In 1533 Katherine Willoughby married Charles Brandon, Henry VIII’s closest friend. She would go on to serve at the court of every Tudor monarch bar Henry VII and Mary Tudor.Duchess of Suffolk at the age of fourteen, she became a powerful woman ruling over her houses at Grimsthorpe and Tattershall in Lincolnshire and wielding subtle influence through her proximity to the king. She grew to know Henry well. In 1538, only three months after Jane Seymour’s death, it was reported that they had been ‘masking and visiting’ together, and in 1543 she became a lady-in-waiting to his sixth wife, Catherine Parr. Henry had a reputation for tiring of his wives once the excitement of the pursuit was over, and in February 1546, only six months after Charles Brandon’s death, it was rumoured that Henry intended to wed Katherine Willoughby himself if he could end his present marriage. This is the remarkable story of a life of privilege, tragedy and danger, of a woman who nearly became the seventh wife of Henry VIII. Mr Baldwin’s biography of Katherine Willoughby, a friend of Catherine Parr, Henry’s sixth wife, elaborates on research suggesting that Willoughby was the king’s mistress […] Mr Baldwin, who sets out his theory in Henry VIII’s Last Love: The Extraordinary Life of Katherine Willoughby, said that the king might have been wise to avoid pursuing her. ( The Times UK ) David Baldwin was a medieval historian who taught at the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham for many years. His historical research focused on the great medieval families in the Midlands and he had contributed articles to historical journals and lectured regularly to societies and conferences in this field. Sadly he passed away in 2016.