With over 300 episodes in the bank, every once in a while I'd like to step back and look into the archives and re-air an older episode.

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.

The Tudors Dynasty podcast with Rebecca Larson.

Today I am very pleased to welcome back to the show, Dr. Linda Porter.

Now, you probably know Dr. Porter Best from multiple podcasts that she's on,

maybe some TV appearances that she's made, but she is also a brilliant historian and author. Today, Dr. Porter is here to talk to us

about Catherine Parr. Now, we all thought we knew who Catherine Parr was, right? Yeah,

we didn't really know. Dr. Porter did such a great job with her research to show us a side

of Catherine Parr. That wasn't the nursemaid that we've always been

told. Dr. Porter, welcome back. Thank you very much, Rebecca. So Catherine was the sixth and last

wife of Henry VIII. She married four times in all, and she's often referred to as a nursemaid,

but she wasn't that, was she?

No, I don't actually know how far back this rather Victorian interpretation of Catherine Par goes,

but it may actually be Victorian, of course, and it has acquired a kind of life of its own.

Occasionally, I am irritated to find even historians who should know better nowadays still referring to it.

But it is just completely silly.

And for reasons which if people gave it much thought, I think would occur to them spontaneously.

And the idea that Henry Vth would have married for his last

wife, some sort of mumsy woman who was going to crawl around on her hands and knees, dabbing at his

ulcerated legs, is clearly absolutely fatuous. Henry wanted a wife. He wanted an attractive one,

and more than anything else, he wanted one who might still bear him children.

Because I think if Catherine had produced a little Duke of York, Henry would have been absolutely ecstatic.

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