Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henry VIII » (First Edition)

Linda Porter has a Ph.D. in history from the University of York, England. She was the winner of the 2004 Biographers Club/Daily Mail prize in England and is the author of The Myth of "Bloody Mary", also available from St. Martin's Press. She is married with one daughter and lives near London.

The general perception of Katherine Parr is that she was a provincial nobody with intellectual pretensions who became queen of England because the king needed a nurse as his health declined. Yet the real Katherine Parr was attractive, passionate, ambitious, and highly intelligent. Thirty-years-old (younger than Anne Boleyn had been) when she married the king, she was twice widowed and held hostage by the northern rebels during the great uprising of 1536-37 known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Her life had been dramatic even before she became queen and it would remain so after Henry’s death. She hastily and secretly married her old flame, the rakish Sir Thomas Seymour, and died shortly after giving birth to her only child in September 1548. Her brief happiness was undermined by the very public flirtation of her husband and step-daughter, Princess Elizabeth. She was one of the most influential and active queen consorts in English history, and this is her story.

Publishers Weekly

Although often depicted by the Victorians as a matronly nurse to an elderly king, Katherine Parr (1512 1548), according to Porter, was a stylish trendsetter of 30, sensual, confident, dynamic, exceptionally educated and cultured, and able to perform with aplomb on both an English and international stage. Born into a prominent, northern family of Yorkist sympathies, Katherine was widowed twice before marrying Henry VIII: a brief first marriage thrust her into a troubled family; her second husband, John Neville, Lord Latimer, put his life and fortune at risk when he became embroiled on the side of the rebels in the 1536 northern uprising, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Probably already in love with seasoned diplomat and soldier Sir Thomas Seymour, the king's brother-in-law, when she married Henry, the pragmatic Katherine embraced her royal role with enthusiasm. British historian Porter (The Myth of "Bloody Mary") claims Elizabeth I's education, religious beliefs, and consciousness of personal image owed much to her loving stepmother. Rich, perceptive, nuanced and creative, this first full-scale biography gives one of Britain's best but least-known queens her due. 16 pages of color illus. (Dec.)