On the 13th of February 1542, Henry VIII's 5th wife, Catherine Howard, mounted the scaffold
near the Tower of London with the thought of none other than her cousin Anne Bolyen,
another Queen of England who had also been on this same scaffold only six years prior.
Accused of adultery, just like her cousin, the young Catherine knelt on the scaffold and said her
last words. Some say the she uttered the statement that she would rather die the wife of her alleged
lover, Thomas Culpeper, than die the wife of the king of England. The truth of this is unknown.
What we do know is that Catherine Howard led a brief life used and dominated by
men from early girlhood. It is said that Catherine had even sewn a motto
reflecting her short life experience onto her sleeve that said, "no other will but his."
Unlucky enough to have been born into the patriarchy of her time,
is what brought the young Catherine Howard to this day, with her head on the executioner’s block.
She was just a teenager, caught inn the web of court politics
and the ease with which Henry VIII tended to dispose of his wives.
Catherine Howard, the daughter of Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper Howard,
was born into a Catholic household around 1525.
She was brought up at Chesworth House near Horsham of her step-grandmother, Duchess Agnes Howard.
She seemed to have received little or no intellectual training but was instead, raised
to know the value of a woman's body and how to be a wife to a man of good standing.
When she was around 12 years of age when Catherine's music teacher, Henry Manox,
who was at least twice her age, tried to seduce her.
She is reported to have spoke of the flattering and fair persuasions of Henry Manox.
"Being but a young girl I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret
parts of my body." Later Manox confessed that he was attracted to Catherine but
claimed the relationship was never consummated.
Soon after, around 1538, Catherine moved with her family to Lambeth where she met a distant
connection of the Howard family, a young nobleman named Francis Dereham. Francis was a handsome and
dashing young man who was a far more attractive prospective husband than the music teacher.
Older now and sexually more mature, both Catherine and Dereham admitted during their life-time that
their relationship had been consummated and, outside of the bedchamber, they made no secret
of their attachment to one another. They often acted as though they were engaged. They even
went as far as to call each other ‘wife’ and ‘husband’, and while Dereham was eager to make
their marriage official, Catherine was unwilling to settle for the first man who had bedded her.
That affair ended when Dereham moved to Ireland and Catherine attended the king’s court.
Catherine's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, had arranged for
her to become a lady-in-waiting to Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.
Catherine caught Henry 's attention as soon as she entered court as a lady-in-waiting to
the queen who preceded her. His marriage to Anne of Cleves was to be a short one,
and not as deadly as her predecessors since their marriage ended in annulment based on
Henry's inability to consummate the relationship. It was said the he just found Anne too ugly.
Now 49 years old, Henry was growing older and fatter by the day and, when he met Katherine, he
felt stuck in a marriage that made him miserable. Young and full of life, Catherine enchanted him,
nothing was too good for her, and her family were quick to encourage his affections and
brush Catherine’s past relationship with Dereham under the carpet.
In August 1540, once rid of Anne of Cleves, Harry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.
She was only around 17 or 18 years old at the time of the marriage.
The king optimistically called his young and beautiful new wife, his “rose without thorns.”
Yet others in court felt other wise. The marriage had brought with it the rise of the Howard family,
a proud family who made enemies easily thus making Catherine an easy and public target of dislike.
And, Catherine herself, being young and not so well educated, made several mistakes of her own.
She often quarreled with Henry’s oldest daughter,
the future Queen Mary I, who was older than her new step mother by around seven years,
and she employed girls she’d known at Lambeth, who knew of her history with other men.
Catherine also made the fatal decision of appointing her ex-lover Francis Derehem
to private secretary and usher to her chamber.
A decision that would come back to haunt her in the very near future.
For a year, the marriage carried on happily
with Henry unaware of his new wife's dalliances of the past.
He was also unaware of her relationship with a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber,
Thomas Culpeper who was known to be a favorite of the King.
Culpeper was Catherine's cousin on her mother's side and she had been fond of him since childhood.
However, that fondness now developed into something far more deep.
He was a handsome boy and when he got older, he had a queue of female admirers.
But with Catherine, it seems, it was different.
She was his female equivalent and there was an instant, powerful attraction between them.
It is believed that Katherine and Henry were only married for six months before she began to send
Culpeper gifts and meet him in private with Culpeper even being smuggled up the
back stairs to the queen’s chamber when the King was away on a hunt.
Much like with Henry Manox there’s no evidence to suggest that she and Culpeper ever consummated
their relationship, but if they didn’t they were never to get the chance to either.
On 2nd November, 1541, a protestant Archbishopn named, Thomas Cranmer,
presented a written statement of the allegations of Catherine's alleged adultery to Henry VIII.
The Archbishop, whom wanted the catholic Catherine out of the way,
was more than glad to also add that, he had it on good authority, that Catherine,
while in her early teens, had been intimate with Henry Manox, Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper.
Unwilling to see his new bride as other than pure as a rose,
the king demanded an investigation as he felt confident that Catherine was innocent.
But both Henry Manox and Francis Dereham were imprisoned and tortured such that
the young bride's former sexual partners were unable or unwilling to defend her.
Unwittingly, Catherine herself confessed to the archbishop that she had slept with Dereham,
though she claimed to have neither enjoyed nor consented to it.
Catherine was brought to trial during which a “love letter” she addressed to
Thomas Culpeper was used as evidence against her.
But the nature of this correspondence has been brought into question by historians.
It may be the case that, in the letter,
Culpeper could have been trying to blackmail the queen by threatening to expose her sexual past.
Under torture, Culpeper claimed that he intended and did want to do ill against the queen.
As was the nature of King Henry VIII, in the end, the truth didn’t matter.
Catherine and her lady-in-waiting,Lady Rochford, who was said to have let
Culpepper into Catherine's chambers were beheaded on 13 February 1542.
It’s believed Catherine may have been as young as 17 when she died.
Afterwards Catherine was buried in the Tower of London’s parish church,
close to the body of her cousin, Anne Boleyn.
Only the piano teacher, Manox, would escape with his life. Dereham and Culpeper were faced with
a traitor’s death with Culpepper beheaded and Dereham hanged, drawn, and quartered soon after.
If history is written by the victors, then it’s clear that men have controlled the
narrative of Catherine Howard. They’ve written her as a vixen, a temptress,
and an adulterer. What do you think is the true story of who Catherine Howard truly was?
Leave your comments below to let us know.