Life after Firebrand: The true story of Katherine Parr and her last years at Sudeley Castle
Karim Aïnouz’s hotly anticipated period film Firebrand starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law will hit big screens on June 14th, telling the story of the marriage between Henry VIII and his last wife Katherine Parr. However, whilst Katherine is famous for being the only woman to survive the tyrannical King, little is known about who she really was or about the tale of her tragically short-lived life at Sudeley Castle following Henry’s death. So, who was this extraordinary woman and what happened to her after her marriage to Henry VIII?
Who was Katherine Parr?
Born in 1512, Katherine was the daughter of Sir Thomas Parr and Maud Green, a former lady in waiting to Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon who it is believed Katherine was named after. Before her marriage to the King, Katherine had been married and widowed twice already, first to Sir Edward Burgh and then to John Neville, 3rd Baron Latimer, making her the second ever woman in her family to marry into peerage. Following the death of her second husband, Katherine used her mother’s closeness with Catherine of Aragon to become part of her daughter Mary’s household, which was where she caught the attention of Mary’s father King Henry VIII.
What was Katherine’s marriage to Henry like?
Henry and Katherine married in July 1543, after Katherine walked away from her true love Sir Thomas Seymour to fulfil her duty in marrying the King. Although Firebrand tells the story of a rather tumultuous marriage, Katherine was recognised as a calming influence on the erratic and unpredictable King, nursing him in his final years and helping to facilitate a stronger relationship between Henry and his estranged daughters Elizabeth and Mary. Katherine also had passions of her own, she was a fiercely religious woman who wrote fervently about her faith; first in devotional books and then in her magnum opus Lamentations of a Sinner, which chronicled her conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism and was published in 1547 after Henry’s death, making her the first ever queen and indeed, British woman to be published under her own name. Although her religious fervour did once bring her within a whisper of being executed when she was accused of conspiring with the outspoken heretic Anne Askew, (the story of which is the focus of Firebrand) Katherine managed to regain the King’s favour, throwing herself at his mercy and allowing the notoriously theatrical Henry to put on a great display of public support and affection for his wife.
What happened to Katherine after Henry died?
When Henry died in January 1547, Katherine was finally free to marry Thomas Seymour, the brother of the late Jane Seymour and the uncle of the now King Edward VI. However, their marriage was fraught with trouble from the start. They faced a great deal of opposition towards the match, particularly from Thomas’s brother Edward, who was now the Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of the young King. In the face of such criticism, the pair decided to escape to Thomas’s seat, the idyllic and isolated Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, where, for a short time, Katherine lived in peace with her husband, her stepdaughter Elizabeth and their young ward Lady Jane Grey. By the end of 1547, the now 36-year-old Katherine was delighted to fall pregnant for the first time by Thomas, but her marital bliss was soon tarnished by her ambitious husband’s flirtations with the young Princess Elizabeth, which was especially painful for Katherine who had come to see the girl as a surrogate daughter. In August 1548, Katherine gave birth to her daughter Mary, but immediately succumbed to puerperal fever and died just eight days later. According to her religious beliefs, she was buried in the chapel of St. Mary at Sudeley, where she lay peacefully for over 200 years until her body was finally discovered in 1782.
Visiting Katherine’s grave
Today, Sudeley is the only privately-owned castle in England to have a queen buried within its grounds and visitors can still pay homage to her tomb in the restored St. Mary’s chapel. You can also find out more about Katherine’s life at Sudeley through the Katherine Parr exhibition, which showcases rare books written by the Queen, her love letters to Thomas Seymour and first-hand accounts of the discovery of her grave in 1782. These, together with artefacts recovered from her tomb, help to illustrate the life of an intelligent, passionate and often underrated queen who should be recognised as much for the depth of her character as she is for being the last wife of Britain’s most infamous monarch.
Book your visit to Sudeley here.
Watch the trailer for Firebrand here.
