King Henry VIII is remembered today as the notorious Tudor King of England who had 6 wives,
and two of these would lose their heads inside of the Tower of London. But Henry VIII’s final
wife was Catherine Parr who many believed nursed the King in his final moments before he died,
however Catherine was a woman who despite being a survivor could very easily have
experienced execution herself. She came close to losing her head or being burned at the
stake as a heretic for being too radical in her religious beliefs. But following Henry’s death,
Catherine Parr scandalously married quickly but following giving birth to a daughter she
succumbed to death herself and she was buried closely to the rooms where she passed away
inside the walls of Sudeley Castle. However her coffin was broken into and disturbed a
number of times and what those who broken into her remains did was shocking and harrowing.
Catherine Parr was believed at the time of the Tudor period to have been a too radical
protestant, and many inside of Henry VIII’s government believed she was leading the King
down a path of more ruthless religious changes, and she was not the most popular woman. She was a
woman married before, and Henry’s final wife was very different to his other wives, and she was
more of a scholar than a doting wife. She married Henry VIII inside of Hampton Court Palace on the
12th July 1543 and was made the First Queen of England who was also made the Queen of Ireland.
She was the Queen up until Henry’s death and she had throughout her life even acted as the regent
whilst the King was in France away. She involved herself in educating the future Elizabeth I,
however after the King’s death Catherine Parr fell in love again with Thomas Seymour, the 1st Baron
Seymour of Sudeley and he was sniffing around for more power. The pair had a long history together,
and Seymour saw his opportunity to marry the new Dowager Queen as a way of getting closer
to the throne. His brother Edward Seymour was made the Lord Protector of Edward VI and the
chair of the boy King’s regency council and Thomas Seymour was very jealous about this.
Edward Seymour was now acting almost as a King, however Catherine Parr and Thomas married in
secret but when the information about this came to light there was a huge scandal.
Catherine’s actions in accepting marriage so shortly after Henry VIII’s death was seen as
shameful and disgraceful and Edward VI was not impressed with this and Catherine then joined
forces with her new husband to take on Edward Seymour. However despite never being pregnant
before or having any children, she became pregnant with Seymour’s child, and at the time childbirth
during the 16th century was incredibly risky. It could be a death sentence for a woman, and
Catheirne’s risk was hightened as she was slightly older, and complications could have been fatal.
At the time she was living inside her husband’s castle, Sudeley and she continued to help educate
Lady Jane Grey the 9 Day Queen whilst being pregnant, but then she entered her bedchambers to
give birth to a daughter who arrived on the 30th August 1548. But Catherine Parr never recovered
from childbirth, and on the 5th September she died inside of her rooms days after giving birth.
After her death, Thomas Seymour left his castle and the funeral was arranged and it would become
historic as it was the first fully Protestant service to occur across England. The Chief
Mourner was Lady Jane Grey and Catherine’s body was embalmed inside her bedroom by physicians
and it was then taken inside of the chapel, St Mary’s Chapel next to the castle and she was
prepared for burial. She was to be buried in a huge ornate tomb that was made for her and
was then placed on the north side of the chapel, and on this tomb was an effigy of Catherine and
it had a latin inscription on the bottom of it. However Catherine Parr’s remains were disturbed
many times over the following years and her coffin was shockingly broken into. In 1642
the tomb of Henry VIII’s sixth wife was destroyed during the English Civil War as roundhead forces
of Parliament’s army smashed up the chapel and desecrated her monument as she stood for
monarchy. However her body was also disturbed and the grave was smashed to pieces and dug up,
and it was said that, ‘There is in the castle a goodly fair church, here they dug up the graves,
and disturb the ashes of the death, they break down the monuments.’
However in 1782, a number of people arrived at Sudeley and a group of ladies who had an interest
in history wanted to find the remains and tomb of Catherine Parr. Inside of the chapel they found a
block of alabaster marble in the north wall from her tomb, and some men dug underneath it and they
came across the lead lined coffin of Henry VIII’s sixth wife. These group of people then opened the
coffin and what they found was remarkable. They found Catheirne Parr’s body wrapped tightly in
a cerecloth a heavy wax dipped cloth which had been almost mummifying her to preserve her. They
saw her face for the first time in 2 centuries, however as her corpse was exposed to the air for
the first time, the colour of Catherine’s face drained and her eyes turned a different colour
and lost their sparkle. The women then asked the men after their curious outing to rebury
her body inside of the coffin, but a local farmer found out what had happened inside
of the church nearby, and he tried to inspect the body of Henry VIII’s sixth wife himself.
It was said that, ‘"In the summer of the year 1782 the earth in which Qu. K. Par lay interned
was removed, and at the depth of about two feet (or very little more) her leaden coffin
or coffin was found quite whole… Mr Lucas had the curiosity to rip up the top of the coffin,
expecting to discover within it only the bones of the deceased,
but to his great surprise found the whole body wrapped in 6 or 7 seer cloth linen,
entire and uncorrupted… his unwarranted curiosity led him to make an incision through the seer cloth
which covered one of the arms of the corpse, the flesh of which wat the time was white and moist”’
He made an incision and uncovered one of the arms, and he said the flesh was white and moist,
and he also cut off a few locks of the Queen’s hair as well as some material from the cloth
and her dress which she was buried in. In 1783 just a year later, the steward of the Castle
then directed for the grave to be opened again to see the Queen’s remains, and it was said that the
body had begun to decay quickly. It was also noted that ‘shoes were on the feet which were
very small, and that the Queen’s proportions were extremely delicate, and that her hair was gold.’
4 years later, the coffin of Catherine Parr was yet again opened. This time it was a curious
local priest who wanted to see the state of her body, and he found that the head of Catherine
had totally decayed and presumably no skin was left. He also found that teeth had fallen out
of her mouth or may have been pulled out by those hungry to take a souvenir of a wife of Henry VIII.
However he also found when inspecting the remains that her hands and arm had turned brown, and he
made a short sketch of what he saw in her body. He then covered up the body but 6 years later one of
the most shocking parts of Catherine’s desecration occurred. A group of drunk vandals entered the
chapel and they then disinterred Catherine Parr out of the coffin and messed around with it, and
one man even danced with the corpse of Catherine Parr. They then dumped the body of her in the
corner in a pile making off with some more teeth, and one man allegedly even stabbed an iron bar
through the torso of Henry VIII’s final Queen, and then had buried this in the ground upside down.
Hearing of this, a local priest then appealed to Queen Victoria to give Catherine Parr a better and
deserved burial in a final monument where she could finally be laid to rest after centuries
of desecration. It was agreed that Catherine would be buried inside of a new coffin and a
new tomb which was made from stone and she was interred in safety. When the time came
to rebury her inside of the newly renovated church within the grounds of the castle where she died,
it was found Catherine’s body was just a pile of bones now with a small part of flesh and hair on
her body. But she was then buried inside of this new tomb where she lies still today in decency.
The horrific story of those people who opened the coffin of Catheirne Parr were a mix of criminal
and curious, and she was in death not given the respect that she deserved. But she is a woman who
is considered a survivor of the brutal reign of Henry VIII but she could have experienced
execution herself. But what happened to her coffin over the centuries was shocking and barbaric.
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