Henry VIII's Last Wife's Coffin Was Opened In 1782 — Her Arm Was Still White And Moist

John Lucas, a tenant at Sudeley Castle, cut through the waxed cloth on Katherine Parr's arm in 1782. By the steward's account, the flesh was still white and moist. Born near Kendal around 1512, she was twice a widow by about thirty, and was inside Snape when Pilgrimage of Grace rebels seized it. Henry VIII married her at Hampton Court in July 1543 and left her as regent while he took Boulogne. In 1545 Prayers or Meditations appeared under her own name; Anne Askew went to the rack and the fire the following summer. Shut out of power by Henry's will, Katherine wed Thomas Seymour in secret, and died at Sudeley in September 1548, days after her daughter Mary was born. Her grave outlived the chapel's roof. Rabbits were kept in the ruin, a county history printed her burial place in 1779, the steward's son grew sick copying "ynkle to Kyng Edward" from the lid in 1783, Treadway Nash measured the lead at five feet four in 1786, and in 1817 the coffin turned up bottom upwards, packed with ivy roots. 0:00 A tenant in the ruined chapel 1:17 Kendal, Snape and two dead husbands 3:14 Sixth wife, regent for eleven weeks 5:10 Prayers in print, Anne Askew on the rack 7:16 Henry's will and Thomas Seymour's letters 11:18 A daughter, a deathbed, a morning funeral 14:34 Tower Hill, then a roofless chapel 16:14 Rudder's county history and the lead 20:55 Ivy roots in 1817, brown dust in 1861 Sources: College of Arms MS (Heralds' College N.15), pp. 98–99: the breviate of the burial of Queen Katherine, September 1548 Henry VIII's will, 30 December 1546; the regency resolutions and commission of 7 and 11 July 1544 The deposition of Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, early 1549, printed in Samuel Haynes, A Collection of State Papers (1740) Katherine Parr's will, 5 September 1548 (The National Archives, PROB 11/32/19) The Act for the restitution of Mary Seymour, 1550 (3 & 4 Edw. 6 c. 14) Treadway Russell Nash, "Observations on the Time of the Death and Place of Burial of Queen Katharine Parr", Archaeologia IX (1789) The letter of Mr Brooks, steward to Lord Rivers, on the openings of 1782 and 1783, printed in Notes and Queries from the copy of his daughter, Julia R. Bockett Samuel Rudder, A New History of Gloucestershire (1779) Bruno Ryves, Mercurius Rusticus (1640s) Edmund T. Browne's account of the 1817 opening F. Brooksbank Garnett, Queen Katherine Parr and Sudeley Castle (1893) Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England (1840s) John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1563) Janel Mueller, ed., Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence (2011) Linda Porter, Katherine the Queen (2010) Susan James, Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen (1999) Thea Tomaini, The Corpse as Text (2017) Greenslade Taylor Hunt, sale report on a lock of hair reputed to be Katherine Parr's, September 2026 #KatherineParr #SudeleyCastle #Tudors