by Byrne, Conor
During the court’s summer progress, Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury had been approached by a young woman, Mary Lascelles, who had resided in the household of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk alongside the young Katherine Howard. When Cranmer confided to Henry the details of Mary’s allegations, the king agreed that a secret investigation into her conduct should take place, led by the Earl of Southampton, Lord Russell, Sir Anthony Browne and Thomas Wriothesley. Mary was the sister of John Lascelles, a courtier and religious activist who had at one point served Thomas Cromwell. A devout evangelical, Lascelles had urged ‘not to be rashe or quike in mayntenyng the scrypture, for yff we wolde lete [Gardiner and Norfolk] a lone and suffer a lettell tyme they wolde (I doubte not) ower throwe them selves, standyng manyfestlye a nenst god and theyr prynce’.3
Hostile to the Duke of Norfolk on account of his Catholic religion, it is likely that Lascelles had been hoping for an opportunity to attack the Howard queen through playing on sixteenth century misogyny and fear of female sexuality. Despite this, when he visited his sister Mary in Sussex in 1541 he encouraged her to seek a place in the queen’s household. Mary had refused, reporting that she found the queen ‘light’ in living and ‘conditions’. When questioned by the Earl of Southampton, Mary confessed that ‘misconduct’ had taken place some three or four years previously between Katherine and Henry Manox, although she had berated Manox for his arrogance in seeking to corrupt one of the dowager duchess’s relatives while criticising Katherine’s behaviour, spitefully suggesting that ‘she will be nought within a while’.4 But Manox had aggressively and callously refused to desist in seducing Katherine, instead bragging about his manipulation of her: ‘I know her well enough, for I have had her by the cunt, and I know it among a hundred.’ He reported that ‘she loves me, and I love her, and she hath said to me that I shall have her maidenhead, though it be painful to her, and not doubting but I will be good to her hereafter’.5 Whether Katherine had promised Manox anything of the sort is highly unlikely, for she was aware of her family’s powerful position and refused to align herself with a lowly musician. Manox probably invented these details to justify his pursuit of Katherine. When investigated, Manox confirmed Mary’s allegations, but swore ‘upon his damnation and most extreme punishment of his body, he never knew her [Katherine] carnally’.6
Why exactly Mary Lascelles revealed the queen’s unsavoury past to her brother in the autumn of 1541 has never been satisfactorily explained. One writer has speculated that news of the queen’s pregnancy in 1541 spurred the reformists to bring about her downfall, fearing the invincibility of the Howards and the conservatives were she to give birth to a second prince.7 Yet it seems unlikely that Katherine was pregnant when the court set on the northern progress. Unconfirmed and speculative rumours recorded by the French ambassador contain the only ‘evidence’ that she might have been. It is possible that Mary, who did not necessarily herself harbour ill feelings towards the queen, made an unguarded remark which her brother seized as an opportunity to strike a fatal blow to the conservative cause. As has been suggested, Lascelles himself personally believed that the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner were blocking further reform. When Mary revealed the queen’s past to her brother, it is possible that she was unaware ‘how explosive this information was’.8 Lascelles had confidently predicted some time earlier that the Howards would ruin themselves, stating the need for his fellow reformers ‘not to be to rashe or quike in mayntenyng the scrypture, for yff we wolde lete [Gardiner and Norfolk] a lone and suffer a lettell tyme they wolde (I doubte not) ower throwe them selves, standyng manyfestlye a nenst god and theyr prynce.’9
Dereham, who had been continuing to cause trouble in the queen’s household through his foolish behaviour, was later questioned after both Manox and Mary Lascelles testified to his pursuit of Katherine. He openly and without shame confided that ‘he hath had carnal knowledge with the Queen, lying in bed by her in his doublet and hosen divers times and six or seven times in naked bed with her’. Another of Katherine’s acquaintances, Alice Restwold, alluded to the ‘puffing and blowing’ between Katherine and Dereham.10 Significantly, none of these individuals suggested that Dereham had forcefully pursued Katherine in pursuit of sexual pleasure. As has been indicated, the language utilised by men and women during this period to describe sexual experiences was vastly different.11 No mention was made of how Katherine herself felt during, and reacted to, the sexual experiences of her childhood, which is not surprising in context of the time, for interrogators in criminal cases involving sexual crimes often did not believe in the need to record how women felt during sex, believing instead that they universally and willingly consented to sexual experiences if no visible signs of resistance were made.12
Two days later, Cranmer interviewed Katherine herself, after first approaching the queen with her uncle, Audley and Winchester. She had been confined to her chambers and was informed that ‘there is no more time to dance’.13 Fearful and concerned by the unwelcome news that Mary Lascelles had volunteered scandalous information about her childhood experiences, Katherine was found by the archbishop in an appalling state. He feared that she would fall into a frenzy, and believed that her state ‘would have pitied any man’s heart to see’.14 Cranmer proceeded to emphasise her demerits, on the orders of the king, but offered her mercy in an attempt to exact a confession. This initially seemed successful, since ‘for a time she began to be more temperate and quiet, saving that she still sobbed and wept’. But Cranmer was to be disappointed, for Katherine’s composure once again deserted her shortly afterwards, and she ‘suddenly fell into a new rage, much worse than before’, before admitting to the archbishop that: ‘the fear of death grieved me not so much before, as doth now the remembrance of the king’s goodness; for when I remember how gracious and loving a prince I had, I cannot but sorrow; but this sudden mercy, and more than I could have looked for, showed unto me, so unworthy at this time, makes my offences to appear before my eyes much more heinous than they did before.’15 She nevertheless was able to confess to Cranmer that Manox had inappropriately fondled the ‘secret parts’ of her body and Dereham, after his ‘many persuasions’, had succeeded in seducing her. She then beseeched the king to grant her mercy on account of her youth, ‘ignorance and frailty’, although admitting that she deserved ‘extreme punishment’.16 It is important to remember however, that for a woman to have had sexual experiences before she married the king was not, at this stage, a criminal offence. Chapuys reported at this time that the queen’s household was discharged, her brother Charles Howard had been banished from the king’s chamber, and Dereham had been sent to the Tower on account of the king’s belief that he had actually been betrothed to the queen before her marriage, rendering her subsequent marriage to Henry invalid.17
Although Dereham admitted that a marriage contract had existed between him and Katherine which could account for his later admissions that he was indeed married to her, the queen refused to confirm that she had been pre-contracted to Dereham, although this might have spared her life. Most modern historians suggest that Katherine did not acknowledge such a pre-contract due to her refusal to accept that she had never, in consequence, been queen of England.18 However, in view of the reality of Katherine’s sexual relations with Dereham in 1538-9 it is more likely that the queen believed that no pre-contract had existed since she had never consented to Dereham’s forceful advances. The Catholic Church specifically required that vows for marriage should only be freely given and not coerced.
On 11 November, the privy council learned that the king wished to send his wife to Syon Abbey, where she would be housed ‘moderately, as her life has deserved, without any cloth of estate’. Although it was confirmed that Katherine would continue to be served ‘in the state of a Queen’, she was permitted only the use of three chambers, ‘hanged with mean stuff’, and the services of four gentlewomen, including her half-sister Isabel Lady Baynton, and two chamberers.19
Marillac reported that the
king was ‘as gay as ever he saw him’ and alluded to rumours that the king would take back Anne of Cleves in the wake of Katherine’s disgrace.20 Surely Henry was not happy, because Katherine’s downfall appears to have devastated him on both a personal and a political level. Not only had his queen failed to secure the English succession by bearing him a second son, but evidence had emerged that she had been sexually corrupted at an early age and had failed to inform him of it at the time of their marriage. Later, he learned of her night time meetings with Culpeper. Prevailing cultural and social beliefs may have governed the king’s fear that, because Katherine had lost her virginity several years previously, his wife had conducted amorous affairs as queen behind his back.21
The king may have genuinely believed that his wife might have revealed damaging information about his sexual habits and his impotence to her suspected lovers. In the indictment drawn up against her, Katherine was accused of leading the king ‘by word and gesture to love her’ and had jeopardised the succession at risk ‘to the most fearful peril and danger of the destruction of your [Henry’s] most royal person and to the utter loss, disherison and desolation of this your Realm of England’. This damning indictment of Katherine’s behaviour played on contemporary fears of female sexuality, which as a fragile achievement was always open to threat and dishonour.22 Early modern men, perhaps including Henry, feared and doubted their ability to rule their wives, particularly on a sexual level, since wives gained a personal knowledge of their husbands’ bodies and could subsequently dishonour their husbands on a sexual level by exposing their manhood to risks and dangers.23 Men in this era often feared being cuckolded, and because masculine identity was constructed heavily on the basis of control of female sexuality, it was essential that women’s sexual lives were rigorously controlled, prescribed and regulated.24
During the course of his interrogation, Dereham voiced the suspicion that Culpeper had succeeded him in Katherine’s affections. The council were immediately alerted to the possibility that the queen had committed adultery with her husband’s groom of the chamber, alluding to their suspicion in a letter written to William Paget, the English ambassador in France: ‘[now may you] see what was done before the marriage. God knoweth what hath been done sithence’.25 They feared the nature of Katherine’s relations with Dereham during her period as queen, for his appointment to the position of private secretary was perceived in the worst possible light. However, because they did not factor in Katherine’s unwilling and unresponsive relations towards Dereham during her youth, they were unable to believe the likeliest scenario that she had only appointed him on the advice of her step-grandmother, and hoped to silence him about their former relations by appearing to show him favour.
Katherine admitted that Culpeper had touched no part of her body except her hand, and confirmed that she had met with him three times during the summer progress at Lincoln, Pontefract and York with the assistance of Lady Rochford. She confessed that she bestowed gifts of a cap, chain and a cramp-ring upon him. But the queen refused to admit that adultery had taken place between the two. When examined, Culpeper reported that he intended ‘to do ill with her’, but because he may have been tortured it is uncertain whether too much credence should be given to this suggestion. He believed that the queen sought ‘in every house [to] seek for the back doors and back stairs herself’. Marillac later reported that ‘although he [Culpeper] had not passed beyond words; for he confessed his intentions to do so, and his confessed conversation, being held by a subject to a Queen, deserved death’.26 As with Dereham’s admission, the interrogators did not concern themselves with whether or not the queen herself had initiated sexual intercourse with Culpeper. When subjected to questioning, Lady Rochford reported that she had heard and seen nothing at the interviews between the queen and Culpeper, although she later opined that the couple had known each other carnally, but admitted that Katherine had daily asked for Culpeper since her ‘trouble’, i.e. since her relationship with Dereham had come to light.27 The queen’s ladies, Katherine Tylney and Margaret Morton, confessed that the queen had spent two nights in Lady Rochford’s chamber during the summer progress, but they admitted that they were unaware of who she had been meeting there. Margaret later added that the queen had forbidden Mrs Loffkyn and her other ladies to enter her bedchamber unless called, and later threatened to dismiss Mrs Loffkyn from her household. She reported that every night the queen’s chamber door was locked.28
Only when evidence had emerged that the queen had not been a virgin at the time of her marriage to Henry did her ladies voice the suspicion that she had subsequently conducted an adulterous liaison behind her husband’s back. Tellingly, no suspicion of the queen’s behaviour during the summer progress had been raised by her ladies or other officials, which cautions against accepting these interrogations at face value and indicates that these revelations only occurred when it became known that the queen had been involved in childhood sexual encounters. As with Anne Boleyn, Katherine’s ladies turned against her when faced with the prospect of the king’s wrath and possibly even punishment for what the interrogators termed misprision of treason. Consequently, her actions were interpreted and distorted in the worst possible light. As has been succinctly noted: ‘the only indiscretion proved against Catherine [sic] Howard was that she had, quite understandably, failed to inform her royal lover that her life before her marriage had not been as pure as might have been expected of a queen.’29 On 22 November, Katherine’s title of queen was stripped from her.
Describing his niece as a prostitute, Katherine’s uncle the Duke of Norfolk sought to placate Henry by distancing himself from his ‘abominable’ niece, ‘mine ungracious mother-in-law, mine unhappy brother [...] with my lewd sister of Bridgewater’, all of whom were accused of aiding the queen in her outrageous lifestyle. He regretted that Katherine had shown him ‘small love’.30 Although the purpose of writing such a letter was to save himself from the threatened destruction of his family, the evidence indicates that Norfolk was genuinely unaware of his niece’s sexual experiences during her childhood. His horror and disgust at the revelation that she had not been a virgin at her marriage is notable, and confirms that, had he been aware of her childhood escapades, he would never have sought a place for her at court within the household of Anne of Cleves, where female chastity and modesty was expected.
It needs to be considered why it was at this point that Mary Lascelles fatally voiced her opinion to her brother John that Katherine was light in living and conditions, provoking him to inform the archbishop about the queen’s sexual past. There is no evidence that she was personally hostile to Katherine, for she attempted to portray herself positively by confessing that she had sought to persuade Manox to desist from seducing the young Katherine. Whether or not she had, in fact, done so is unknown. On the other hand, as has been noted John was distrustful and resentful of the Howards on account of their political influence and their conservatism. Although he was to insist that he had only revealed information about the queen’s past in order to avoid a charge of misprision of treason, it is probable that he delighted in the chance to ruin the Howards.31
Although Mary may not have knowingly revealed this information about Queen Katherine in a spiteful attempt to destroy her reputation, the fact that she did do so had fatal consequences for Katherine and her family. Early modern slander of highborn women often had damaging consequences, for in focusing overwhelmingly on sexual sins dishonour dismantled the trappings of these women’s rank and the credit of their marriages.32 Only in context of early modern beliefs about gender, sexuality and honour can John’s choice to reveal information about Katherine’s past and the negative reception it received at court be fully understood. This period witnessed a growing obsession with the dangers associated with womanhood and a visible fear of women’s intentions and behaviour, focusing on their principle vices encompassing voracious sexuality, scolding and wilful pride and vanity that endangered male livelihood.33 In view of this it is s
ignificant that Katherine was condemned for feigning chastity and using modest gestures to ensure that the king would ‘love her’ by behaving in a ‘pure and chaste’ manner.34 The men accused with Katherine of sexual crimes adhered to prevailing gender and cultural prejudices which fixated on the lasciviousness of women. Manox and Dereham both swore that she had consented to their advances while Culpeper blamed the queen for enticing him, through Lady Rochford, to meet with her in private because she was dying for his love.35