Free Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr by Linda Porter Page B

sixteenth-century life. They provided a network of support and reward that went far beyond the limits of the modern, more confined family relationships to which we are accustomed. And they could be particularly valuable to a woman like Katherine, whose immediate kin were geographically distant and not yet quite well enough placed, in the case of either of her siblings, to help launch her back into the wider marriage market.
    For a second marriage, and a better one, if possible, was the only option for Katherine Parr, a fact she would undoubtedly have known. She was clever, attractive and good-natured, not rich, but well born and well connected. Circumstances made it unlikely that a southern gentleman would suddenly appear to claim her. In this respect her brother could not help her. Indeed, there were already signs that he might be in need of marital advice himself, as attempts at cohabiting with his wife, now she had reached the age of sixteen, had not been successful.
    Yet in Tudor England, a woman of Katherine Parr’s quality was unlikely to remain single for long. By the summer of 1534 a suitable husband had been found for her, probably through the combined efforts of Lady Strickland and Bishop Tunstall. The man was John Neville, Lord Latimer, a relative of both Katherine and her hostess at Sizergh. Twice married and twice widowed, he had a title, a castle at Snape in North Yorkshire and an established role in northern politics. And he was also father to a fourteen-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter, who had been without a maternal figure in their lives for four years, following the death of a previous stepmother in 1530. Now they were to have an even younger woman to fill that role. Katherine Parr was barely twenty-two when she became Latimer’s third wife and moved to a new life in the pleasant countryside of the Yorkshire Dales.

 

CHAPTER FOUR
     

Lady Latimer

‘I am never able to render to her grace sufficient thanks for the godly education and tender love and bountiful goodness which I have ever more found in her highness.’

Margaret Neville’s generous tribute to her stepmother,
Queen Katherine Parr, in her will of 1545

    I T WOULD BE EASY to be cynical, to say that it could not possibly have been a love match, this alliance between a very young and financially insecure widow and a northern baron twice her age who needed companionship and wanted a woman’s presence in the lives of his two children. In the Tudor age, love was a relatively minor consideration where marriage was concerned. The cementing of family ties, the enhancement of wealth and social prospects, these all figured much more prominently. In balancing decisions on such an important step, romance seldom figured. A sensible marriage, based on a proper understanding of what both parties brought to the union and their shared values, was more desirable than the unpredictable consequences of falling in love, which seldom fitted into the scheme of things in the sixteenth century.
    This does not mean, however, that love was not a factor at all in the marriage of Katherine and Lord Latimer. She may have felt little more than a fondness tinged with gratitude at theoutset, but Katherine developed a genuine affection for her husband over the nine years of their marriage. When she died, she still had a copy of his New Testament with his name inscribed in it. On his side, in particular, the attractions of his third bride seem to have outweighed any concerns he might have harboured about her ability to manage his home and help shape the lives of his son and daughter.
    The earliest known portrait of Katherine dates from the period of her marriage to Lord Latimer. It is a striking image. The young woman in the picture is blessed with good features, an oval-shaped face with a firm jawline and a clear complexion. But it is the overall impression of intelligence and intensity that is so compelling. She is not quite beautiful but there is an inner strength