Katherine Howard: A New History

by Byrne, Conor

  According to the indictments some years later, gifts were exchanged between the two. Dereham provided Katherine with a French fennel, some velvet and satin for a billiment (part of a French hood) and sarcenet for a quilted cap. An embroidered friar’s knot was also presented to Katherine, apparently as a symbol of the love between the two. Katherine also recalled that she had given him a band and sleeves for a shirt and, during the 1541 progress, £10 as payment for his earlier gifts. Following Katherine’s appointment to court in 1539, Dereham left an indenture and obligation of £100 at Lambeth following his move to Ireland which, he promised, would be hers if he never returned.31 Many seductions during this period began with games, joking or direct sexual touching, as a means of implying the woman’s consent to sexual activity.32 One observer within the maidens’ chamber later reported how Katherine ‘was so far in love’ that the couple kissed ‘after a wonderful manner, for they would kiss and hang by their bellies together as they were two sparrows’.33 However, as Roper compellingly notes: ‘the language men and women use in criminal trials is clearly forced discourse. In other contexts, men and women would have spoken differently about sexuality.’34 Like Manox, Dereham believed that Katherine consented to his advances, failing to appreciate that her desire to maintain the honour of her family and her personal chastity prevented her from doing so.

  When Manox discovered that Dereham had made sexual advances towards Katherine, he angrily wrote an anonymous letter to the dowager duchess informing her of the night time escapades occurring in the maidens’ chamber:

  Your Grace, it shall be meet you take good heed to your gentlewomen for if it shall like you half an hour after you shall a-bed to rise suddenly and visit their Chamber you shall see that which shall displease you. But if you make anybody of counsel you shall be deceived. Make then fewer your secretary.35

  Manox’s comment ‘you shall see that which shall displease you’ may have been a veiled reference to the exact nature of the sexual acts taking place under the dowager duchess’s roof, for contemporaries strongly prohibited sexual practices that deviated from those advocated by the church as a means of procreation. Canon lawyers of the age held that if a woman engaged in sexual positions other than the approved one (beneath her partner) it was utterly sinful, being worse than incestuous relations with a male relative.36 In view of contemporary notions about female sexuality, it has been suggested that ‘the female offender’s deviation from her ascribed role, therefore, was not only an offence against an individual, but a serious threat to the entire system of order’.37 In light of this, Katherine’s experiences with Dereham take on new meaning. If Manox was aware that the two had taken part in what he, and other contemporaries, would deem to be unnatural sexual practices, then it was imperative that the dowager duchess learn of the relationship in order to put a stop to it. It is surely ironic that Manox sought the assistance of the dowager duchess, for had she been aware that he had been systematically abusing her step-granddaughter from the age of twelve, she would likely have expelled him from her household sooner for putting the honour of the Howard family in jeopardy. Manox may also have resented his loss of control over Katherine, for sexual jealousy and cuckoldry anxiety amongst men in early modern England was common. This, of course, explains why the regulation of female sexuality was favoured by men in an attempt to safeguard their own honour and sense of masculinity, perhaps accounting for Manox’s interference.38

  Katherine, however, was desperate to maintain her personal honour and to avoid placing her family name in disrepute she consequently ‘stole the letter out of my Lady’s gilt coffer and showed it to Dereham who copied it and thereupon it was laid in the coffer again’.39 Probably, she revealed the letter to Dereham as a means of warning him of the danger his seduction of her placed both her and her family in, and may have signalled to him that he should leave her alone as a result. The dowager duchess, when she discovered the goings on in the maidens’ chamber, reacted with understandable fury, for this placed the honour of the Howard name in danger and cast doubts on the suitability of herself as guardian for young people within her household.

  Scattered pieces of evidence from the indictments, when read in light of cultural customs, suggest that not only did Katherine fail to consent to Dereham’s sexual advances, but indicate that he may have used force on her. According to the queen’s confession in 1541, ‘Frauncez Derame by many persuasions procured me to his vicious purpose and obteyned first to lye uppon my bedde with his doblett and hose and after within the bedde and fynally he lay with me nakyd and used me in suche sorte as a man doith his wyff many and sondry tymez but howe often I knowe not.’40 Possibly, in referring to Dereham treating her sexually as if she were his wife, Katherine was making an oblique reference to abuse among spouses, for this was a common occurrence in early modern England. Wife-beating was favoured as central to early modern patriarchy, and probably occurred persistently within English households from the sixteenth century onwards.41 Indeed, ‘[...] of all the women who suffer violence, the greatest number are wives whose husbands abuse them’.42 Suggesting that she did not consent to the advances of Manox or Dereham, Katherine was to plead the king to take into account her ‘youthe, my ignorans [and] my fraylnez’.43 Following her confession, Katherine reported to Archbishop Cranmer that Dereham’s actions constituted ‘importune forcement, and in a manner, violence, rather than of her own free consent and will’.44 The reference to Dereham’s ‘vicious purpose’ and ‘many persuasions’ establish direct similarities with Manox’s relentless seduction of Katherine, suggesting that, like Manox, Dereham had perceived the Howard family’s influence to be less prominent than hitherto and, consequently, had desired to forcibly take advantage of Katherine’s lineage and connections in an attempt to bolster his own influence. Although the psychological motives of individuals living in different conditions several hundred years ago can only be guessed at, it is possible that Dereham forced himself sexually upon Katherine as a means of asserting his claims to her and, in effect, warning Manox off.

  A further comment made by Katherine, often misinterpreted by historians, indicates that Dereham may actually have used force on her in an attempt to fulfil his own sexual desires. Margaret Benet, a fellow maiden at Lambeth, later reported that she had heard Dereham say: ‘that although he used the company of a woman a C [hundred] times yet he would get no child except he listed and that the queen [Katherine] made answers thereto and likewise that a woman might meddle with a man and yet conceive no child unless she would for herself.’45 Baldwin Smith took this to mean that Katherine was referring to the use of contraception, as have other modern historians.46 It is possible, however, in light of prevailing sixteenth-century beliefs about fertility, sexual intercourse and reproduction, that Katherine meant something else, for contemporaries continued to adhere to the accepted medieval notion that ‘conception was believed to take place only if the woman omitted a seed, which she would do only if the experience of sex was pleasurable’.47 Since Dereham viewed Katherine as his wife, it seems unlikely that he would have permitted the use of contraception, for were she to fall pregnant, it might force her family to marry them in a hasty attempt to conceal the true nature of this disgraceful affair. It is likely that, knowing that contemporaries believed that women were expected to enjoy sexual intercourse in order to conceive a child, Katherine’s reference to not conceiving a child indicates that she had not enjoyed her sexual encounters with Dereham, and when read in light of her later remarks that he had forced her ‘viciously’ to engage in sexual intercourse, establishes the possibility that he had sexually assaulted, if not raped, her. Thus ‘if she did not wish to have sexual relations with him, then she would have considered herself forced to please him and would have found the experience unpleasant. She could believe, therefore, that her emotions controlled whether she became pregnant’.48Katherine’s comment also offers a further clue to her age. During this period, estimates of the average age of menarche range from fourteen to sev
enteen.49 Katherine, therefore, might not have fallen pregnant by Dereham both because she did not enjoy his sexual advances and because, if she were, as seems likely, aged about fourteen in 1538, she may not have been capable of conceiving for some years. Speculatively, this might also account for why she later failed to fall pregnant by Henry VIII.

  The behaviour of Katherine and the nature of her relationships with both Manox and Dereham have been unsatisfactorily explained by the majority of modern historians, who conclude that Katherine was morally lax, flighty and the motivator in both affairs. This approach, which has paid sustained attention to sixteenth-century customs and beliefs about female sexuality, honour and fertility, has suggested that this young woman was sexually abused by both men under the household of her step-grandmother, despite her desperate attempts to preserve the honour of her family, for she was well aware that she would be ruined if news of these escapades reached her uncle the duke. The dowager duchess’s inability to protect her charges added to the dilemma, for her duties at court simply meant that she could not, on a regular basis, manage the daily life of her household. In the indictments drawn up against her, Katherine was repeatedly blamed for both affairs, which is not surprising when beliefs regarding female sexuality prevalent in the mid-sixteenth century are considered. Moreover, in early modern Europe at this time, rape and seduction became more closely aligned and linked more greatly with normative male heterosexual behaviour, meaning that, perhaps, Dereham’s persistent seduction of Katherine did not shock observers who continued to adhere to the accepted belief that women desired to be raped, by virtue of their overflowing carnal desires.50 However, rape and sexual assault were prohibited by law and condemned as sexually deviant by both lawyers and clerics, who regarded it as unlawful and offensive to God. How Katherine later presented her experiences at the hands of both Dereham and Manox probably depended a great deal on the gender of her accusers for, aware that these male prosecutors viewed her by virtue of her sex in a negative and suspicious light, it was necessary to emphasise the degree of force she had suffered. In contrast, her fellow females within the duchess’s household may have been able to work out for themselves more clearly Katherine’s reaction to her ordeals.51

  Perhaps Dereham believed that Katherine was his lawful wife. Katherine later admitted that ‘there was Communication in the House that we Two should Marry together [...] wherefore he desired to give me Leave to call me Wife, and that I should call him Husband [...] And so after that, commonly he called me Wife, and many times I called him Husband’.52 When one observer opined that it seemed as if ‘Mr Dereham shall have Mrs Katherine Howard’, Dereham responded ‘By St John you may guess twice and guess worse’.53 Seeking to legalise his affair with Katherine, Dereham persistently bothered her with ‘the question of marriage’.54 Possibly, Dereham’s persistent giving of gifts to Katherine signified his desire to marry her, for gifts signified an important and accepted part of courtship during this period, with coins, rings, and gloves being particularly popular amongst lovers.55 Despite the wishes and concerns of the noble Howards, Dereham may have adhered to the accepted belief that ‘merely [...] uttering the appropriate words’ was sufficient to contract a marriage, without the presence of witnesses, priest or church, or the goodwill of Katherine’s Howard relatives.56 It is noteworthy, in light of Katherine’s experiences, that some women only agreed to marry following a sexual attack. In the fifteenth century, Agnes Grantham of York agreed to marry her attacker using words of present consent, fearing further instances of rape.57 Probably because she never consented to Dereham’s sexual advances, Katherine later vehemently denied ever being his wife, which was an accepted notion amongst canon lawyers who required that marriage vows be freely given and not coerced by others.58 Significantly, she defined her experiences in terms of ‘force’ brought about by Dereham’s ‘vicious purpose’, as has been intriguingly suggested, ‘in most narratives rape was defined in terms of male violence, not sex’.59

  Dereham’s pursuit of Katherine was to have fatal consequences for both of them. However, Katherine’s personal position during the time of her experiences rendered her unable to end her abuse. Not only was her step-grandmother often at court to carry out her duties and thus unable to provide her with assistance, but sixteenth-century English law regarding rape and sexual assault worked against the young Katherine. Only women who belonged to a father, husband or master could make public accusations against those who assaulted them – although Katherine’s father may have still been alive, his duties and his absence from his daughter rendered him unavailable to assist her. Despite this, the rape of virgins was an offence punishable by death, and even in eighteenth-century England the sexual assault of children was perceived to be far worse to the rape of adult women. Although it is likely that Katherine had commenced puberty by the time of her relations with Dereham in 1538-9, interestingly the death penalty was merited for the sexual molestation of a girl who had not yet reached puberty.60 If Henry VIII believed that Dereham had violated a pre-pubescent Katherine, this could account for the particularly savage execution granted to him in 1541. Dereham’s irresponsible and violent behaviour shattered Katherine’s reputation and rendered her, in the eyes of male contemporaries, dishonest and deceitful, for ‘girls who had already lost their virginity were regarded as more culpable for their sexual relationships’.61 Moreover, in cases of rape women struggled to prove any allegations they made ‘because the very law suspects her of having invited the assault [...] the law puts women on the defensive’.62 If Dereham was particularly sexually violent towards Katherine, this could account for her failure to fall pregnant while queen. It has been recognised that the long-term physical impacts of sexual abuse can encompass damage to the urethra and vagina, sexual and reproductive health problems, and other problems associated with sex.63

  It needs to be considered why Katherine’s fellow relatives and acquaintances who shared the maidens’ chamber with her did not inform the dowager duchess of the sexual relationship between her step-granddaughter and a gentleman-pensioner within her household. By contrast, Mary Lascelles had been pivotal in putting an end to the affair with Manox. Possibly, if other individuals within the establishment believed that the two were actually married, then it could explain why they did not intervene to protect Katherine’s honour and discourage Dereham in the same way in which Manox had been confronted. Dereham’s behaviour supports this interpretation for, referring to Katherine as ‘his own wife’, when a fellow acquaintance commented that ‘Mr Dereham shall have Mrs Katherine Howard’, he was to reply, ‘by St John you may guess twice and guess worse’.64 Although she was to chastise her step-granddaughter for her behaviour with Dereham, it is probable that ‘the Dowager may have been unaware of the full extent of the relationship’ between Katherine and Dereham.65 Katherine’s fellow residents within the dowager duchess’s household were only to provide details about the full nature of the Dereham affair during the queen’s downfall, when they were forcibly required to. Possibly they mistakenly believed that Katherine consented to Dereham’s advances, while excusing his aggressiveness. Significantly, the contemporary language utilised for describing male sexual misbehaviour was the same as that of ordinary male heterosexual activity: ‘lustfull Desires’ and ‘pleasures’. In a strikingly similar case John Wolfe, accused of violently raping a maiden, declared that he had ‘pulled up her clothes and asked her whether she was willing as I’. Katherine’s acquaintances reported that Dereham, like Wolfe, had plucked Katherine’s ‘clothes above her navel so that he might well discern her body’.66 Yet, as has been recognised: ‘men often claimed that sex, not rape, had occurred. They dramatised female consent verbally (by a woman’s assent or invitation), physically (by her acquiescence or little resistance), and association (by claiming that she was of ‘lewd’ disposition).’67

  Taking into account the inherent difficulties with legal evidence in which witnesses embroidered or manufactured details for their own purposes, when th
e evidence is read in light of cultural and social customs it indicates that Katherine’s adolescence was characterised by abuse, neglect and manipulation by avaricious men within the household of her step-grandmother. The sexual practices involved, which probably encompassed sexual assault and, potentially, rape, were viewed as sexually deviant by contemporaries and abhorrent to God.68 Because of the importance attached to female honour and the prestige of the Howard family, in which women could play a prominent part as family members, it is reasonable to suppose that Katherine’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, was not aware of his niece’s sexual experiences when he sought a place for her at court in the autumn of 1539, particularly since he had participated in the downfall of Anne Boleyn and was aware of the suspicion and hostility aroused by female sexuality. Instead, probably through hearing reports of his niece’s beauty and charm coupled with her developing musical ability, Norfolk sought a place for her at court that year to serve Henry VIII’s new queen, Anne of Cleves, a process in which he also sought appointments for his other teenage nieces, Katherine Carey and Mary Norris. Although she had not consented to the sexual experiences she had been forced to undergo, Katherine’s childhood past would return soon to haunt her.

  4) ‘Strange, Restless Years’

  Jane Seymour’s ascendancy following Anne Boleyn’s downfall, and the subsequent rise of the Seymour family, inaugurated a period of ambivalence for the Howards, who had forfeited the major source of their influence with the king through their relative’s disgrace. The Seymours, who initially shared the religious conservatism of the Howards, were to become the Howards’ greatest rivals within the kingdom, ushering in a period of hostility and suspicion between the two families that was to endure throughout the later years of Henry VIII’s reign.