After his five marriages had ended in
divorces or executions, Henry was growing
stout, sickly, and extremely paranoid and
fearful of cabals and conspiracies at court.
In this troubled atmosphere Catherine
helped tutor the king’s two daughters,
Mary and Elizabeth, who had grown es-
tranged from their father. Catherine suc-
ceeded in softening Henry’s intolerant at-
titude toward his daughters and possibly
saving them from accusations of treason.
In the summer of 1544, Henry took
the field for a campaign in France, ap-
pointing Parr as regent to rule England in
his place. She carried out her duties with
competence, attending to the finances of
the realm and supplying Henry’s armies
with men, supplies, and provisions. The
queen regent’s ability greatly impressed
the young Elizabeth, who looked to her
stepmother as a model for her own man-
agement of England after she took the
throne.
Parr’s sympathies for the new reformed
faith, however, made Catholic courtiers
hostile to her, and their machinations with
the king put her in danger. She was guilty
of debating religious issues at court and
encouraging commoners to read the Bible
in an English version, an act that consti-
tuted defiance of the king as the supreme
head of the church. An arrest warrant was
issued but on the eve of being taken pris-
oner Catherine soothed the king’s ego with
submissive and penitent speeches; when
palace guards arrived to take her prisoner
the king angrily sent them away.
After the death of Henry in 1547,
Catherine Parr carded the title of Dowager
Queen of England and quickly married
Thomas Seymour. She took a strong inter-
est in the Reformation ideas then current
on the continent, and commissioned an
English translation of a work of Desid-
erius Erasmus. In the next year, however,
she died of a fever shortly after giving
birth to her first child, a daughter.SEEALSO: Elizabeth I; England; Henry VIIIPaul III ...........................................
(1468–1549)
Pope of the Catholic Church from 1534
until his death in 1549. Born Alessandro
Farnese in Canino, in the Latium region
surrounding Rome, he was the scion of a
wealthy family who was educated in Rome
by humanist scholars and in Florence,
where he was tutored at the court of
Lorenzo de’ Medici. He entered the service
of the church but remained a devoted
scholar of the classics and a friend to many
of Europe’s leading artists, writers, univer-
sity professors, and collectors. In 1493, he
was appointed a cardinal by Pope Alex-
ander VI. He was ordained as a priest in
1519, but in the meantime had fathered
four children, whose careers he was deter-
mined to advance through his position in
the church. He became dean of the Col-
lege of Cardinals and in 1534, after the
death of Clement VII, was elected to the
Papacy.
Paul III came to office at a time when
the Catholic hierarchy was dealing with a
spreading Protestant Reformation in
northern Europe. To deal with the de-
mands for reform of a church that many
saw as corrupt and worldly, he appointed
capable ministers and assembled a com-
mittee of nine church leaders to make rec-
ommendations for reform. One of his first
important acts in office was to convene a
general council at Mantua, but when Ger-
man Protestants refused to attend, the
pope canceled the council and waited
nearly ten years to finally assemble the
Council of Trent. He sent representatives
to debate with Protestants in Regensburg,
Germany, with the intention of reconcilingPaul III