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Catherine upon her family, and that the king would allow some of her dresses to be given to those servants who had attended her since she fell into disgrace. She still seemed, or at least was reported to be only a few days before, 'very cheerful and more plump and pretty than ever; as careful about her dress and as imperious and wilful as at the time when she was with the king.' Yet she now looked for nothing but death, unless she was still buoyed up by a vain confidence in the king's promised word, to which she did not venture to appeal, and she only asked that her execution should be private. On 10 Feb. she was conveyed from Sion House to the Tower by water by the Duke of Suffolk, the lord privy seal, and the lord chamberlain. Next day the royal assent was given to the bill in parliament by commission, and the Duke of Suffolk and Lord Southampton declared the result of their interview with the queen. There is no appearance, however, that her confession extended to acts of infidelity after marriage. On the evening of Sunday, 12 Feb., she was informed that she was to die on the following day. She desired that the block on which she was to suffer might be brought to her that she might know how to place herself. Her wish was gratified, and she made a kind of rehearsal of the coming tragedy. Next morning at seven o'clock all the king's council except the Duke of Suffolk, who was unwell, and her uncle Norfolk, presented themselves at the Tower to witness the execution, her cousin, the poet Surrey, with the rest. She was beheaded in the same place where Anne Boleyn had suffered. A cloth was thrown over her body, and some ladies carried it away. Lady Rochford, still in a kind of frenzy, was brought out and suffered the same fate. 'They made the most godly and christian end,' writes a London merchant three days after to his brother at Calais, 'that ever was heard of, uttering their lively faith in the blood of Christ only, and with godly words and steadfast countenances they desired all christian people to take regard unto their worthy and just punishment.'

The features of Catherine Howard have been preserved in two portraits, the one a drawing by Holbein, engraved by Bartolozzi, the other a miniature supposed till lately to represent Catherine Parr, engraved in Mrs. Dent's 'Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley' (as to the latter see remarks in the Archæologia, xl. 84). It would seem that she had hazel eyes, auburn hair, and a bright, cheerful face, but such as might very well justify Marillac's opinion that her beauty was only commonplace.

[State Papers, i. 689-712, 721-8; Burnet, ed. Pocock, v. 249-52; Third Report of Dep.- Keeper of Public Records, App. ii. 261-6; Nicolas's Privy Council Proceedings, vii. 17, 21, 147, 352-6; Journals of the House of Lords, i. 168, 171-2, 175-6; Kaulek's Correspondance Politque de Castillon et de Marillac; Froude's The Pilgrim, pp. 158-62; unpublished manuscripts in Public Record Office. A modern life of Catherine will be found in Miss Strickland's Queens of England, vol. iii.]  CATHERINE PARR (1512–1548), sixth and last queen of Henry VIII, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal in Westmoreland, by Maud, daughter of Sir Thomas Green of Boughton and Green's Norton, Northamptonshire. Sir Thomas Parr was master of the wards and controller of the household to Henry VIII. He died on 11 Nov. 1517, leaving behind him three infant children in charge of his widow, to whom by his will he left all his lands for the term of her life. But he desired that his son William should have a rich gold chain of the value of 140l., which he had received as a present from the king, and that his two daughters, Catherine and Anne, should have 800l. between them as marriage portions. His widow, who at his death was only twenty-two, could hardly have failed to receive offers with a view to a second marriage, but, unlike most of the wealthy widows of those days, she refused them, and devoted herself to the education of her children, Catherine became an accomplished scholar, as her own writings remain to testify. Not only had she full command of Latin, but she was familiar with Greek as well, and had acquired great facility in the use of modern languages also.

In 1523 a negotiation was set on foot by Lord Dacre, between his son-in-law, Lord Scrope, and the Lady Maud Parr, for the marriage of Catherine, when she should attain a suitable age, to Lord Scrope's son. By the correspondence it appears that Catherine was not then twelve years old, so that she could not have been born before 1512 (Miss Strickland, placing the correspondence in 1524, though the dates July and December of the 15th year of Henry VIII refer to 1523, infers erroneously that she was not born before 1513). But the terms of the offer were not such as the Lady Maud could accept in accordance with her late husband's will, and the affair was broken off. A more satisfactory settlement, it may be presumed, from a pecuniary point of view, was afterwards offered by one Edward Borough, who became her first husband. It is to be hoped that modern writers are mistaken in 