Katherine Howard

Henry VIII's Slandered Queen

Conor Byrne

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780750990608
• eBook ISBN:
  9780750991582
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Over the years Katherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife, has been slandered as a 'juvenile delinquent', 'empty-headed wanton' and 'natural born tart', who engaged in promiscuous liaisons prior to her marriage and committed adultery after. Though she was bright, charming and beautiful, her actions in a climate of distrust and fear of female sexuality led to her ruin in 1542 after less than two years as queen. In this in-depth biography, Conor Byrne uses the results of six years of research to challenge these assumptions, arguing that Katherine's notorious reputation is unfounded and redeeming her as Henry VIII's most defamed queen. He offers new insights into her activities and behaviour as consort, as well as the nature of her relationships with Manox, Dereham and Culpeper, looking at her representations in media and how they have skewed popular opinion. Who was the real Katherine Howard and has society been wrong to judge her so harshly for the past 500 years?

1

HENRY VIII’S ACCESSION AND THE HOWARDS

THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII to the throne of England in 1509 was viewed positively by his expectant subjects, ushering in hopes of dynastic stability following the devastation caused by the Wars of the Roses in the previous century. Henry’s accession was the first time in some eighty years that the crown had passed directly from king to son without the challenge presented by a pretender, and, in an attempt to enhance his lineage and improve his international standing, he decided to marry the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. Indeed, ‘great provision was made for the … costly devices of the other [Henry VIII] with that virtuous Queen Katherine, then the king’s wife, newly married’.¹

Those present at court in the early years of Henry VIII’s reign were unanimous in their praise of him. The Venetian ambassador Sebastian Guistinian opined that ‘nature could not have done more for him … He is much handsomer than any sovereign in Christendom; a great deal handsomer than the King of France, very fair and his whole frame admirably proportioned’.² That same ambassador went on to record in 1514:

His Majesty is the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes upon: above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick.³

Such statements offer revealing insights into sixteenth-century perceptions of masculinity and kingship, for they indicate that the ideal of early modern kingship extolled virtuous masculinity, demonstrated through a rigorous physicality combined with an almost godly beauty, which Henry personified to foreign observers visiting court. The apparently unanimous praise of England’s new king was at least partly influenced by the ambivalence, if not dislike, with which the English had viewed Henry’s father, Henry VII, the first Tudor king. Although he has perhaps unfairly been represented as a miser, there is no doubt that Henry VII lacked the charisma and personal charm that endeared his son to his subjects.

Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s queen, would have been well aware of her marital duties, for the expectation at the sixteenth-century English court was, as it would have been elsewhere in the courts of Europe, that she would present her husband with several sons in order to ensure the continuation of the ruling dynasty and prevent the dynastic bloodshed and civil war that would be caused by her failure to bear a son. Indeed, Katherine had no better example than her own family; her only brother, Juan, had died as a teenager, plunging the Spanish succession into turmoil. The repercussions of that in the long term were to prove problematic, with conflict occurring between Katherine’s father, Ferdinand of Aragon, and her brother-in-law Philip, husband to her sister Juana, as to who had the stronger claim to the throne of Castile.⁴ It was imperative that Queen Katherine present the new king with male heirs in order to preserve the stability of the Tudor lineage in England. Indeed, having been married to Henry VII’s ill-fated heir Arthur for a period of five months in 1501–02, Katherine would have appreciated the concerns and fears of Henry VIII. Both of them were aware that a ‘spare’ male heir was always necessary in case the firstborn died, as had proved to be the case in 1502.

At the time of Henry VIII’s succession, several English noble families could claim royal blood through their descent from Edward I. The most prominent was the Howard family, whom one author lyrically wrote of thus:

What family pervades our national annals with achievements of such intense and brilliant interest as the Howards? As heroes, poets, politicians, courtiers, patrons of literature, state victims to tyranny and revenge, they have been constantly before us for four centuries … No story of romance or tragedy can exhibit more incidents to enchain attention or move the heart, than might be found in the records of this great historical family.⁵

At least to begin with, the Howard family were viewed with suspicion if not hostility by Henry VII and later his son, for the 1st Duke of Norfolk, father of the present Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, had died fighting for Richard III, the last Yorkist king, at Bosworth in 1485. Surrey, however, successfully placated the hostility of the Tudors directed towards the Howard dynasty by publicly demonstrating his loyalty and support of the ruling royal family. As a consequence, by 1501 – the date of Katherine of Aragon’s first marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales – Surrey’s lands in East Anglia could be valued at £600 a year and he had risen to Lord Treasurer of England. Surrey conclusively proved his loyalty to the Tudors through his victory against the Scots at Flodden in 1513 at the age of 70.⁶ Indeed, ‘long before the Howards won back their ancient titles, the family had been systematically fortifying its political and social position through marital alliances with the most vigorous and distinguished families of the century’.⁷ This was amply demonstrated in Surrey’s achievement of a marriage alliance in 1495 between his heir and Anne of York, sister of Queen Elizabeth. As a demonstration of his intimacy with, and value to, the Tudor dynasty, Surrey was also closely involved in the marriage negotiations of Henry VIII’s younger sister Mary Tudor to Charles of Castille in 1508 when that princess was aged 12.⁸

Surrey was to act as effective head and representative of the Howard family until his death in 1524, leading to the succession of his eldest son Thomas, Lord Treasurer since 1522, to the dukedom of Norfolk and estates worth over £4,000 per annum.⁹ Thomas was one of three sons and two daughters born to Surrey and his second wife Elizabeth Tilney who lived to adulthood. Thomas Howard became Earl of Surrey in February 1514, with an annuity of £20 per annum, receiving two castles and eighteen manors in Lincolnshire in ‘consideration of the timely assistance he rendered his father … at the Battle of Branxton, 9 Sept. last. This creation is made on surrender by the said Duke [of Norfolk] … of the title of Earl of Surrey.’¹⁰ In 1513 Surrey’s influence increased further through his marriage alliance with the 15-year-old Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of Edward, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, thus further glorifying the prestige of the Howard lineage through its alliance with this noble English family. The Howard–Stafford alliance proved short lived, however, for the 3rd duke was to be executed for treason against the king in 1521, with his own father-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk, presiding as Lord High Steward of England at his trial.¹¹

Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and later 3rd Duke of Norfolk, remains a controversial figure, with one author emphatically describing him as a ‘monster … ruthless in his cold-blooded use of those around him, including the members of his own family [who were] just pawns for his ambition’.¹² This is, however, to view the events in the mid Tudor period with hindsight and a lack of awareness of political and social norms among the English nobility in the sixteenth century. Indeed, one Venetian ambassador lauded Thomas’s ‘liberal, affable and astute’ personality and his desire to associate with anyone regardless of social origins.¹³ He was experienced and shrewd, as well as pragmatic in setting aside his Roman Catholic faith in order to achieve the will of the king through his ‘versatile and inconstant humour’, according to the Spanish ambassador.¹⁴

Thomas’s younger brother Edmund, born around 1478, was comparatively less successful in his ability to equal, or surpass, his elder brother’s achievements at court and his closeness to the king, on which much depended in the way of attaining political and financial prestige and preferment. Edmund had still managed to demonstrate his loyalty and usefulness to the English crown through commanding some 1,500 men from Cheshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire at Flodden in 1513, where he was knighted by his father as a reward for his courage.¹⁵ One popular verse thereafter ran thus: ‘And Edmund Howard’s lion bright / Shall bear them bravely in the fight.’¹⁶ Despite this martial achievement, Edmund never managed to gain the trust and support of Henry VIII that was readily, if intermittently, granted to his elder brother. He was, however, granted a pension of 3s 4d daily, terminated three years later.¹⁷ Edmund had also fought in the jousts in 1511, held to celebrate the birth of Henry VIII’s son by Katherine of Aragon. Starkey’s dismissive view of Edmund as ‘a man of no importance’ is somewhat misguided, for it may not have been so much his personal characteristics as his relative state of economic poverty following the death of his father Norfolk in 1524 that limited Edmund’s ability to live and perform as a successful nobleman at the Henrician court.¹⁸

However, Edmund’s situation was somewhat improved by his appointment to the lucrative position of Comptroller of Calais in 1531, perhaps as a result of the intercession of his niece and Henry’s wife-to-be Anne Boleyn, which he held until his death in 1539. Notwithstanding this, the king’s disfavour for Edmund was demonstrated when he was elected mayor by the assembly of Calais in August 1537, when the Lord Privy Seal Thomas Cromwell quashed the election, since ‘the King will in no wise that my lord Howard be admitted to the mayorality’.¹⁹ According to John Hussey, the agent of Lord Lisle at Calais, ‘my Lord Comptroller [Edmund] is not contented because he was not admitted Mayor, your lordship shall right well abide his malice’.²⁰

By 1515 Edmund had married Joyce Culpeper, born in 1480 to Sir Richard Culpeper of Oxenhoath, Kent. Married at the age of 12 to Ralph Legh, Joyce brought considerable assets to her marriage with Edmund for both the Legh and Culpeper families held substantial lands in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.²¹ Notwithstanding this, the Legh family were well aware of Edmund Howard’s financial difficulties and understandably viewed with concern his ability to successfully keep a wife in a lifestyle sufficient to her status and lineage. Unsurprisingly, in his will dated 16 June 1523, John Legh, stepfather of Joyce, wrote that ‘if the Howards trouble the Executors they are to have nothing. If any others make trouble the difficulty to be expounded and ordered by Sir Richard Broke Knight of Kings Bench John Rooper the Kings attorney John Spylman Serjeant at law and Roger Legh.’²² The birth date of the eldest son, Henry, probably named for the king, is unknown but seems to have been relatively early in the marriage, perhaps in 1515 or the year after, with two additional sons, Charles and George, following at some point before 1527.²³ These sons may have spent their childhoods residing in the households of their Howard relatives in East Anglia and perhaps within the household of their step-grandmother, Agnes Howard, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk.²⁴ The eldest daughter, Margaret, was born to Edmund and Joyce by 1518, probably earlier, for she is known to have married Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle in November 1530.²⁵ Legally, girls could marry at 12 years of age in sixteenth-century England, but it was unusual for them to do so. In view of this, one would expect Margaret to have been aged at least in her mid teens when she wed Arundell in 1530.

Thereafter, two younger daughters were born to Edmund and Joyce: Katherine and Mary, probably born in about 1523 and 1525 respectively, although without conclusive evidence it is impossible to be certain. The birth date of 1520–21 for Katherine was favoured by early historians, but this is almost certainly incorrect for it relies on the French ambassador Charles de Marillac’s apparent suggestion that the queen was aged around 18 in 1539. However, since that same ambassador was certainly incorrect about the respective ages of both Anne of Cleves (believing her to be 30 when she was in fact 24) and Margaret Pole, countess of Salisbury (stating that she was 80 when she was only 67), his remarks on women’s ages must be viewed with caution, if not scepticism, and cannot be uncritically relied on when considering Katherine’s exact age when she attracted the attention of Henry VIII.²⁶ For an extended discussion of Katherine’s date of birth, which draws on several years of research and includes a reinterpretation of the French ambassador’s comments on Katherine’s age, see Appendix II. The exact birth order of the six children born to Edmund and his wife is unknown, but since Katherine was appointed a maiden of honour to Queen Anne of Cleves in 1539, rather than her sister Mary, it would seem likely that she was the second of the three daughters. Where the children were born is a matter of mystery, though some sources indicate Lambeth in London, the seat of the Howard family.²⁷

At an unknown date, Edmund’s wife Joyce died, likely in her late forties, although she appears to have still been alive in 1527.²⁸ It has been surmised that she may have died in childbirth, especially since it is apparent that women living in the mid sixteenth century were able to bear children into their early fifties according to the Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys, although it cannot be known for certain whether this actually was the context in which Joyce died.²⁹ In 1527, Edmund’s financial problems, compounded by the birth of six children by his wife, led him to complain to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and assert that, were it not for his noble status, he would gladly ‘dig and delve’ in order to remedy his poverty.³⁰ By her first marriage Joyce had borne five children, which worsened Edmund’s economic difficulties since he was expected to provide for them as well as for his...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Historiography of Queen Katherine Howard
• 1 Henry VIII’s Accession and the Howards
• 2 A Howard Queen
• 3 ‘His Vicious Purpose’: Manox and Dereham, 1536–39
• 4 ‘Strange, Restless … Years’: The Howards at Court, 1537–40
• 5 The Fourth Queen
• 6 Queen Katherine
• 7 Queenship, 1540–41
• 8 The Culpeper Affair
• 9 Disgrace and Death
• Appendix I: Katherine Howard in Film and Television
• Appendix II: Katherine Howard’s Age
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates