England's Most Married

When I first arrived in England, I immediately decided that I would fit in a visit to the town of Kendal. Kendal was the birthplace and home of Katherine Parr, England's most married Queen, with 4 marriages. Her third marriage was to the Trifecta's favorite monarch, King Henry VIII, making her Henry's 6th and final wife and earning him the title of England's most married King. In order to remember what happened to all of Henry's wives, all you need to do is remember the poem "Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived." Katherine Parr was by far the luckiest of all of the 6 wives of Henry VIII. She wasn't divorced for reasons that include religious differences and inability to bear a male heir like Catherine of Aragon, she wasn't beheaded for angering the King like Anne Boleyn or sleeping around like Catherine Howard, she didn't die from complications of childbirth like Jane Seymour, and unlike the most unfortunate Queen Anne of Cleves, she wasn't divorced for being ugly.
I arrived in Kendal intending only to visit Kendal Castle and the site of Kendal's first castle, Castle Howe. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the quaint streets and river running through town. I hauled my tired, bruised body up the hill to the remains of Kendal Castle and enjoyed the ruins of what was at one time the home of a Queen. King Henry VIII was a frequent visitor to Kendal and as I sat looking out over the field and down onto the town, I could almost picture him riding up to the castle on his horse. Only, in my mind, he looked like the handsome, rougish Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and not like the morbidly obese King with the festering, stinking leg ulcer that history tells us of.
















Who wouldn't rather see JRM instead ?

Anyway, the castle was built in the early 12th century after the previous castle, Castle Howe, became too small. It eventually passed into the Parr family and Katherine Parr was born there in 1512. By 1537, the castle was in disrepair and was abandoned. While it was in no way preserved as well as some of the castles in England, it was still really neat to see up close.

After I was done admiring the castle ruins, I headed down the hill and towards the site of the former Castle Howe, stopping by Kendal Cathedral on the way. Another trek up a huge hill (stupid Brits and there insistence on building castles on hills) and I arrived at the monument to Castle Howe erected in 1788 to commemorate the 1688 Glorious Revolution. (As I am sure the entire Vineyard crew will be happy to hear, this is the actual name of the revolution). For those of you non-history buffs, the Glorious Revolution was the overthrowing of James II by William the Orange.

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