The Final Wife - Catherine Parr
him and try to ease his suffering. Catherine escaped execution and the king, for on January 28th, 1547, Henry VIII died. He was fifty-six years old.
Catherine was free to marry Seymour at last, although it had to be rather secretly seeing as she was supposed to be in mourning for the king. There was some upset to the marriage though, Mary felt it was too soon and turned against Catherine, but Catherine kept Elizabeth's friendship...for a while.
Thomas Seymour had always had an eye for the ladies and he'd long had one on the Princess Elizabeth. When Catherine became pregnant she began to suspect that her husband was involving himself with Elizabeth and when she finally saw the evidence for herself, Elizabeth was sent away.
Her husband's betrayal seemed to have taken the heart out of Catherine, for after giving birth to a daughter in August, she died on September 7th, 1548.
Catherine will always be known for the influence that she had on Henry's children. When Edward ascended the throne, he would rule as a Protestant and bring changes to reproduce his Protestant beliefs. Elizabeth would be a hardened Protestant too and she would reign England for more than forty years.
Of course, Catholic and Protestant would fight for a few more years to come and would affect the lives of many innocents, Lady Jane Grey among them.
Sources: Six Wives of Henry VIII
by Alison Weir, B. Alison Weir
Publisher: Grove Press; (April 2000)
ISBN: 0802136834
Henry VIII: The King and His Court (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
by Alison Weir
Publisher: Ballantine Books; (October 29, 2002)
ISBN: 034543708X
The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers: A Novel
by Margaret George
Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback; 3rd edition (October 1998)
ISBN: 0312194390
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