SOURCE: Dowling, Maria. “A Woman's Place: Learning and the Wives of Henry VIII.” History Today 41 (June 1991): 41-42.

In the following excerpt, Dowling surveys Parr's intellectual and religious activities.

Henry's sixth wife tried to revive something of the pious and cultured atmosphere that had formerly characterised the queen's household. Catherine Parr's religious and political importance should not be exaggerated. She was neither the director of a ‘royal nursery’ where the king's three children embarked on a novel course of humanist study: nor was she the head of the reform faction at court, only one of its more vulnerable members and as such open to attack. Yet within her limitations Catherine made an important contribution to court culture.

Contrary to legend, Catherine Parr did not receive a thorough education in her youth. It was only after her marriage to Henry that she began to learn Latin and to write the...