a get me out of bed machine but he still was the king and liked doing king stuff and so he went

00:16:17.700 off to france to launch a military campaign against the french because england and france

00:16:21.840 are just on off at war all the time for centuries but this is where we get a hint of how much

00:16:31.520 esteem and how much respect he had for his wife Catherine Parr because he literally left

00:16:36.640 instructions for her to rule the country in his absence she was substitute queen he'd only done

00:16:42.460 this once before with one of his other wives actually with Catherine Parr's godmother Catherine

00:16:47.240 of Aragon. So Catherine of Aragon ruled for a while while Henry was away back in the day but

00:16:53.480 none of the other wives got to do that. Catherine Parr took this responsibility very seriously. She

00:16:58.680 didn't just sit back and you know sign scrolls or whatever. She ran the court and the country 1.00

00:17:02.960 like she had Neville's estate. She was a good manager, delegator. During her short time as

00:17:10.280 regent she oversaw the finances and equipment for Henry's military campaign. She signed five

00:17:16.480 royal proclamations and maintain a constant line of contact with military forces in scotland

00:17:21.100 i came across this theory in a couple different sources but basically her display of strength of

00:17:28.100 character and being just kind of like a strong independent woman who people relied on and 0.99

00:17:33.380 trusted and was an effective leader likely influenced her stepdaughter elizabeth probably

00:17:40.180 mary also but elizabeth we would go on to become a very famous and successful queen

00:17:44.920 so so just sort of her katherine parr became a role model to her as well to her stepdaughter

00:17:52.240 but of course this wouldn't be a story of one of henry's wives if there wasn't a bit

00:17:56.040 where someone schemed to have her killed for fake charges or something because that always happens

00:18:00.960 so the thing is that katherine parr had been reading a lot i'm doing a lot of

00:18:08.500 meeting with different scholars and different writers and different thinkers and she was known

00:18:12.960 to be sympathetic to the protestants who are the people who are like a bit more a bit less

00:18:21.060 catholic-y than people who are following henry's new religion so this wasn't a secret she wrote

00:18:29.060 three books about her religious beliefs but there were people at court who didn't like

00:18:33.600 that direction of like veering over into being more you know like having church be in like a

00:18:41.400 plain empty room with no fancy stuff around like letting people read the bible and have their own

00:18:46.020 relationship with god instead of like having to go through a priest who they had to bribe etc

00:18:50.380 no shade to current religious practices i'm entirely talking about how things happened in

00:18:57.100 the 16th century so the people who didn't like her religious style tried to turn the king against her

00:19:05.320 so to their credit i mean history shows it was not hard to turn henry against one of his wives 0.81

00:19:12.680 they're like let's just like do that thing we do where we make henry hate his wife and kill her

00:19:17.220 and then we'll find a new wife so her enemies planted rumors that may have been true who knows

00:19:23.120 that the king was now attracted to her good friend catherine willoughby and wanted to rid himself of

00:19:30.660 his wife. So, well, they planted those rumors, but also Catherine Willoughby was gorgeous and

00:19:36.720 amazing, and maybe Henry did like her. Anyway, but this was just sort of their first psychological

00:19:40.980 manipulation of the situation. The thing is that some of Henry's advisors had not liked Catherine

00:19:48.300 from the beginning, and one of the things that rubbed people the wrong way about her was that

00:19:53.800 she loved discussing all the new things that she learned. Like, she's such an eager scholar. She

00:19:58.840 love talking about philosophy and religion um with people around her in a spirited debate

00:20:06.000 especially on matters of religion so what we know about katherine willoughby you can see how the two

00:20:10.340 of them would have gotten along just like being really saying what they think and reading lots

00:20:15.080 of books and going to lots of talks and just being the renaissance reformation girl squad

00:20:19.880 one day katherine made a bad decision in retrospect to debate the king about religion

00:20:26.000 when unknown to her he was having an especially bad day with some of his health issues he had an

00:20:32.060 ulcer on his leg and terrible headaches so she said something that apparently was so controversial

00:20:38.140 that the king thought well the king could also had health problems but people were kept whispering

00:20:44.680 to him like what if your wife is secretly heretic and he's like you know what she is a heretic what

00:20:48.740 you just said is heretical so then he told his doctor that Catherine is going to be arrested

00:20:56.200 I'm not that details odd I don't know he just maybe he's just saying that but anyway

00:21:01.320 so he told his doctor that she was going to be arrested shortly after this some anonymous person

00:21:07.400 left a copy of an arrest warrant at Catherine's door like not to arrest her but just to be like

00:21:11.820 yo heads up you're going to be arrested so knowing what had happened to her predecessors

00:21:16.340 Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard in the sense of Henry arrested them and then they ended up being

00:21:22.060 executed Catherine came up with a brilliant plan we're going to remember this when we get to

00:21:28.100 scoring her for scheminess so she went to the king's room luckily enough it had not been locked

00:21:33.040 to her as it had been when his previous wives were under arrest he he set up sort of like the worst

00:21:39.640 trap in the world like if there had been wires he would have been wearing a wire like super obviously

00:21:45.120 so he was like struck up a religious conversation where he clearly contradicted what she had said

00:21:51.060 before she played off this perfectly agreeing with everything he said and going further

00:21:55.060 claiming women are subservient to men and men are smarter than women and he was so much smarter than

00:22:00.940 anybody and she was so lucky to be married to him etc etc and he was like no no you're lying to me

00:22:07.580 but the best part is that Catherine was like oh are you talking about that thing I said before 0.78

00:22:13.560 where you were like you're a heretic I only said that previous stuff to distract you from your

00:22:19.760 ulcer on your leg because I knew you were in pain I didn't mean any of it I was just trying to

00:22:24.620 distract you with my religious talk and Henry said and this is a direct quote then Kate we are

00:22:31.760 friends again so just to recap she was going to be arrested but Henry VIII probably executed

00:22:38.980 and managed to talk her way out of it this is like next level amazing charisma intelligence

00:22:48.920 amazing so but then it gets better henry was like okay i'm not mad at you anymore i want to arrest

00:22:54.200 you but he forgot to tell his counsel that she was no longer under arrest so the next day 40 guards

00:22:58.740 four zero guards showed up to arrest her while she was out just like strolling the gardens

00:23:03.520 with Henry. Henry basically beat them up, called them names, humiliated them. Um, Catherine was

00:23:10.060 not just spared arrest and possible execution, but her husband, Henry declared his love for her

00:23:16.420 in a violent and public manner that made it clear what his true feelings were to everybody

00:23:21.700 for all of her trouble. You know, sorry for the almost arresting you thing. He gave her lots of

00:23:27.580 jewels basically daring anyone to try and turn him against her ever again he was super loyal to her

00:23:33.940 now and all of his advisors were just like message received a year after all this drama

00:23:40.820 the king's health took a turn for the worse he'd been sick for ages for various reasons and then

00:23:47.440 he passed away on january 28th 1547 so she was now known as the dowager queen and the new king

00:23:55.020 was her stepson Edward who became Edward VI. So similar to when Neville had died Catherine was

00:24:02.480 left single and sort of this weird mix of like really rich and powerful but also entirely

00:24:08.160 powerless because of the patriarchal society in which she lived. In his will the king had left

00:24:13.740 instructions that Catherine should always be treated as a queen of England as though he were

00:24:17.960 still alive and left her generous annual allowance but she had no it's not like when he was out of

00:24:23.060 town and she got to be in charge she had no actual power to rule and her stepson edward was supported

00:24:29.340 by an entirely male council of advisors she was also left guardian of her stepdaughter elizabeth

00:24:35.640 who is then 14 years old and do you remember thomas seymour her old boyfriend so catherine

00:24:45.660 remembered thomas seymour and she reunited with him almost immediately after the king's death

00:24:50.300 at this point thomas was back from the netherlands and he was also one of king edward's advisors so

00:24:55.620 it wasn't hard to find him he was right there and then four months after henry died catherine

00:25:03.040 married him which it was not which was quite a scandalous sort of thing to do people didn't

00:25:09.420 marry that quickly in general but especially like queens didn't do that so knowing that this 0.82

00:25:15.840 wouldn't look good or meet the approval of basically anyone they kept their marriage a

00:25:20.520 secret for as long as they could in this case several months secret marriages are a trend we're

00:25:27.000 going to see several times in this podcast season and they never turn out well sure enough it caused

00:25:33.140 a scandal when people found out about the marriage the king the boy king edward her stepson and her

00:25:38.880 friend slash stepdaughter lady mary wildly disapproved because this just really seemed

00:25:44.560 like a show of disrespect for their dead father but Catherine Parr was still the legal guardian

00:25:50.440 of teenage Elizabeth and so in 1548 she invited Elizabeth as well as her cousin Lady Jane Grey

00:25:57.240 to live with her and Thomas in their new home so remember part of the renaissance girl squad

00:26:04.620 was Francis Brandon the daughter of Mary Tudor the stepdaughter but the same age as Catherine

00:26:12.820 Willoughby so Catherine Parr would have known Lady Jane Grey from before anyway and then also

00:26:18.440 Thomas had a scheme that he wanted Lady Jane Grey to marry the king Edward so various reasons Lady

00:26:27.440 Jane Grey went to live with them and Catherine's home became known as an important place for young

00:26:32.940 women to learn and discuss and debate so even more so making her a role model for both Elizabeth and

00:26:40.140 jane gray um this is where so there was like salons you know like the great thinkers of the

00:26:45.240 day came and gave lectures and stuff so it was really a place that really fostered in elizabeth

00:26:50.220 and jane both of whom were really bookish studio sorts of people it really helped them with their

00:26:57.300 own intellectual curiosity and figuring out their own thoughts about religion etc and just seeing a

00:27:02.160 woman being cool but the home was also not the greatest place for young teenage girls because

00:27:09.820 Catherine's husband Thomas took a inappropriate interest in Elizabeth so apparently he'd already

00:27:16.960 wanted to marry her before he'd gone back together with Catherine because marrying the king's daughter

00:27:22.660 would bring him lots of power and he was just a guy who just wanted power at around the same time

00:27:29.760 that thomas's interest in elizabeth got kind of weird and gross catherine became pregnant for the

00:27:36.700 first time so she's on her fourth husband first pregnancy and while she was pregnant she caught

00:27:41.020 her husband in an embrace with elizabeth this part is really weird and quite distressing so like

00:27:47.160 content warning so according to the testimony of other people who lived in the house

00:27:51.860 so basically thomas just like kept trying to accost elizabeth he would like go into her room

00:27:56.580 she was in her pajamas which in oldie times was just like a giant shapeless nightgown so

00:28:00.960 practically naked um it was inappropriate he would like tickle her in bed and it's all just like 0.99

00:28:06.620 grooming awful grossness and then katherine may or may not have been okay with this she might

00:28:13.100 have been pretending she was okay with this but apparently whatever was going on in this horrible 1.00

00:28:18.100 gross situation elizabeth only stayed with her for four months katherine uh had her sent away

00:28:26.020 and they never saw each other again although they exchanged letters on august 30th 1548

00:28:32.560 catherine gave birth to a daughter who she named mary in honor of her stepdaughter slash former

00:28:38.380 friend and then six days later she died herself uh catherine from complications of childbirth

00:28:45.680 and just because i could not let you know the following year thomas semer was beheaded for

00:28:52.920 treason and this is how and why henry the eighth was not the worst of catherine's husbands at least

00:28:58.520 in terms of how they treated her and what kind of person they were catherine parr's daughter was

00:29:05.340 given to her friend catherine willoughby to raise but then the daughter sort of appears from

00:29:10.640 disappears from historical record and so probably died as a child so catherine parr in general

00:29:18.660 is best known these days for her brief marriage to henry the eighth for surviving being the one

00:29:25.440 who survived but she did other cool stuff too e.g her first book was called psalms or prayers

00:29:32.180 like that's the name of it psalms or prayers was the title was published anonymously in 1543 the

00:29:38.860 same year she got married to henry the eighth two years later she made history as the author of the

00:29:45.420 first book published in england by a woman in the english language using her own name

00:29:49.100 and this was a book called prayers or meditations her stepdaughter elizabeth who

00:29:55.000 aside from the whole thomas seymour of it all was clearly influenced in many ways by catherine

00:30:01.100 and elizabeth personally translated this book prayers or meditations into french italian and

00:30:07.040 latin as a gift for her father henry the eighth catherine's third book was called the lamentations

00:30:13.660 of a sinner and it was published in 1547 and she's now regarded as an important voice in

00:30:19.540 renaissance women's writing she was laid to rest in the chapel at sudoli castle which is the same

00:30:26.640 place she was living with thomas when she died and in terms of resources references that i looked at

00:30:33.640 and that you might want to look at if you want to learn more about this very interesting person

00:30:37.060 uh there's a book by linda porter called catherine the queen the remarkable life of

00:30:42.460 Catherine Parr, The Last Wife of Henry VIII. And there's a book by Elizabeth Norton called

00:30:46.860 Catherine Parr, Wife, Widow, Mother, Survivor, The Story of the Last Queen of Henry VIII.

00:30:52.040 Philippa Gregory is always there for us. And she has a book about her called The Taming of the

00:30:56.840 Queen. And that's Catherine Parr. So time to get into the Scandalicious Scale. I,

00:31:06.340 if you're wondering do i know the numbers beforehand i do not and i don't know where

00:31:13.420 she's going to land and this is just as exciting for me as it is for you so scandalousness now

00:31:19.340 she had a couple main scandals in her life one of them being getting married to thomas seymour

00:31:26.960 only four months after the king died um another scandal would probably be being held captive for

00:31:33.020 three months when her husband was arrested oh and then mega scandal is of course possibly being a

00:31:41.060 heretic heretic heretic and almost being arrested like to the point that there was like a warrant 0.99

00:31:49.700 over her arrest and people came to arrest her like this is i'm gonna give her an eight 0.92

00:31:56.840 for scandalousness because those are solid examples of some very juicy gossip happening 1.00

00:32:04.100 that she instigated herself really um in terms of scheminess i'm also going to give her an eight 1.00

00:32:11.080 i think an eight yeah because this is where she was so capable so it's not like her the scheminess

00:32:20.540 just of like being able to talk herself out of henry not arresting her is like that in and of 0.92

00:32:26.040 itself is astonishing amazing um but also just the way that she was able to run a household like

00:32:33.500 the fact that she was able to be queen while he was out of town like her strategies aka schemes

00:32:39.900 i think were this was a strength of hers as well her significance sort of like last time with

00:32:47.780 katherine willoughby like there's not a direct link like her daughter mary probably died as a

00:32:53.540 child there's not like and then her child like her descendant became so and so but just her

00:32:58.540 overall influence like holding these salons and really um being the role model for elizabeth of 1.00

00:33:04.960 and for jane gray of kind of being a strong woman in control and how you could be like a smart 0.60

00:33:10.440 intellectual woman and that can be your superpower and how that and then elizabeth herself became so

00:33:17.100 influential i'm gonna say for significance still it's like

00:33:22.140 i'm gonna say six six for significance the sexism bonus this is like she had to marry king henry

00:33:32.220 the a's which is partially sexism slash patriarchy slash she had no choice but also he was the king

00:33:39.460 she made her own way in the world in some ways i don't know she chose to marry thomas seymour

00:33:47.520 that wasn't no one made her and that's kind of the worst thing she ever did so i'm just gonna

00:33:51.640 i'm gonna give her the basic default five for sexism so then we add this up and we have 16

00:33:57.860 27 27 is that that's just slightly below

00:34:06.640 I know you don't have this list of names in front of you but last time we did Catherine Willoughby

00:34:13.700 got a 25 earlier in the season Mary Tudor got a 27.5 and Catherine Pryor is there with a 27 so

00:34:21.600 that's the same as Isabella of Castile Francis Howard it's just yeah to really reach the top

00:34:29.140 of the scale you need to have that combination of scandalousness but you also need the significance

00:34:33.500 and then really to bump you over the top you need the sexism it's really about all four like

00:34:38.720 she had strong marks in two of the four categories but it's just that fourth one 0.52

00:34:42.900 anyway that's katherine parr and so again like next time you listen to six the musical which

00:34:50.800 i recommend listening to all the time the music's like the song everyone is a bop it is a great

00:34:55.960 musical but i don't love katherine parr's whole song being about how she loves thomas seymour

00:35:05.400 because he was the worst thing that ever happened to her so this is vulgar history my name is ann

00:35:13.280 foster a couple little things to tell you about so you can find i wrote a whole essay about katherine

00:35:17.900 parr which you can find on my website which is at annfosterwriter.com um i'm on instagram and

00:35:25.360 twitter vulgar history pod on instagram vulgar history on twitter i have a patreon which is

00:35:30.720 patreon.com and foster writer and things that maybe i could do once i get enough patreon money

00:35:39.640 would be my dream that's my dream is to to get an editor for this podcast um one day anyway i also

00:35:48.640 have merch and the money from the merch also goes towards podcast related expenses uh the

00:35:54.120 merch is at teespring.com slash stores slash vulgar history and if you think like do you have

00:35:59.140 merch about the renaissance reformation girl squad um of course i do and that's where you

00:36:05.700 can find it there'll be links in the show notes too and if you go to there's a link in the show

00:36:11.680 notes as well to my list on bookshop.org which are the books that i've been using for the past

00:36:16.440 three seasons to research with books that i recommend as historical resources and yeah 0.86

00:36:24.540 that's this episode my name is ann foster this is vulgar history take care everybody masks on tits out 0.89

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Vulgar History - September 16, 2020

How To Lose A Queen In Nine Days, part 3： Catherine Parr

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