Henry VIII is most famous for having 6 wives, and two of them went to their executions inside
the walls of the Tower of London.
There was great speculation regarding his final wife Catherine Parr, as many in England
at the time disliked the Queen.
She was viewed by many churchmen as a rather radical Protestant woman, and she could very
easily have been sentenced to death herself.
Despite her being a prominent and skilled scholar and writer, and a woman ahead of her
time, a warrant for her arrest was drawn up in the Spring of 1546.
Many were suspicious of her and some claimed she was a heretic who was influencing Henry
VIII too much.
However following the King’s death, Catherine who is often seen as a doting final wife for
the notorious Henry VIII quickly remarried, and she had a child with her fourth husband
whom she’d had a long romantic link with.
But much about Catherine Parr’s daughter Mary Seymour is not known, and today she is
considered a lost daughter of Henry VIII’s final wife.
Catherine Parr married Henry VIII on the 12th July 1543 at Hampton Court Palace and she
had been married twice before.
Catherine and her new husband seemingly were happy for a brief time, and she was very different
to what Henry VIII previously went for, being much older and previously married.
After she became Queen she did a great deal in terms of reconciling the royal family in
Henry VIII’s final years, as she helped the King become close again with his daughters
Mary and Elizabeth from his first two marriages, and also she had a good relationship with
Henry’s son and heir the future Edward VI.
She continued to print books and religious writings, and she was rather skilled at her
writing.
When Henry left for a campaign to France, Catherine was left as the regent and she did
a relatively good job looking after the country in her husband’s absence.
But as mentioned her religious views aroused suspicion with anti-Protestant members of
the church such as Stephen Gardiner the Bishop of Winchester.
She was later pardoned by the King, and shortly before he died he Henry VIII organised a generous
£7000 a year for her to support herself.
He ordered that Catherine should be given the same respect as a Queen as if he were
alive, and she later retired from court following the coronation of Edward VI.
But following Henry’s death, Catherine’s former love and flame Thomas Seymour the 1st
Baron Seymour of Sudeley came sniffing around her.
He returned to court and it was clear that he was keen on establishing himself as a prominent
member behind the King’s regency council, as his brother Edward Seymour was named Lord
Protector.
Thomas Seymour was incredibly jealous of his brother who ultimately was acting as the de
facto King whilst Edward VI was too young to rule.
Catherine accepted Thomas Seymour’s offer of marriage, and the pair married four months
after the King died.
They married without the permission of the regency council in secret, and the King was
not told for many months, and when the story came out about their marriage there was rather
a lot of outrage at court.
The King was unhappy with the match, and Seymour asked Princess Mary to try to make things
better for him which caused outrage.
Catherine Parr also had a number of run ins with her brother in law, Edward Seymour the
Lord Protector.
A rivalry developed between her and Thomas and Edward, and this was something that resulted
in bloodshed.
In March 1548, at the age of 35 which was considered at the time rather shocking, Catherine
Parr became pregnant.
This was a huge surprise, as Catherine had not fallen pregnant during her first three
marriages.
But at the time her husband was showing a perverse interest in Princess Elizabeth.
It’s believed Thomas Seymour later wanted to marry Elizabeth, but it resulted in the
Princess being sent away and she never saw Catherine her stepmother again.
But in June 1548, Catherine along with Lady Jane Grey the future 9 day queen moved into
Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire.
Catherine looked after Jane’s education, and she spent the last few months of her pregnancy
and ultimately the last summer of her life at this castle.
On the 30th August 1548, Catherine Parr gave birth to her only child a daughter named Mary
Seymour inside of Sudeley Castle.
It is probable that she and Thomas were overjoyed with the birth of their child, and Catherine
would make huge plans for her however things would tragically turn very distressing.
Within a week of Mary Seymour’s birth, Catherine Parr died inside of Sudeley castle on the
5th September 1548.
It’s likely that she died from childbirth fever as hygiene around birth was not as good
as it is today, and this was very common at the time, with childbirth being incredibly
dangerous for mothers.
Catherine Parr was buried inside the castle where she died on the 7th September 1548,
in the first Protestant funeral held in England.
She was buried inside the chapel on the Castle’s ground.
But what happened to her daughter?
Within a year of her birth, her father Thomas Seymour was executed for treason against Edward
VI.
This left Mary Seymour an orphan.
Thomas had allegedly been caught trying to abduct King Edward VI and he even killed one
of his dogs, and a long charge of crimes was brought to him.
Thomas Seymour’s brother Edward even signed his own death warrant, and on Tower Hill Thomas
Seymour the former husband of Catherine Parr and the father of Mary Seymour was executed
by the axeman.
But little is know about Mary Seymour.
In 1549, Parliament passed an act which removed the act of attainder against her father, and
reinforced that his lands were property of the King and the Crown.
Much of Mary’s mother’s wealth was also later confiscated by the crown, and with this
Mary was left a poor and destitute orphan.
She was left in the care of Katherine Willoughby, the Duchess of Suffolk who it’s believed
hated having to look after her.
She did not like having to raise Catherine Parr’s child, and with this it’s fair
to say that after 1550 and the age of 2, Mary Seymour disappears completely from the historical
records.
No-one ever made a claim on her father’s estate, and with this conclusions can be drawn
that she possibly died at a young age, and did not live past the age of 2.
Many authors and historians have debated what may have happened to Mary Seymour, the daughter
of Catherine Parr.
One victorian author Agnes Strickland claimed that Mary Seymour did in fact survive to Adulthood,
and that she married a Sir Edward Bushel who was a member of Anne of Denmark’s court,
the wife of King James I.
This theory also suggested that Mary’s match had been pre-arranged, however she would only
have been 6 at this time as the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk fled England during the Marian
persecutions and the reign of Mary I. Another idea states that Mary Seymour was sent to
Wexford in Ireland, and was then raised by a wealth Protestant Family named the Harts
who had benefitted from acts of piracy they committed off the Irish Coast, and they had
a deal with Thomas Seymour that they would share the profits.
A ring has been passed through the generations of the Seymour-Harts for centuries given to
Thomas by his brother Edward that states on it, ‘What I have I hold,’ and this tudor
ring is a treasure of the family.
This shows they do have links to the Seymours.
It’s claimed that there was one reference possibly to Mary Seymour found inside an Elizabethan
text, and with this some historian’s consider she lived past the age of 10 but nothing is
known after this.
One more up to date idea states that a latin book of poems contains a reference to Mary,
as it says:
I whom at the cost Of her own life
My queenly mother Bore with the pangs of labour
Sleep under this marble An unfit traveller.
If Death had given me to live longer That virtue, that modesty, That obedience
of my excellent Mother That Heavenly courageous nature
Would have lived again in me.
Now, whoever You are, fare thee well
Because I cannot speak any more, this stone Is a memorial to my brief life.
This could have been a memorial to Mary Seymour who it’s believed died in infancy.
But what is interesting is to consider where she may have been buried.
It’s likely that if she died young, that she was buried in Lincolnshire either on the
Grimsthorpe Castle estate or nearby, which was owned by the woman who should have looked
after her, the Duchess of Suffolk, however as stated Mary lived as an unwelcome burden
for her short and sad life.
But the story of Mary Seymour is a very sad one.
In just her short life, she was made an orphan as her mother died following complications
giving birth, and her father was then brutally executed on Tower Hill.
The Seymours as a family fell from grace after the execution of Edward Seymour the Lord Protector,
and despite dominating during the Tudor Period, they never rose to prominence again really
after this.
But the story of Mary Seymour is an incredibly sad and tragic one, and today she is the lost
daughter of Henry VIII’s final wife.
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