Hi I'm Kevin Hicks and  welcome to my YouTube channel  

the History Squad. Now today's video is on about  Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII  

and how she was used, abused and then finally  executed on the orders of the king for treason.  

So Catherine Howard who was she yeah? Obviously  she was a Tudor lass, born around 1523,  

we're not sure. She was born in Lambeth yeah,  part of London. Her father Lord Edmund Howard  

and her mother Joyce Culpepper. Now they had six  children together one of which was Catherine but  

her mother had already got five which made  Catherine child number 10 for her mother.  

Wow. Now her mother and father die while Catherine  is quite young but traditionally they used  

to farm out their children, especially  if you were one of the poorer gentry,  

you would farm out your children to the more  wealthy and it was the Norfolk family, that  

was her uncle, that was the duke of Norfolk and it  was the Duchess of Norfolk who actually takes in  

the young Catherine into her household. And she  lives with the other cousins shall we say in the  

dormitory with other cousins in a large house, one  of the houses of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk,  

who doesn't really care that much what these girls  are getting up to and this is the sad side of it,  

because when she's very young, I've actually  read she was as young as 11 maybe 12,  

but because we don't know her date of birth it's  hard to substantiate. But this man Henry Mannox,  

he is one of the music teachers and he there's  only one way to describe it. He abuses her right?  

I've read various accounts, he's  much older, he was the same age,  

all these different things. From what I can glean  he was much older and he basically helped himself.  

It's written down that he knew her private  parts. It's questionable whether they actually  

had intercourse because they were keeping  things quiet yeah, but there was a lot of this  

kind of thing going on of a night. Doors would be  opened yeah, and food and drink would be smuggled  

up to the girls and men would come along and  help themselves. Nowadays of course we do,  

we call it abuse. So at a very young age Catherine  is becoming aware that men find her attractive,  

that her body, her sexuality is is developing  and when she moves out of the house to Lambeth  

she's introduced to a visitor there, uh Francis  Dereham, and there's a bit of a spark for sure,  

and they carry on an affair. It's her first love  and they call each other husband and wife, but  

this will come back to bite them because now we  see how Catherine is going to be used. She is  

attractive, vivacious, a sense of humor. She's  not well educated but she can read and write,  

but the one thing she doesn't understand is  the politics of the day. Just how dangerous  

the court of Henry VIII really is. So you  imagine that you have a boyfriend, you pretend  

that you're husband and wife but you're finding  yourself kind of liberated, you're enjoying this  

freedom that you have and you've also been  taught how to have sex without getting pregnant.  

She's quite happy when very, very early in  the morning. You know this is a dark side  

and you'll have to trace this yourself because I  can't remember where I found this because it was  

some years ago, but go figure. In the middle of  the night, early in the morning whatever it was,  

she's aroused from her bed or roused from her bed.  Not aroused, sorry, she's roused from her bed,  

bought downstairs and there's her uncle the  Duke of Norfolk. She is paraded in front of him,  

stripped, he looks her up and down and around,  asks her a few questions she's then dismissed.  

He will get her position at court she will  be a lady and waiting to Anne of Cleeves.  

She will be dangled in front  of the eyes of Henry VIII

So sweet Catherine Howard finds herself at the  court of Henry VIII, lady in waiting to Queen Anne  

of Cleeves. She's been instructed by her uncle the  Duke of Norfolk, a very powerful man, to dance,  

make eyes, catch the eye of the king which she  does. The king is kind of bowled over by this  

beautiful young lady, vivacious and  funny. Catherine Howard, that poor lass  

has no idea what's coming. So Catherine Howard  that beautiful lovely English rose, she’s married  

to King Henry VIII on the 28th of July 1540. She  was around 17, he was 49 or 50. She was slender,  

beautiful, vivacious full of life. His waist  was 52 inches around, he had terrible open  

ulcer sores on his leg which stank and he had  terrible, terrible breath. A match made in heaven.  

Well her uncle yeah, the Duke of Norfolk, he  believed it was a match in heaven because now  

the Howard family are there, they're in the court  of Henry VIII. All is going great, she dances,  

she performs, but she's got to perform in  one particular way, she's got to be made  

pregnant by the King. Now think about this. He's  a festering old man, look at his previous marriage  

it was annulled because it was unconsummated,  it was all blamed on poor Anne of Cleeves yeah?  

No, I reckon it's the other way around. The King  couldn’t, no matter how hard Catherine tried, she  

was not going to get pregnant from that King. So  let's then feed somebody in, a favourite actually  

of the King, Thomas Culpepper. He is allowed  access should we say, to the young queen. It's  

Jayne Boleyn, the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn,  Lady Rochfort, she is actually a member of the  

staff for Catherine Howard. Now I've read about  how liaisons were made how Culpepper was allowed  

up to her room in secret and other liaisons  but Catherine just wasn't aware of the court.  

Boy did she have an enemy. You see she'd upset  Princess Mary. Princess Mary had in her employ,  

members of the household where Catherine  Howard was a young girl. They tittle tattled  

about a certain music instructor yeah? Henry  Mannox. The princess tells Archbishop Cranmer,  

he is an arch enemy of the Howard family,  now the conspiracy, it all comes together  

when Mannox is taken into custody and questioned.  Now when I say question in the torture time,  

in the in the torture, in the Tudor times, it's  torture isn't it. They tortured him and he ‘I  

didn't have any sexual relations no I didn't have  intercourse, no, I did know her private parts’.  

He then talks about Francis Dereham, they  were gonna get married. Oh you see in law,  

if you agree that you're gonna  get married you are betrothed,  

that's how it works. And you can't get married  after that unless it all comes out, you tell  

your prospective husband yeah actually I'm not  a virgin I've had a relationship, we did discuss  

about marriage but we're not going to do it  anymore. None of that, so now they bring in Jane  

Boleyn and she is absolutely terrified of being  tortured. So terrified in fact that she loses  

her sanity, she goes mad, she literally becomes  mad during this entire process, so she by law  

cannot be executed or anything, she's  mad. The King is informed, he's furious  

Culpepper and Dereham are actually put on trial  for treason. They will be executed, hung drawn and  

quartered except the King's favourite Thomas  Culpepper is allowed just to have his head  

chopped off. The queen, she is found guilty,  treason, she will have her head cut off too.  

So poor Catherine, she's been found guilty  of treason, she's been removed to Sion Abbey,  

there she has her titles and all of her  possessions her jewels all of these things  

systematically stripped from her. She is known as  Mistress Catherine Howard. Well she's going to be  

conveyed to the Tower to have her head cut off and  that poor lass can barely stand. She’s manhandled  

from her chambers down the stairs into a barge  which has been covered over so nobody can see  

it but this poor lass she can see up because they  row underneath London Bridge and they slow down,  

and they bring to her attention two freshly cut  off heads Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpepper.  

It must have broke her heart. And then as they row  her into traitor's gate at the back of the tower,  

‘why are we coming in here?’ This terrified young  girl then has to be manhandled out of the barge.  

Sir John Gauge, he is the constable of the  tower, turns his face away with tears in his eyes  

as Catherine is carried  past him up to her chambers.  

But she tries to compose herself, she  has the block brought to her room,  

she tries it out. Now one account says that  the next day, was it the 13th of February 1542,  

she's dressed in black. She walks composed  to the scaffold, she's helped up the steps  

she gives her speech in her gentle voice. But  there is a little story I have, that she turned to  

one of her ladies in waitings who was still there  ‘I don't want to die, I've done nothing wrong  

I'm too young to die’. She lowers her head. Bang  the head is off. She's placed in a coffin nearby,  

but the headsman had somebody else to deal with  now. Jane Boleyn, insane, mad. You don't execute  

a mad person, but Henry VIII in his spite changes  the law and this decrepit woman is held down on  

the block forcibly, which is dripping in blood and  gore. This woman had to kneel in sweet Catherine's  

blood and her head was hacked off. The two bodies  are buried in the Tower chapel of St Peters.  

You can actually go and there is now a tile  commemorating them. This to me is such a sad story  

of a young woman who suffered abuse, was used  and finally killed for what? Often history  

looks at her as being nothing more than a naughty  girl, stupid, but I hope my little story here has  

given you an insight of how she was truly used.  Now I can't say hey i hope you enjoyed this,  

well I hope you found it interesting. If you  did thumbs up, if you're a subscriber hey  

thanks it's going great, I'm enjoying the  comments. If you're not a subscriber ,ding  

that bell, join us and have some fun but for  now thank you very much for your time. Bye-bye.