I would rate this 3.5 out of 5.

I want to thank Pen & Sword Publishing and NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

Brief Summary: Katherine Parr's legacy is often overshadowed by her final two marriages. As the final queen of Henry VIII, she is viewed as a nursemaid to an ailing tyrant. As the wife of Thomas Seymour, she is seen as a woman driven by a passion for a man of "great wit and little sense". However, her impact on English history is undeniable if only it can be uncovered. How did a woman who reached the pinnacle of power at the Tudor court fade from history? Woolerton attempts to answer this question by exploring what Parr's death and final resting place say about her life.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this book a lot. It reads like a true crime biography of a Tudor icon and I read the whole book in nearly a single setting.

I will start by saying that Woolerton's interest and passion for the subject of Katherine Parr is clear throughout the book. That being said, the writing was not my favourite. It was very repetitive in many places and there were several times where it was frustrating because it felt like entire sections could have been cut. After all, I just read the contents in another paragraph.

The most fascinating part of this book was what happened to Parr's body after her sudden death. I had no idea how much vandalism and investigation occurred at her final resting place. The first chapter where Woolerton outlines many of the details about these events grabbed my attention immediately. I had never heard any of the information surrounding these events and the way that they were presented was well throughout and captivating.

However, my favourite part of the book was Woolerton's thoughts on why Parr may have married Seymour. This theory provided a new perspective which I had not considered before and is something that I think is a perfectly logical explanation of events. While this portion of this book was more conjecture than specific fact, Woolerton does a good job of laying out the evidence to support the conjecture.

This is a very interesting book and is likely to spark some thoughts for any lover of Tudor history. I think that this is an excellent book to introduce you to the life and legacy of Katherine Parr. It provides you with a clear overview of her life and legacy. It also poses important questions to consider about the final 20 months of her life.

Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Death, and Child Death
Moderate: War, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexism, Murder, Death of a parent, Classism, and Grief
Minor: Religious bigotry and Infidelity

This is a well crafted, well researched book on Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last queen.

Anyone that’s checked out my previous reviews knows I’m a big Tudor history fan girl. If there’s a book about it I’m going to want to read it, fiction or non-fiction, so I was especially glad to be granted this from the wish list at NetGalley.

Katherine Parr is probably the Tudor Queen I know least about or the one that is most misrepresented in my mind - another reason why I requested this book. Reading it has put her much clearer in my mind.

Unlike some other historical non-fiction this is lovely and accessible in terms of prose. A couple of things to note. 1 - It does jump around in time a little but this doesn’t make it unduly confusing. 2 - There are small pieces which are repeated throughout the chapters, especially around her relationships with Henry’s children & John Neville’s children. I personally found this a little jarring at times but most people probably wouldn’t even notice and it didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment.

This is a short, impactful read, shining a new light on the demise of Katherine Parr and shares some interesting and credible new theories about some of her actions, especially around her marriage to Thomas Seymour. This book is a credit to the author & I enjoyed reading it.

Thank you to the author, publishers & NetGalley for granting me access to this arc in return for an honest review.

I was blown away by this investigation. I was unaware that Katherine Parr remarried ( a Seymour) and was intrigued by this detailed exploration of the facts around her death. What a story! June Woolerton’s research appears to be meticulous and I found her narrative engaging and compelling. I knew she was Henry’s last wife and outlived him, but I didn’t know that she remarried so quickly. As soon as I learned her new husband was a Seymour, I could understand why there was mystery surrounding her death and hasty burial a few days after giving birth, The Seymour’s werekey players on the Tudor stage with a singular interest in one thing; power.

June Woolerton offers a number of possibilities, each have some conviction and I liked the fact that there is little by way of speculation. The facts are presented based on evidence, not conjecture, and upturn the long held conventional view. A really enjoyable investigation and plenty of food for thought, with, for me, a totally new angle on the Tudors. I really enjoyed this title.

The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr by June Woolerton

The final days of Henry VIII’s last queen included a faithless husband and rumours of a royal affair while the weeks after her funeral swirled with whispers of poison and murder. The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr dives into the calamitous and tumultuous events leading up to the last hours of a once powerful queen and the bizarre happenings that followed her passing.

From the elaborate embalming of her body, that left it in a state of perfect preservation for almost three centuries despite a burial just yards from her place of death, to the still unexplained disappearance, without trace, of her baby, the many questions surrounding the death of Queen Katherine are examined in a new light.
A very well researched and thorough insight into Katherine Parr and her life once the king had died ( and death ).
Was interesting and found out things I had not known before.

The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr by June Woolerton, focus on the sudden and abrupt death of the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, Queen Katherine Parr.

I was slightly disappointed with this novel, as I feel it lost itself in its premise. Woolerton tries to pose the question was Katherine really murdered by her last husband? Instead of presenting points for her question, she really circled around the same three points for the length of the book. Katherine’s four marriages, Katherine’s relationship with her children, and Katherine’s learning. It seemed like every other page, the author was referencing “the four time married” queen.

There was not enough lent to the support of the theory that Queen Katherine Parr died of anything other than “child bed fever.” It is a compelling theory, but without more support it falls flat.

I still would recommend the novel to anyone who likes Tudor History or Katherine Parr, but keep your expectations light.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Pen and Sword Publishing for the advanced reader copy!

This book is well written, interesting and informative. It deals a lot with the afterlife of Katherine Parr as well as with her actual death which was an interesting approach but not really one that I was expecting from the title . Nevertheless I Highly recommended this.

This study of Queen Katherine Parr's life, death and "afterlife" contains fascinating and presumably factual information. I found the story of how her grave was discovered, desecrated, and studied to be quite fascinating. Despite extensive reading on Henry VIII's six queens, I was unaware of this information. The book is undeniably well-researched in many areas; kudos to the author for uncovering this history.

However, my praise ends there. After the first chapter or two, the book is, quite frankly, a mess. The writing is extremely repetitive, and disjointed, making it difficult to read. While it isn't necessary for a biographical work to be linear, this one jumped back and forth between many periods in Katherine's life, and repeated many of the same facts or suppositions each time, as if the average reader was unable to retain the information. Confusion frequently set in; it was often difficult to differentiate between Katherine Parr and others named "Katherine" who also figured in her story. There were times when I believed the author was attempting to draw a conclusion -- such as in regards to Katherine Parr's cause of death -- but fell short of doing so. by not providing supporting evidence.

I believe ARC readers are supposed to refrain from mentioning typos and lack of editing -- presuming that a good editor will take care of those issues before a book is published. But, I feel compelled to bring them up because the narrative's disarray and the author's lack of attention to submitting a cohesive, non-repetitive story to the publisher, even in unedited form, had a profoundly negative impact on my opinion. And that's sad, because I found the information interesting and wanted very much to be able to like the book.

I hope that when published, it will have been thoroughly edited, which will significantly reduce its length. The information is fascinating; it would be a relief to not have to wade through repetitions, and grammar/sentence structure issues, in order to digest it.

Although this is a history book, large parts of it rea more like a story. I quickly became invested in Katherine, her family, and what happened to her. She comes alive as a real person, not just a historical ruler. The sadness I felt over the state of her grave, and her death was completely unexpected. I will definitely be picking up other books this author has published, and any to come in the future.

This is both an informative and an interesting read. The author has included primary and secondary documents, which makes the story - and theories - far more credible than others I have seen. In addition to this, the author explains WHY certain actions raise red flags, which is helpful for someone who may not understand the historical social times.

I love historical fiction, especially about the Tudors. It's one of my favorite parts to read about and this book was perfect for me. It had so much to say about one of the last Tudor wives and the only one to survive. Much isn't known about Katherine Parr after she survived Henry and it was fascinating to read about how she lived and died. There was so much tragedy and horror filled around this man that you feel sorry for everyone involved. I loved this book and will be recommending it.

This is a very thorough biography of Katherine Parr although from the title it seems like it would only be about the circumstances of her death. Although I have read a lot of books about the Tudors, I have never read any which focuses on her life after Henry VIII as much as this one does. And what a fascinating subject. Although she only lived a short while after his death, I had no idea that how she died was controversial at all. Was it a result of childbirth? If so, why was she buried so quickly and at such a small church even though she was still regarded as a queen? This book approaches the questions from all angles and is full of a wealth of facts. It is an intriguing mystery and perhaps one that we will never know the answer to.

In the popular rhyme about Henry the Eight's wives, Katherine Parr is the one who "survived" (although Anne of Cleves did too)

I knew that she had remarried the caddish Thomas Seymour (uncle to the King) and had a child and always wondered what happened to the child. I assumed that it was a love match with the handsome Admiral and that she had died as a result of some birth related disease.

All of this is re-examined and questioned.

It starts with the disinterment of her body, all wrapped in cloth and lead encased. It then details any accounts from the time and any subsequent reports of what later happened to her body.

We then back-track to find out what an important , supportive ,educated and loving wife and stepmother she had been . This leads the author to question the accepted version, with facts from primary sources and also build a picture of why her death leaves many questions open
For example:-
Why did she move to Gloucestershire from London when her orbit of power was at court and London
Was it really a love match?
What was the medical cause of her death?
Why was her funeral so hastily arranged when state funerals rarely were?

I was intrigued by the arguments the author puts forward on these (and other) points. I had never read any of the letters sent to her by her stepchildren and didn't know about her warm relationship with Mary and Edward in particular (the relationship with Elizabeth is more widely written about) Also her Protestant beliefs were more clearly explained as was her power at the court before her royal marriage.

There was some over repetition of the arguments , but the book was well researched and is an interesting addition to books about the wives of Henry the Eighth.

he Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr is an engaging and layman accessible historical account of the death and aftermath of the last Queen of Henry VIII written by June Woolerton. Released 4th April 2024 by Pen & Sword on their History imprint, it's 224 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. Due for release outside the UK 30th May 2024.

This is a very well written account of the mysteries and lack of documentation and records surrounding the late life, death, and burial of Queen Katherine Parr, the last queen of Henry VIII. The author has done an impressive job of collecting and presenting an astounding collection of snippets, historical talks, excerpts from letters, and extant records to reconstruct the later life of the queen.

Although it's a layman accessible text, and written in everyday language, it is meticulously annotated and the chapter notes are well written and provide another layer of detail and will provide the keen reader many hours of reference reading outside the main text. The author/publisher have also provided a number of facsimile documents and black and white photos and greyscale illustrations of the main characters (many of the known Holbein portraits are included, as well as the lands and gardens around Sudbury, and several B&W studies of the marble tomb figure erected in the 19th Century for the late queen by Queen Victoria when Queen Katherine's remains were moved to a new (more appropriate) location.

Five stars. Engaging and well written. It would be an excellent choice for public or school library acquisition, for gift giving, and for home library.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I became interested in Katherine Parr after seeing the musical Six, and was thrilled to see this book. Katherine Parr outlived Henry VIII, if only for a mere 18 months. Not typically being a nonfiction reader, the writing and information presented were engaging and compelling. Did she die in childbirth or was something more sinister at play? The author dies a fabulous job presenting interesting facts that make your question what you know.

Thank you NetGalley and Pen & Sword for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I wish I could give this book a better rating, for it was well-researched and clearly a work of passion for the author. However, it was written in such a superfluous way that I struggled to appreciate the story of Katherine Parr within.
This could have been a well-worded essay as opposed to a 187-page book. The text is full of spelling and grammar errors that leads me to believe this was a first and only draft. The book is also extremely repetitive. Information is stated over and over again as though it is expected that the reader has the memory span of a goldfish.
Another disservice done to Katherine Parr.

June Woolerton, The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr What Really Happened to Henry VIII's Last Queen?, Pen & Sword Pen & Sword History, March 2024.

Thank you, Net Galley and Pen & Sword, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

June Woolerton begins her book with the dramatic events around the original uncovering of Katherine Parr’s coffin, its neglect over time, and the eventual burial that was worthy of a queen. For, indeed, Katherine Parr was a queen, even after her marriage to Thomas Seymour, as an outcome of Henry Vlll’s will, preserving this honour. It might be the power that she could possibly have exerted after Henry’s death, her departure from the court and new marriage that resulted in her death, hasty burial and the lack of publicity afforded her funeral. Woolerton attempts to unravel whether this was the case in a well-researched narrative that moves from these dramatic, almost gossipy speculations to the new marriage and birth of her daughter, and then returns to the past where Katherine has been an almost continuing presence in the Tudor courts, as the child of a Lady in Waiting to Catherine of Aragon, to a Lady in Waiting herself. Two earlier marriages seem to have had little impact on Parr’s ability to wield her own power. Eventually, as Woolerton suggests, such power might have been her undoing.

At times I wondered about the value of unearthing the reasons for Katherine Parr’s death, perhaps because the arrangement of the information led to repetition and an uneven outlining of the events. The beginning of the book did have dramatic value, but the real information was the state of the body and the type of burial rather than the speculation about the tea party guests and the possibilities associated with the uncovering of the coffin and dwelling on its treatment afterwards. The reintroduction of some of this information in the final chapter seems unnecessary, although the material about Sudeley Castle makes interesting reading.

The well-researched story of Katherine Parr’s rise to become Henry Vlll’s last wife, and her ability to survive his threats and those of her enemies around him is a vital, easy to read, contribution to knowledge about the Tudor courts and the role of women in them, as well as disseminating Katherine Parr’s unique story. The way in which she became a friend and supporter of Henry’s daughters and young son is also a story worth telling. It is when the introductory chapter is ignored and the aftermath of Katherine’s death is investigated that another story, rich with information and useful speculation emerges. Chapter 12 covers the respect with which Queen Victoria treated Katherine Parr, with the completion, in 1862, a tomb with a marble effigy. The photos Woolerton has assembled are a valuable source, as is the detailed information accompanying them; and there are citations for each chapter, some of which are usefully detailed.

This was fascinating and very enjoyable. I never knew that much about Katharine Parr. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

A first-class study into the death and burial of King Henry VIII's last wife less than two years after his own passing. A lost grave far from a known royal establishment - was it murder/ was it the plague? - and what happened to the site in the centuries after her death?
An excellent read. Recommended.

In "The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr" by June Woolerton, readers are transported back to the tumultuous final days of Henry VIII's reign as they delve into the enigmatic circumstances surrounding the demise of his sixth and final wife, Katherine Parr.

Woolerton's meticulous research and engaging narrative style bring to life the intrigue and uncertainty surrounding Katherine's death. From her unexpected demise just eighteen months after Henry's passing to the bizarre events that followed her burial, Woolerton leaves no stone unturned in her quest to uncover the truth behind one of Tudor history's most enduring mysteries.

What sets "The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr" apart is its exploration of the lesser-known aspects of Katherine's final days and the peculiarities surrounding her burial and subsequent rediscovery. Woolerton meticulously examines the evidence, from the elaborate embalming of Katherine's body to the unexplained disappearance of her baby, painting a vivid portrait of a queen whose fate remains shrouded in uncertainty.

Throughout the book, Woolerton skilfully navigates the complex web of historical accounts and theories surrounding Katherine's death, offering readers a tantalising glimpse into the intrigue and machinations of the Tudor court. With each page, readers are drawn deeper into the mystery, eagerly following Woolerton's investigation as she seeks to unravel the truth behind Katherine's untimely demise.

"The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr" is a captivating blend of history and mystery that will appeal to fans of Tudor-era intrigue. Woolerton's meticulous attention to detail and engaging storytelling make this book a must-read for anyone fascinated by the enigmatic figures and events of the Tudor period.

Overall, "The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr" is a compelling and thought-provoking exploration of one of history's most enduring mysteries. Woolerton's insightful analysis and compelling narrative make this book a standout contribution to Tudor scholarship, shedding new light on the life and death of one of England's most fascinating queens.

I didn't realise the connection of Katherine Parr the surviving wife of Henry VIII with Sudely Castle and the Cotswolds in an area I know well.
This account explained Katherines importance to the reformation of the church and her influence on Elisabeth I and Englands Protestant heritage.
The book speculates as to why Katherine chose Sudely for her confinement and laying in to give birth at Sudely and her central role, largely forgotten, in Tudor politics.
For anyone who enjoys Tudor history this is an easy read without being to dry for the reader.

When Henry VIII died in 1547, his widow Katherine Parr was not only still considered to be Queen, she was also free to remarry - which she did, six months later, to the man who became her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour. Then Katherine found herself pregnant - and eight days after the birth of her only child, a daughter, Katherine was dead and hastily buried.

Woolerton takes the reader through the discovery of Katherine's tomb at Sudeley, the rumours surrounding her death, and her rather hasty and low key funeral. Katherine's husband - Thomas Seymour - hot-foots it back to London, leaving the newborn in the care - initially - of Katherine's attendants. We already know that Katherine's daughter Mary will soon be left without both mother or father, as after a plot was discovered to put the protestant Elizabeth on the throne, her father Sir Thomas Seymour was beheaded for treason.

Woolerton explores Katherine's final months and days, and notes her actions were in sharp contrast to the self-assured woman she was prior to and during her marriage to Henry VIII - and considers this against the backdrop of what we already know - or think we know. Katherine's funeral, in stark contrast to other female monarchs was, as mentioned, a rather hasty and covert affair, not even attended by her husband - and Woolerton delves into this quite deeply, as she does with Katherine's will.

I found Woolerton's exploration of events quite engaging and her open-mindedness to other hypothesis rather refreshing. She posits a number of plausible theories for Katherine's actions and behaviours after Henry's death whilst exploring Seymour's own actions against the changing political tableau.

A must for Tudor lovers, and for those with an interest in royalty and notable women.