As the adage goes, "behind every great man, is a great woman." The Reformation is often dominated by the titanic personalities of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. What is less known is the colossal women who risked all to spread the Gospel and the Reformation. Among those who contributed was Katherine Von Borga (Luther) the wife of Martin Luther, Catherine Parr, Queen of England and last wife of Henry VIII, and finally Lady Jane Grey Dudley, the Protestant Queen who reigned only nine days and suffered at hands of Mary I of England "Bloody Mary." These women are sadly often in shadow of the male reformers, but the courage, and cleverness of these Reformer Women is worthy of the"crown of life," (James 1:12, Holy Bible); for they proved their steadfast devotion to Christ and the Gospel without compromise.
Catherine Parr -Queen of England and Protestant Reformer
Catherine Parr is the titular Sixth Wife of Henry VIII. Henry having annulled his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (Wife I), beheading Ann Boleyn (Wife II), , losing his precious Jane Seymour (Wife III) who bore him the coveted successor and son to English Throne, Edward VI, sent Ann of Cleves (Wife IV) with no chemistry packing, and executed whoremonger Kathryn Howard (Wife V), was in need of a mother for Edward, and his daughter from Ann Boleyn, Elizabeth [the future Queen of England]. Catherine Parr (Wife VI) became the answer to Henry's material needs. At this point Henry had broken away from Roman Catholic Church, creating the Anglican or English Church, of which He was head and master. Despite this, Henry remained very Catholic to the bone, and it is this loyalty in spirit to the superstitions of Rome, that got Catherine Parr almost one stroke below Par, a bogey beheading. Catherine Parr was a Protestant Christian, and she was not a lazy reformer. She had in fact, published her own Protestant masterpiece that spread across England like Luther's 95 Thesis. Here is sample, "Katherine's next and most ambitious personal project was the " Lamentations of a Sinner". In the course of twelve prolix chapters with titles such as "A Christian bewailing the miserable ignorance and blindness of men", we follow a sincere retelling of her journey from being mired in "foul, wicked, perverse and crooked ways" via utter rejection of "the Bishop of Rome [as] a persecutor of the gospel, and grace, a setter forth of all superstition and counterfeit holiness" to the sunlit uplands of the doctrine of Justification by Faith "…we be justified by the faith in Christ, and not by the deeds of the law.", "These, and later passages that seem to go beyond Lutheranism and dabble with the even more radical Calvinism that was emanating from Geneva, were well beyond anything that Henry VIII would have countenanced, although he would have loved the paragraphs hailing him as a new Moses and praising his role in "[delivering] us out of captivity and bondage…. The book was not published in Henry's lifetime, instead emerging in late 1547." (http://tudortimes.co.uk/people/katherine-parr-religious-writings/the-protestant-queen
Catherine almost caught a death sentence for her Protestant zeal, and she only escaped London Tower, and the Axe man's block with a bold move. Catherine had all 2,000 copies of her book burned and bowed at behest of her beloved Henry VIII asking for mercy. Henry chided and chastised CCatherine for her reformer ramblings, to which Catherine in a clever response said, "but my lord, you are my husband, and by God are the one who must instruct me, so do so my good husband." Henry perhaps being sickly, old, and not interested in finding a seventh wife, took the homage and flattery as sufficient payment for Catherine's Life.
While it may appear Queen Catherine compromised her values to survive, God works in mysterious ways. Catherine had a major influence over Henry's daughter, Elizabeth, who considered Catherine to be the most remarkable and stable mother figure (the others being axed literally and figuratively). When the young King Edward VI died at age nine, the throne passed Lady Jane Grey (see below) and then Mary I of England, known as "Bloody Mary" for all Protestants, 636 total, that she burned and cut to pieces. Thanks be to God, Bloody Mary had no children, and so passed the throne to Elizabeth, a Protestant who having been tutored by Catherine Parr, even learning New Testament in Greek by heart, would lead a Golden Age of England and defeat the Spanish Armada and Roman Catholic Inquisition with the divine assistance of Holy Trinity. Parr may have put her books to the fire, but she kindled another fire by teaching Elizabeth in her teen years to be devoted to Scriptures, Christ, and Protestant Reformed thinking. Catherine's books may have burned, but her legacy for the LORD Jesus would live on in Elizabeth I of England's great achievements for Protestantism and more importantly, the authentic Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Katherine Von Borga- Wife of Martin Luther and the Burr of Christ
Martin Luther is often called the man who with a hammer and nail and 95 Thesis set the fire of The Reformation. While this is certainly true, one could not forget the efforts of Jan Hus and Erasmus, who had dared to turn back to Scriptures for authority and Christian living; still unlike Hus Luther survived, and unlike Erasmus, Luther would take the Scriptures and give them to the common people in their language, German. Martin did not meet Katherine Von Borga at beginning of his quest, nay at that time he was an Augustinian Monk and Katherine was Nun of the Benedictine Order. Like Luther who could not be content with Monastic life and its obvious pitfalls, Katherine became disenchanted with her monastic life and became passionate about the Reformation movement. During the Radical Reformers Rampage, when radicals like Karlstadt were attacking priests, nuns, destroying churches, statues, and the like; Katherine Von Borga and her nun sisters had to be smuggled in beer barrels. Afterwards, encountering a Reformed Luther, she learned from Luther and especially delighted in the teaching on why clergy should marry according to Scripture, inevitably this led to Martin and Katherine marrying. Katherine bore Martin six children, she grew her own garden to sustain the family at Black Monastery (their home), and became famous for her own brewery of beer. Katherine von Borga was also an attentive wife who tended to Luther's many mood swings, and diseases, of which Luther said of Her, "“To my dear wife Katherine von Bora, preacher, brewer, gardener, and whatsoever else she may be. To my kind and dear lord and master, Katy, Lutheress, doctoress, and priestess of Wittenberg, My lord Kate drives a team, farms, pastures, and sells cows . . . and between times reads the Bible." Martin Luther obviously recognized many roles in His wife, and we see that she was doctor as her son attests, a farmer who kept her family alive, a brewer of great beer, a reader of bible, a priestess, and so much more. Katherine was not just Luther's Wife, she was a devout Christian and woman of action, in fact her recorded words are, "for Katherine, reading the Bible was insufficient. She longed to apply it. “I’ve read enough. I’ve heard enough. I know enough. Would to God I lived it.”
Katherine died on December 20th, 1550, in a wagon accident that put her in ice water. Her last words were as she had lived, "I will stick to Christ as a burr to a top coat." (Katherine Von Borga Luther). A burr in case you were wondering if a Burl, a growth like sist on a tree trunk. Obviously, Borga was considering her the burr, and top coat being Jesus.
Lady Jane Grey Dudley -Queen of Nine Days, Eternally with Christ
While Ann Boleyn had a thousand days with Henry VIII of England, her husband until her death at hands of the axe man; there is another queen who had shorter reign, Lady Jane Grey, known as Lady Jane Dudley after she married. After Edward VI, Henry VIII's Son died, there was no successor, the boy being to young to father a child. Frantic for a Protestant replacement, some Protestant put up Lady Jane Grey as Henry's Sister (not in actuality, to error is human, to forgive divine right?). Lady Jane was a Protestant woman, who would prove ardent in her confession of the Holy Scriptures. Her reign was only nine days, when Mary I of England came to seize her throne by right, as first daughter of Henry VIII via his first wife Catherine of Aragon (a Spanish Catholic), Lady Jane found herself taken to the Tower of London, where she had to choose between reaper's scythe on the chopping block or recant her Protestant beliefs. She was sent a inquisitor, Dr. Feckenham, to try and convince her to return to Catholic faith, and her response to Sacraments of Catholic Church is both clever and correct:"A Conference, dialogue-wise, held between the Lady Jane (Grey) Dudley and M.Feckenham
Feckenham: What thing is required in a Christian?
Jane: To believe in God the Father, in God the Son, in God the Holy Ghost, three persons and one God.
Feckenham: Is there nothing else required in a Christian, but to believe in God?
Jane. Yes: We must believe in him, we must love him, with all our heart, with all our soul, and all our mind, and our neighbour as ourself.
Feckenham: Why then faith justifieth not, nor saveth not?
Jane: Yes, verily, faith (as St. Paul saith) only justifieth.
Feckenham: Why St. Paul saith, if I have all the faith of the world, without love, it is nothing.
Jane: True it is, for how can I love him I trust not, or how can I trust in him whom I love not; faith and love ever agree together, and yet love is comprehended in faith.
Feckenham: How shall we love our neighbour?
Jane: To love our neighbour, is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and to give drink to the thirsty, and to do to him as we would do to ourselves.
Feckenham: Why, then it is necessary to salvation to do good works, and it is not sufficient to believe?
Jane: I deny that, I affirm that faith only saveth; for it is meet for all Christians, in token that they follow their master Christ, to do good works; yet may we not say, nor in any wise believe, that they profit to salvation: for although we have done all that we can, yet we are unprofitable servants, and the faith we have only in Christ’s blood and his merits, saveth.
Feckenham: How many Sacraments are there?
Jane: Two: the one the Sacrament of Baptism, and the other the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Feckenham: No, there be seven Sacraments.
Jane: By what Scripture find you that?
Feckenham: Well, we will talk of that hereafter: but what is signified by your two sacraments?
Jane: By the Sacrament of Baptism I am washed with water, and regenerated in the spirit, and that washing is a token to me that I am the child of God: the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is offered unto me as a sure seal and testimony, that I am, by the blood of Christ which he shed for me on the cross, made partaker of the everlasting kingdom.
Feckenham: Why, what do you receive in that bread: do you not receive the very body and blood of Christ?
Jane: No, surely, I do not believe so: I think at that supper I receive neither flesh nor blood, but only bread and wine; the which bread when it is broken, and the wine when it is drunk, putteth me in mid how that for my sins the body of Christ was broken, and his blood shed on the cross, and with that bread and wine I receive the benefits which came by breaking of his body, and by the shedding of his blood on the cross for my sins.
Feckenham: Why, but madam, doth not Christ speak these words: take eat, this is my body: can you require any plainer words: doth he not say, that it is his body?
Jane: I grant he saith so; and so he saith likewise in other places, I am the vine, I am the door, it being only but a figurative speech: doth not St. Paul say that he calleth those things which are not as though they were? God forbid, that I should say that I eat the very natural body and blood of Christ: for then either I should pluck away my redemption, or confess there were two bodies, or two Christ’s: two bodies, the one body was tormented on the cross, and then if they did eat another body, how absurd: again, if his body was eaten really, then it was not broken upon the cross (as it is doubtless) then it was not eaten of his disciples.
Feckenham: Why, is it not as possible that Christ by his power could make his body both to be eaten and broken, as to be born of a woman without the seed of man, and as to walk on the sea having a body, and other such like miracles, which he wrought by his power only?
Jane: Yes, verily, if God would have done at his last supper a miracle, he might have done so: but I say he minded nor intended no work or miracle, but only to break his body, and shed his blood on the cross for our sins: but I beseech you answer me to this one question; where was Christ when he said, take, eat, this is my body: was not he at the table? when he said so he was at that time alive, and suffered not till the next day; well, what took he but bread? and what broke he but bread? and what gave he but bread? look what he took he brake, and look what he brake he gave, and look what he gave that did they eat, and yet all this while himself was at supper before his disciples, or else they were deceived.
Feckenham: You ground your faith upon such authors as say and unsay, both with a breath, and not upon the church, to whom you ought to give credit.
Jane: No, I ground my faith upon God’s word, and not upon the church: for if the church be a good church, the faith of the church must be tried by God’s word, and not God’s word by the church: neither yet my faith: shall I believe the church because of antiquity? Or shall I give credit to that church which taketh away from me a full half part of the Lord’s Supper, and will not layman receive it in both kinds, but the priests only themselves, which thing if they deny to us part, they deny us part of our salvation? and I say, that it is an evil and no good church, and not the spouse of Christ, but the spouse of the devil, which altereth the Lord’s Supper, and both taketh from it, and addeth to it: to that church I say Go will add plagues, and from that church will he take part out of the Book of Life: you may learn of St Paul, how he did administer it to the Corinthians in both kinds, which since your church refuseth, shall I believe it? God forbid!
Feckenham: That this was done by the wisdom of the church, and to a most good intent to avoid an heresy, which then sprung in it.
Jane: O, but the church must not alter God’s will and ordinances, for the colour or gloss of a good intent: it was the error of King Saul, and he not only reaped a curse, but perished thereby, as it is evident in the Holy Scriptures.
To this M. Feckenham gave me a long, tedious yet eloquent reply; using many strong and logical persuasions, to compel me to have learned to their church: but my faith had armed my resolution to withstand any assault that words could then use against me. Of many articles of religion we reasoned, but these formerly rehearsed were the chiefest and most effectual.’
Jane Dudley
(p.34-40, Nicolas)" (http://www.ladyjanegrey.info/?page_id=2356)
Lady Jane Grey made an outstanding stand against Feckenham's fickle Catholic assaults. She stood firm in her faith that the Holy Scriptures are authoratitive, that salvation in Jesus Christ alone (Solus Christus) by belief or faith alone (Solae Fide) and that Transubstantiation is an erroneous teachings regarding the Lord's Supper. Jane was brave, she could have saved her life had she recanted, and yet we see that three people in Reformation went different routes, Luther did not recant before Cardinal Cajetan, and so helped lead The Reformation in Germany, Catherine Parr did to an extend concede, maybe not recant, to her husband Henry VIII King of England, but in long run influenced the next greatest monarch, Elizabeth I Queen of England. Finally, Jane Dudley or Jane Grey did not recant at all and made one of most compelling and memorable exchanges with doctor of Catholic theology. Her responses revive Martin Luther's a the Diet of Worms, and it is shame that many have not read her dialogues.
In the end Lady Jane went to meet Jesus Christ face to face, "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain, But if I go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. So what shall I choose? I do not know, I am torn between the two: I desire to depart (repose, die) and be with Christ, which is better by far; But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live." (Philippians 1:21-24, Holy Bible). Indeed, these words of the Apostle Paul are echoed by Lady Jane Dudley (Grey) who send letters and notes at her day of execution:
"In the book, Jane wrote...' The Lord comfort your Grace and that in His word wherein all creatures only are to be comforted. And though it hath pleased God to take two of your children, yet think not, I most humbly beseech your Grace, that you have lost them. But trust that we, by leaving this mortal life, have won an immortal life. And I, as for my part, as I have honoured your Grace in this life, will pray for you in another life.
Your Grace's humble daughter, Jane Duddley" (Jane's prayer book that she carried to the scaffold. The letter to her father written, in her own hand, hours before her death, can be seen at the bottom of the page. The book is now on display in the British Museum.)
"Although it hath pleased God to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened, yet can I patiently take it, that I yield God more hearty thanks for shortening my woeful days, than if all the world had been given unto my possession, with life lengthened at my own will. And albeit, I am well assured of your impatient dolours redoubled many ways, both in bewailing your own woe and especially, as I am informed, my woeful estate; yet, my dear father, if I may without offence rejoice in my own mishap, herein I account myself blessed, that washing my hands with the innocency of my face, my guiltless blood may cry before the Lord, 'Mercy to the innocent...In taking [the crown] upon me, I seemed to consent and therein greviously offended the Queen and her laws...And thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state in which I presently stand, my death at hand,although to you it may seem woeful, yet to me, there is nothing more welcome than from this vale of misery to aspire to that heavenly throne of all joy and pleasure, with Christ our saviour...
Jane Duddley.'" (Letter to Jane's Father)
"I have sent you, good sister Katherine , a book, which although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is more worth than precious stones. It is the book, dear sister, of the laws of the lord: It is His Testament and Last Will, which He bequeathed unto us wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy, and if you, with a good mind read it, and with an earnest desire, follow it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life.
It will teach you to live and learn you to die...[the book] shall win you more than you should have gained by the possession of your woeful father's lands, for as if God prospered him, you shall inherit his lands...[the contents contain] such riches as neither the covetous shall withdraw from you, neither the theif shall steal, neither let the moth corrupt...And as touching my death, rejoice as I do and consider that I shall be delivered of this corruption and put on incorruption, for as I am assured that I shall for losing of a mortal life, find an immortal felicity. Pray God grant you and send you his grace to live in the love...
Farewell good sister, put only your trust in God, who only must uphold you,
Your loving sister, Jane Duddley." (Jane Wrote this in her Greek New Testament and sent it to her sister)
So there you have it. Three Reformer women. One a Queen who escaped execution narrowly, Catherine Parr, Another Katherine Von Bora who stuck by Martin Luther her husband when he was both an Excommunicant (Excommunicated) and Outlaw, enemy number one of both the Catholic Church and the German State, and finally Lady Jane Grey who did not escape martyrdom at hands of Bloody Mary. Finally, all three of these Reforming ladies were connected in a small way, Catherine Parr and Katherine Borga Luther had same first name, and Lady Jane Grey was mourner at Catherine Parr's funeral. More importantly, they all believe the True Gospel, that faith alone in Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation and eternal life (John 3:16-18, John 6:40, Romans 10:9-10, Acts 4:10-12, Ephesians 2:8-9, Philippians 2:8-9, New Testament, Holy Bible).
Sources:
Secrets of Six Wives, Lucy Worsley, PBS Mini Series
Elizabeth I: A Biography, Alice Weir, Book
The Reformation Profiles, Ligonier Ministries, Lecture
The Reformation, Diamand McCulloch, Book
The Lady Jane Reference Guide, Website with Sources
Tudor Times, Website with excerpts from Catherine Parr's Ecclesiastical Works, Chapter 4
Wikipedia, Profiles of Catherine Parr, Katherine Von Borga, and Lady Jane Grey
http://www.britannia.com/history/ladyjane/corres.html
Luther Country, Katherine Von Borga,
Lady Jane Grey Film (1986)
Elizabeth I Film (1988)
Elizabeth TV Mini Series (2005)
Wolf Hall TV Mini Series (2015-present)
Martin Luther (1953)
Luther (2003)
and More
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