h time, from the evidence of
Katharine's subsequent letters, she seems to have made up her mind to
marry him. It may be that the King noticed signs of their courtship, for
Sir Thomas Seymour was promptly sent on an embassy to Flanders in company
with Dr. Wotton, and subsequently with the English contingent to the
Emperor's army to France, where he remained until long after Henry's sixth
marriage.

That Henry himself lost no time in approaching the widow after her
husband's death is seen by a tailor's bill for dresses for Lady Latimer
being paid out of the Exchequer by the King's orders as early as the 16th
February 1543, when it would seem that her husband cannot have been dead
much more than a month. This bill includes linen and buckram, the making
of Italian gowns, "pleats and sleeves," a slope hood and tippet, kirtles,
French, Dutch, and Venetian gowns, Venetian sleeves, French hoods, and
other feminine fripperies; the amount of the total being L8, 9s. 5d.; and,
as showing that even before the marriage considerable intimacy existed
between Katharine and the Princess Mary, it is curious to note that some
of the garments appear to have been destined for the use of the
latter.[235] By the middle of June the King's attentions to Lady Latimer
were public; and already the lot of the sickly, disinherited Princess Mary
was rendered happier by the prospective elevation of her friend. Mary came
to Court at Greenwich, as did her sister Elizabeth; and Katharine is
specially mentioned as being with them in a letter from Dudley, the new
Lord Lisle, to Katharine's brother, Lord Parr, the Warden of the Scottish
Marches. The King had then (20th June) just returned from a tour of
inspection of his coast defences, and three weeks later Cranmer as Primate
issued a licence for his marriage with Katharine Lady Latimer, without the
publication of banns.

On the 12th July 1543 the marriage took place in the upper oratory "called
the Quynes Preyevey Closet" at Hampton Court. When Gardiner the celebrant
put the canonical question to the bridegroom, his Majesty answered "with a
smiling face," yea, and, taking his bride's hand, firmly recited the usual
pledge. Katharine, whatever her inner feelings may have been, made a
bright and buxom bride, and from the first endeavoured, as none of the
other wives had done, to bring together into some semblance of family life
with her the three children of her husband. Her reward was that she was
beloved a