Catherine Parr (c. 1512 – 5 September 1548), also known as Katherine or Katharine Parr(e), was the last of the six wives of Henry VIII of England. She was queen consort of England during 1543–1547, then dowager queen of England. She was the most married English queen, with four husbands.

Her paternal grandparents were Sir William Parr of Kendal and Elizabeth Fitzhugh. The Fitzhughs are illegitimate descendants of Eudes, Count of Penthièvre. Elizabeth was a daughter of Henry FitzHugh, 6th Lord FitzHugh and Alice Neville. Alice was in turn a daughter of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury and Alice Montagu, Countess of Salisbury.

At the age of about 15, she married Edward, Lord Borough, who died in 1529. He had a troubled inheritance, since his father had been detained due to madness.

Some time between 1530 and 1533, she married John Nevill, 3rd Baron Latymer of Snape, North Yorkshire, who died in 1543. After his death, the rich widow began a relationship with Thomas Seymour, the brother of the late queen Jane Seymour, but the king took a liking to her, and she was obliged to accept his proposal instead. She had drawn the king's attention partly by interceding with him to stop her brother William from asking to have his adulterous wife executed.

She married Henry VIII on 12 July 1543 at Hampton Court Palace. She was the first English queen consort to enjoy the new title Queen of Ireland following Henry's adoption of the title King of Ireland. As queen, Catherine was partially responsible for reconciling Henry with his daughters from his first two marriages, who would later become Queens regnant, Mary and Elizabeth. She also developed a good relationship with Henry's son Edward, later King Edward VI. When she became Queen, her uncle Baron Parr of Horton became her Chamberlain.

For three months, from July to September 1544, Catherine was appointed queen regent by Henry as he went on his last, unsuccessful, campaign in France. Thanks to her uncle having been appointed as member of her regency council, and to the sympathies of fellow appointed councillors Thomas Cranmer and the Earl of Hertford, Catherine obtained effective control and was able to rule as she saw fit. She handled provision, finances and musters for Henry's French campaign, signed five royal proclamations, and maintained constant contact with her lieutenant in the northern Marches, the Earl of Shrewsbury, over the complex and unstable situation with Scotland. It is thought that her actions as regent, together with her strength of character and noted dignity, and later religious convictions, greatly influenced her stepdaughter, Elizabeth I.

Her religious views were complex, and the issue is clouded by the lack of evidence. Although she must have been brought up as a Catholic, given her birth before the Protestant Reformation, she later became sympathetic and interested in the "New Faith".

We can be sure that she held some strong reformed ideas after Henry's death, when the Lamentacions of a Sinner were published in late 1547. However, her commissioning of the translation of Desiderius Erasmus' Paraphrases shows her more as a MacConica-style Erasmian Pietist.

She was reformist enough to be viewed with suspicion by Catholic and anti-Protestant officials such as Bishop Stephen Gardiner and Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton who tried to turn the king against her in 1546. An arrest warrant was drawn up for her, but she managed to reconcile with the King after vowing that she had only argued about religion with him to take his mind off the suffering caused by his ulcerous leg.

Following Henry's death on 28 January, 1547, Catherine was able to marry her old love, Thomas Seymour (now Baron Seymour of Sudeley and Lord High Admiral), but her happiness was short-lived. She had a rivalry with Anne Stanhope, the wife of her husband's brother. Thomas Seymour was then alleged to have taken liberties with the teenaged Princess Elizabeth (Catherine's step-daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I), who was living in their household, and he reputedly plotted to marry her.

Having had no children from her first three marriages, Catherine became pregnant for the first time, by Seymour, at age 35. She gave birth to her only child - a daughter, Mary Seymour - on 30 August, 1548.

Catherine died only six days later, on 5 September, 1548, at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, from complications arising from the birth. Thomas Seymour was beheaded for treason less than a year later, and Mary was taken to live with Catherine Willoughby, dowager Duchess of Suffolk, a close friend of Catherine. After a year and a half, Mary's property was restored to her by an Act of Parliament, easing the burden of the infant's household on the Duchess. The last mention of Mary Seymour on record is on her second birthday, and although stories circulated that she eventually married and had children, most historians believe she died as a child.

In 1782, a gentleman by the name of John Locust discovered the coffin of Queen Catherine at the ruins of the Sudeley Castle chapel. He opened the coffin and observed that the body, after 234 years, was in a surprisingly good condition. Reportedly the flesh on one of her arms was still white and moist. After taking a few locks of her hair, he closed the coffin and returned it to the grave.

The coffin was opened a few more times in the next ten years and in 1792 some drunken men buried it upside down and in a rough way. When the coffin was officially reopened in 1817, nothing but a skeleton remained. Her remains were then moved to the tomb of Lord Chandos whose family owned the castle at that time. In later years the chapel was rebuilt by Sir John Scott and a proper altar-tomb was erected for Queen Catherine.

Some of Catherine Parr's writings are available from the Women Writers Project.

Catherine first appeared in cinemas in 1933, in Alexander Korda's masterpiece The Private Life of Henry VIII. Charles Laughton played the king, with actress Everley Gregg appearing as Catherine Parr. The film makes no attempt to depict the historical Parr's character, instead portraying the queen for comic effect as a hatchet-faced shrew who constantly nags at the aging Henry.

In 1952, a romanticised version of Thomas Seymour's obsession with Elizabeth I saw Stewart Granger as Seymour, Jean Simmons as the young Elizabeth and screen legend Deborah Kerr in the popular film Young Bess.

In 1970, in "Catherine Parr", a 90-minute BBC television drama (the last in a 6-part series, entitled The Six Wives of Henry VIII) Catherine was played by Rosalie Crutchley opposite Keith Michell's Henry. In this, Catherine's love of religion and intellectual capabilities were highlighted. Crutchley reprised her role as Catherine Parr in Part 1 of a 6-part series on the life of Elizabeth I in 1971, called Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth.

In 1973, Barbara Leigh-Hunt played a matronly Catherine in Henry VIII and his Six Wives, with Keith Michell once again playing Henry. In 2000, Jennifer Wigmore played Catherine Parr in the American television drama aimed at teenagers, "Elizabeth: Red Rose of the House of Tudor". A year later, Charlotte Lintott played Catherine in Dr. David Starkey's documentary series on Henry's queens.

In October 2003, in a two-part British television series on Henry VIII (ITV drama), Catherine was played by Clare Holman. The part was relatively small, given that the drama's second part focused more on the stories of Jane Seymour and Catherine Howard.

In March 2007, Washington University in St. Louis performed the A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Competition winner "Highness" which documents the life of Katherine Parr and her relationship to King Henry and especially (the future Queen) Elizabeth to whom she was a motherly figure.

The popular myth that Catherine acted more as her husband's nurse than his wife was born in the 19th century from the work of Victorian moralist and proto-feminist, Agnes Strickland. This assumption has been challenged by Dr. David Starkey in his book Six Wives in which he points out that such a situation would have been vaguely obscene to the Tudors, given that Henry had a huge staff of physicians waiting on him hand and foot, and Catherine was a woman expected to live up to the heavy expectations of queenly dignity.

Catherine's good sense, moral rectitude, passionate religious commitment and strong sense of loyalty and devotion have earned her many admirers among historians. These include David Starkey, feminist activist Karen Lindsey, Lady Antonia Fraser, Alison Weir, Carolly Erickson, and Alison Plowden.

* A more detailed story of Catherine Parr's life * Sudeley Castle - One time home, and burial place of Catherine Parr * A quick look at Catherine's life with some great pictures in the gallery