Tudor Tales: Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour at Sudeley Castle

it was once prophesized that crowns and not needles were her destiny she was the Tudor Queen who as the rhyme goes survived she was also the woman who elected to marry her King and selfishly choosing duty over love he lived his whole life in the shadow of his elder brother the rivalry between the two fueled by jealousy and ambition ultimately would be his downfall this is a story of Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour told from their final home together here at Seelye castle in Gloucestershire [Music] hi I'm Sarah and I'm the tutor travel guide and I'm Phil from the tutor tour together we're going to give you a brief insight into their story catherine parr is best known as the six wife of Henry DEA however she was a remarkable woman in her own right learn it a devout follower of the newly emerging Reformed faith and generous in spirit after an eventful life which saw Catherine married four times held hostage during the pilgrimage of grace raised to the level of queenship and then nearly thrown into the tower for treason she died here at castle at the age of 36 Thomas seemed womanizer ambitious hot-headed and greedy although those statements hold some truth if we just dig a little deeper you may see a side to Thomas that you didn't expect over the years Thomas's character somewhat succumb to name-calling yes he may have enjoyed some pleasures whilst at court in England and abroad but they have no no mistresses or any claims of illegitimate children catherine was married for the first time age 17 and a widow by 22 she would shortly marry again this time an older man John Neville Lord Latimer of Snape Castle in North Yorkshire their marriage was to last nine years but by the winter of 1542 John Neville was clearly dying and Catherine spent much of that winter caring for her husband at their Charterhouse home in London in March the following year John Neville died and was shortly thereafter buried at simples Cathedral Thomas Seymour was the youngest surviving son of John Seymour brother to Henry the eighth's third wife Jane and uncle to the young Prince Edward when he was younger he received a good education but didn't show promise like his elder brother Edward instead he went into the service of Sir Francis Bryan in 1530 Thomas thrived action and particularly enjoyed being at sea of course Henry's marriage to his sister Jane and the birth of Prince Edward in 1537 increases the Seymours position soon after the prince was born thomas was knighted and granted land similar dissolved monasteries of Essex Hampshire and Berkshire whereas his brother was given a grand title of the Earl of Harford by now catherine was an experienced 30 year old woman of the world and although long past the first flush of youth by Judas standards paintings of Catherine reveal her slim figure dark eyes and lustrous hair which her biographer Linda Porter describes as being the color of burnished gold descriptions written at the time paint a picture of an attractive woman Catherine was said to be of a lively and pleasing appearance endowed with rare gifts of nature surely something that any gentleman would find appealing her singular beauty and other accomplishments were clearly attractive to the aging King Henry the eighth who in the spring of 15 43 was approaching his 52nd birthday however it was most certainly not the king who Catherine initially had in mind as her potential suitor for she had fallen in love with one of the most desirable and attractive men at court Thomas Seymour Sigma was actually well-liked by his peers he was the most eligible bachelor at course in his 30s and not yet married he was tall well-built charismatic and handsome not only that he was a member of one of the most powerful families in England with this in mind he sundar stand of all that Catherine who was of similar age and standing found him appealing in January 15 43 Thomas was back in London and a few months later he could pay court to Catherine he flirted with Catherine and it's clear that he had feelings for her we don't know how the couple met but the likelihood is through her brother William Parr nothing suggests that Thomas had asked her to be his mistress when she was still married to Latimer just when Thomas thought he had the woman he wanted another suitor made himself known the king it seems that soon after her second husband had been laid to rest Catherine found herself in a quandary while her heart lay with Seymour the King had proposed to lady Latimer probably in the April of 1543 it is only from the letters written to Thomas Seymour after Henry the eighth's there do we gain an insight into Catherine's intense in a struggle between heart and mind during this brief window in time god we stood my will there in most feminine tea full-time and through His grace and goodness made that possible which seemeth to me most impossible that was made me to renounce utterly mine own will and to follow his will most willingly as truly as God is God that my mind was fully bent the other time I was at liberty Temari you before any man I know [Music] surprisingly Thomas a man that was known to show his emotion back down he may have thought to himself now the king was 52 years of age and with deteriorating health this marriage was not going to be a long one and on the death of the king Catherine will retain her royal status he's just gonna have to sit and wait it out [Music] the Imperial ambassador on the 10th of March noted that Thomas was sent back to the Netherlands as Henry's representative Seymour was now out of the way at some point during the summer months Catherine's mind was made up and after only four months of being widowed for the second time at the age of 30 she was married to Henry the eighth of England on the 12th of July 15:43 in the Queen's closet at Hampton Court Palace after a Stella bit of social climbing Catherine was Queen of England during the latter part Henry's reign Thomas's newfound military expertise were rewarded with master of ordinance for life an admiral in Henry's Navy however Henry had very little faith in his abilities unlike those of his elder brother Edward who was becoming more favoured by the King as 15:46 grew to a close it was clear to everyone that the Kings health was failing separated from and not allowed to visit her husband it is unclear exactly when and how Catherine found out about the King's death Catherine was a widow for the third time and her life was about to be turned upside down however before then she would find out that the King's will had left her well provided for henceforth she would always be attended as Queen she would live in luxury served by a large household and would be free to make her own decisions but if Catherine thought that she would remain at the center of power as regent for her young steps on Edward the sixth then she was to be bitterly disappointed on the death of the king and against Henry's wishes Edward Seymour made himself Lord Protector than the Duke of Somerset Thomas was made Baron Seymour sued Lee and Lord High Admiral yeah he was still not seen as one the leading men in Edwards life as the King's uncle he felt the position of protector and governor should be shared tensions were high between the brothers and Thomas really felt he drew the short straw when it came to Henry's will Henry's will gave instruction for a government to rule during Edwards minority consisting of 16 privy counsellors and 10 assistant counselors one of which was Thomas Thomas first had ideas of marrying the Princess Elizabeth or possibly Mary however this would have had to have been agreed by the Privy Council and not surprisingly was rejected Thomas found himself rekindling an old flame with Catherine Catherine moved out of the Royal Palaces which he had come to know as home over the previous four years and dive headlong into a passionate relationship with the man she was clearly deeply attracted to both wanted power and both were being frustrated by Thomas's elder brother Edward head of the Privy Council perhaps they believed that through their strategic union they could exert more influence on the young boy king and the Privy Council than through their singular efforts alone however that would have been easier said than done as Edward Seymour authority somewhat increased on March the 12th it was declared that he could bypass the advice of the Privy Council if he saw fit it was clear now that Edward Seymour had full control over the young king serving which would have had Henry turning in his grave from her dower property at Chelsea Catherine wrote regularly to Thomas and he visited her often on late-night trysts however their surviving letters still tell us today that discretion remained of utmost importance I so I suppose you may come without suspect I pray you let me have knowledge overnight to what our ye will come that your portress may wait at the gate to the fields for you although no one knows the exact date of Catherine Parrs marriage to Thomas it most likely took place in the last two weeks of May 1547 thereafter Catherine seems to have divided her time between her dower properties at Chelsea and handless with time spent at Seymour place with Thomas and his ward Lady Jane Grey rumors soon spread of the marriage the news it seems was by and large met with distaste however regardless of how people felt about the news that die was cast and six to seven months into their marriage Catherine found out she was pregnant when the fourteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth was living with the couple Thomas got hold of the key to her bedchamber in the creep in in the early morning often bare-legged he would tickle the princess and slap her bun sometimes Elizabeth would go along with it at the time she would be ready before Thomas arrived Elizabeth's governess cat ashley knew exactly what thomas was doing and when she confronted him he said he would not stop for he meant no evil on one occasion Catherine went along with one of Thomas's games holding the princess while he cut her a gown into a hundred pieces however these regular liaisons got all too much for Catherine and she sent Elizabeth away today we would say this is absolutely shocking and sordid behavior but by Tudor standards Elizabeth was a young woman of marriageable age [Music] despite their ongoing struggles with the protector his wife and the Privy Council it seems at least temporarily the couple had decided to focus their efforts on providing Catherine a safe and comfortable place in which she could see out the remainder of her pregnancy and deliver Thomas his son and heir away from the prying eyes and the pressures of court Thomas was convinced the child was going to be a boy and he wanted the birth to be befitting for a queen and what better place in his seat here at soothly castle when Cemal required soothly in February 1547 it was a little rundown so he enlisted the help of his friend Sir William Sherrington to make renovations costing a little over a thousand pounds somewhere in the region of a staggering three hundred and forty thousand pounds in today's money sued Li with its honey-colored Cotswold stone it's fine privy range pretty Gardens Anna Dilek countryside must have felt like a haven to Catherine after the tumultuous events of the previous year letters survived to this time and against popular belief Thomas is very respectful towards Catherine and his excitement about the new arrival is evident I do desire your highness to keep the little knave so lean and gaunt with your good diet and walking that he may be so small that he creep out of a mousehole and I bid you my most dear and well beloved wife most heartily well to fair however all this lovingness was at times offset by bouts of jealousy and mood swings [Music] the Privy lodgings which would have housed Kathryn and Thomas when they came here to suit Lee had been developed by Richard of Gloucester the future reached the third after he had taken ownership of the castle in the fourteen 60s when the couple arrived here in 1548 it would have been a splendid lodging range and surely fit for a queen the range of privy lodgings here at soothly consisted of six or possibly seven principal chambers three on the ground floor and then three on the first floor including a glorious presence chamber with its high vaulted Oriol windows there were also probably additional privy chambers including Catherine's bedchamber in a residential tower block which mirrors that of the surviving Tower at the end of the West range it is in this range of lodgings that Catherine would have whiled away her days reading religious texts or writing letters alongside her ladies including her sister and Herbert and the young lady Jane Grey she set about preparing a nursery for the new arrival decorating it in colors of crimson and gold and assiduously following the advice of her physician dr. Hickey taking regular exercise by walking in the castles beautiful grounds [Music] although Katherine had endured an uncomfortable pregnancy on the 30th of August the waiting was finally over Katherine was delivered of a baby girl who the couple named Mary in honor of Katherine's eldest stepdaughter all seemed well initially but then by the 31st of August Katherine had begun to show the first signs of the dreaded puerperal fever a bacterial infection which causes sepsis and widespread multi-organ failure in a pre antibiotic age there was little hope Katherine's suffered bouts of delirium and during one such bout one of her ladies-in-waiting recorded how she had accused her husband of mocking her demise he later worked for those our beer barely cared enough for me the standard laughing get my grief and the more could I do unto them the less good they doin to me [Music] damning words indeed but we should remember that Katherine was in the grip of delirium when she accused her husband so and the lady-in-waiting Lady Elizabeth turret was no friend of Sir Thomas's and so we will perhaps never know the truth of those words and if indeed Katherine was aware of the accusations that she was making about her husband despite those damning words about Thomas it must be said that he remained with Catherine throughout tow it noted that he held her hand and even lay on the bed there to help karma and he succeeded [Music] by the 3rd of September catherine was calm but she surely knew death was approaching for she summoned her physician dr. Hickey and John Parkhurst who had been her chaplain since she had been Queen she dictated her will and she left all her goods to her husband to dispose of as he pleased and then at some point on the 5th of September close to this very spot Catherine finally slipped away Thomas understandably was shocked by Catherine's death he ordered a fine funeral to take place however the heartbroken Thomas clearly mourning his wife and full of grief didn't attend Catherine's body was wrapped in seer cloth to embalm it and then she was brought here to be buried on the north side of the high altar of the chapel at Sood lay the funeral reflected Catherine's ardently held beliefs in the Reformed faith it was short and in English and was remarkable in its time and thought to be the first Protestant burial of an English Queen chief mourner was Lady Jane Grey who must have led the solemn procession from the Queen's Privy chambers across the bridge that spanned the moat and into the medieval Chapel the weeks and months that followed Thomas's hotheadedness continued he was to break up Catherine's household and send Jane Grey home but they went back on that decision and his intentions were now back with the Princess Elizabeth [Music] on the 16th of January 1549 Thomas allegedly attempted to break into the Kings apartment to kidnap him the alarm was raised when one of the king's dogs barks but when the guards came rushing in all they found was a lifeless dog had been killed one report said this pointed to the Admiral because he had scattered the watch that evening on several errands unfortunately with any actual hard evidence it's difficult to know what happened that night was he framed or was he guilty either way Thomas was found guilty on 33 counts of treason by act of attainder on the 5th of March 15 days later he was executed on Tower Hill it took two strokes of the axe when Catherine died at the age of 36 she had lived an extraordinary life but if her life was remarkable then what happened to her after death was truly shocking nearly 100 years after Catherine Parrs death sued Li Castle was slighted by parliamentarian forces and subsequently abandoned for around 200 years the once beautiful castle began to crumble and iev grew around the ruins the chapel also fell into disrepair and Catherine's tombs sadly was largely forgotten around 200 years later in 1782 a group of lady sightseers arrived for a day trip to to--in to examine the ruins of the chapel finding a block of alabaster fixed into the derelict wall of the chapel they enlisted help to dig below the panel and discover the lead coffin buried not a foot beneath the ground driven by curiosity they made two openings in the leaden envelope one over the face and one over the breast and was shocked to discover that the Queen's face was in the most perfect state of preservation in the same summer the coffin was opened again and an incision was made in the layers of sere cloth covering the former Queen's arm her flesh was noted to still be moist and white Katherine's body remained undisturbed for a further two years until the spring of 1784 when a group of ruffians unearthed the body and brutally violated it casting it upon a rubbish heap however we're lucky for one eyewitness was able to recount how Katherine was dressed in costly burial clothes with shoes upon her feet that all her limbs were delicately proportioned and that there was still vestiges of beauty upon her face two years later in 1786 Katherine's body was exhumed for one final time this time it was for a formal autopsy now by this stage the body was in an advanced state of decay however measurements of her coffin was able to tell us one more thing about this long dead Tudor Queen and that was that during live Catherine Parr stood 5 foot 3 inches tall [Music] eventually Katherine's remains which were now little more than brown dust were reinterred in a stone vault of the Chandos chapel this chapel was restored and rededicated in 1863 part of this restoration included a design for a magnificent canopy tomb with a recumbent effigy of the Queen fashioned from white marble which can still be seen here at suti today finally Katherine could rest in peace [Music] and so ends our Tudor tale of passion and romance and although thought it from gaining parent status that perhaps they believed was their right for a few brief moments in the summer of 1548 we might imagine Kathryn Thomas able to delight in each other's company away from the intrigues of court and surrounded by the tranquil charms of soothly Castle I'm Sarah and I'm that you to travel guide and you can find out more about Phil at his tutor tours a Facebook page and you can follow Sara on her tuturro venture via her Tudor Travel Guide blog at the Tudor Travel Guide com [Music] [Music]

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Keywords: katherine parr, katherine parr the tudors, henry viii and his six wives, henry viii wives, Henry VIII, thomas seymour the tudors, thomas seymour and elizabeth tudor, thomas seymour, thomas seymour and elizabeth, sudeley castle history, sudeley castle, the tudors, Tudor, english history, england, castles, history, history of england, history of england documentary, tudor tales, tudor england

Id: p6q_QVrX9AM

Length: 27min 21sec (1641 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2020