Note 25 — Chapter III · THE LADY LATIMER

Queen Katherine Parr was buried in the chapel at Sudeley Castle, which fell into ruins late in the seventeenth century. The monument having become much dilapidated, the then Vicar of Sudeley (1786) had the curiosity to open it and examine the condition of the body, which was found to be in a perfect state of preservation. The corpse measured 5 ft. 3 in.; the coffin, 5 ft. 10 in., the width being 1 ft. 4 in. in the broadest part, and the depth 1 ft. 5½ in. The Queen must therefore have had a very slight figure. The body was fully dressed in a Court costume of the period of cloth of gold and velvet; there were untanned leather shoes upon the feet. The profusion of light golden hair was quite remarkable. Of course several locks of it were snipped off and preserved as relics, one of them being still exhibited at Sudeley. Another lock of Katherine Parr’s hair was in the possession of Lord Bennet, who showed it to the author. It was very bright in colour and exceedingly curly. In 1805 the remains of Katherine Parr were again disturbed, and it was then discovered that an ivy berry had fallen into a fissure of the skull, taken root, and twined round the head a verdant coronet. For the last time the remains were touched in 1842, when they were removed with reverential care by Messrs. William and John Dent, who had become possessors of Sudeley Castle, and placed in a handsome monument, having above it a noble figure of the Queen, which is still one of the chief ornaments of the exquisitely restored chapel of the ancient castle—a veritable treasure-house of Tudor relics—now so pleasantly associated with the Dent family. For these notes on the remains of Katherine Parr the writer is personally indebted to the late Miss Elizabeth Strickland, who so long survived her sister Agnes, and to an interesting pamphlet on Sudeley Castle by Dr. Richard Garnett.