Katharine Parr – The Sixth Wife by Alison Weir
Katharine Parr was the sixth wife of Henry VIII, and sadly the last instalment in Alison Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series.
The wonderful thing about reading historical fiction is the different perspectives each author brings to an historical figure. They all read the same archives but have their own interpretation of the facts. Alison Weir is especially compassionate, I think, about the lives these women lived and the challenges they faced.
Even from a young age Katharine Parr seems to have been an entirely sensible and pragmatic young woman. She was married, then widowed by the age of 21, and left a woman of some means.
It was somewhat of a surprise when Henry VIII came courting. The king was now in the final years of his life, he was often not well. He has a young legitimate heir, Edward, son of Jane Seymour, and two daughters, the older, Mary, daughter of Katherine of Aragon, and the younger, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn. When Katharine Parr marries Henry VIII she becomes step-mother to these children, a role she seems to have cherished.
Katharine’s only regret is that she had fallen in love with another, younger and more virial, man prior to her arranged marriage with Henry VIII. She had promised herself to this man, who in turn has promised to wait until the death of the King to woo her again. There is a certain amount of intrigue and danger as they cross paths during the remaining years in the life of the King.
Both Katharine and Henry are intelligent and educated, both read widely about religion and belief and are more or less in agreement about the move from Catholicism to a more liberal form of worship. There is great religious strife in the country and great changes are made during the final years of the reign of Henry VIII.
I particularly appreciated many of the passages about the aging monarch, as he is forced to accept his decline, and in many ways appears to have more insight and understanding, and compassion, than he did as a young man.
“Time is of all losses the most irrecuperable,” he (Henry) said to her (Katharine) one day, “for it can never be redeemed for any price or prayer. What would I not give to have my youth again, to feel as if I could take on the world, to be able to play sports and joust and leave every man standing?”
Anyone who enjoys reading about the years of the reign of Henry VIII might like, in tandem to Alison Weir’s series, the mystery novels of C J Sansom which are set during the same time and provide another perspective to all of the historical figures of the time.