Blog # 49...September 2015
Theatre performances can be many things – entertaining or
thought provoking, making us laugh or cry, maybe all of the above. At their best, they introduce us to a world,
either interior or exterior that we may have never known otherwise.
I was one of the lucky ones to see The Last
Wife, actor Kate Hennig’s debut as a playwright at Stratford (sold out ‘till
the end of its run in early October). It piqued my interest in the Tudors and
made me think about women in history.
Kateryn Parr was the sixth (and last) wife in Henry VIII’s reign
that stretched from 1509 till 1547… a lot of spouses to squeeze into 38 years. Kateryn was 31 and had been married and widowed
twice by the time she married Henry at Hampton Court in 1543. She’s often eclipsed by some of her
predecessors, particularly Anne Boleyn, but held her own as an extremely
intelligent, cultured and kind woman who had a significant influence on the
court and on Henry’s three children. She
encouraged Henry to recognize his two daughters and add them to the list of
succession. Mary and then Elizabeth
became the last of the Tudor queens after their brother Edward’s brief reign
and death at 16.
History, as they say, is written by the winners. It’s also
written mainly by men, so the actions and influences of women are largely
unnoticed, Alan Dilworth, director of the play, summed it up this way, “if we are fish, the water we swim in
is patriarchy.” Most women were occupied
with the important but largely unrecognized domestic tasks that supported and
made possible what happened on the battlefield and got into the history
books. Plus ca change…
There have been many biographies of significant women from
Joan of Arc to Rosemary Sullivan’s recent Stalin’s Daughter. Historian Margaret
Macmillan who will deliver this year’s Massey lectures has chosen as her topic
History’s People and features in one lecture women like Fanny Parkes and
Elizabeth Simcoe who defied or ignored the constraints of their own societies. Kateryn
Parr is only one of many women since the world began who took initiative, acted
bravely and was influential in the lives of her family and the playing out of
historical events. Wouldn’t it be great
if, somewhere in the future, women’s stories are accepted as part of our common
history rather than a sidebar?
