To Have Loved and Lost

Six: Katherine Parr

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For Katherine, called Kate, love was something she had seen in many forms. Her first husbands, both old and ailing men twice her age, had treated her with a kindness and affection that she had accepted as a kind of love. Her third husband, ailing but not quite so old, had tried, it seemed, to love her truly. But he had been tired and lonely, and while she pitied him, she could not love him as deeply as, perhaps, a wife ought, for her heart had been another's first. She grew to love his children, who starved for it as she did. When their father died, she grieved, but at last she could love openly the ambitious and handsome Lord Admiral, who was neither old nor ailing. He, her fourth husband, seemed at first to return her love, but with time she saw that his ambition was stronger than his feelings.

But she thinks, as her eyes begin to close for the last time, that perhaps he did love her, after all, in his own way. And she remembers her first three husbands, the children of her third, and her own newborn daughter, and she enters heaven filled with joy.

Fin.

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It's complete! And yes, Kate's was a doubledrabble - partially because she happens to be my favorite, but also because it simply turned out that way. :P

Perhaps eventually I'll write more drabbles on this theme, but from the perspective of Henry himself, and his children. I'll just wait and see.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Please don't forget to leave a review!

God bless.