Hi everyone. Welcome to History Calling and to the 5th video in my series on the six wives of
Henry VIII. If you’re interested, I’ll leave links to the other videos on screen and in the
description box. Today we’re in search of Henry’s youngest Queen, Katherine Howard.
Is this the only known contemporary portrait of her, or has her face been lost to history?
Katherine Howard was born somewhere between 1518 and 1524 (probably towards the later
end of the that range) and she married Henry on 28 June 1540. At first, he was besotted.
Katherine was his rose without a thorn and witnesses wrote that, based on his public
displays of affection, he seemed to love her more than any of his previous four wives.
Her time as Queen didn’t last long however, for in the Autumn of 1541, after accusations
of adultery, treason and pre-marital relationships which she had not disclosed,
she was stripped of her title on 22 November and ultimately sent to the block on 13 February
1542. Her remains were then buried in the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula in the grounds
of the Tower of London, near her cousin, Henry’s second and equally ill-fated wife, Anne Boleyn.
Debate as to what Katherine actually looked like has raged for centuries, not helped by
the fact that there are so few descriptions of her physical features written by those who saw her.
The French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, however, described her in August 1540
as being moderately pretty but with superlative grace. She was small and slender in stature with
a delightful countenance and dressed in the French style. After she became
Queen she was also noted as having put on some weight, particularly during her imprisonment.
Her final resting place was disturbed in 1876 due to the need to carry out restoration work
on the Chapel of Saint Peter Ad Vincula, however unlike Anne Boleyn, no bones thought to belong
to Katherine were discovered and so no further information could be gleaned about her appearance
from her remains. It's supposed that her body had completed disappeared due to her youth (because
young bones break down more quickly than those of older people and Katherine likely never made
it out of her teens) and also because of the use of lime in the spot where she was buried,
which also would have broken down any remains much more quickly.
Very few images have been put forward as serious contenders to be contemporary pictures
of Katherine, but one of the best known is this one, attributed to Hans Holbein, the great court
painter of Henry VIII’s reign, and now housed in the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio with copies
existing at Hever Castle in Kent and the National Portrait Gallery in London. This image is so
recognisable as it’s often still used in TV shows and on merchandise purporting to show Katherine.
It’s gone through a number of identifications over the course of its existence however. At one point
it was listed as ‘Cromwell’s mother’, though it’s unclear to which Cromwell this label was supposed
to refer, except that it's definitely not the one who became the Lord Protector in the 17th century.
It’s also been identified as Mary Tudor Brandon, Henry VIII’s sister and one time Queen of France
and Duchess of Suffolk. Ultimately, it’s been (to my mind at least), convincingly shown that
this lady is most likely not Katherine and is more likely to have been a member of the 16th
century Cromwell family. Its identification is still not certain and likely never will be,
but it may be Elizabeth Seymour, sister to Henry’s third Queen, Jane Seymour. Elizabeth
married Gregory Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell after the death in 1534 of her first husband,
Sir Anthony Urghtred. Gregory Cromwell was a son of Thomas Cromwell, who was one of
Henry’s most prominent ministers until his downfall in 1540 and Elizabeth’s widowed
status would help to explain why the sitter appears to be wearing mourning. It would also
make more sense as the Latin inscription on the image describes her as being in her 21st year,
an age Katherine likely never reached. Finally the fact that the portrait was handed down through
multiple generations of the Cromwell family indicates that it depicts one of their relatives.
Another contender is this image, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The sitter here is also well dressed in the fashions of the English court during the 1540s
and according to the inscription, was only in the 17th year of her age,
all of which make Katherine a possible subject. The Met Museum’s own catalogue entry for the
portrait however, notes its ‘poor condition and considerably restored face’, which has led to an
exaggerated pout. There is also serious doubt as to whether this was truly painted by Holbein, who
likely would have received any royal commissions going, having already painted, at the very least,
Henry’s 3rd and 4th wives and possibly Anne Boleyn as well, although there's no definitive portrait
of her by Holbein that we know of, and who had also been entrusted with painting Henry himself.
Then we have this image, now held in the Yale Centre for British Art in Connecticut.
It’s definitely not contemporary to Katherine and in fact dates to around two centuries after
her death, but may be a copy of a picture by Holbein. As with the Met’s image however,
there’s simply no way to know for sure if this is Henry’s fifth Queen.
That leaves us with this portrait, which exists in the two versions you see here.
This is the strongest contender to be Katherine and is the image I’m going to discuss in the most
detail today. The version on the left is held by the Duke of Buccleuch. The version on the right
by the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. The portrait wasn't initially identified as Katherine
and in fact it was only in around 1735-1740 that her name was attached to the Buccleuch version.
The identification has stuck though and the thing which clinches the idea for many that this is the
Queen is the jewellery she’s wearing. So what is it about these items which make them so special?
First, the sister’s necklace and the jewels around her headdress match descriptions of the jewels
Henry gave his young Queen at the time of their wedding and during their brief marriage. In an
inventory taken in 1541 there appeared details of these jewels, which included an ‘upper habiliment
[that’s the trim around the top of a French hood] of goldsmith's work enamelled and garnished with
vij. fair diamonds, vij. fair rubies, and vij. fair pearls.’ As you can see looking at this
portrait, that matches the jewels on the highest point of the hood the sitter is wearing. Katherine
was also gifted a necklace ‘containing 28 rubies and 29 clusters of pearls being 4 pearls in every
cluster'. Again, this matches what we see this sitter wearing. Finally, there was an ‘ouch’
or a pendant ‘of gold having a very fair table diamond and a very fair ruby with a long pearl
hanging at the same’. Another perfect description of the large jewel this lady is wearing.
The second reason the jewellery is so important is that some of these same jewels clearly appear
in portraits of Henry’s other wives. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. These were
incredibly expensive items and Henry wasn’t so sentimental as to buy a completely new suite of
jewels every time he changed wives, especially given how often that occurred. Like today,
many of the jewels were Crown property, only on loan to the Queen consort, rather than in
her personal possession and it therefore made sense to pass them along to the next woman.
Given his frequent overlap in wives however, this process of inheritance didn’t always run smoothly.
Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, wrote a furious letter to him when she
was told to surrender the Queen’s jewels to her successor, Anne Boleyn,
in which she retorted that she would ‘not give them up to a person who is the scandal
of Christendom and a disgrace to you.’ She only relented when Henry directly ordered her to do so.
It is evident therefore from the written record, that the royal consort’s jewels were
often hand me downs and the pictorial record only confirms this further.
Check out these three pictures side by side, showing Catherine of Aragon on the left, Jane
Seymour in the middle as painted by Hans Holbein and our potential Katherine Howard on the right.
Catherine of Aragon and Jane Seymour both wear an English style gable hood on their heads which is
ornamented with clusters of 4 pearls alternating with gemstones which we can see in Jane’s portrait
are rubies set in gold. The square necklines of their dresses are trimmed with the same
combination of jewels. If we then compare Jane to the potential portrait of Katherine Howard,
we see that the though the hoods and necklines are no longer the same, these two women are wearing an
identical necklace, comprising (again) sets of four pearls alternating with rubies set in gold
alongside a striking pendant made up of a ruby on top of a diamond, with a large pearl beneath and
like the necklace, also set in gold. Furthermore, the fact that the lady on the right is wearing a
French hood ties in with de Marillac’s comment that Katherine dressed in the French style.
When all of this is taken into account, it’s my belief that there’s only one conclusion;
namely that the jewellery is the same from woman to woman and that the sitter in the miniature,
with the auburn hair, pale complexion and hooded eyes must therefore be Katherine
Howard. But what do you think? Do you agree that this portrait is indeed of Queen Katherine?
Let me know in the comments' section below. I’ll also leave links to the professional descriptions
of some of the portraits I’ve shown you today in the description box along with other links to
some of my favourite books, movies, TV shows and documentaries about Henry and his Queens. Remember
to make sure you’re subscribed with notifications switched on so you don’t miss next week’s offering
which will discuss how Catherine Parr managed to survive Henry VIII. I hope you enjoyed this video
and I look forward to talking to you again in the next one. Til then, keep learning.