between the lord Scroop's son and my daughter Katharine, for the which I heartily thank you, at which time I thought the matter in good furtherance. Howbeit, I perceive that my lord Scroop is not agreeable to that consideration. The jointure is little for 1100 marks, which I will not pass, and my said lord will not repay after marriage had; and 200 marks must needs be repaid if my daughter Katharine dies before the age of sixteen, or else I should break Master Parr's will, which I should be loth to do, and there can be no marriage until my lord's son (lord Scroop) comes to the age of thirteen, and my daughter to the age of twelve, before which time, if the marriage should take none effect, or be dissolved either by death, wardship, disagreement, or otherwise, which may be before that time notwithstanding marriage solemnized, repayment must needs be had of the whole, or else I might fortune to pay my money for nothing. The conversation I had with you at Greenwich, was that I was to pay at desire 1100 marks, 100 on hand-and 100 every year, which is as much as I can spare, as you know, and for that my daughter Katharine is to have 100 marks jointure, whereof I am to have 50 marks for her finding till they live together, and then they are to have the whole 100 marks, and repayment to be had if the marriage took not effect. My lord, it might please you to take so much pain as to help to conclude this matter, if it will be, and if you see any defect on my part, it shall be ordered as ye deem good, as knoweth Jesu, who preserve your good lordship.

"Written at the Rye, the 13 day of July,

"Your cousin, MAUD PARR."

Lord Scroop of Bolton Castle did not choose to submit to the refunding part of the clause, and was unwilling to allow more than forty marks per annum for the finding of the young lady till the heir of Scroop came to the age of eighteen.

Lord Dacre, after some inconsequential letters between him and dame Maud, proved his sincerity in the promotion of the wedlock by the following pithy arguments contained in an epistle to lord Scroop, his son-in-law :

"My lord,

“Your son and heir is the greatest jewel that ye can have, seeing he must represent your own person after your death, unto whom I pray God grant many long years. And if ye be disposed to marry him, I cannot see, without you marry him to an heir of land (which would be

right costly1), that ye can marry him to so good a stock as my lady Parr, for divers considerations-first, in remembering the wisdom of my said lady, and the good, wise stock of the Greens, whereof she is coming, and also of the wise stock of the Parrs, of Kendale, for all wise men do look when they do marry their child, to the wisdom of the blood they do marry with. I speak not of the possibility of the lady Parr's daughter Katharine, who has but one child between her and 800 marks yearly to inherit thereof.

"My lord, the demands you have and my lady's demands are so far asunder, that it is impossible ye can ever agree. I think it is not convenient nor profitable that so large a sum as 100 marks should go yearly out of your land to so young a person as my lady's eldest daughter Katharine, if it fortune, as God defend, that your said son and mine die. Also, I think it good (but I would not have it comprised in the covenant), that during the time of three years, that he should be with my said lady Parr, if she keep her widowhood, and ye to find him clothing and a servant to wait upon him, and she to find him meat and drink, for I assure you he might learn with her as well as in any place that I know, as well nurture as French and other languages, which me seems were a commodious thing for him.

"At Morpeth, 17 day of December, 15 year Henry 8th."

These letters certify us that Katharine Parr was under twelve years of age in the year 1524; she could not, therefore, have been born before 1513. We also learn that lord Dacre was anxious that his youthful grandson should participate in the advantages of the liberal education lady Parr was bestowing on her children, and that he placed due importance on the fact that the lady came of a family celebrated for sound sense and good conduct, a point little regarded now in the marriages of the heirs of an illustrious line. Lady Parr and all her lineage had a great reputation for wisdom, it seems; but the wisdom of this world formed so prominent a feature in the matrimonial bargain the sagacious widow and the

The consent of parents or guardians must have been bought. It was a common case in that age for fathers and mothers to sell their consent to the marriage of their heirs.

Her brother, afterwards Marquis of Northampton; in fact, the youngest sister, Anne Parr, inherited the Parr estate.

wary lord Scroop were attempting to drive in behalf of their children, that the affair came to nothing.

Lord Dacre tells lady Parr, "that lord Scroop must needs have money, and he has nothing whereof to make it but the marriage of his said son;" and dame Maud, in a letter from the court of Greenwich, dated the 15th of the following March, laments to my lord Dacre that the custom of her country and the advice of her friends will not permit her to submit to lord Scroop's way of driving a bargain.

Lord Dacre, who seems some degrees less acquisitive than his son and the lady Parr, replies:

"Madam,

"For my part, I am sorry that ye be thus converted in this matter, seeing the labour I have had in it, which was most for the strength of my friendship for my cousin Katharine, your daughter, assuring you that ye shall not marry Katharine in any place that be so good and comfortable to my said cousin, your daughter. And concerning my lord Scroop's demands, he demandit nothing but that ye were content to give, which was 1100 marks. And concerning his offer which was 100 marks jointure, it is not far from the custom of the country; for from the highest to the lowest, it is the custom to give for every 100 marks of dower, ten marks jointure.

"But finally, madame, seeing ye are thus minded (whereat I am sorry, as nature constraineth me to be), as it doth please you in this business, so it shall please me. And thus heartily fare ye well.

"At Morpeth, 25th day of May, 16 anno."

Thus ended the abortive matrimonial treaty for the union of Katharine Parr and the heir of Scroop, who was her kinsman by the maternal connexion of both with the great northern family of Dacre. Katharine must have been still of very tender age when she was given in marriage to her first husband, Edward, lord Borough of Gainsborough,' a mature widower, with chil

1 This nobleman was the second peer of the family of Borough, anciently written de Burgh. He was of the same lineage as the famous Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent and justiciary of England, the favourite of Henry III. His father, Sir Thomas Borough, was made knight of the

dren who had arrived at man's estate. Henry, the second of these sons, after his father's marriage with Katharine Parr, espoused her friend and kinswoman, Katharine Neville, the widow of sir Walter Strickland, of Sizergh; and this lady, though only twenty-nine at the time of their union, was fourteen years older than her husband's stepmother.

The principal family seat of Katharine's first husband was his manor-house of Gainsborough, situated about seventeen miles from Lincoln, and here, no doubt, he resided with his young bride. His father had expended considerable sums in enlarging and improving this mansion, which was sold a century afterwards by one of his descendants to a wealthy London citizen. Lord Borough had a fine mansion at Catterick, in Yorkshire, and probably at Newark, likewise, where his arms, impaled with those of his first wife, Alice Cobham, were painted on a window which his father presented to the parish church.

In Gainsborough church, on the tomb of the first lord Borough, father to Katharine Parr's husband, the arms

Garter at the coronation of Henry VII. He was afterwards called to the peerage by the title of lord Borough of Gainsborough; and Edward, the husband of Katharine, succeeded his father in the year 1495-6. He had married Anne, the daughter and heiress of sir Thomas Cobham, of Sterborough, Kent, by whom he had a family before he succeeded to his father's honours, for his eldest son is mentioned in the first lord Borough's will. That son was probably as old as the mother of Katharine Parr. By his mother, Alianor, the daughter of lord Roos of Hamlake, and the daughter of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, he was distantly related to the family of Parr; and by the second marriage of his grandmother, Alice Beauchamp, with Edmund Beaufort, afterwards duke of Somerset, he was allied to the royal family.

' Catharine Neville was the co-heiress of sir Ralph Neville, of Thornton Briggs, in Yorkshire. She married sir Walter Strickland, who died 19th year of Henry VIII., January, 1527; and lady Strickland married, the year after, 1528, to Henry Borough, entailing her inheritance of Thornton Briggs on her only son, Walter Strickland. She afterwards married William Knyvet. She was twenty-two years old in 1521, when Katharine Parr was about eight.-Plumpton Papers, 260. Strickland Family Papers, third folio, Sizergh Castle.

of Borough were quartered with Tallebois, Marmion, and Fitzhugh,' which afford sufficient proof of the ancestral connexion of this nobleman with the Parrs. He appears to have been related to Katharine somewhere about the fourth degree. He died in 1528-9. Katharine, therefore, could not have exceeded her fifteenth year at the period of her first widowhood. She had no children by lord Borough. Soon after the death of her husband, Katharine was bereaved of her last surviving parent. From a passage in the will of lady Parr, it appears as if that lady had sacrificed the interests of her daughter in order to purchase a marriage with a kinswoman of the sovereign for her son, sir William Parr. This strange document, which is utterly devoid of perspicuity and common sense, commences thus :

"Dame Maud Parr, widow, late wife of sir Thomas Parr, deceased 20th of May, 21st Henry VIII., 1529. My body to be buried in the church of the Blackfriars, London. Whereas I have indebted myself for the preferment of my son and heir, William Parr, as well to the king for the marriage of my said son, as to my lord of Essex for the marriage of my lady Bourchier, daughter and heir apparent to the said earl, Ann, my daughter, sir William Parr, knt., my brother, Katharine Borough, my daughter, Thomas Pickering, esq., my cousin, and steward of my house."

Great difficulties were probably encountered by the executors of lady Parr's will, as it was not proved till December 14th, 1531, more than two years after her death. Like many of the marriages based on parental pride and avarice, the union of Katharine's brother with the heiress of the royally descended and wealthy house of Bourchier, proved a source of guilt and misery to both parties. The young lady Parr was the sole descendant

Halle's MSS., British Museum.

"His son and heir, Thomas, third lord Borough, received summons to attend parliament, 3rd Nov., 21 Henry VIII.

3 Testamenta Vetusta.