New eight-part drama "Becoming Elizabeth" tells the story of the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn before she became Queen Elizabeth I, as she navigated the reigns of her half-siblings, Edward VI and Mary I. But how accurate is the drama? I will discuss the real history behind "Becoming Elizabeth" in a series of blog posts over the coming weeks.
Early in the drama we see a sex scene between Thomas Seymour and Katherine Parr. While some viewers find it difficult to believe that Katherine was "some sex-starved woman who can barely keep her hands off Thomas Seymour", this is not an inaccurate depiction and I'll tell you why.
Before she married Henry VIII, Katherine had fallen in love with Edward Seymour’s younger brother Thomas. Handsome, athletic and ambitious, Thomas reciprocated her feelings and proposed marriage within days of Henry VIII’s death. The thirty-five-year-old Dowager Queen was torn between duty and her own desires. After three marriages—her husbands were either mentally incapacitated or past their prime—she still had no offspring, although she yearned to have a child of her own.
As a royal widow, she was expected to wait at least two years before marrying again, but she was not getting any younger, and Thomas urged her “to change the two years into two months”. Before she agreed, Katherine emphasized that her decision did not proceed from “any sudden motion or passion” because she was in love with Thomas before the King started courting her.
Katherine could not resist Thomas’s charm, and the couple soon embarked in a love affair. YES, a love affair. Their secret marriage probably took place before 17 May 1547 since, in one of his love letters addressed to Katherine, Thomas referred to himself as her husband: “from him whom ye have bound to honour, love, and such in all lawful thing obey”. Katherine reciprocated, signing herself as “her that is and shall be your humble, true and loving wife during her life”. The couple understood that their wedding was very hasty and could meet with opposition from the influential members of Edward VI’s circle since, as Dowager Queen, Katherine was expected not only to mourn her royal husband at least two years, but also obtain the Privy Council’s approval for remarriage.
Such a hasty remarriage caused scandal and even Katherine Parr's friend, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, could not restrain herself from making a comment: She named a black stallion in her stable 'Seymour' and a bay mare 'Parr'.
People believed that Katherine remarried to fulfil her repressed sexual desires. It was a common medieval belief, stemming from ancient Greek philosophers, that marriage could protect women from illnesses that usually afflicted those who abstained from sex. It was also a common belief that a woman’s judgement was clouded by her sexual urges.
When Katherine Parr married Thomas Seymour within months after Henry VIII's death, she knew what she was doing. She was already in her mid-thirties and childless. She was in love and yearned to have a child of her own. She knew her remarriage would cause scandal and yet she remarried anyway. I call that taking things into her own hands. She was, finally, in a position to make her own decision.
This blog post is based on my book "The Forgotten Tudor Women: Anne Seymour, Jane Dudley & Elisabeth Parr."
