Henry VIII's Last Love: The Extraordinary Life of Katherine Willoughby, Lady-in-Waiting to the Tudors

by David Baldwin

  7. Mary Tudor, Katherine’s surrogate mother between 1528 and 1533, a portrait in St Mary’s church, Bury St Edmunds. The original was painted c. 1514 by Jean Perréal, Royal Painter at the French Court, for her first husband, King Louis XII, shortly before she left England for France.

  8. Mary Tudor’s grave in St Mary’s church, Bury St Edmunds. Her remains were brought here at the dissolution of the nearby abbey.

  9. Stained-glass window by Clayton and Bell in St Mary’s church, Bury St Edmunds, depicting events in Mary Tudor’s life. The scenes portrayed are:

  Upper lights, from left to right: Mary’s marriage to Louis XII at Abbeville; her entry into Paris; mourning her late husband at Cluny; Erasmus and Sir Thomas More visit the royal children at Eltham; Mary’s abortive betrothal to Charles of Ghent (afterwards Charles V), at Richmond in 1508; her departure from Dover in October 1514.

  Lower lights: Mary’s marriage to Charles Brandon in the chapel at Cluny; their reconciliation with Henry VIII at their second marriage at Greenwich; Mary’s funeral in St Edmund’s abbey.

  10. Bradgate House in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire, home of Charles and Mary Brandon’s daughter Frances and her family. Katherine would have been a regular visitor here in the 1530s and 1540s.

  11. Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. A statue by Manuel Gonzalez Muñoz erected in 2007 at the Archbishop’s Palace in Alcalá de Henares, where she was born.

  12. Anne Boleyn, a pen-and-ink sketch by Holbein. Katherine and her mother had little time for a woman who, for them, was never more than the king’s mistress.

  13. A young Princess Mary, c. 1536. She played cards and corresponded with Katherine when they were both Roman Catholics, but their relationship deteriorated badly after Katherine became a Protestant.

  14. Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife, and the only one to give him a son. He amused himself with Katherine after her death in 1537.

  15. Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, the great tower from the east. Built by Ralph, Lord Cromwell between 1430 and 1450, it was one of Katherine’s principal residences between 1537 and 1551. Only the timely intervention of Lord Curzon saved it from demolition in 1911.

  16. Tattershall Castle. The ornately decorated fifteenth-century fireplace in the Great Hall, one of four in the building. The heraldry includes the arms of families associated with the Cromwells together with St George slaying the dragon and two Treasurer’s purses. (Lord Cromwell was Henry VI’s Treasurer.)

  17. Tattershall Castle. The beautifully carved sixteenth-century chest in the Audience Chamber. The furniture now in the castle was purchased by Lord Curzon in the early years of the twentieth century, so it is not thought that the carvings represent Katherine, Richard Bertie and their two children.

  18. Tattershall Castle. The view from the battlements looking east. The scene is dominated by the magnificent collegiate church of the Holy Trinity, and has probably changed little since Katherine saw it five centuries ago.

  19. Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII’s Archbishop of Canterbury, by Gerlach Flicke (1545). One of the principal architects of the Reformation in England, he paid the ultimate penalty when the Catholic Mary became queen.

  20. Thomas Cromwell, King Henry’s chief minister in the 1530s. Widely believed to have engineered Anne Boleyn’s downfall, he was himself executed in 1540.

  21. The title page of the Great Bible, Henry VIII’s Bible in English, which became required reading in every parish in 1538. The king is shown as Head of the Church in England dispensing divine truth to Archbishop Cranmer and the clergy on his right, and Thomas Cromwell and the laity on his left.

  22. Grimsthorpe Castle. Sir John Vanburgh’s baroque north front, built in the early eighteenth century. It replaced the seventeenth-century classical front which had itself replaced Charles Brandon’s building work.

  23. Grimsthorpe Castle. The Bertie arms, three battering ‘rams’ (note the rams’ heads) supported by a hermit (held to represent ‘good’) and a wild man (‘evil’), adorn the entrance gates to the north front.

  24. Grimsthorpe Castle. The south range still retains its Tudor ambience, although it has been altered by the addition of gables and the insertion of later windows. The re-faced King John’s Tower, the oldest part of the castle, stands in the south-east corner, on the extreme right of the picture.

  25. These pieces of carved limestone, which may have formed part of an archway or a decorative pillar, are the small remains of Vaudey Abbey, a Cistercian monastery that stood just south of the lake at Grimsthorpe. Charles Brandon used much of the fabric to rebuild the castle in c. 1540.

  26. Henry VIII in later life, when his relationship with Katherine developed. Drawn by E. L. Wedgwood from a carving in boxwood, by Holbein, at Sudeley Castle.

  27. Anne of Cleves in the portrait by Holbein which helped to persuade King Henry to marry her. Katherine was among those who welcomed her to England and became one of the ‘great ladies’ of her household.

  28. ‘Anne of Cleves House’ at Lewes (Sussex), one of the properties Anne received as part of her divorce settlement. The fates of Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard must have weighed heavily on Katherine Willoughby when she realised that Henry VIII might wish to marry her, but Anne of Cleves’s generous settlement showed that the relationship did not always have to end badly.

  29. Catherine Howard, the second of Henry’s wives to go to the block. This detail from the window depicting King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge is believed to be modelled on her.

  30. Wenceslas Hollar’s drawing of Windsor Castle. In 1545 Charles Brandon, Katherine’s first husband, was buried here in St George’s Chapel (no. 5 in the key), at Henry VIII’s request.

  31. Henry VIII’s will. A king’s authority died with him, and Henry’s efforts to determine the succession succeeded only because the Lady Jane Grey plot failed.

  32. Catherine Parr, Katherine’s friend and fellow Protestant. Her grave was rediscovered in the ruined chapel at Sudeley Castle (Glos.) in the 1780s, and fifty years later the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott designed this altar tomb and effigy ‘rendered as correctly as it could be from the portraits which are now extant’.

  33. The tomb of Catherine Parr (detail).

  34. Edward, Prince of Wales, the future Edward VI, captured by Holbein in 1542 when he would have been about five years old. Katherine and her friends anticipated a Protestant utopia when he succeeded, but it was not to last long.

  35. The coronation procession of Edward VI in February, 1547. Katherine’s two sons by Charles Brandon, Henry and Charles, were admitted to the order of the Bath on this occasion, and Henry carried the orb.

  36. St John’s College, Cambridge, where Katherine’s sons studied. The statue over the gateway of the second court, built 1598-1602, is of Bess of Hardwick (who paid for the construction), and beneath are her arms flanked by the Tudor rose (left), and the Beaufort portcullis (right).

  37. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Queen Jane’s brother and Edward VI’s first Protector. Katherine wanted to aid him when he was threatened with execution, but feared her intervention would do more harm than good.

  38. Thomas Seymour, Baron Sudeley, Somerset’s jealous younger brother and Catherine Parr’s last husband. Katherine reluctantly cared for his daughter after his mad scheme to kidnap Edward VI brought him to the block.

  39. William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, Queen Catherine’s brother. He declined to help Katherine support his late sister’s orphaned child.

  40. Lady Jane Grey, Katherine’s step-granddaughter, a nineteenth-century portrait in stained glass in the chapel of Sudeley Castle. Jane acted as chief mourner at Catherine Parr’s funeral.

  41. Map of Whitehall and Westminster. The Lady Jane Grey conspirators were tried in Westminster Hall, and Katherine’s step-daughter Frances and step-granddaughter Mary were both buried in the Abbey.

  42. Queen Mary’s husband, King Philip II of Spain. Mary�
��s decision to marry Philip provoked an uprising which resulted in the executions of Lady Jane, her husband Guildford, and her father the Duke of Suffolk.

  43. Hugh Latimer, Katherine’s principal spiritual mentor, portrayed adoring the crucified Christ, in a modern stained glass window in the chapel of Clare College, Cambridge. The figure wearing red is the Protestant scholar and courtier Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637). Both he and Latimer were Fellows of Clare.

  44. The burning of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley in Oxford on 16 October 1555. The now exiled Katherine had listened to many of Latimer’s sermons and sent money to Ridley in prison.

  45. St Willibrord’s Church Wesel, where Katherine sought sanctuary during her flight from England in 1555.

  46. Windeck Castle, Weinheim, where Katherine lived from April 1556 to April 1557. John Brett climbed the hill to deliver Queen Mary’s letters, but was forced to beat a hasty retreat.

  47. A drawing of a more mature Katherine by George Vertue (1684-1756), now at Sudeley Castle. The legend on the reverse reads ‘Catherine Willoughby Duchess of Suffolk, fourth wife of Charles Brandon, copied by Vertue from the original by Holbein at Kensington’ (see Appendix 2).

  48. Queen Elizabeth I by an unknown artist. Katherine and the Queen were both devout Protestants, but they did not always see eye to eye.

  49. Lucas de Heere’s An Allegory of the Tudor Succession, painted around 1572. On Henry VIII’s left are Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, and on his right Queen Mary and her husband Philip of Spain. Behind Elizabeth are ‘Peace’ and ‘Plenty’, and behind Philip Mars, the God of War.

  50. The tomb of Katherine’s friend and confidant William Cecil, Lord Burghley, in St Martin’s church, Stamford.

  [The inscription, contained within three panels, two on the south (Chancel) side and one on the north (Chapel) side of the monument reads (in translation):

  ‘Sacred to God most good and great, and to memory. The most honourable and far renowned Lord William Cecil, Baron of Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England, President of the Court of Wards, knight of the most noble order of the Garter, Privy Counsellor to the most serene Elizabeth, Queen of England, &c., and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, under this tomb awaits the second coming of Christ.

  Who for the excellent endowments of his mind, was first made Privy Counsellor to Edward the sixth, King of England; afterwards to Queen Elizabeth: under whom being intrusted with the greatest and most weighty affairs of this kingdom, and above all others approved, in promoting the true religion, and providing for the safety and honour of the commonwealth; by his prudence, honesty, integrity, and great services to the nation, he obtained the highest honours: and when he had lived long enough to nature, long enough to glory, but not long enough to his country, quietly fell asleep in Christ.

  He had two wives: Mary, sister of Sir John Cheeke, knight, of whom he begat one son, Thomas, now Baron of Burghley; and Mildred, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, knight, who bore to him Sir Robert Cecil, knight, Privy Counsellor to Queen Elizabeth and President of the Court of Wards; Anne, married to Edward, Earl of Oxford; and Elizabeth to William Wentworth, eldest son of Baron Wentworth.’]

  51. William Cecil’s tomb (detail).

  52. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in old age. Dudley avoided serious punishment for his part in the Lady Jane Grey conspiracy and later, became Queen Elizabeth’s great favourite. Katherine appealed to him when she feared Elizabeth was about to have her executed.

  53. Katherine and Richard Bertie’s monument at St James’s Church, Spilsby, Lincolnshire, occupies the western end of the Willoughby chapel, the chancel of the pre-1350 building. The base is inscribed ‘Sepulchrum D. Ricardi Bertie et D. Catherinae Ducissae Suffolkiae, Baronissae de Wylughby et Eresby, conivgv. ista obit xix Septemb. 1580 Ille obit ix Aprilis, 1582’, and the three figures supporting heraldic shields represent (from left to right) a hermit (part of the Willoughby coat of arms), a Saracen king (attribution uncertain) and a wild man (Ufford).

  54 & 55. The alabaster busts of Katherine Willoughby and Richard Bertie are more finely carved than the rest of the structure, and are disproportionate to the tall niches in which they sit. It is possible that they were originally made to be displayed elsewhere.

  56. The back (western-facing) side of the monument is inscribed with five biblical quotations (in Latin) from Job, Hebrews, and the Gospels of Luke and John, all concerned with the coming judgement and the hope of salvation. The sixth (illustrated) is an English rhyme observing that everyone is equal in death.

  57. Inscribed stone set into the building formerly occupied by the King Edward VI Grammar School at Spilsby. The school was founded by royal charter and endowed by Katherine in November 1550.

  58. Part of the London skyline by Claes Visscher. Visscher painted this in 1616, more than three decades after Katherine’s death, but the scene would have changed little in the intervening years. Complete, it is more than two metres long.

  59. Greenwich Palace and London from Greenwich Hill, from a contemporary drawing by Anthonis van den Wyngaerde. The palace was one of Henry VIII’s favourite residences, and Katherine knew it well.

  60. The White Tower of the Tower of London, from a mid- fifteenth century illumination. Katherine’s step-granddaughters Jane and Catherine Grey and her friends Anne Askew, William Cecil, Hugh Latimer and Protector Somerset were all imprisoned in the complex at different times.

  61. The White Tower as it appears today.

  62. St Michael and All Angels’ church, Edenham (Lincs) replaced Spilsby as the Willoughby family mausoleum in the seventeenth century. Many of Katherine’s descendants are buried here and their memorials are to be found both within the building and in the cemetery to the east.

  63. Edenham Church. Memorial tablet to Lady Cecilie Goff, Katherine’s first biographer, who died in 1960.

  64. The Willoughby Arms, Little Bytham. In the mid-nineteenth century the family built their own private railway connecting Grimsthorpe and Edenham with the Great Northern Railway at Little Bytham.

  Appendix 1

  KATHERINE WILLOUGHBY’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM CECIL

  These are listed in the following:

  Calendar of State Papers Domestic Series, Edward VI 1547–1553, ed. C. S. Knighton (revised edn, 1992). ‘CSP 1’

  Calendar of State Papers Domestic Series, Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, 1547–1580, ed. R. Lemon (1856). ‘CSP 2’

  Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, Part 1 (1883), Part 2 (1888) & Part 13 (1915). ‘Salisbury’

  A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (British Museum Department of Manuscripts, 1819, reprinted 2012). ‘Lansdowne’

  In Edward VI’s reign:

  1. 1548 (no day or month). ‘Concerning the Queen’s child [Mary Seymour] lodged at her house, with an account of plate belonging to the nursery.’ Lansdowne, Num. 2, 17, pp. 7–8. Followed by ‘A letter of the Duke of Somerset to Wm. Cecil, Esq., to deliver some writing to the Duchess of Suffolk’. Lansdowne, Num. 2, 18, p. 8.

  2. 24 July 1549. Protests the expense of maintaining ‘the late queen’s child’. CSP 1, no. 332, pp. 127–8.

  3. 11 November 1549. ‘Declaring her concern for Cecil, on some troubles he was now in, being discharged of his place in the D. of Somerset’s family; probably of Master of Requests’. Lansdowne, Num. 2, 24, p. 8.

  4. 28 December 1549. Enigmatic. CSP 1, no. 429, p. 158.

  5. 25 March 1550. Expresses her concern for the imprisoned Duke of Somerset, and wonders how she can best help him. CSP 1, no. 435, p. 162.

  6. 27 April 1550. Concerning ‘the matter [dispute] between [Richard] Fulmerston and [William] Nawneton’ [Naughton]. CSP 1, no. 438, p. 162.

  7. 9 May 1550. Cautions against an ‘arranged’ marriage between her son and the Duke of Somerset’s daughter. CSP 1, no. 439, pp. 162–3.

  8. 18 May 1550. Seeks advice on how to appro
ach the authorities with regard to her proposed purchase of Spilsby chantry. CSP 1, no. 441, p. 163.

  9. 8 August 1550. Receives unspecified ‘ill-favoured news’. CSP 1, no. 456, pp. 169–70.