Katherine Parr was Henry VIII’s sixth queen, and was famously the one who survived him. The king died in January 1547, and Katherine quickly remarried, to Sir Thomas Seymour. Thomas was brother of Edward Seymour, the new Lord Protector of the realm for his nephew Edward VI. There is evidence that Edward and his wife Anne found the hasty marriage, which was carried out secretly, to be too soon considering Henry’s death. Katherine lived with Thomas at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, where she prepared, in the late summer of 1548, to give birth to their child. However, Katherine suffered an illness shortly after the birth, and died. She was buried in the chapel at Sudeley, where her monument exists today, however the effigy of the queen that we see today is not contemporary, but was erected in the nineteenth century.

St Mary's church, Sudeley: monument to Katherine Parr by Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A member of the College of Heralds, York Herald J.C. Brooke, wrote eagerly to the Society of Antiquaries in April 1777 to make them aware of a previously unprinted document he had found there. Kept in the Cotton Library, it is a surviving herald’s account of the Dowager Queen’s funeral, giving intimate details of where Katherine’s body was kept, intimate details of Katherine’s service along with the procession and burial.

Katherine died between 2-3am on Wednesday 5 September 1548. In the days after her death, she was covered with a shroud and placed inside a lead coffin which was kept in her privy chamber while arrangements for her funeral were made. 

The chapel was draped in black cloth ‘garnishid with Schoocheons of maryagys’, identifying her marriages to Henry VIII and the Lord Admiral Sir Thomas Seymour. Her own arms appeared alongside Henry’s, ‘in payle under the Crown’, while Thomas’ arms were displayed ‘in pale without Crowne’. Mourners sat behind rails covered with black cloth, on stools fitted out with cushions. Two tapers were lit, and flickered on Katherine’s coffin during the service. 

The document also details the procession which accompanied the Dowager Queen’s body to the chapel, with two ‘conductors in blacke with blacke staves’ leading. Gentlemen, esquires, knights and officers of the household walked solemnly to the altar, while gentlemen ushers followed slowly behind. The Somerset Herald was in attendance, wearing the arms of Edward VI. Six men wearing black gowns carried the coffin, ‘with theire Hodes on theire Heades’, while yeomen bore eleven lit torches ‘rounde aboute the Corps’. Knights, also wearing their hoods, placed themselves at each corner of the coffin ‘for assistance’. 

Katherine’s chief mourner was Lady Jane Grey, daughter of Henry Grey Marquis of Dorset. She wore a long gown, and the record states that her train was ‘borne uppe by a yonge Ladye’. Jane would later become tangled up in the succession crisis of 1552 on the death of her cousin Edward VI. Edward altered the succession so that Jane would inherit the crown instead of Mary, an act that would cause Jane’s downfall and execution when Mary seized power. Six female mourners followed Jane, walking in pairs side by side, followed by the remaining men and women in attendance, again in pairs. Others followed to the quire of the chapel.

Once the coffin was set down, a series of prayers were sung, which would have echoed around the walls. Three ‘lessons’ were given, and on the third, the signal was given for the mourners to offer alms. Katherine’s almoner, Doctor Coverdale, then preached a sermon ‘whiche was verie good and godlie’. He reminded those present that the offerings were not ‘done anything to profit the dead, but for the poor only’. After he made a ‘godlye prayer; th’ole Churche answerid and praied the same with hym in th’ende’. 

Finally, Katherine’s body was buried, to the sound of a choir singing ‘Te Deum’ in English. The mourners retired to a dinner and went home. The funeral was probably conducted fairly early, as the herald noted that ‘all which aforesaid was don in a mornynge’. 

There is some evidence that no monument was erected to Katherine’s memory, or that it was missing by the eighteenth century, as in 1768 the antiquary Rev. Huggett wrote a letter to George Pitt in Westminster stating that no one knew its exact location. Huggett related that a recent historian ‘cannot acquaint his readers with any thing relative to her death or burial’.  In summer 1782 the queen’s tomb was discovered, and her coffin was found. 

Illustration of the opening of Katherine Parr's coffin in 1782. From the Annals of Winchcombe & Sudeley by Emma Dent, published 1877

A drawing of the coffin made at the time of its opening shows that it was shaped around Katherine’s body, including the head, rather than a rectangular coffin we might think of today. It had been buried around two feet deep and had the inscription ‘K.P. VIth and last wife of King Hen. the VIIIth, 1548’. The inquisitive Georgians decided to open the lead, and ripped open the metal above her face and torso. Expecting to find skeleton, they were surprised to find ‘the whole body wrapped in 6 or 7 seer cloths of linen entire and uncorrupted’. Investigating further, they found the queen’s body intact. Sadly, to satisfy others’ curiosity, Katherine’s coffin was reopened in 1783, 1784, 1786 and 1792. It was also recorded that the site of the burial was used, by 1787, ‘for the keeping of rabbits, which made holes, and scratched very indecently about the Royal Tomb’. The queen’s remains were securely buried in 1817. 

Katherine’s burial site was neglected over the centuries, and exposed purely to satisfy the curiosity of eighteenth-century antiquaries. The treatment of her remains was brutal, shocking and unnecessary. However, there may be some small comfort in knowing that her contemporaries in the mid-sixteenth century buried her gently, with dignity, poise and all the honours of a Dowager Queen.

My book, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses is published by Pen and Sword Books and discusses many woman of the fifteenth century conflict that played parts we don't often hear about today. You can Order your copy here.

Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

Sources:

Letter from J.C. Brooke, Herald’s College, 29 April 1777, In: Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume 5, Society of Antiquaries. 1779. 

Emma Dent, Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley, London. 1877. Pages 314-316

With so many fast food places and restaurant chains around Paddington Station it's tempting to grab a kebab, a Pret or a Maccy's. But why would you do that when you can have lunch in a beautiful historic setting, like this one? 

My book, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses is published by Pen and Sword Books and discusses many woman of the fifteenth century conflict that played parts we don't often hear about to day. You can Order your copy here.

Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

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 On 14 April 1921 the historian C.L. Kingsford gave a lecture on Some London Houses of the Early Tudor Period. In it, he presented his accumulated, in-depth knowledge of four houses in the city, one of them the London home of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. 

Kingsford based a lot of his findings on inventories and records of maintenance and repair conducted during the first years of the Tudor age. The main source for Coldharbour was given as an account made by Thomas Litley, a Customer of the Subsidy in the Port of London, on the orders of Henry VII. The document, named the Book of Reparacions, helps us piece together what Margaret’s house would have looked like in 1485, when she first took residence there, and while the repairs were ongoing. 

Coldharbour, London. British Library, Public Domain.

Coldharbour was a medieval building built on an existing older property, by the merchant Sir John Pulteney in around 1335. Kingsford also states that it was once the home of Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward III, and later ended up as the property of John Holland in the fifteenth century. After Edward IV came to the throne, he granted it to his queen, Elizabeth Woodville at some point after 1464. In 1483 it was granted to the College of Heralds by the incoming Richard III, only to be seized on Henry VII’s accession and granted to his mother, Margaret. 

But before we get any images of a cramped, small lodging convenient to the Thames, we need to think again. Henry spent £28 (a modern worth of around £20,000) on repairs to the house in the first months of his reign, which included general maintenance (doors, windows, locks), along with building a new chimney and adding wall decorations. Litley’s account listed 40 rooms at Coldharbour including a great hall, which likely looked out over the river, along with a buttery and ewery. Linens, jugs and towels were kept here, stored ready for Margaret’s meals or for use while entertaining. She also had a smaller dining room called the ‘little hall’, where she probably ate while alone. During the repairs this room was fitted with a substantial amount of new glass, providing Margaret with clear views out to her garden and the river beyond it. 

Over the great hall was Margaret’s 'great chamber'. It had eight feet of ornamented glass set in the windowpanes, and like the room below, looked out over the riverside. Henry, likely with Margaret’s guidance, commissioned new glass to be fitted ‘with the arms of my Lord and Lady’, those of Margaret and her husband Sir Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby. Margaret also instructed her own arms to be placed on a wall facing the riverside, a confident announcement to Londoners as to the new owner of the property. 

Another room was referred to as ‘Lady Elizabeth’s Chamber’ in 1485, and Kingsford believed that this was where Elizabeth of York stayed with her future mother-in-law until she married the king in January 1486. With forty rooms, a garden and easy access to the river, there would certainly have been plenty of room for these two women to come and go as needed. 

Margaret Beaufort, her effigy in Westminster Abbey

The inventory also shows that Margaret’s servants had their own lodgings within Coldharbour. Along with many other chambers there was one allocated to ‘Master Reginald Bray’. Bray had been a long-term servant of Margaret’s and one of the key plotters for the (so-called) Buckingham Rebellion of autumn 1483. The complex of rooms within the mansion also contained a counting house, steward’s chamber and other chambers for servants and officers.  

For a woman who has become known as incredibly devoted and pious, it is not surprising that Margaret had access to her own chapel for private worship. Many wealthy homes contained their own chapels, such as that of William and Joan Canynges in Bristol and Stonor House in Oxfordshire. There were at least five windows in the chapel in Coldharbour, as they were repaired, with the ‘glass scoured and reset’. There was also a chamber allocated for the priest, showing that he (because back then it would have been a he) would have been at least partially in residence. When completed, the chapel would have been filled with textiles, statues and other icons for worship. It was also common during the period to decorate a chapel with wall paintings depicting religious scenes.

Even in the kitchen at Coldharbour, Margaret and Henry insisted on expensive taste. This room alone was fitted in 1485 with a combination of Flemish, English and Venetian glass. Elsewhere in the building, glass from the Netherlands and Normandy are also described, fitted into windows that were latticed or threaded with bars. Her food was cooked in a Tudor oven, and stored in two larder houses (one for wet foods and one for dry). The cook had their own chamber, and there was also a boiling house, pastry, pantry, wood house and wine cellar. The kitchen would have been piled with wooden bowls and trays, along with other cooking utensils, pots and pans.

Anyone visiting Margaret had to announce their arrival to the porter, who had a lodge at the gate. He was provided with a lantern by Henry (dutifully itemised by Litley), so that he could greet visitors while it was dark. After being admitted, they were allowed to settle their horse in Margaret’s stables, and perhaps take a walk in the gardens. Litley’s records show that Margaret had at least two gardens at Coldharbour, one of them fronting the riverside. In 1485 Litley commissioned two gardeners to work for three days on the estate, one of their jobs being to work and dress the herbs in one of the gardens.

Any reference to Margaret’s London home of Coldharbour tends to summon up an idea of a tightly-packed, small hideaway that served as a temporary home while she was on business in the city. But Litley’s – and Kingsford's later lecture – show that it was palatial, spacious and luxurious. Henry is often considered a penny-pinching king but he spared no expense in repairing the home he had allocated for his mother. Glass was imported from all over Europe, modifications were carried out and locks and windows were fixed. And these are the just adjustments that were entered into Litley’s book of repairs. Once major work had finished, Margaret would have had tapestries unfurled over the walls, portraits hung and filled wooden chests with her favourite linens and bedding. From Litley's accounts we can really judge the size of Coldharbour, and its base as a hive of activity, with Margaret's household servants, officials and guests all bustling around the building. Thanks to him, we can imagine ourselves, more than five hundred years later, taking a stroll around Margaret's home.

My book, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses is published by Pen and Sword Books and discusses many woman of the fifteenth century conflict that played parts we don't often hear about to day. You can Order your copy here.

Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

Source:

“On some London Houses of the Early Tudor Period”, By C. L. Kingsford, Esq., MA. Vice-President. Read 14th April 1921. In Archaeologia, Volume 71, 1920-1921.