6 no other purpose than to give him a little momentary amusement; that she found the conversation apt to languish when not revived by some opposition, and she had ventured sometimes to feign a contrariety of sentiments in order to give him the pleasure of refuting her, and that she also purposed by this innocent artifice to engage him into topics whence she had observed by frequent experience that she reaped profit and instruction. And is it so? sweetheart! (replied the King) then are we perfect friends again!' He embraced her with great affection, and sent her away with assurances of his protection and kindness*. Her enemies, who knew nothing of this sudden change, prepared next day to convey her to the Tower pursuant to the King's warrant. Henry and Catherine were conversing amicably in the garden, when the Chancellor appeared with forty of the pursuivants. The King spoke to him at some distance from her, and seemed to expostulate with him in the severest manner. She even overheard the appellations of knave, fool, and beast, which he liberally bestowed upon that magistrate, and then ordered him to depart his presence. She afterwards interposed to mitigate his anger. He said to her, 'Poor soul! you know not how ill entitled this man is to your good offices.' Thenceforth the Queen having escaped so great a danger was careful not to offend Henry's * A fine painting of this scene by E. Armitage in the Exhibition of the Royal Academicians 1848. humour by any contradiction; and Gardiner, whose malice had endeavoured to widen the breach, could never afterwards regain his favor and good opinion." "The Lady Kateryn (says Fuller) was a great favorer of the Gospel, and would earnestly argue upon it, sometimes speaking more than her husband would willingly hear of. Once politic Gardiner (who spared all the weeds, spoiled the good flowers and shrubs) had almost got her into his clutches had not Divine Providence delivered her. Yet a Jesuit tells us that the King intended, if longer surviving, to behead her for a heretick; to whom all I will return is this, that he was neither Confessor nor Privy Counsellor to King Henry the 8th." Kateryn was no less active in her closet: for there she composed and collected many sublime prayers and meditations in Latin and English, 66 wherein the mind is stirred patiently to suffer all affliction here, to set at naught the vain prosperity of this world, and always to pray for the Everlasting Felicity*. Works which, considering the then active reformation in the Liturgy, Prayers, Psalms, &c., speak as loudly for the part she took in these mighty movements, as they do for her pious frame of mind. In her lifetime she published a volume of Psalms, Prayers, and Pious Discourses, with the above titlet; after her death "Queen Kateryn Parr's Lamentations of a Sinner bewailing the ignorance of her blind life, being a contrite medi* Burnet, Book iii. 165, printed in 1545. + 1545. 12mo. tation on the years she had passed in Popery, fasts, and pilgrimages," was published by the Great Lord Burleigh*. Several of her letters are preserved in Strype's Annals, in Hayne's Collection of State Papers in the Ashmolean Collection, Burleigh's State Papers, and in the Library of C. C. C. Cambridget. Some of these Prayers and meditations, it seems, have been recently reprinted in a small volume called the "Lady's Monitor." Dr. Nash in the Archæologia prefers some of her Prayers to those in our Book of Common Prayer. His observations seem just, above all, respecting that on War and Peace, which she composed during Henry's absence in France, and whilst she was Regent of this Kingdom. In person she seems to have been short, but fair and beautiful. There is an original Portrait of her at Lambeth; and a full length one of her, in a rich habit of the times, in the Gallery of Mr. Lane, of Glendon, in Northamptonshire§. There was also, until the recent sale there, an original miniature portrait of her in the Walpole Collection at Strawberry Hill. She died at Sudley Castle in Gloucestershire, the seat of the present Lord Rivers, on the 5th * 1548 and 1563, 8vo. + See Ballard's Hist. of England. Park's Edit. of Royal and Noble Authors. 9 vol. Archæologia, 1-15. § 2 vols. Brydge's Northamptonshire. September 1548 aged thirty-five, and was interred. in the Church there. Strype has, by her Chaplain Dr. Parkhurst afterwards Bishop of Norwich, the following Latin Epitaph. "Hoc Regina novo dormit Katharina sepulchro, Hæc fuit Henrico conjux fidissima regi: Huic peperit natam; a partu cum septimus orbem "In this new tomb the Royal Katherine lies, When now seven days this tender flower had bloomed, With saints she triumphs-we with mortals mourn." In 1782 her ashes, according to Dr. Nash, were disturbed by some of her own sex; again in 1784, and in 1786 by himself; when she was found in every feature as perfect as one embalmed in a Theban sarcophagus as life itself; and when last laid bare, with a wreath of ivy in the form of a coronet entwined round her temples ! a berry having, as it is supposed, by chance fallen there and germinated. Woman's curiosity (which he says prompted it) is proverbial, but our knowledge of womankind did not enable us to imagine any of the sex descending to the vaults of the dead to gratify it. Be this story true, or false, let us pray, that when they have run their course, they may sleep in blessings: that when they are released from the bonds of the flesh, no sound may ever reach them but that of the last Trump, when the dead shall be raised incorruptible and all shall be changed. Should it be, that retributive justice, for this sacrilege, await them in the grave, let us hope, that they may be found as calmly serene, and as perfect in death, as KATERYN PARR. On the leaden envelope was found this Inscription : K. P. HE.E LYETHE QUENE HENRY THE VIII AND ADMY... OF ENGLOND EDWARD THE VI. I. . Y.. M CCCCC XL VIII. |