Lady Katherine Knollys

by Sarah-Beth Watkins

  And things still did not improve after the wedding. Henry’s pride and more importantly his sex life was suffering. He just couldn’t bring himself to sleep with Anne, even if it was his duty and his only way of producing more heirs to the throne. ‘Her body (was) in such a sort disordered and indisposed…(it could not) excite and provoke any lust in him’6.

  But Anne still seems to have been oblivious to Henry’s plight. Katherine was as amazed as Anne’s other maids at her lack of understanding about her marital duties. It has been reported that she told them ‘When he comes to bed, he kisses me and taketh me by the hand and biddeth me “Goodnight, sweetheart” and in the morning kisses me and biddeth me, “Farewell, darling”. Is this not enough?’7. To which Lady Rutland was said to reply, ‘Madam, there must be more than this, or it will be long ere we have a Duke of York, which all this realm most desireth’.8

  Henry hadn’t had any problems before with women of his choosing as far as we know. He insisted that he thought himself ‘able to do the act with other but not with her’. Anne just didn’t do it for him and he consulted with his doctors, Chambers and Butts, about the matter. Dr Chamber advised him that if he couldn’t be ‘provoked or stirred in that act’ then he shouldn’t enforce it.9

  Henry’s pattern of having affairs with his Queen’s ladies-in-waiting or picking his new Queen from amongst them was to repeat itself. There was the hint of rumour and romance in the air but it definitely wasn’t with his new wife. Henry had given Anne Bassett, one of Katherine’s companions, a horse and saddle, showing his favour and sparking the suggestion that Anne was something more than just a maid of honour to the Queen. But it was Catherine Howard who had really taken his fancy. Henry visited the ladies often to see his new fancy, under the pretence of seeing the Queen. Katherine would have seen a lot of her father in the days that he spent with them and she may not have been happy with what she was witnessing.

  In April of 1540, Catherine Howard was granted lands around the same time as Katherine’s mother was allowed her Boleyn inheritance. The King granted ‘William Stafford and Mary, his wife, livery of lands, the said Mary being daughter and heir of Thomas, late Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond…the manors of Southt, alias Southtboram and Henden in Henden Park, and all lands in Hever and Brasted, Kent, which belonged to the said Earl’.10 Whereas Mary was due her inheritance through her father’s death, Catherine was being given gifts and land as Henry’s new mistress.

  May was a momentous time for Katherine and she had little time to spend on court rumour. At just sixteen years of age she married Francis Knollys, the handsome young man she had met the previous year, a twenty-six year old member of Henry’s household. Tudor women were often betrothed at an early age but to marry so young was unusual. Perhaps Henry had acted in her fatherly interests and had arranged this match. It doesn’t appear that he gave gifts or any sum of money at their wedding but he did make sure that the Knollys manor of Rotherfield Greys near Henley in Oxfordshire was passed to them.

  On 10th June 1540, the court was once again abuzz with rumour but this time it wasn’t romance that was in the air but the news of the fall of one of Henry’s closest confidants. Henry could never forgive Thomas Cromwell for arranging his marriage to Anne of Cleves despite all his years of working to ensure Henry’s happiness and the smooth running of his kingdom. Henry was done with the pretence of his marriage. He wanted Anne gone and Catherine Howard to replace her. And Cromwell would suffer the consequences.

  Cromwell knew that he was in trouble. As he left parliament to attend a dinner, a gust of wind blew off his hat. It was typical for gentlemen watching to remove theirs also as a mark of respect but Cromwell was ignored and still no one spoke to him as they dined together. At the meeting of the council that followed when he went to take his place at the table, the Duke of Norfolk shouted to him, ‘Cromwell, do not sit there; that is no place for thee. Traitors do not sit amongst gentlemen’. As Cromwell replied, ‘I am not a traitor’, he was arrested by the Captain of the Guard and escorted to the Tower. Although they had not told him, Cromwell had been arrested for treason.

  When Anne of Cleves heard of Cromwell’s arrest, she began to worry for her own safety. On 24th June, she was told to relocate to Richmond to a beautiful red bricked palace, of which little remains, on the edge of the River Thames and close to a deer park and hunting grounds. She was originally told it was for the benefit of her health and would remove her from the risk of catching the plague but her suspicions were growing. As she talked to her ladies, Katherine amongst them, the gossip turned to Catherine Howard. Anne had heard the rumours about the King and Catherine and had seen her flirtatiousness with her own eyes but what would this mean for her? Anne settled into an anxious routine until 6th July when the King’s men arrived to discuss her marriage to the king. They had been charged with getting Anne’s consent to an investigation into the validity of their marriage. Henry was up to his old tricks, trying to find a way to rid himself of the Queen he had never desired. And once again he turned to God as being the judge of his actions.

  Henry summoned the leading clergymen of the country to examine the issues and evidence surrounding his marriage. Three arguments were put forward for its annulment. The first pointed to Anne’s previous betrothal to the Duke of Lorraine’s son, the Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson, even though this had been renounced in 1535. The argument ran that the notarial certificate that had been supplied was not legal document enough and the betrothal was still outstanding. The second argument was Henry’s lack of consent to the marriage which he showed evidence of in his own words and that of others and the third and final argument, and one that must have shamed Anne, was the marriage’s lack of consummation. It was a done deal and the gathered clergy agreed to the annulment.

  Henry had got his way again but at least Anne did not lose her head. She was told of the verdict and agreed it was right. Again Henry had left a woman with no choice. Anne knew that if she put up any resistance her life would be in danger. Agreeing with the king was the best course of action. She wrote to Henry:

  It may please you majesty to know that, though this case must needs be most hard and sorrowful unto me, for the great love which I bear to your most noble person, yet, having more regard to God and his trust than to worldly affection, as it beseemed me, at the beginning, to submit me to such examination and determination of the said clergy, whom I have and do accept for judges competent in that behalf. So now being ascertained how the same clergy hath therein given their judgement and sentence, I knowledge myself hereby to accept and approve the same, wholly and entirely putting myself, for my state and condition, to your highness’ goodness and pleasure; most humbly beseeching your Majesty that, though it be determined that the pretended matrimony between us is void and of none effect, whereby I neither can nor will repute myself your Grace’s wife, considering this sentence (whereunto I stand) and your Majesty’s clean and pure living with me, yet it will please you to take me for one of your most humble servants, and so determine of me, as I may sometimes have the fruition of your most noble presence; which as I shall esteem for a great benefit, so, my lords and others of your Majesty’s council, now being with me, have put me in comfort thereof; and that your highness will take me for your sister; for the which I most humbly thank you accordingly.11

  This pliable, easy-going Queen accepted her demotion to being known as Henry’s sister with a sigh of relief and decided to make the most of living in England with an income of five hundred pounds a year, the use of two royal houses and precedence over all women except the new queen and the princesses. She may not have been able to return to her home in the Rhineland but she had escaped the fate of Henry’s previous Queens and she could continue to live in some comfort for the rest of her days.

  One of the residences she received as part of her annulment package was Hever Castle, Katherine’s family home, and Katherine and her family were never to stay there again. It was time for Katherine to move on. Anne of Cleve’s hous
ehold was reduced and she was no longer needed as her maid of honour. Some historians believe that Katherine transferred to the new Queen’s household. Katherine had become friends with Catherine Howard during the time they were serving Anne. Both similar in age, they had spent time together, and many days laughing and giggling at the foreign Queen’s strange mannerisms and speech, so she may well have stayed at court to prepare Catherine for her new role as Queen although her stay would have been short. Katherine fell pregnant soon after her marriage to Francis and became a mother for the first time at the tender age of seventeen to Henry (Harry) Knollys, probably named affectionately after her father the King, in the Easter of 1541.

  Whilst Katherine was away from court starting her new family, Henry was wooing the fifteen year old Catherine. He called her his ‘blushing rose without a thorn’. She was young, beautiful, frivolous and exuberant; in complete comparison to Henry who daily suffered from his ulcerated leg and had gained a vast amount of weight in recent years. Perhaps that is why he became so besotted with her. She was beauty and all things youthful to his massive, ageing and ailing body. She was everything that reminded him of his glory days. She made him feel alive again.

  Henry married Catherine Howard at Oatlands Palace in Weybridge, Surrey on the 28th July 1540. It was rumoured that Catherine was pregnant and this may have added to their haste but no child was forthcoming nor was there ever to be one. On the same day, Thomas Cromwell was led from his room in the Tower to be executed for treason. How easy it was for Henry to rid himself of one of his most previously trusted men while at the same time taking yet another bride.

  Although Henry thought that Catherine was his new prize, it wasn’t long before being married to an overweight, increasingly cantankerous king bored her and she found new ways of amusing herself. Catherine had adopted the motto ‘No other wish but his’ but her own wishes were becoming more important. Here was a teenage girl for whom being a Queen was a novelty, an amusing escapade; full of dancing, music, jewels, dressing up and playing games.

  She had no wish to take on the duties of a Queen or of a stepmother. Katherine may have been kept on as her maid of honour but Henry’s youngest daughter and son would rarely have been seen. During this time Elizabeth was growing up away from court as was Edward but the Lady Mary was often in attendance. Mary’s feelings for Catherine Howard matched those she had had for Anne Boleyn. Here was another woman related to the Boleyns that had gained the run of the court. Henry doted on his new wife, showering her with gifts and acquiescing to her very whim. Mary had no time for her. Not only was she older than her new step-mother but this Catherine was the antithesis of what she stood for.

  Catherine had grown up in her grandmother’s household where she had flirted and played with the attentions of the opposite sex. One of the men she had met here was Henry Manox who was employed to give music lessons to the girls in the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk’s care. She tired of him when she met the dashing and handsome Francis Dereham and due to her grandmother’s lax care she was able to do more with him than any respectable girl should.

  Foolishly, when Catherine was made Queen she also made Francis Dereham her private secretary, bringing the past into her present. But her old suitors no longer had any real appeal for her other than being around to flatter and flirt with her. Catherine had taken a liking to one of the King’s gentlemen of the privy chamber, Thomas Culpeper, who was also a distant cousin. She sent him gifts and little notes encouraging him and goading him on. When the King took her on his progress in the summer of 1541, she got Lady Rochford to smuggle Culpeper up to her rooms. She was the talk of the court and for good reason. The King was being made a fool of but who would tell him?

  It fell to Cranmer, who fearing the King’s reaction, slipped him a letter whilst he was at prayer in the chapel at Hampton Court Palace. Henry was furious but not with the Queen. He refused to believe what he saw as scandal and lies, demanding an inquiry to find the vicious rumour-monger and put a stop to the denunciation of his precious rose but Cranmer knew there was some truth in the accusations. He had talked to John Lascelles who had told him more about the improprieties of Catherine’s past after hearing of them from his sister who had lived with her in the Duchess’ house and he began compiling evidence against Catherine. When Cranmer interrogated her and questioned her actions, she wept and had hysterical fits but finally admitted to having slept with Dereham prior to her marriage with the King. Cranmer helped her to write her confession but she called him back wishing to change it and this time she made out that Dereham had taken her by force and that she had never consented to what passed between them. What she did say was damning enough, ‘he hath lain with me, sometimes in his doublet and hose, and two or three times naked, but not so naked that he had nothing upon him, for he had always at the least his doublet, and as I do think his hose also; but I mean naked, when his hose was put down’.

  Henry was given her confession as well as a letter pleading forgiveness. In it she said:

  I, your Grace’s most sorrowful subject and vile wretch in the world, not worthy to make any recommendations unto your Majesty, do only make my most humble submission and confession of my faults. And where no cause of mercy is given on my part, yet of your most accustomed mercy extended to all other men undeserved, most humbly on my hands and knees do desire one particle thereof to be extended unto me, although of all other creatures most unworthy either to be called your wife or subject. My sorrow I can by no writing express, nevertheless I trust your most benign nature will have some respect unto my youth, my ignorance, my frailness, my humble confession of my faults and plain declaration of the same, referring to me wholly unto your Grace’s pity and mercy. First at the flattering and fair persuasions of Manox, being but a young girl I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body…Also Francis Dereham by many persuasions procured me to his vicious purpose, and obtained first to lie upon my bed with his doublet and hose, and after within the bed, and finally he lay with me naked, and used me in such sort as a man doth his wife, many and sundry times…I was so desirous to be taken unto your Grace’s favour, and so blinded with the desire of worldly glory, that I could not, nor had grace, to consider how great a fault it was to conceal my former faults from your Majesty, considering that I intended ever during my life to be faithful and true unto your Majesty after; nevertheless, the sorrow of mine offences was ever before mine eyes, considering the infinite goodness of your Majesty towards me from time to time ever increasing and not diminishing. Now I refer the judgement of all my offences with my life and death wholly unto your most benign and merciful Grace to be considered by no justice of your Majesty’s laws but only by your infinite goodness, pity, compassion and mercy, without the which I acknowledge myself worthy of extreme punishment.12

  Catherine had done a good job of admitting to her liaisons with Manox and Dereham, admitting her faults and begging for the King’s mercy. Henry was appeased and many at court felt he may offer her forgiveness but Cranmer wasn’t finished. In her confession, Catherine had also mentioned Culpeper but only that Dereham had asked her in a fit of jealousy if she would marry him. Cranmer was intrigued and investigated further, now paying heed to the rumours that had circulated the court earlier in the year. There was something about this Culpeper and his relationship with the Queen that Cranmer was driven to find out.

  In a search of Culpeper’s belongings, the most damning evidence was found. A letter from the Queen that hinted that their relationship had been a close one.

  Master Culpeper

  I heartily recommend me unto you, praying you to send me word how that you do. I did hear that ye were sick, and I never longed for anything so much as to see you. it maketh my heart to die when I do think that I cannot always be in your company. Come to me when Lady Rochford be here, for then I shall be best at leisure to be at your commandment…And thus I take my leave of you, trusting to see you shortly again. And I would you were with me now, that you
might see what pain I take in writing to you.

  Yours as long as life endures,

  Katherine13

  As well as confirming Cranmer’s suspicions about the Queen, it prompted the interrogation of Lady Rochford for arranging the late night trysts between Catherine and Thomas and she told her interrogators everything. Although Culpeper never admitted to sleeping with Catherine, he did admit that he ‘intended to do ill with her and likewise the Queen so minded to do with him’ but that ‘he had not passed beyond words’. Catherine also refused to admit that she had slept with Culpeper. They both knew their lives were on the line.

  But it hardly mattered now. Cranmer had enough evidence to convict Culpeper and Catherine’s previous lover, Dereham. Both Dereham and Culpeper were tried together and the verdict was unanimous. They were to be drawn on hurdles to Tyburn where they would be hanged, drawn and quartered. Both men were executed on 10th December 1541 but Culpeper was allowed a final act of mercy. His sentence was reduced to beheading whereas Dereham underwent the whole sordid process that led to his death.

  Catherine was waiting at Syon Abbey in Brentford for news of her own punishment during the next few weeks even though there could only be one outcome. On 10th February 1542, she was taken to the Tower and if there had been any doubt in her mind, she now knew that her time was short. This young girl who had so joyously played at being Queen had not taken her role seriously enough nor had she realised how her romantic liaisons would be her downfall. Henry would not stand to be taken for a fool, as much as he loved her.