more modern theory, from Linda Porter, author of a 2010 biography on Katherine Parr, suggests that a 1573 Latin book of poems and epitaphs written by John Parkhurst, Katherine Parr’s chaplain, contains the following reference to Mary: I whom at the cost Of her own life My queenly mother Bore with the pangs of labour Sleep under this marble An unfit traveller. If Death had given me to live longer That virtue, that modesty, That obedience of my excellent Mother That Heavenly courageous nature Would have lived again in me. Now, whoever You are, fare thee well Because I cannot speak any more, this stone Is a memorial to my brief life. Porter suggested that this was an epitaph written by Parkhurst, on the occasion of Mary's death around the age of two. Porter further speculates that Mary is buried in Lincolnshire, near Grimsthorpe, the estate owned by the Duchess of Suffolk, "where she had lived as an unwelcome burden for most of her short, sad life." Portrayals in fiction The 2007 novel The Red Queen's Daughter by Jacqueline Kolosov speculates an alternative history where Mary Seymour becomes lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth I. The 2009 novel The Stolen One by Suzanne Crowley depicts Mary being raised by a 'witch' in the English countryside. A similar premise allows Seymour's supernatural powers to help her friend Alison Bannister search for her lost child in the 2016 novel The Phantom Tree by Nicola Cornick. The 2022 drama series Becoming Elizabeth portrays Mary’s birth. References External links History Today: Lady Mary Seymour, an Unfit Traveller by Linda Porter. 1548 births Year of death unknown 16th-century English women Mary Parr family Catherine Parr