Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr (Katherine, Kateryn, Katheryne or Kathrine); (1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen consort of England and Ireland and the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England. She married Henry VIII on 12 July 1543. She was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and outlived him. She was also the most-married English queen, as she had a total of four husbands.

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 Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth to the line of succession to the throne.

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. 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 were 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 another book, The Lamentations of a Sinner, was published.

Six months after Henry's death, she married her fourth and final husband, Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. The marriage proved to be short-lived as she died in September 1548, probably of complications resulting from childbirth.