In June 1545, two years after becoming queen, there appeared Prayers or medytacions, wherin the mind is stirred paciently to suffre all afflictions here, to sette at naught the vaine prosperitee of this worlde, and alwaie to long for the everlasting felicitee: collected out of certayne holy workes by the moste vertuous and gracious Princes Catharine, Quene of Englande, France and Irelande. In the event, the collection only included two concluding prayers. Later in November of that same year, an expanded edition was published that was now brought to a close with five prayers – and the extract above, which probes the relationships between sin, repentance and memory, is taken from ‘An other praier’ in this collection.

Half a century later, in 1592, Mary Sidney would emerge for the first time as a published author with A Discourse of Life and Death. Written in French by Ph. Mornay. Antonius, A Tragædie written also in French by Ro. Garnier. Both done in English by the Countesse of Pembroke. Thus, Parr and Mary Sidney both made their debuts in print culture with a title page that proclaimed their authorial identities in terms of their sex and their elevated rank. In such undertakings, both women may have had in mind the cultural prejudices that Richard Younge was to bemoan in the next century that, ‘alas! most men regard not what is written, but who writes: valew not the mettall, but the Stampe which is upon it’. Whatever the case, in 1545, Parr was memorialised in print as the king’s consort and seemingly with her husband’s blessing: Prayers or medytacions rolled from the presses of the royal printer, Thomas Berthelet. And in December of that year her stepdaughter, Princess Elizabeth, offered her father a New Year’s gift in the shape of French, Italian and Latin translations of the collection.