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The Wives of Henry VIII: Katherine Parr, Part III

© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler

By the end of 1546 Henry was in rapidly failing health, and it was well on the books that Katherine would soon be a royal widow. On 30 December Henry dictated his will, leaving his crown and country to his son, Edward, and after him to Princess Mary and then Princess Elizabeth, and finally to the children of his late sister Mary and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. No mention was made of the Scottish descendants of his elder sister Margaret.

To Queen Katherine he left £3,000 in plate and jewels for the rest of her life, £1,000 in cash, and her dower and jointure as voted by Parliament.

By 3 January Henry was feeling slightly better and journeyed with the queen to Whitehall Palace in London. On 7 January Parliament at long last passed an Act of Attainder against the aging Duke of Norfolk and he was imprisoned in the Tower, where he thought himself doomed to death - but his sovereign would die before the sentence could be carried out, and Norfolk would be spared. Henry named a council to rule after him during his son's minority; Jane Seymour's brother, Edward Seymour, raised to the title of Earl of Hertford, was to be Lord Protector, assisted by Archbishop Cranmer, John Dudley, Chancellor Wriothesley, and others, most of whom were known to be reformers. But Thomas Seymour, much to his chagrin, was not named as one of his nephew's council.

Henry's end was near, and on 26 January he called Katherine to him to bid her farewell. She was overcome with a very genuine grief for this complex man whom she had grown to care for, and at his leaving her another £7,000 as dowry should she wish to marry again, she completely broke down with weeping and had to be led from the room. He spoke with his daughter Mary and bade her be a good mother to her little stepbrother. She begged him not to leave her an orphan, but he made his goodbyes and dismissed her as well.

Henry clung to life, unwilling to admit that his was ending, until Lord Anthony Denny, taking courage, warned the king that "in man's judgment, he was not like to live" and that it was time he made his peace with God. Slightly after midnight on 28 January Henry awoke and asked that Archbishop Cranmer be summoned from Lambeth Palace to hear his final confession. By the time Cranmer arrived Henry was too weak for speech. Cranmer, taking the king's hand, asked him for some sign that he died trusting in God through Jesus Christ. The king gripped his hand hard, and Cranmer had his proof that the king died believing in God's grace. At 2AM on 28 January, 1547, Henry VIII breathed his last and rendered up his immortal soul to God. He was fifty-five years old.

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