rothed, and her father soon afterwards secured to himself
a more strenuous ally in the earl of Lenox, also of the blood-royal of
Scotland, by bestowing upon this nobleman the hand, not of his daughter,
but of his niece the lady Margaret Douglas.

Undeterred by his late severe disappointment Henry was bent on entering
once more into the marriage state, and his choice now fell on Catherine
Parr, sprung from a knightly family possessed of large estates in
Westmoreland, and widow of lord Latimer, a member of the great house of
Nevil.

A portrait of this lady still in existence, exhibits, with fine and
regular features, a character of intelligence and arch simplicity
extremely captivating. She was indeed a woman of uncommon talent and
address; and her mental accomplishments, besides the honor which they
reflect on herself, inspire us with respect for the enlightened
liberality of an age in which such acquirements could be placed within
the ambition and attainment of a private gentlewoman, born in a remote
county, remarkable even in much later times for a primitive simplicity
of manners and domestic habits. Catherine was both learned herself, and,
after her elevation a zealous patroness of learning and of
protestantism, to which she was become a convert. Nicholas Udal master
of Eton was employed by her to translate Erasmus's paraphrase of the
four gospels; and there is extant a Latin letter of hers to the princess
Mary, whose conversion from popery she seems to have had much at heart,
in which she entreats her to permit this work to appear under her
auspices. She also printed some prayers and meditations, and there was
found among her papers, after her death, a piece entitled "The
lamentations of a sinner bewailing her blind life," in which she
deplores the years that she had passed in popish observances, and which
was afterwards published by secretary Cecil.

It is a striking proof of the address of this queen, that she
conciliated the affection of all the three children of the king, letters
from each of whom have been preserved addressed to her after the death
of their father.

Elizabeth in particular maintained with her a very intimate and frequent
intercourse; which ended however in a manner reflecting little credit on
either party, as will be more fully explained in its proper place.

The adroitness with which Catherine extricated herself from the snare in
which her own religious zeal, the moroseness of the king, an