Education with Katherine Parr

Imagine we’re in a sunny drawing room in Rye House in Hertfordshire, where a 10-year-old Tudor lass named Katherine Parr is balancing a leather-bound book upon her knees.

She waits patiently for her siblings and cousins to quiet down so that their tutor can continue reading aloud from The Aeneid. Katherine loves to learn new things. Don’t get her wrong: she enjoys practicing her needlework and reciting Biblical passages as much as the next gal, but what she most looks forward to are French lessons with her mother, who is due back from court later today.

Like most noble Tudor girls, Katherine is educated at home, and she receives an excellent education from her mother, Lady Parr. In establishing a small schoolroom in her brother’s home and encouraging her daughters to learn, Lady Parr isn’t as revolutionary as she might sound. She’s part of a fashionable new movement at court, inspired by humanism, that has educated women are officially trending. Katherine is encouraged to be hungry for knowledge, and she makes a point of developing her education. Little does she know how much trouble her learned and passionate opinions will one day get her into…and how savvy she’ll have to be to keep her head.

Katherine Parr will be our guide as we explore education for women in Tudor England. We’ll discover how - and how much - Tudor girls were being taught, what subjects they were studying, and how Katherine, Henry’s sixth and final queen, made smart the new sexy. And as always, we’ll be joined by our time traveling Tudor expert Elizabeth Norton, whose book The Lives of Tudor women is a must-read if you’re enjoying this series.

SO: Grab your sharpest quill, your favorite book, and brush up on your Latin… let’s go traveling. 

that knowing twinkle in Katherine Parr’s eyes as she realizes she’s better read than half the men at the table.

“Katherine Parr,” oil on panel, attributed to Master John, circa 1545, National Portrait Gallery.

my sources

Online Sources

Books & Academic Journals

Interviews

Elizabeth Norton, interview by Kate Armstrong, August 24, 2021, transcript and recording, The Exploress Podcast.

Katherine’s first publication was a collection of snippets from holy works, entitled “Prayers and Meditations.” At 12 years old, Lady Elizabeth translated the work into Latin, French, and Italian, and then presented this embroidered copy of the translations to her father, Henry VIII, as a gift.

“Prayerbook of Princess Elizabeth,” Queen Elizabeth I, 1545, The British Library.


transcript

HERE COMES KATHERINE

So: how does Katherine Parr go from keen and eager ten-year-old to the aging Henry VIII’s final queen? It’s a long and winding journey, that’s for certain. When Katherine arrives at court in 1542, she is 31 years old, a fairly financially well-endowed widow who has been through two husbands already. She certainly isn’t looking for another. As we learned in previous episodes this season, widowhood can be a real sweet spot for Tudor women of a certain station and situation: they very well may have gotten hold of money and lands through marriage, and they likely have more control over those assets - and their lives in general - than they ever have before.

Katherine comes to court at the invitation of her brother and sister, and she becomes an unofficial member of Princess Mary’s household. Although she spent most of her life in country estates and castles of the North, Katherine is no novice when it comes to court politics: both her parents were courtiers. Her father, Sir Thomas Parr, was once a trusted ambassador and emissary of Henry’s, and her mother was one of Catherine of Aragon’s favorite ladies in waiting. In fact, Katherine Parr was even named after Henry’s first wife.

Katherine is attractive, vivacious, and scholarly, and she thrives at court. One contemporary wrote that, "She is of a lively and pleasing appearance and is praised as a virtuous woman.” It isn’t long before she catches the eye of one Sir Thomas Seymour, the late Queen Jane Seymour’s brother, and he begins courting her. They fall deeply in love and are actually engaged to be married…until the king decides to stick his codpiece where it doesn’t belong. It seems that Henry has also noticed Catherine, and he’s intrigued. After the disastrous Catherine Howard fiasco, the aging, ailing Henry is attracted to Katherine’s intelligence, sobriety, and maturity. Whereas wife Number 5 was chosen for her bedroom eyes, Wife Number 6, he feels, needs to be chosen for her nursing skills. “Gentlemen, I desire company,” Henry told his buddies, “but I have had more than enough of taking young wives, and I am now resolved to marry a widow.”

And thus, despite the fact that Katherine is betrothed to his brother-in-law, Henry begins sending her gifts and visiting her daily.We can imagine that she is less than thrilled with his advances. After being moved around as a pawn from one marriage into another, Katherine’s finally free to marry for love: it doesn’t seem fair that she should be robbed of that. Especially by a man who has beheaded several of his past wives and is very much past his prime. But what Henry VIII wants, Henry VIII tends to get. Despite the fact that Katherine has not volunteered as tribute, you can’t very well say no to your country’s monarch. Plus, the match is definitely advantageous to Katherine’s family. So, even though she is in love with Thomas Seymour, Katherine rejects him and reluctantly accepts Henry’s proposal. They are married at Hampton Court Palace on July 12, 1543, a little more than a year after the execution of Catherine Howard, and Katherine Parr is officially proclaimed queen on her wedding day.

HITTING THE BOOKS

One of the first things Katherine does as Queen of England is take an interest in the education of her subjects. What IS the current state of the English educational system in the 16th-century, particularly for us ladies? Are we learning as much, and the same things, that boys are? The Tudor period kicks off an era of great educational advancement in England. The growth of grammar schools and universities skyrockets, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth I, although formal girls’ schools won’t become commonplace until the reign of James I. Under Henry VIII, Tudors are only just starting to acknowledge the benefits of an educated populace, and so there is no organized system of state education for everyone. Instead there is a random network of private and local schools with wildly different educational standards. We’ll talk about how noble girls were educated a little later, but for now, let’s join some middle and lower-class Tudors as they hit the books.

Tudor boys are usually sent to school at around 6 or 7, and they leave in their teenage years for jobs, apprenticeships, or university. The most affluent are educated at home when they’re young, before moving on to very exclusive and highly expensive grammar schools before attending one of only two universities that exist at the time: Oxford and Cambridge. Middle- and lower-class boys attend a local village or parish school to learn the basics, and then move on to an endowed or common school before taking on a job or an apprenticeship. Endowed schools are private institutions usually funded by a wealthy merchant or a noble patron, and while some of them are free, many require attendance fees, whereas common schools are open to everyone and are almost always free.

Here’s Elizabeth Norton: …almost every parish will have a free school that is attended by the children at the parish, and that's normally in the parish church, and it will be taught by the priest and the children will go every day to their lessons. And we know that they are open to girls and to boys and there are many, many examples of girls also attending those schools. A few censuses of the poor were carried out in the 1570s. And in various places, particularly Northridge, and even very, very poor families, their young children until about the age of nine are in school. So they are getting some education.

Records of the education of girls is pretty sparse, but it seems that girls, too, often go to school around the age of 6 or 7, and are educated alongside the boys at their local village or parish school. They spend two, maybe three years getting a more thorough understanding of subjects like religion, reading, and basic math. For girls, religious education is important, as she’s meant to be the moral pillar of her future household, and most of what she is learning is all about making sure she will be able to help her husband out.

ELIZABETH: The idea is to raise good wives, good housewives, so women will need to run their homes maybe help out in the business. So you know, arithmetic, reading and writing that would help. I'm certainly not intended to be scholars, but it's, you know, it's felt that being able to read and to write and do your maths is is an advantage for running your household.

Most young girls are taught the very basics at home by their mothers, who are generally in charge of a woman’s education. They might learn the alphabet, some rudimentary reading, and to recite a prayer or two. Elizabeth Norton points out, Tudor women are more educated than we might imagine: most will go to school for at least some of their childhood. But most of them don’t have the option of continuing their formal studies for long, and they often leave school early for marriage, an apprenticeship, or to help supplement the family’s income. School lessons are often considered less important for girls, because the more useful and practical lessons are being taught at home anyway. Daughters are learning domestic skills such as sewing and cooking: everything they will need to become a successful wife and mother. It’s not like she’s going to become a doctor or anything!

What are female literacy rates like in the 16th century? It’s hard to say for sure, because our methods for measuring literacy in history aren’t the most accurate: they’re usually based on how many women were able to write their signatures on legal documents, although this method doesn’t tell us much about their reading ability. Many women are taught to read, but can’t write, and being able to sign your name doesn’t necessarily mean you can read what you’re signing. In our episode on marriage in Tudor England, we met a woman who was duped out of her fortune by a man who presented her with a contract that she couldn’t read. Estimates for female literacy in Tudor times are low, but it’s highly likely that most Tudor girls receive at least some reading lessons. City girls are usually more literate than village girls, and older women and widows are more literate than younger ones, as they often have to take care of financial accounts and manage estates. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to rely on a man to conduct and understand your business. Susan Hills, a London maidservant, depended on her husband to read and write, and when he went abroad to serve his master in Italy, he wrote her a letter that ended: "I fear you can hardly read this because you do not practice." Indeed, Susan had to go to a literate friend, Sara Hodgkinson, for help reading the letter. Soon after, Susan soon began practicing her reading with a tool her husband bought for her: an English language Bible. Women in the professional classes are extremely literate: they have to assist their husbands with things like reading bills and account books, and schoolteachers and midwives are often more literate than servants or maids, simply due to the nature of their jobs.

Alright, we know that Tudor women are definitely reading, but how many of them are actually writing? Reading is a much more widespread skill, as most Tudor schools teach it, but not every student has access to specialized writing teachers. Plus, the age at which schools begin teaching writing often coincides with the age that poorer children are pulled out of school to start working or to help out around the house. Writing isn’t considered a necessary skill for girls to learn like reading is, and so the majority of poorer Tudor women probably don’t know how to write. Nonetheless, some middle- and upper-class women can, although their letters are often riddled with spelling errors, due to their tendency to write in a more oral, conversational way. Tudor women usually write in an elegant italic script, because the more masculine secretary-style hand that professional men use is considered more difficult to master.

That said, many Tudor women keep diaries, pen letters to friends, read prayers, and write poetry. Thanks to the growth of print, there is an abundance of pamphlets, ballads, and books that women can enjoy. Noble women are by far the most literate and educated class, and in their letters to friends, books are often a subject of discussion. Most of the books mentioned by Tudor women in their letters are religious in nature, with the next most popular topics being household manuals, and the news. Tudor women are avid consumers of current affairs, and apparently enjoy reading about British and European political events.

Aristocratic women make up the majority of known female letter writers in the Tudor period, and so it makes perfect sense that they are also the women who are writing books. The first English woman to appear in print is Henry VII’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who translated a religious text in 1504, but otherwise, female authors are not very common. Between 1500 and 1700, less than 2% of all books published in England are written by women, despite the fact that print culture is booming. If women are writing books, they are usually writing about raising children, household advice, or religious topics, as these are considered “safe” topics for women to talk about. The translation of religious works is also a particularly popular intellectual pursuit for noblewomen, which is something our queen Katherine Parr is going to get very into.

To the surprise of no one, rich noble boys have the best educational opportunities. While Tudor boys are sent to certain schools based on their wealth and status, Tudor girls are excluded from ALL secondary schools, regardless.

Here’s Elizabeth: Girls can't go to university, girls can't attend grammar schools, in almost all cases, there are one or two examples of girls who are given a place at grammar school, but in general, they're not allowed to go. And grammar schools are the best schools. So you know, that is a bar to their education.

Girls aren’t sent to secondary schools in the 16th century because most parents don’t think it’s worth formally educating their daughters, and even if they want to send their daughters to such a school, they can’t. All high-level Tudor institutions of learning - endowed schools, grammar schools, and universities - forbid women from attending. Of course, schools like Oxford are totally fine to have a female patron give them money. Margaret Beaufort, Henry VIII’s mom, became rather famous for being a patron of education, and of Oxford in particular. She uses her influence to appoint people she likes into professorships. They write her letters thanking her profusely for her patronage, but don’t bother inviting her to sit in on any lectures.

The thing is, no one’s suggesting that girls should be educated in the same way as boys. Richard Hyrde, a very learned man of the period, expresses a commonly-held belief when he writes:  “I have heard many men put great doubt whether it should be expedient and requisite or not, a woman to have learning in books of Latin and Greek. And some utterly affirm that it is not only eight necessary nor profitable, but also very noisome and jeopardous.” After all, he goes on to say, such learnings will inflame their stomachs and make them more inclined to vice.

THE TUDOR SYLLABUS

What are boys learning in all these posh grammar schools that are so keen on keeping out girls? Common subjects include mathematics, geography, classic literature such as Virgil and Homer, and Latin grammar, which is how they come to be called “grammar schools.” In fact, most Tudor grammar schools don’t actually teach English, an oversight that is only corrected by schoolmasters in the Elizabethan era, who finally realize that learning Latin and Greek is not of much use to the majority of their students, most of whom pursue careers that require reading and writing in their native tongue.

Most Tudor classroom lessons are extremely dull, including rote memorization, copying out passages with quills, and reading from a hornbook, which is just text pasted onto a wooden board shaped like a paddle. Grammar school teachers are always male, and part of their job is to teach good manners. One of the official school statutes at the Royal Grammar School at Guildford reads, “Honesty and cleanness of life, gentle and decent speeches, humility, courtesy and good manners shall be established by all good means. Pride, ribaldry, scurrility, lying, picking, swearing, blaspheming and such other vices shall be sharply punished.” Punishments usually involve schoolmasters beating their students with birch rods: grammar schools are known for their harsh disciplinary methods. Ah, the good old days!

For those who have private tutors and are educated at home, their academic lessons are often supplemented by learning important courtly skills such as riding, hunting, and etiquette. Tutors are often university graduates, and of course, they’re always male. Many noblewomen, such as young Princess Elizabeth, have male tutors. Noble boys receive rigorous humanistic lessons, which are meant to prepare them for public lives as courtiers, lawyers, diplomats, or members of Parliament. Humanism is a philosophical movement sweeping 16th century Europe that argues that education is necessary for personal growth, an idea that is largely embraced by the court of Henry VIII. Humanist educational curricula emphasize humanities topics such as grammar and rhetoric, logic, discourse, ethics, philosophy, literature, Latin, and the classics, and it is these topics that upper-class boys are learning in their grammar schools. Opportunities for humanistic education are not accessible to everyone. While the Tudors are all for commoners learning how to read, full humanistic education is still reserved for the upper echelons of society…you know, as long as they don’t have vaginas.

The Reformation plays a huge role in transforming Tudor education. Protestants believe that literacy is the key to salvation, and one of their main goals is making the Bible available in English, rather than Latin, so that the general public can read and interpret the word of God on their own; they no longer have to rely on priests and bishops to translate. Whereas the humanists are encouraging Tudors to learn to read for personal growth, Protestants are encouraging people to learn to read for personal salvation- all of which fuels the growth of schools.

What does all of this mean for us girls? Does humanism and the Reformation change anything for female students, if they aren’t even allowed to attend secondary school? The Tudor era is a period of moderate gains for female education. The fact that local village schools allow girls to gain a free education (even if they are just being taught to read) is revolutionary, and much of that is thanks to the Protestants. Tudor girls, who are expected to behave as the pious moral compasses of every household, are actually encouraged by Protestants to go to school and learn to read the Bible. It would teach them how to become good Christians, how to raise their children virtuously, and help them understand and accept their places in relation to men.

Humanists also encourage educating women… sort of. It is fashionable for noble women at court to study humanistic texts, and Princess Elizabeth in particular excels at her course load of classical literature and languages. But while humanists claim to be in favor of educating everyone, they advocate for a more restricted curriculum for women, and make it clear that too much education is downright dangerous. Thus, beyond elite circles, there isn’t a huge revolution in female education during Henry’s reign. People are reluctantly beginning to accept the idea that girls should be educated, but no one is seriously suggesting that they should receive the same kind of education as boys.

FEAR YE, MEN, AN EDUCATED WOMAN

Let’s talk about why humanists believe education is dangerous for women and learn about some of the other beliefs that prevent Tudor girls from accessing equal educational opportunities. First off, educated women seem to scare men, with one contemporary warning that: “a learned lady threatens male pride.” It is for the good of the woman not to be too smart… otherwise she might never land a husband. (The horror!) Nobody likes a bluestocking. That derisive term for a woman considered too learned is, in fact, English, though it won’t be coined until around 1790. It will spring from the London literary salon of one Elizabeth Montagu, who threw parties that feature intellectual debate between ladies rather than the expected card games, and simple dress rather than fine fashion. Apparently, some guy wore blue-gray hose to one of her do’s, instead of black ones, which is where this word comes from. To be clear, none of these dangerous intellectual women were wearing blue stockings, but here we are.

Girls are also kept out of schools for fear that they will distract boys from learning. Sir Thomas Elyot advises girls be kept out of sight whilst boys are trying to learn because they might cause the "sparks of voluptuosity" within boys to increase "into so terrible a fire that therewith all virtue and reason is consumed."

Girls aren’t merely threats to education: they are also capable of spreading their mental inferiority like a particularly infectious disease. Confused? Let me explain. Once a boy turns 7, it is advised that he be removed from the “weakening” company of women and either sent to school or placed in the hands of a male tutor, lest the presence of women negatively impact his ability to be educated. One Sir Robert Sidney wrote to his wife, “For the girls I kan not mislike the care you take of them / but for the boies you must resolve to let me have my wil / for I know better what belongs to a man than you do / indeed I wil haue him from his nurse for it is time and now no more to bee in the nurcary among wemen.” Clearly, Sir Robert could care less about his daughters’ educations, but he was adamant that being around women for too long would have detrimental consequences. Sir Robert wasn’t alone. While the education of daughters is often left to mothers or governesses, Tudor mothers are absolutely not allowed to interfere in the education of their sons.

Despite the fact that all of these rules make it seem like boys have the attention spans of goldfish, Tudor men seem to think that it is female brains that are the problem. Our old friend Juan Luis Vives argues that women shouldn’t be allowed to teach, either, and Richard Mulcaster argues that girls’ brains are intellectually less able, and that “naturally, the male is more worthy.” He does admit that girls have some capacity to learn, and that girls actually seem to learn faster than boys, but he is convinced that this is not always the case due to “their natural weakness, which cannot hold long.” This idea that women aren’t suited for education because of biology is echoed by Princess Elizabeth’s humanist tutor, who praises her capacity for learning languages (she will come to speak five fluently) by writing, “the constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness and she is endued with a masculine power of application.”

Princess Elizabeth is lucky: she receives a rigorous education fit for a future queen, but most noble women are only encouraged to become educated enough that they can run a household. When Jane Tutoft’s daughter is sent away to be educated in the household of another noble family, Jane wrote, “let her lern to wryt & to rede / & to cast acount & to wash / & to bru & to backe / & to dres meat & drink / & so I trust she shal prove a great good huswyf.” In fact, most noble women are being educated in the hopes that they can provide intellectual entertainment for courtiers, and to provide a ready conversational companion for their future husband.

Education for Tudor women essentially consists of teaching girls, “to be sober minded, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, housewifely, good, obedient to their husbands; that the word of God be not evil spoken of.”Thus, even noble women who have the privilege of private tutors are never taught skills such as public speaking or rhetoric, because women aren’t expected to work outside of the home or to play a public role in society. In his wildly popular educational manual, “Instruction of a Christian Woman,” Vives wrote, "As for eloquence, I have no great care, nor a woman needeth it not, For it neither becometh a woman to rule a school, nor to live amongst men or speak abroad and shake off her demureness and honesty… it were better to be at home… and let few see her, and none at all hear her…”

WHAT TUDOR GIRLS ARE LEARNING

What are noble Tudor girls learning, besides how to be quiet? Upper-class women are educated informally at home, an education overseen and conducted mostly by their mothers, and possibly a governess or a private male tutor. Though of course, you have to make sure to keep a beady eye on what sorts of education HE might be trying to give her. Remember Catherine Howard’s music tutor, Henry Mannox, who gave her an education not so much in the flute but in sexual harassment? Ugh, that guy.

But women play a huge role in many girls’ educations at every level of society.

ELIZABETH: So we can normally assume that the mother will be involved in the early education. So she'll teach the letters. And also will be involved in choosing the tutors. You also do get female governesses who are also there to teach them. And the most famous example is Kate Ashley, who is Elizabeth, the First Lady mistress, and she's very much hard to teach the young Elizabeth. And later on, she passes the education over to…University teachers, but certainly Kate Ashley is responsible for Elizabeth early education, she so she's a very educated woman herself.

Although their wealth affords them greater access to education, the amount someone like Katherine Parr receives is largely dependent upon their parents’ views toward learned women. Most mothers are keeping this education quite narrow, relying on the Bible and some religious texts and little outside them. As far as they’re concerned, overeducating theirs daughters isn’t going to help them succeed in Tudor times. As Grace Mildmay will write about her mother’s narrow education, “she would teach me not to subject myself unto mine own will and frame me to bear patiently whatsoever adversity should assault me in this world.”

Katherine is lucky on this front, though.

ELIZABETH: …as a child her mother certainly controlled her education. In fact, to the extent that one nobleman was advised to send his son to be educated with Katherine Parr's mother, because it was the best place for learning. So she's very, very well educated.

It helps that, during this era, there is a movement in certain circles to educate women more thoroughly.

Here’s Elizabeth: “There's very much a movement early in the 16th century to educate upper class women. And that comes from Thomas Moore, who basically challenged himself to educate his daughters as though they were university students. And I mean, he had phenomenal success with his women, they’re translators, highly educated and it became trendy, very fashionable. So all the royal family and then ability start educating their daughters really, really well.”

The ultimate goal of a noblewoman’s education is to help her secure an advantageous match on the marriage mart, and so lessons include sewing, embroidery, dancing, religion, basic humanist texts, and literature. In contrast to poorer women, noble girls are also usually taught to write, mainly by copying out letters and correspondence, and some of them will go on to translate, write, and publish literary texts. Most women learn how to manage a household and keep accounts, how to speak a conversational language such as French, and perhaps how to sing or play a musical instrument. These are all skills prized in courtly women, along with hostess skills like how to behave well at parties, as well as engage in polite conversations with grace and decorum. Noble girls are often placed in the households of influential families to polish their social skills and extend their network of social contacts. Again, I refer you to Catherine Howard…a finishing school failure if ever I’ve seen one.

Let’s be clear: just because women don’t have access to as much formal education as men do, and aren’t learning logic or geography, that doesn’t mean they aren’t knowledgeable. If the goal of education is to prepare someone for their social role, then for women, this means learning how to be a wife and a mother, and in that sense, Tudor women are extremely well schooled. In Tudor society, a government official isn’t expected to know how to use a needle and thread, and a woman isn’t expected to know Latin. In fact, if the definition of “an educated woman” is “a woman educated like a man,” in the 16th century, there would have been maybe a dozen women in all of England that fit the bill. We can acknowledge that there are definitely barriers to equal education in the Tudor era, while also acknowledging that many Tudor women are very educated in their own way.

WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS

Katherine Parr is one such woman. Although she is not one of the fifteen women that benefits from a man’s education like her step-daughter, Princess Elizabeth, Katherine is certainly no slouch when it comes to smarts. She is universally admired for her fashionable clothing, her eye for interior design, and her dancing, and she is a natural at playing both diplomat and hostess. She is well known as a keen patron of the arts, and many ambassadors praise her pious household and the loving relationships she forms with Henry’s children. Henry, too, positively adores her. He even appoints Katherine regent in 1544 when he leaves for France on a military campaign: something he hasn’t done for a wife since Catherine of Aragon[1] . Katherine proves more than capable of ruling in Henry’s stead, and her short stint in charge of things opens her eyes to the possibility of affecting change on a greater level. So she turns to something she is truly passionate about: religion.

Katherine was brought up Catholic, and her second husband, Lord Latimer, was Catholic as well. He even participated in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion against Henry’s Protestant reforms, which led to his home being seized and ransacked twice, one time while Katherine and her step-children were inside it. Katherine knows firsthand how dangerous openly debating religious issues can be, but she isn’t afraid to show her radical reformist’s colors. One of the issues she is most passionate about is making the Bible available in English. Remember: before the Reformation, most people didn’t have access to scripture in their native language. This is an important and hotly debated issue, and Catherine isn’t going to sit around just talking about it. In 1544, she translates and publishes various prayers and psalms. She does this anonymously, but the next year she will publish her first book under her own name, entitled “Prayers and Meditations,” a collection of excerpts from various holy works. Her next book is called “Lamentations of a Sinner,” an original work based upon her own religious experiences, published until 1547. And thus Katherine becomes the first Queen of England to publish her own book.

A FAMILY OF LEARNING

But she also throws herself into what is seen as every mother’s duty: educating her many royal stepchildren. Katherine knows a thing or two about step-mothering by this point. She has long been stepmother to Lord Latimer’s two children, and is now step-mother to Henry’s children: Princess Mary, who is only four years younger than Katherine; Princess Elizabeth, age 14, and Prince Edward, age six. Three children borne of three different mothers who all served as queen before Katherine. This could be a really awkward situation, but Katherine excels at nurturing her charges, encouraging them in their studies and making them feel loved and wanted. She has a great relationship with all of her stepchildren, and one of her greatest successes as queen is helping to repair Henry’s relationship with his daughters, who by this point have both been declared illegitimate and pretty much banished from court. (Great parenting, Henry.) Katherine cajoles Henry into inviting the girls back to court to live with them, and is credited with getting Mary and Elizabeth restored to the line of succession. Katherine works hard to befriend Mary, and they end up becoming good friends, as they both love of music, fashion, and scholarship. Elizabeth and Edward both come to regard Katherine as a mother figure.

Katherine takes the education of her stepchildren very seriously, and learning and intellectual pursuits are common topics of interest and conversation between them. When Edward is 8, he writes to Katherine, "Most honourable and entirely beloved mother, I have me most humbly recommended to your grace with like thanks both that your grace did accept so gently my simple and rude letters, …[and that you] give me so much comfort and encouragement to go forward." Katherine also encourages Mary, a very accomplished Latin speaker, to translate several gospels and publish them in her own name. When Katherine writes a book, Elizabeth translates it into Latin, French, and Italian and embroiders the cover as a gift for Henry. What a show off!

Katherine isn’t the first queen to value learning for the children; Catherine of Aragon was heavily involved in Mary’s education, and she set a great example for how and what courtly women would learn. After all, it was at Catherine of Aragon’s behest that Juan Luis Vives wrote “The Instruction of a Christian Woman,” as a textbook for Mary. But Katherine uses her queenly platform to make learning seem cool for everyone, not just princesses. She makes a point of publicly emphasizing the importance of female education, as well as reading banned religious texts and patronizing reformist thinkers, a trend set by another of our royal Tudor guides: Anne Boleyn. By making reading and learning fashionable at court, it comes to host a pool of elite learned women able to hold their own when speaking with male courtiers. She creates an almost scholarly environment for the ladies in her courtly circle, and her passion for reading religious materials is well noted by contemporaries. One man wrote, it “is now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in their hands either Psalms, homilies, and other devout meditations, or else Paul’s epistles, or some book of Holy Scripture matters.”

But Catherine begins to realize that her own education in certain subjects is lacking. In order to make a difference, she needs to learn a lot more about the subjects that interest her. Katherine is seriously committed to self-improvement through education, and it’s clear she works hard at it. In her book, she actually describes herself as an “unlearned woman,” who “bewail[ed] the ignorance of her blind life.” When she becomes queen, she pulls a serious Elle Woods studying for the LSATs montage, hitting the books hard, eventually becoming fluent in Italian and Latin.

Katherine isn’t the only Tudor woman to turn to education after marriage: becoming a self-educated Tudor woman pursuing is incredibly common in the 16th century, with women trying to better themselves by learning later in life. Aristocratic women, in particular, form networks in which they share books and ideas with one another. Women in lower classes, too, are using their later years to devote themselves to study, and it is clear that literacy is an ongoing project for many women.

Henry encourages her yen for intellectual discussion. He and Katherine even carry their personal books with them as they travel from palace to palace, and they discuss books with one another frequently. Henry loves these lively debates…you know, until he doesn’t. Which is going to get our queen into some seriously hot water.

BY THE BOOK

Let’s return to Katherine’s published book, in which she reflects on her conversion from the “foul, wicked, perverse, and crooked ways” of Catholicism. Although the book does not have so many personal details that it can be called an autobiography, it is written in the first person and is a deeply personal account that reads almost like a confession: “Cast me not out of Your presence, although I deserve to be cast into hell fire. If I should look upon my sins, and not upon Your mercy, I should despair. For in myself I find nothing to save me, but a dunghill of wickedness to condemn me.”

Katherine’s work is pretty radical in its anti-Catholicism: at one point Katherine accuses Catholic priests of being, “so blinded with the love of themselves and the world, that they extol men’s inventions and doctrines, before the doctrine of the Gospel.” This is probably why she waits to publish it until after the more conservative Henry dies, although he surely would have enjoyed her passages hailing him as the new Moses for delivering the Reformation to the English people.

Henry himself is no slouch when it comes to religion: he enjoys theological discussion, and even wrote his own religious book back in 1519. He encourages Katherine’s interest in theology… until she begins questioning him too freely. (Wait, stop- I just wanted you to read enough to agree with me, not start actively contradicting me!) The extremely radical Katherine and the much more conservative Henry begin to butt heads and argue about religion. And when Katherine’s fervent Protestant ideals start to anger the conservative faction of Henry’s court, he decides to teach her a lesson. One she will need to respond to wisely if she wants to keep her head on her shoulders.

It’s 1546, and Henry is getting annoyed by Katherine’s constant attempts to convert him and promote religious reform in England. He’s had enough opinionated wives for a lifetime. Henry complains about her to the conservative Bishop Stephen Gardiner, who leaps at the chance to purge the court of their Protestant queen. He asks to open an investigation into Katherine for heresy; many of her beliefs are so radical they border on treasonous, and Henry agrees. (Sure, Henry, go ahead and investigate your wife, that’s never ended badly before.) Gardiner’s investigation centers around Katherine’s supposed relationship with a woman named Anne Askew. Remember her from our episode on religion? Anne is a 25-year-old radical Prostestant who has been arrested for heresy. But instead of learning her lesson and keeping quiet from them on, she is arrested again in 1546. Unfortunately, Bishop Gardiner takes this opportunity to torture her, hoping to gather evidence against Katherine. But Anne holds up under torture better than most fully grown men, refusing to incriminate Katherine or anyone else before she is burned at the stake.

Stephen Gardiner, the holy man of torturing young women, is unfazed by this. He insists that Henry is “cherish[ing] a viper in his bosom,” and claims that he can prove Katherine’s heresy if Henry will just allow him to arrest and interrogate her. Henry agrees. Meanwhile, Katherine continues to debate religion with him, not knowing that her husband has just greenlit her arrest. Henry summons his physician, Dr. Wendy, who is also close to Katherine, and informs him of the heresy plot before swearing him to secrecy. Luckily, a member of Katherine’s household finds a copy of the articles drawn up for her arrest. Understandably, Katherine freaks out, and hearing his wife is ill, Henry sends Dr. Wendy to her, who spills about the heresy plot. Katherine knows she has one chance to fix this, and that she has to do it very fast.

The next day, when Henry tries to start a debate with her, Katherine refuses to fall into it. She does what any smart woman would do when faced with a megalomaniac husband who doesn’t like a woman with opinions…she lies. Katherine insists that she wouldnever try to instruct the king about religion. I mean, she only debated with him in order to learn from him, she insists, and to try to distract him from the painful ulcers in his leg. She said, “yet must I, and will I, refer my judgment in this, and in all other cases, to your majesty’s wisdom, as my only anchor, supreme head and governor here in Earth, next under God, to lean unto.” Henry eats up this display of groveling submission and forgives Katherine immediately, before dropping the arrest charges. So suck it, Stephen Gardiner.

Was this all a ploy to get rid of yet another inconvenient wife? It doesn’t seem so. Unlike how things went down with Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, Katherine Parr is allowed to go to Henry and beg for forgiveness, a thing that wouldn’t have been allowed had he not wanted to forgive her. This was probably just his way of putting the conservative faction, and Katherine, in their rightful places.

Here’s Elizabeth: “I mean, it does rather look like Henry was trying to scare her into submission, rather than necessarily arrest her or the sort of the circumstances of the dropped warrant. And the doctor being informed does rather look like Henry didn't particularly want to execute Catherine, he really just wanted her to be quiet, to shut up. Because actually, that's what most Tudor husbands wanted. They wanted a submissive wife.

Even though Gardiner’s plot to get rid of Katherine fails, she definitely gets the message. Her political influence decreases, and she is very careful to play the part of the obedient wife. When Henry dies in January 1547, Katherine is not with him, and she learns that she was been made regent for Edward, as she expected. At least he treats her well in his will, leaving her several houses, a large sum of money, and ordering that she be treated as queen for the rest of her life. Once again a widow, and Princess Elizabeth’s official guardian, Katherine can finally able to give in to her heart’s desires. And what her heart desires is her old flame, Thomas Seymour. She moves to Chelsea with Elizabeth, then causes an absolute scandal by secretly marrying Thomas. This is Katherine’s fourth marriage, but her first time marrying for love. “As truly as God is God,” she wrote her paramour, “my mind was fully bent, the other time I was at liberty, to marry you before any man I know.”

If only they lived happily ever after, but…well. Henry’s children aren’t thrilled about Katherine’s hasty remarriage. Mary is offended by Katherine’s lack of respect toward her late father. And then Sir Thomas Seymour, who is, remember, prince Edward’s uncle, manipulates him into supporting them, and so he is hurt by the business as well. Elizabeth has the worst time of it, though. While living under the same roof as the newlyweds, Thomas starts exhibiting some creepy behavior, inappropriately touching and tickling her. Her governess orders him to stop, to no avail, and eventually has to inform a heavily pregnant Katherine about what’s happening. No doubt upset and horrified by her husband’s behavior, she sends her beloved step-daughter away for her own protection, an act for which Elizabeth will thank her.

Though married four times and many times a stepmother, Katherine Parr is only 36 years old when she gives birth to her first natural-born child in August of 1548. Unfortunately, she gets puerperal fever a mere month after the birth of her daughter, Mary, and dies. A year later, her husband, Sir Thomas Seymour, will be executed for treason. Mary is taken in by friends and dies in infancy.

Although Katherine’s life ends in tragedy, she leaves a remarkable legacy behind her. She is the first English queen to publish an original book in her own name, and her funeral is the first Protestant burial service for an English queen. Her passion for education and reform will cement her status in history as one of England’s best but least-known queens, and her step-daughter, Elizabeth, will follow in her footsteps and become one of England’s greatest monarchs. Long live the queens.

music

All music was graciously provided by guitarist John Sayles.

voices

Grace at GracefulVoice, Chris at Naturally RP, KingVO, and Ed Jenkins. Their work and profiles can be found on Fiverr.

 

Tudor EnglandKate J. Armstrong