Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr (1512-1548), the sixth queen of Henry VIII., was a daughter of Sir Thomas Parr (d. 1517), of Kendal, an official of the royal household. When only a girl she was married to Edward Borough, and after his death in or before 1529 to John Neville, Lord Latimer, who died in 1542 or 1543. Latimer had only been dead a few months when, on the 12th of July 1543, Catherine was married to Henry VIII. at Hampton Court. The new queen, who was regent of England during the king's absence in 1544, acted in a very kindly fashion towards her stepchildren; but her patience with the king did not prevent a charge of heresy from being brought against her. Henry, however, would not permit her arrest, and she became a widow for the third time on his death in January 1547. In the same year she married a former lover, Sir Thomas Seymour, now Lord Seymour of Sudeley. Soon after this event, on the 7th of September 1548, she died at Sudeley castle. Catherine was a pious and charitable woman and a friend of learning; she wrote The Lamentation or Complaint of a Sinner, which was published after her death.

See A. Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. iii. (1877).