Catherine Howard

Catherine Howard
Queen Consort of England
Portrait miniature of Catherine Howard, by Hans Holbein the Younger. The manner of dress and jewelery suggest the subject's identity as Catherine.
Born	between 1520 and 1525
Died	13 February 1542
Consort	28 July 1540 – 13 February 1542
Consort to	Henry VIII
Father	Lord Edmund Howard
Mother	Joyce Culpeper

Catherine Howard (between 1520 and 1525 – 13 February 1542), also called Katherine Howard or Kathryn Howard was the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England (1540-1542), and sometimes known by his reference to her as "the rose without a thorn." Her birth date and place of birth is unknown (occasionally cited as 1521, probably in London). She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, a poor younger son of the 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Catherine married Henry VIII on 28 July 1540, at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, almost immediately after his annulment from Anne of Cleves was arranged. However, Catherine's marital conduct and past history were known to be unchaste, and she was beheaded after less than two years of marriage on the grounds of treason.

Biography

Early life

Catherine Howard was the tenth child of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper. Her older siblings (not in chronological order) were as follows: Ralph, George, Henry, Charles, Mary, Thomas, Isabel, Joyce, and Margaret.

Catherine's exact date of birth is unknown, although the year has been estimated as being between 1520 and 1525. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and a first cousin to Henry's second wife Queen Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary Boleyn, a former lover to Henry VIII.

Catherine's family, therefore, had an aristocratic pedigree. But her father, a younger son, was not well-off and often begged for handouts from his more powerful relatives. His niece, Anne Boleyn, got him a government job working for the King in Calais in 1531^{[citation needed]}.

At this point, young Catherine was sent to live with her step-grandmother, Agnes Tilney, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.

The Dowager Duchess ran a large household at Lambeth Palace, and she had numerous female and male attendants, along with her many wards; usually the children of relatives who could not afford to support their families. Supervision was lax, as the Dowager Duchess was often at Court and took little interest in the upbringing and education of her wards.

Consequently, Catherine was least educated of Henry's wives, although she could read and write, unlike many English women of her time. Her character is often described as merry and vivacious, but never scholarly or devout, and a casual upbringing in the licentious atmosphere of the Duchess's household led to a romance with her music teacher, Henry Mannox around 1536, when Catherine was between the ages of eleven and fifteen. When she became Queen, Mannox was appointed as a musician in her household. Mannox later gave evidence in the inquiry against her.

Mannox and Catherine both confessed during her adultery trial that they had engaged in physical contact similar to sexual foreplay: "At the flattering and fair persuasions of Mannox, being but a young girl, I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require." She said. "And I do also admit that I enjoyed his relationship with me, though I shall never regret loving him, I do now love Henry."

This affair came to an end in 1538, when Catherine was pursued by a secretary of the Duchess' household, Francis Dereham. They became lovers, addressing each other as "husband" and "wife." Dereham also entrusted Catherine with wifely duties such as keeping his money when he was away on business. Many of Catherine's roommates knew of the affair, and it was apparently ended in 1539 when the Dowager Duchess caught wind of the matter. Despite this, Catherine and Dereham may have parted with intentions to marry upon his return from Ireland, a "precontract," as it was then known. Indeed, if they had exchanged vows of their intention to marry before having sexual intercourse in bed, they would have been considered married in the eyes of the Church.

The Six Wives of King Henry VIII
Catherine of Aragon
Anne Boleyn
Jane Seymour
Anne of Cleves
Catherine Howard
Catherine Parr

Arrival at court

Catherine's uncle found her a place at the court of Henry VIII. As a young and attractive lady-in-waiting to Henry's new German wife, Queen Anne of Cleves, Catherine quickly caught the attention of the King, who displayed little interest in Anne from the start. Her relatives privately doubted that the young woman was mature enough to handle the responsibilities of being the King's mistress, as she had just arrived at Court a few months earlier, but other factors were at play. The memory of Anne Boleyn's death for supposed adultery marred the standing of the Norfolks (a family proud of their grand lineage) in Henry VIII's court, and the Catholic family saw Catherine as a figurehead for their mission to restore the Catholic faith to England. As the King's interest in their relative grew, so did their influence. Within months of her arrival at Court, Henry bestowed gifts of land and expensive cloth upon Catherine.

Marriage

When Henry had his marriage to Anne annulled on July 9, 1540, rumors swirled that Catherine was pregnant with his child. Their quick marriage just a few weeks after the divorce from Anne, on July 28, 1540, when Catherine was 15-20 years old, reflected Henry's lifelong urgency to secure the Tudor succession by begetting healthy sons. Henry, nearing 50 and expanding in girth, showered his young bride with wealth, jewels and fantastically expensive gifts. War with France and the Reformation had cost Henry the goodwill of his people, and he was then suffering from a number of ailments. The presence of a young and seemingly virtuous Catherine in his life brought him great happiness. Her motto, "No other wish (will) but his," reflects her queenly desire to keep Henry, a man thirty years her senior, content.

However, despite her newly-acquired wealth and power, Catherine found her marital relations unappealing. She was not pregnant upon marriage, and became repulsed by her husband's grotesque body. (He weighed 300 pounds, about 136 kilograms, at the time, and had an ill-smelling festering ulcer on his thigh that had to be drained daily.) Early in 1541, she embarked upon a light-hearted romance with Henry's favorite male courtier, Thomas Culpeper, whom she initially desired when she came to court two years before. Their meetings were arranged by one of Catherine's older ladies-in-waiting, Lady Rochford, the widow of Anne Boleyn's and Mary Boleyn's brother, George Boleyn.

Meanwhile, Henry and Catherine toured England together in the summer of 1541, and preparations for any signs of pregnancy (which would lead to a coronation) were in place, indicating that the married couple were sexually active with each other. As Catherine's extramarital liaison progressed, people who had witnessed her indiscretions at Lambeth Palace began to contact her for favors. In order to buy their silence, she appointed many of them to her household. Most disastrously, she appointed Henry Mannox as one of her musicians and Francis Dereham as her personal secretary. This led to Catherine's charge of treason and adultery two years after the king married her.

Downfall

By late 1541, the "northern progress" of England had ended, and Catherine's indiscretions rapidly became known thanks to John Lascelles, a Protestant reformer whose sister, Mary Hall, was a chambermaid to the Dowager Duchess and therefore witnessed Catherine's youthful liaisons. Motivated by the growing threat to his faith from conservative Catholicism, Lascelles presented the information to Thomas Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury and a close adviser of Henry's.

Cranmer, aware that any pre-contract with Dereham would invalidate Catherine's marriage to Henry, gave Henry a letter with the accusations against Catherine on November 2, 1541, as they attended an All Souls' Day Mass. Henry at first refused to believe the allegations, thinking the letter was a forgery, and requested Cranmer further investigate the matter. Within a few days, corroborative proof was found, including the confessions issued from Dereham and Culpeper after they were tortured in the Tower of London, as well as a love letter written distinctively in Catherine's handwriting to Culpeper.

Catherine was charged with treason, but never, even to her confessor just hours before her death, admitted to betraying the King with Culpeper, though she readily admitted her behavior prior to her marriage was unbecoming to say the least of a Lady of her rank, let alone a Queen of England.

Catherine was arrested on 12 November. According to legend, she escaped her guards' clutches briefly to run to the church where Henry was taking Mass. She banged on the doors and screamed Henry's name. Eventually she was arrested by the guards and was taken to her rooms in Hampton Court, where she was confined, accompanied only by Lady Rochford. Her pleas to see Henry were ignored, and Cranmer interrogated her regarding the charges. Even the staunch Cranmer found Catherine's frantic, incoherent state pitiable, saying, "I found her in such lamentation and heavyness as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man's heart to have looked upon her." He ordered the guards to remove any objects that she might use to commit suicide.

While a pre-contract between Catherine and Dereham would have the unfortunate effect of terminating Catherine's Royal marriage, it also would have allowed Henry to annul their marriage and banish her from Court. Catherine would be disgraced, impoverished, and exiled, but ultimately spared the grisly fate of Anne Boleyn. However, she steadfastly denied any pre-contract, stating that Dereham forced himself upon her.

Imprisonment and death

Catherine was stripped of her title as queen on 22 November and imprisoned in Syon House, Middlesex, through the winter of 1541. Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were executed at Tyburn on 10 December 1541 — the former beheaded, the latter hanged, drawn and quartered — for treasonous conduct. As was customary, their heads were placed atop London Bridge. Her relatives were also detained in the Tower, except her uncle Thomas, the Duke of Norfolk, who had sufficiently detached himself from the scandal. All of the Howard prisoners were tried, found guilty of concealing treason and sentenced to life imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. However, in time they were released with their goods restored.

She remained in suspension until Parliament passed a bill of attainder on 21 January 1542, that made the intent to commit treason punishable by death. This solved the matter of Catherine's supposed pre-contract and made her unequivocally guilty, as adultery by a queen was treason. She was taken to the Tower of London on 10 February 1542. On 11 February, Henry signed the bill of attainder into law, and Catherine's execution was scheduled for 7 AM on 13 February.

The night before her execution, Catherine is said to have spent many hours practicing how to lay her head upon the block. She died with relative composure, but looked pale and very terrified, and required assistance to climb the scaffold. Her speech about the "worthy and just punishment" asked for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. According to popular folklore, her last words were, "I die a Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper."^{[citation needed]} She was quickly beheaded with one stroke, and her body was buried in an unmarked grave in the nearby chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, where her cousin, Anne Boleyn, also lay. Henry was not present. Her body was one of those identified during restorations of the chapel during the reign of Queen Victoria and she is commemorated on a plaque on the west wall dedicated to those who died in the Tower.

Francis I of France wrote a letter to Henry upon news of Catherine's death, regretting the "lewd and naughty behavior of the Queen" and advising him that "The lightness of women cannot bend the honor of men." When Sir William Paget had informed him of Catherine's misconduct, he exclaimed "She hath done wondrous naughty!".

Lineage

16. Robert Howard (before 1407-1436)

8. John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk (before 1428-1485)

17. Lady Margaret Mowbray (before 1400-after 1437)

4. Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk (1443-1524)

18. Sir William de Moleyns (1378-1425)

9. Catherine Moleyns (?-1465)

19. Marjery Whalesborough (?-1439)

2. Lord Edmund Howard (1472/97-1539)

20. Sir Philip Tilney (before 1437-c. 1453)

10. Sir Frederick Tylney

21. Isabel Thorp (?-1436)

5. Elizabeth Tilney (before 1462-1497)

22. Sir Lawrence Cheney (c. 1396-1461)

11. Elizabeth Cheney

23. Elizabeth Cokayn

1. Catherine Howard (1520/25-1542)

24. Sir John Culpepper

12. Sir William Culpepper

25. Catherine Charles

6. Sir Richard Culpeper (?-c. 1507)

26. Robert Ferrers, 5th Lord Ferrers (of Chartley) (before 1387-c. 1413)

13. Philippa Ferrers

27. Margaret Despenser (before 1375-1415)

3. Joyce Culpeper (before 1507-?)

28. Richard Worsley (before 1461-?)

14. Ottwell Worsley (before 1477-?)

29. Catherine Clark (before 1461-?)

7. Joyce Worsley (before 1493-?)

30. Edward Trevor (before 1461-?)

15. Rose Trevor (before 1477-?)

31. Angharad Puleston

Historiography

Victorian writer Agnes Strickland argued that Katherine had been innocent of all charges laid against her. Others, namely American historian Lacey Baldwin Smith, described her life as one of "hedonism" and Katherine as a "juvenile delinquent." Alison Weir, in her 1991 book The Six Wives of Henry VIII, described her as "an empty-headed wanton."

Other biographers are more sympathetic—particularly David Starkey, who offered revolutionary theories on Katherine's adultery, and feminist activist Karen Lindsey, whose book Divorced Beheaded Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII (1995) is sympathetic but realistic in its assessment.

Portraits of Catherine Howard

The Windsor version of the Holbein miniature

Painters continued to include Jane Seymour in pictures of King Henry VIII years after she was dead, because Henry continued to look back on her with favour as the one wife who gave him a son; most of them copied the portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger because it was the only full-sized picture available. After Katherine Howard was executed, even the Howard family removed her picture from their family portrait gallery, because Henry never forgave her for her perfidy. Nobody dared make another portrait of her after she was dead.

A portrait miniature (see above) existing in two versions by Holbein (Royal Collection and Duke of Buccleuch is now believed by most historians to be the only image of Katherine painted from life (in the case of the Windsor version). It has been dated (from details of her dress and the technique of the miniature) to the short period when Katherine was Queen. In it she is wearing the same large jewel as Jane Seymour in Holbein's panel portrait in Vienna. These were jewels the records show belonged to the Crown, not to any Queen personally, and there is no record of their having been removed from the treasury and given to anyone else. The pearls may tie in with a gift to Catherine from Henry in 1540, and she is the only Queen to fit the dating, whose appearance is not already known. For female sitters, duplicate versions of miniatures only exist for Queens at this period. There are no other plausible likenesses of her to compare to. Both versions have long been known as of Katherine Howard, and are so documented since 1736 (Buccleuch) and and 1739? or at least 1840s for the Windsor version.

For centuries, a picture by Hans Holbein was believed to be a portrait of Katherine. (The image, [2]NPG 1119, is owned by the National Portrait Gallery in London, titled as "Unknown woman, formerly known as Katherine Howard.") Some historians now doubt that the woman in the picture is Katherine. Historian Antonia Fraser has persuasively argued that the above portrait is of Jane Seymour's sister, Elizabeth Seymour. The woman bears a remarkable resemblance to Jane (especially around the chin) and is wearing the clothes of a widow, which Catherine never had occasion to wear. Furthermore, the age of the sitter is given as 21; however, Katherine never reached her 21st birthday. Even if we accept the earliest possible date for her birth 1520/1521, Katherine would not have turned 21 until late 1541 or 1542, by which time she was either imprisoned or dead. The other possibility is that the portrait shows Henry's Scottish niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, the mother-in-law of Mary Queen of Scots. So, whilst it is almost certain that the portrait is not Katherine Howard, but rather Henry's sister-in-law, Elizabeth Seymour, the miniature shown above right is very likely to be Henry's unlucky fifth Queen.

In film

• Katherine first appeared on the silver screen in 1926, in the silent film Hampton Court Palace, played by Gabrielle Morton.
• In 1933, in The Private Life of Henry VIII, she was played by Binnie Barnes. In this comedy of manners, Katherine chooses to abandon love and ambitiously sets out to seduce the king. Her tragedy comes upon falling in love with the debonair and devoted Thomas Culpeper. Catherine's story dominates the film.
• American actress Dawn Addams made a 10-second appearance as the doomed Queen in the 1952 romantic film Young Bess, with Charles Laughton as Henry VIII, Stewart Granger as Thomas Seymour and Jean Simmons as Elizabeth I.
• In 1970, Angela Pleasance played Katherine in a 90-minute BBC television drama, as part of the series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, opposite Keith Michell as Henry VIII, Patrick Troughton as the Duke of Norfolk and Sheila Burrell as Lady Rochford. In this version of events, a shrill, indulgent, cruel, hedonistic Katherine uses the naïve Culpeper to try and get herself pregnant in order to secure her position.
• Katherine Howard made a cameo appearance, played by Monika Dietrich, in the 1971 slapstick British comedy Carry On Henry, with Sid James as Henry VIII. Two years later, Lynne Frederick portrayed Queen Katherine in Henry VIII and his Six Wives opposite Keith Michell as Henry VIII.
• In 1998 Emilia Fox played Katherine in Katherine Howard at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester, England.
• In 2001, Michelle Abrahams played Katherine in Dr. David Starkey's television documentary on Henry's queens.
• In 2003, Emily Blunt gave a more sympathetic portrayal of Katherine in the ITV television drama Henry VIII which focused on Katherine's sexual escapades. Once again, her adultery was explained by her relatives' desire for her to get pregnant. Katherine is shown crying and screaming with fear at her execution; contemporary accounts suggest she died in a more dignified manner.

In fiction

Katherine's story is fictionalized in the novel Murder Most Royal by Jean Plaidy.

Katherine is a character in the book The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory.

Katherine's story, along with that of Anne Boleyn, is told from the viewpoint of Lady Rochford in the novel Vengeance Is Mine by Brandy Purdy.

Katherine is a character in Sovereign by C. J. Sansom (the third novel in the Matthew Shardlake series).

Katherine's life at court is told in the trilogy The Fifth Queen by Ford Madox Ford.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Denny, Joanna. Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy, 2005
• Herman, Eleanor. Sex with the Queen William Morrow, 2006. ISBN 0-06-084673-9
• Lindsey, Karen. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII, 1995. ISBN 0-201-40823-6
• Smith, Jessica. Katherine Howard, 1972.
• Smith, Lacey Baldwin. A Tudor tragedy: The life and times of Catherine Howard, 1961.
• Starkey, David. Six Wives : The Queens of Henry VIII, 2004. ISBN 0-06-000550-
• Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. 1993. ISBN 0-8021-3683-4

External links

All retrieved May 11, 2008.

• Geocities site on the Boleyn family, but with a section on Catherine's life www.geocities.com
• A very brief overview of Catherine's life, accompanied by a portrait gallery tudorhistory.org
• English History biography Biography and primary sources englishhistory.net
• A geo-biography tour of the Six Wives of Henry VIII on Google Earth bbs.keyhole.com
• PBS "Six Wives of Henry VIII," describing Catherine's death www.pbs.org

English royalty
Preceded by: Anne of Cleves	Queen Consort of England 28 July 1540 – 13 February 1542	Succeeded by: Catherine Parr

English Royal Consorts

George, Duke of Cumberland (1702-1707) · Mary of Modena (1685-1688) · Catherine of Braganza (1662-1685) · Henrietta Maria of France (1625-1649) · Anne of Denmark (1603-1619) · Philip II of Spain (1554-1558) · Lord Guildford Dudley (1553) · Catherine Parr (1543-1547) · Catherine Howard (1540-1542) · Anne of Cleves (1540) · Jane Seymour (1536-1537) · Anne Boleyn (1533-1536) · Catherine of Aragon (1509-1533) · Elizabeth of York (1486-1503) · Anne Neville (1483-1485) · Elizabeth Woodville (1464-1483) · Margaret of Anjou (1445-1471) · Catherine of Valois (1420-1422) · Joanna of Navarre (1403-1413) · Isabella of Valois (1396-1399) · Anne of Bohemia (1383-1394) · Philippa of Hainault (1328-1369) · Isabella of France (1308-1327) · Marguerite of France (1299-1307) · Eleanor of Castile (1272-1290) · Eleanor of Provence (1236-1272) · Isabella of Angoulême (1200-1216) · Berengaria of Navarre (1191-1199) · Eleanor of Aquitaine (1154-1189) · Matilda of Boulogne (1135-1152) · Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou (1141) · Adeliza of Louvain (1121-1135) · Matilda of Scotland (1100-1118) · Matilda of Flanders (1066-1083)

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