by Byrne, Conor
As a result, the prevailing modern notion of Katherine Howard as an immoral and corrupt young woman who blatantly took several lovers must be put aside. Instead, her fate can be considered sympathetically in light of centuries of female oppression, through understanding and appreciating how – and why – her husband’s councillors came to perceive her actions negatively according to their own cultural and social prejudices. As with Mary, Queen of Scots, the evidence produced against Katherine was blatantly manufactured, embroidered and distorted with the intent of fulfilling one aim: her disgrace and execution. Taking this into account, and viewing her life in conjunction with prevailing cultural and social values, it will emerge that Katherine Howard’s downfall and execution was one of the greatest injustices of the Tudor era.
1) Thrones and Power
The accession of Henry VIII to the throne of England in 1509 was viewed positively by his eager subjects, ushering in hopes of dynastic stability following the devastation enacted by the Wars of the Roses in the preceding century. Henry’s accession was the first time in some eighty years that the crown had directly passed from king to son without the challenge presented by a pretender and, in an attempt to further his lineage and bolster his international prestige, he decided to marry the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon, the widow of Henry’s 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 for 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 It is helpful to view such statements from a gendered perspective, demonstrating that the ideal of early modern kingship extolled virtuous masculinity, demonstrated through a rigorous physicality combined with an almost godly beauty, which Henry symbolised to foreign observers visiting court.
The new queen was well aware of her marital duties, the state of fertility politics within the English court demanding, as elsewhere in Europe, that she present her husband with several sons in order to perpetuate the continuation of the ruling dynasty and prevent dynastic bloodshed and civil war through failure to do so. Indeed, Katherine had no better example than her own family, for her only brother Juan had died as a teenager, plunging the succession of Spain 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.
Within the English court at the onset of Henry VIII’s succession, several English noble families were prominent who could claim royal blood through their descent from Edward I. The most prominent was the Howard family, who one author lyrically writes 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 The Howard family, in particular, were viewed with suspicion if not hostility by Henry VII and later his son, for John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, had died fighting for Richard III, the last Yorkist king, at Bosworth in 1485. His son Surrey, however, successfully overturned the hostility of the Tudors directed towards the Howard dynasty through demonstrating his loyalty and support of the ruling royal family. As a consequence, by 1501 – the date of Katherine of Aragon’s 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 aged seventy years old.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 (consort of Henry VII). Proving his closeness and value to the Tudor family, Surrey was also heavily involved in the marriage negotiations of Mary Tudor to Charles of Castile in 1508 when that princess was aged twelve years old.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 who lived to maturity borne to Surrey and his second wife Elizabeth Tylney. Thomas Howard had become 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 the title of Earl of Surrey’.10 In 1513 Surrey’s influence increased further through his marriage alliance with the fifteen year-old Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of Edward, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, thus further bolstering the prestige of the Howard lineage through its alliance with this noble English family, although that 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’s personal characteristics have been shrouded in controversy and mystery, 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, from viewing 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, pragmatic in setting aside his Roman Catholic faith for the will of the king through his ‘versatile and inconstant humour’, according to the Spanish ambassador.14
Thomas’s younger brother Edmund, born in 1478, was comparatively less successful in his ability to equal, or surpass, his eldest brother’s achievements at court and his closeness to the king, on which much depended in the way of attaining prestige and preferment. The youngest son born to the Earl of Surrey and his second wife Elizabeth, Edmund 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, which was granted his elder brother. He was, however, awarded a pension of three shillings and fourpence daily, that was terminated three years later.17 In 1511, at the birth of Henry VIII’s short-lived son by Katherine of Aragon, Edmund also fought in the celebratory jousts. Starkey’s dismissive view of Edmun
d as ‘a man of no importance’ is somewhat misguided, for it was not 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 as a successful nobleman at the Henrician court.18
However, Edmund’s situation was somewhat improved through his appointment to Comptroller of Calais in 1531, perhaps through the patronage of his niece 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 Thomas Cromwell Lord Privy Seal quashed the election, since ‘the King will in no wise that my lord Howard be admitted to the mayorality’.19 According to John Hussey, 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 Howard had married Jocasta Culpeper, born in 1480 as the daughter of Sir Henry Culpeper of Oxenhoath, Kent, a Kentish gentry family. Married at the age of twelve to Ralph Legh, Jocasta 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 aware of Edmund Howard’s financial difficulties and 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, father-in-law of Jocasta, 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, with two further sons, Charles and George, following before 1519.23 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, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.24 A daughter, Margaret, was also born to Edmund and Jocasta by 1518, probably earlier, for she is known to have married Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle in November 1530.25
Thereafter, two younger daughters were born to Edmund and Jocasta, Katherine and Mary, likely born in 1524 and 1525 respectively, although without conclusive evidence it is impossible to be certain. The birth date of 1521 for Katherine was favoured by early historians, but this is almost certainly incorrect for it relies on the French ambassador Charles de Marillac’s suggestion that the queen was aged around eighteen in 1539. However, since that same ambassador was certainly incorrect about the respective ages of both Anne of Cleves (believing her to be thirty when she was in fact twenty-four) and Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (stating that she was eighty when she was only sixty-seven), his remarks must be judged to be singularly inaccurate and cannot be relied on when considering Katherine’s youth.26 The exact birth order of the six children born to Edmund and his wife is unknown, but since Katherine was appointed a maid-of-honour to Queen Anne of Cleves in 1539, rather than her sister Mary, it is apparent that she must have been the second of the two daughters. Where the children were born is a matter of mystery, with some sources indicating Lambeth in London, the seat of the Howard family.27
At an unknown date, Edmund’s wife Jocasta 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, particularly since it is apparent that women living in the mid-sixteenth century were able to bear children into their early fifties, although it cannot be known for certain.29 In 1527, Edmund’s financial problems, compounded by the birth of five children, 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 Jocasta had borne five children, who worsened Edmund’s economic difficulties as he was expected to provide for them as well as for his natural children. By 1528 Edmund had married Dorothy, widow to Sir William Uvedale of Wickham, who was a landholder of some substance in Hampshire. This marriage perhaps led to Edmund’s appointment to the commission of peace for that county in 1531.31 It is possible, therefore, to interpret Edmund’s regional influence as transferring from Kent, where his first wife’s lands and wealth had been based, to Hampshire by virtue of his second marriage. Following Dorothy’s death, Edmund married widow Margaret Jennings, daughter of the Mundys of Markeaton Hall in Derbyshire, by whom he had no further issue.
Before she was sent to the household of her step-grandmother the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, it is reasonable to suppose without any other surviving evidence that Katherine was brought up in the household of her stepmother while her father performed his duties in Calais. According to Gerald Brenan and Edward Stratham, following the death of Jocasta, Katherine lived with her maternal aunts, in Oxenhoath with Margaret or in Teston with Elizabeth Barham.32 It is more likely, however, that Katherine grew up with her stepmothers Dorothy and Margaret respectively, for surely Edmund would have intended these women to act as mothers to his infant daughters. Following the death of a parent in the early modern period, and the subsequent remarriage of the surviving parent, children were accustomed to referring to their new stepparent as ‘Father’ or ‘Mother’. Princess Elizabeth, for instance, addressed Katherine Parr in a 1545 letter as ‘your hithnis humble doughter’. Katherine’s own personal relations with her parents are impossible to ascertain, although they may have been similar to those described by a fifteenth-century Venetian in London: ‘the want of affection in the English is strongly manifested towards their children, for having kept them at home until they arrive at the age of seven or nine years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them generally for another seven or nine years [...]’33
A difficulty apparent with analysing Katherine’s childhood is the fact that ‘much of the evidence about them [women] [...] was compiled or invented by men and rests on male assumptions’.34 It is essential, therefore, to appreciate and understand how the position of Katherine, specifically governed by her sex, was harnessed to meet the ambitions and hopes of the Howard family at a young age. By 1531 it is likely that Katherine had been ‘put out’ by her father into the household of her step-grandmother Agnes, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, at Chesworth in Horsham, aged seven years old, for, as the Venetian commented, young children and particularly girls were placed outside the home by this age.35 As has been suggested, ‘elite parents regularly placed their children in the homes of wealthier or better-connected friends and relatives to complete their educations and extend their personal contacts’, with the dowager duchess specifically performing this function for Katherine and three other grandchildren.36 Because no mention in the interrogations during Katherine’s downfall was made of a nurse or supervisor at Horsham, except for Katherine’s step-grandmother, it is possible that she was in her early teens, around twelve or thirteen, when she began receiving music lessons from Henry Manox in 1536, as she seemed to lack a governess.37
According to both contemporary customs in the mid-Tudor period and the expectations of her Howard relatives, it was perfectly reasonable for Katherine to live in her step-grandmother’s household and obtain an education of sorts, which focused on acquiring household skills and management, musical ability and lessons in dancing. The date of 1524 is more convincing as Katherine’s birth date since, had she been aged thirteen or older in the mid-1530s, it is likely that her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and perhaps her father would have sought an appointment at court for Katherine as maid-of-honour to her cousin, Queen Anne.38 Dwelling in an environment with other young relatives who performed tasks for the dowager duchess in return for lodging and sustenance, Katherine must have been aware of the importance of maintaining her family’s honour through good and maidenl
y behaviour. The values Katherine could expect to learn and emulate, designed specifically for young females, were set out in How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter: ‘Reverence thy father and mother as Nature requires [...] Wipe thy mouth when thou shalt drink ale or wine on thy napkin only [...] Blow not your nose in the napkin where ye wipe your hand.’39 In view of this, and the fact that Katherine’s father was constantly occupied in Calais, the suggestion that ‘it was an evil hour for the little Katharine, when she left the paternal roof and the society of the innocent companions of her infant joys and cares, to become a neglected dependant in the splendid mansion of a proud and heartless relative’ is demonstrably incorrect.40
Although the sixteenth century, as with the late medieval period, was notorious for its perception of females as licentious, and evil transgressors who utilised their irresistible sexuality to draw men into deadly sin, it is apparent that women within the Howard family were able to play important roles as a means of extending their family’s prestige and furthering its influence, which is relevant in understanding Katherine’s subsequent career. Perhaps the obvious example was Anne of York, younger sister of Queen Elizabeth of York and wife to Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, who as sister-in-law to Henry VII not only ‘represented an important step’ in the rehabilitation of the Howard family, but brought this family closer to the Tudors, something that was to increase the hostility and suspicion of the royal family who remained insecure about their dynastic future.41 The fact that Anne was in constant attendance on her sister the queen meant that Thomas was firmly involved in court affairs, his wife prominently representing the Howard family interests within the queen’s privy chambers and strengthening the opportunity for the Howards to attain favour from the Tudors through their connection with the ruling family. This couple’s closeness to the Tudors was further enhanced in July 1510 when Henry VIII granted his aunt and Howard a grant of land in several counties as compensation for the land claimed in right of Anne’s great-grandmother Anne de Mortimer, wife of Richard, Earl of Cambridge.42