Person of the Month

Katherine Parr is often characterised as the least-well known of Henry VIII's six wives, a nurse to him in old age, and an affectionate step-mother to his children. However, that description is far from a complete portrait of a woman who married four times (once even for love), was an intellectual, a published author and Regent of England. Her influence on her step-daughter Elizabeth I was profound, and she left Elizabeth with a strong, and successful example of feminine strength and power in a male-dominated age.

Katherine was the first Queen of England to also be Queen of Ireland, and the first to be buried as a Protestant. She was one of the few members of the Tudor royal family to have lived and travelled outside the south-east of England and was thus a first-hand witness of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the widening gap between the old, conservative north, and the new, radical south.