I do enjoy a good Philippa Gregory novel.  Not only does her poetic style really bring the historical characters to life, but she clearly makes a monumental effort to research her subjects – even if her interpretation often differs from mine.

Currently I’m having a good time wading through her epic novel on Katherine Parr, sixth and final wife of Henry VIII.  It’s a great read, but within the first few pages I was already growing a tad concerned about some misunderstandings that were no doubt bound to influence people’s understanding of the great Queen Consort.  For, in the very earliest part of the book, she has given herself to Thomas Seymour in body as well as heart.

Fans of Katherine Parr will know that Thomas Seymour did indeed become her husband, after the ultimate demise of Henry VIII.  There was also certainly some kind of mutual attraction and discussion of marriage prior to Katherine’s elevation to Queen.  But for me, the suggestion that she would have been foolish enough to have slept with him in 1543 is a bridge too far.

Here’s why:

• Discovery would have risked everything – In the Tudor court people gossiped.  Would Katherine really have risked this destruction of her reputation, especially if she had already got wind of the fact that the King was after her?
• She was a woman of virtue – Gregory’s Katherine is a woman who is not much-bothered by religion prior to her marriage to Henry.  It’s fair to say that people used to think her devout Protestantism was something that developed later, but most historians now think that her conversion had taken place before 1543.  It is unlikely that she would have so easily surrendered to a man in defiance of God’s will.
• She would have been scared of pregnancy – Contraception was not exactly top-notch in Tudor times.  Katherine knew that if she fell pregnant it would have been game over for her place in society.
• She didn’t get pregnant – “Ah-ha”, I hear some of you say in response to my point above.  “Perhaps Katherine didn’t fear pregnancy because after two childless marriages she believed she couldn’t actually get pregnant.”  This is possible; some contemporaries did speculate that she was infertile so it’s not impossible that she believed that herself.  But she was probably realistic enough to put that down to first being married to a sickly teenager and then to a much older man.  Besides, even if she had believed this, we all know that when she did eventually marry Seymour, she conceived rather quickly.  The fact that she did not fall pregnant in 1543 argues against a relationship of heated sexual congress.

All this being said, I have to recognise that when it came to Seymour, Katherine did lose her often level-headed outlook.  Her passion for him was such that she married him with unseemly haste after Henry VIII’s demise, and at risk to her reputation.  The circumstances though were different and Katherine knew it was her last shot at happiness and I don’t think this consideration can override those I have outlined above.

Where does this leave us?  Simple: read Philippa Gregory’s ‘The Taming of the Queen’ by all means, but read some historical biographies about Katherine as well.  That way you can get all the entertainment necessary to storytelling, as well as being sure that you’re across the facts.

I recommend the following:

Katherine the Queen by Linda Porter

Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey

The Six Wives of Henry VIII  by Alison Weir