First marriage

The divorce of King Henry VIII from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, has, over the centuries, produced a positive paper storm of academic books and popular works, examination papers and essays. As a subject it has also inspired a number of films and TV documentaries.

King Henry posed an argument that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was cursed because he had broken canon law evidenced in the biblical quote “thou shalt not uncover thy brother's wife's nakedness”. Henry had married the widow of his elder brother, Arthur, who had died and Henry took his crown and also his place in Arthur's bed. The whole period of negotiations with Rome to allow divorce was known in court and wider society as “The King's Great Matter” and great it was, in every sense when one considers what would follow.

There is, however, another matter that may also be considered great, relating to the King and one of his marriages that is not much considered. It relates to King Henry's last marriage to his sixth wife, Catherine Parr.

Final marriage

Henry married Catherine Parr on 12 July 1543 in Hampton Court, London, not many months after the death of her second husband. How they met is not …