Cumbria's Queen (Background: Kendal)

Henry VIII’s last Queen, Catherine Parr, had strong links to Cumbria, especially to Kendal.

Catherine Parr became Queen of England and Ireland on her marriage to Henry VIII on 12 July 1543. “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived” – Catherine was the one who survived, remarrying after Henry’s death in 1547, but dying in childbirth the following year.

Catherine (also spelt Catharine, Katherine or Kateryn) Parr (1512-1548), was the daughter of Sir Thomas Parr (1478-1517), of Kendal.  The Parrs, originally from Lancashire, had risen under John of Gaunt to be major landowners in Westmorland, and in 1438 an earlier Sir Thomas Parr (1407-61) took on the lease of the royal barony of Kendal, including Kendal Castle – and the family continued to extend its landholdings, and its influence, in the county from that time on. Sir Thomas, Catherine’s father, married Maud Green, who became a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon in 1509.  On Catherine’s birth in 1512, Maud named her daughter after the queen. Her grandfather, William Parr lies buried in the Parr Chapel in Kendal Parish Church – see photo.

Richard Gough, in his Additions to his new translation of Camden’s Britannia (1789) stated, regarding Kendal, that ‘queen Catharine … was born here’ (p.404) – but he does not give a source.  In 1876, a paper appeared in the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, which stated that Catherine had been born in Kendal Castle:  but this now seems unlikely - she was probably born in Buckinghamshire or London. How much time she actually spent in Cumbria is not known – probably not a lot - but it does appear that in 1533-34, after the death of her first husband, Edward Borough, she briefly lived with her cousins, the Stricklands of Sizergh Castle, Westmorland. In 1534 she married her second husband, Baron Latimer, and moved to Yorkshire.  She then took up a position in the household of the Princess Mary – and came to the attention of the king, whom she married in 1543, on Latimer’s death.

Susan E. James:  Katherine [Kateryn, Catherine] [née Katherine Parr] (1512–1548) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004)

Sir George Druckett, ‘The Parrs, of Kendal Castle’, Tr CWAAS, vol II, 1876, pp 186-196

Susan E. James: ‘Queen Kateryn Parr (1512–1548)’ Tr CWAAS, vol 88, 1988, pp 107-119

Text by Bill Shannon

Image of the tomb of William Parr grandfather of Catherine, in the Parr Chapel, Kendal parish church

http://www.matthewpemmott.co.uk/2007/01/kendal-castle-castle-hill-kendal.html

To find out more about the history of Kendal click here https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/township/kendal-formerly-kirkby-kendal

For a full list of all interesting facts, click here

 https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/full-list-interesting-facts