Sunday, August 28, 2011

Katharine Parr, The Smart One.

I love Katharine Parr, the sixth of Henry the VIII's wives. I consider her the most intelligent, logical and independent of the six. However, she could also be considered a prime example of how love turns people into idiots.

Enter Thomas Seymour. He was Jane Seymour (Henry's third wife)'s brother and after her death he stuck around and became one of the king's advisors.

Stupid thing One:
An inappropriate amount of time after Henry's death, Katharine married Thomas, and consequently lost her title as queen, which was (most likely) the foundation of his attraction to her.

Stupid Thing Two:
Almost immediately after their marriage, for the first time in her life, (rather astonishing if you think about the fact that she'd been married four times) she got pregnant. Around the same time she was carrying her daughter (future Mary Seymour), Thomas being the AMBITIOUS man that he was started making advances towards a fourteen year old Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth I), who'd been living with Katharine since after her father's death. To make a long story short, she eventually sent Elizabeth away, I suppose, not knowing what else to do.

Anyway, the point that I'm trying to make here is that number one, love turns people stark raving mad (which is why I'm not sure I want any part of it), and two, there are two types of women in the world: The Katharine Parrs and the Anne Boleyns. Logical and pragmatic, or impulsive and entirely controlled by their emotions (not that Anne wasn't intelligent) These tendencies will determine whether or not come you come out of life on your own terms (whatever those are), or you come out of life wherever your wayward emotions dumped you. Which would be, in Anne's case, in a hole with your head under your arm.

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