The Bourchier and Bowker Pages

Discovering the ancestry of the South African Bowkers, and the English Bourchiers

Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr

Female 1512 - 1548  (36 years)

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  • Name Catherine Parr 
    Birth 1512  Blackfriars, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    _UID 5500C4FC09D7D711BA22444553540000E973 
    Death 5 Sep 1548  Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Cause: Puerperal fever 
    • without male issue
    Burial Sudeley Castle Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Person ID I20  Bourchiers
    Last Modified 4 Apr 2020 

    Father Sir Thomas Parr 
    Mother Maud Green 
    _UID 6DE872ADF4D7D711BA224445535400003310 
    Family ID F27  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Edward Burgh   d. Bef Apr 1533  [1
    _UID 75E872ADF4D7D711BA224445535400003B90 
    Family ID F24  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 2 3rd Lord Latimer John Neville   d. (2 Mar 1542/1543)  [1
    _UID 78E872ADF4D7D711BA224445535400003EC0 
    Family ID F25  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 3 King Henry Tudor, King Henry VIII, Duke of Cornwall,   b. 28 Jun 1491, Greenwich Palace, Greenwich Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 28 Jan 1547, Whitehall, London, Engand Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 55 years) 
    Marriage 12 Jul 1543  [2
    _UID 5600C4FC09D7D711BA22444553540000EA83 
    Family ID F17  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 4 Baron Seymour of Sudeley Thomas Seymour,   b. Abt 1508   d. (20 Mar 1548/1549), Tower Hill Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Marriage (AFT 28 Jan 1546/7)  [4
    • (secretly)
    _UID 6AE872ADF4D7D711BA2244455354000030E0 
    Family ID F26  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Photos
    Catherine_Parr_from_NPG
    Catherine_Parr_from_NPG
    Picture Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bourchier,_7th_Baroness_Bourchier
    Keywords: Picture

  • Notes 
    • - 6th wife of Henry VIII, Sister of William Parr who married Anne Bourchier.

      Catherine Parr (alternatively Katherine or Kateryn) (1512[1] – 5 September 1548) was Queen of England and of Ireland (1543–47) as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII. She married him on 12 July 1543, and outlived him by one year. She was also the most-married English queen, with four husbands, and the first woman to be queen of both England and Ireland.

      Catherine enjoyed a close relationship with Henry's three children and was personally involved in the education of Elizabeth and Edward, both of whom became English monarchs. She was influential in Henry's passing of the Third Succession Act in 1543 that restored both his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, to the line of succession to the throne.[2]

      Catherine was appointed Regent from July to September 1544 while Henry was on a military campaign in France and in case he lost his life, she was to rule as regent until Edward came of age. However he did not give her any function in government in his will. In 1544, she published her first book, Psalms or Prayers, anonymously.[3] On account of Catherine's Protestant sympathies, she provoked the enmity of powerful Catholic officials who sought to turn the King against her—a warrant for her arrest was drawn up in 1546. However, she and the King soon reconciled. Her book Prayers or Meditations became the first book published by an English queen under her own name. She assumed the role of Elizabeth's guardian following the King's death, and published a third book, The Lamentations of a Sinner.

      Henry died on 28 January 1547. Six months after Henry's death, she married her fourth and final husband, Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. The marriage was short-lived, as she died in September 1548, probably of complications of childbirth.


  • Sources 
    1. [S1] Vicary Gibbs (ed.) and others, The Complete Peerage, (13 volumes (in 14 parts). London: The St Catherine Press Ltd. 1910-1959 Volume 14 (addenda and corrigenda). Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd. 1998. Microprint edition of volumes 1-13. Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. First published 1982; reprinted 2000.), Volume 11, page 639.

    2. [S4] J. D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558, (Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published 1952; paperback edition 1994), 419.

    3. [S1] Vicary Gibbs (ed.) and others, The Complete Peerage, (13 volumes (in 14 parts). London: The St Catherine Press Ltd. 1910-1959 Volume 14 (addenda and corrigenda). Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd. 1998. Microprint edition of volumes 1-13. Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. First published 1982; reprinted 2000.), Volume 11, pages 638, 639.

    4. [S1] Vicary Gibbs (ed.) and others, The Complete Peerage, (13 volumes (in 14 parts). London: The St Catherine Press Ltd. 1910-1959 Volume 14 (addenda and corrigenda). Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd. 1998. Microprint edition of volumes 1-13. Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. First published 1982; reprinted 2000.), Volume 11, page 638.