Maud Green – Lady Parr
Maud was born on 6th April 1490, in Northamptonshire.
She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Green, of Boughton and his wife Joan.
When Maud was sixteen, she married Sir Thomas Parr.
Maud was appointed as a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Katharine of Aragon, sometime after 11 June 1509.
Maud was in constant attendance upon the Queen and was allocated her own rooms at Court on a permanent basis.
It was unusual for a knight’s wife to be a Lady-in-Waiting, as opposed to a Gentlewoman of the Bedchamber.
Maud’s elevated position with the queen could have been in recognition of the fact that Maud’s husband Sir Thomas Parr, was third cousin to King Henry VIII.
In between her duties at Court, Maud gave birth to five children.
Three of whom survived and a further two who died.
Maud gave birth to her first son shortly after her marriage to Sir Thomas.
The happiness was short lived, as the baby quickly died.
The baby’s name is lost to history.
Their surviving children were –
Catherine Parr – future Quern of England.
William Parr.
Annr Parr
After the birth of Anne, Maud again became pregnant in 1517, however, there is no subsequent mention of the child, so it was probably lost through a miscarriage, stillbirth, or death in early infancy.
Thomas Parr died of the sweating sickness on 11th November 1517, leaving Maud a widow.
Unusually, Maud did not remarry, despite being no more than twenty-five.
Instead, she took it upon herself to secure her family’s advancement through the usual means – this was usually through pleasing the King, or through marriage.
Maud is mentioned as being an excellent speaker of French, and the education she provided her children was considered of the finest quality.
In 1520, Maud accompanied the King and Queen to France for the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
Maud appears in the various household accounts of Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon, as entitled to breakfast at Crown expense and to suits of livery for her servants, as well as lodgings.
In the mid-1520s she negotiated for her son, William, a place in the household of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond – Henry VIII’s illegitimate son.
Maud remained in the service of Queen Katharine, until her death on 1st December 1531, aged about forty.
She was buried in St. Ann’s Church, Blackfriars Church, London, beside her husband.
In her Will, Maud gave detailed instructions on the bequests of her jewellery to her daughters.
It also included pictures of King Henry VIII and Queen Katharine of Aragon, which Maud left to her daughter, Katherine Parr.
Maud’s daughter Katherine Parr, would become the future queen of England, as Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife.
🥀 16th c Portrait of Katherine Parr, daughter of Maud Green, Lady Parr.
Unknown artist.
National Portrait Gallery
