Sudeley Castle book signing

A fascinating insight will be given into one of Gloucestershire’s royal residents, when Linda Porter arrives at Sudeley Castle to talk about her new book Katherine the Queen – The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr.

Award-winning historian and biographer Linda Porter will be talking about one of Gloucestershire’s royal residents and her new book, Katherine the Queen – The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, at Sudeley Castle on Wednesday 31 March 2010.

The book promises to offer a captivating portrait of Henry VIII’s last Queen, who lived at Sudeley and is entombed in St. Mary’s Church within the grounds.

Known for being Henry VIII’s sixth wife, the one that ‘survived’, Parr has often been dismissed as a matronly figure who made little impact in the drama ridden Tudor court. The truth, Linda Porter reveals, is that she was one of the most influential, intriguing and tragic queen consorts in English history.

According to Porter, she was beautiful, radical and highly intelligent, and there was even a moment in their three-year marriage when she almost became the third of Henry’s wives to lose her head, saved only by her own quick wits and the old King’s affection.

Katherine’s life had been filled with drama and tragedy even before she became Queen, and would remain so after Henry’s death, when she secretly married the rakish Sir Thomas Seymour and settled in Sudeley.

Rumours spread through the court about Seymour’s open flirtations with Katherine’s step-daughter, the young Princess Elizabeth, and while scandal was still at its height, Katherine died giving birth to her only child.