Katherine Parr: A Queen for Our Time

Some years ago I watched a TV series titled "The Six Wives of Henry VIII." I became interested in the history of the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603) and did further research.

I happened upon a Wikipedia article on Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of the irascible King Henry VIII. The article stated that Queen Katherine, contrary to the beliefs of her husband, accepted the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith and expressed the same in her seminal work The Lamentation of a Sinner. I wanted to read this work but amazingly it was no where to be found on the Internet even though it was obviously old enough to be in the public domain. I discovered a huge volume written by Dr. Janel Mueller, a professor at the University of Chicago, containing all of the writings and correspondence of Queen Katherine, including The Lamentation of a Sinner. I ordered the volume and awaited its arrival.

Reading The Lamentation of a Sinner was somewhat astounding. I could not believe that a Queen of England would so abase herself and describe the ignominy of her former life and confess that she found a new life in her relationship with Jesus Christ. It certainly was not proper for a Queen of England to glaringly reveal her sins. The reaction of the embarrassed British nobility had to be scathing. What more, the Prefatory Letter, introducing the Queen's confession, was written by the noted diplomat William Cecil who happened to be Queen Elizabeth I right-hand man for most of her forty year-reign. Imagine the scandal if the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle wrote an expose' revealing the secrets of her former life as a Hollywood actress and claiming to be born-again! The royal family would go ballistic. What added to the scandal was the fact that Queen Katherine was acting contrary to the beliefs of her husband the King who had decreed that anyone embracing the theology of that German Monk Martin Luther could be burned at the stake. (Of course, Henry was known for executing wives who did not meet his expectations.)  Even though Katherine had written The Lamentation while Henry was still alive, she waited nine months after his death to have it published (November, 1547).


In adapting The Lamentation of a Sinner Dr. Mueller worked with the original 1547.edition which had to be a daunting task since trying to read Sixteenth Century English is beyond difficult. While she updated much of the wording, it still had an Elizabethan style. I thought it would be a neat idea to further update and adapt the English, add an Introduction, and make it available as a self-published work. But I needed Dr. Mueller's permission to do so. I found her email address on the University of Chicago website, asked permission, and she graciously consented.

I completed the task in 2017, self-published it through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and without any publicity or promotion, made it available.  I was amazed by the response. It has been discovered by over 600 purchasers, nearly 200 of them from the UK. If you "Google" The Lamentation of a Sinner you will discover that my little self-published copy is the only edition available. I can't believe that no publisher has picked up this work and released it for wider circulation as a little, hard-cover devotional. I later discovered that a second edition of The Lamentation was available on the Internet in the public domain if you took the time to search for it.  It is found in the third volume of the anonymous work titled The British Reformers.

I was very impressed by the theological understanding of this Queen of England. She clearly recognized that "self-accusation" was a prelude to embracing the righteousness of Christ. Her grasp of the finer points of the doctrine of justification by faith was quite profound. Read this little paragraph from The Lamentation:

Saint Paul says "we are justified by faith in Christ, and not by the deeds of the law. For if righteousness came by the law, then Christ died in vain." Saint Paul means not a dead, human, historical faith, gotten by human effort, but a supernatural, living faith which works by love, as he himself plainly states.  This esteem of faith does not disparage good works, for out of this faith springs all good works. Yet, we may not impute to the worthiness of faith or good works our justification before God; but ascribe and give the worthiness of it totally to the merits of Christ's passion; and declare and attribute the knowledge and perception of those merits to faith alone. The very true and only property of faith is to take, apprehend, and hold fast the promises of God's mercy, which makes us righteous; and causes me to continually hope for the same mercy; and, in love, to do the many good works ascribed in the Scripture, that I may be thankful for the same."

In this single paragraph, Queen Katherine points out:

• The difference between historical faith (fides historica) and a living faith.
• The relationship between faith and good works.
• The place of faith in justification as instrument not cause. 
• The singular role of faith as apprehending the promises of God.

I decided to do a larger work on the life of Katherine Parr and after many months of research self-published Katherine Parr: The Life and Faith of a Tudor Queen. This work was picked-up by Amberley Press out of Gloucestershire in the UK and will be released under the title Katherine Parr: Opportunist, Queen, Reformer. This will be a hard-cover edition with thirty pages of color prints. Because of the impact of the corona virus in the UK, the publication date has been pushed back to November.

Katherine Parr was a remarkable woman. Her earlier work Prayers or Meditations was the first book published by a woman in England under her own name. In 1544 when King Henry went to war against France, Katherine was appointed Queen Regent and ruled England, only one of two queen consorts to be afforded this honor. Her influence upon the children of Henry, the future monarchs Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, would influence the history of England for years to come. In my estimation, her treatise The Lamentation of a Sinner, which lapsed into obscurity, is one of the hidden gems of the Reformation. After the death of Henry in January of 1547, Katherine hastily married the rogue Thomas Seymour who had been a previous suitor. Katherine died in childbirth at the age of 37 on September, 5, 1547.

In September of 2018 Dianne and I took a trip to England. One day was set aside to visit the beautiful Cotswold region where Sudeley Castle is located. On the grounds of this castle, which is privately owned by Lady Elizabeth Ashcomb, is St. Mary's Church where the tomb of Katherine Parr is located.  During the English Civil War, St Mary’s Church was desecrated and together with the castle was left in ruins. In the years that followed, sightseers visited the church and castle.  In 1782 some visiting ladies noticed a panel on the church wall. A local farmer dug under the wall and found a coffin made of lead with the inscription “Here lyeth Quene Kateryn, Wife to Kyng Henry VIII” On opening the coffin it is said the wrapped body was still intact. It was unknown for over 200 years that Queen Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII, had been buried there. It wasn’t until 1817 that the open coffin was removed to a stone vault. In 1863 Katherine’s remains were put into a new tomb in the newly restored St Mary’s Church beneath a marble effigy.


Visiting the tomb of Katherine Parr was an emotional experience.  I felt that I knew this woman having researched her life for nearly two years. I guess I had "fallen in love" with a woman who had been dead for nearly 500 years ago.  Of course, my wife Dianne of 56 years was not in the least bit threatened.