by Alison Weir
But no comfortable assurance came. Henry was displeased with all the Howards, including the Duke. He was no fool, and remembered vividly how Norfolk had furthered his intrigue with Katherine in the first place. He had placed a viper in his sovereign's bosom, and he should pay for it. He did not reply to the letter, and hearing nothing, the Duke deemed it politic to maintain a low profile, hoping that the King's displeasure would not last. After a time, he was received back, but Henry never fully trusted him again.
As for the rest of the Howard family and their servants, King and Council had decided on a highly profitable solution. Lord William and his wife, Katherine Tylney, Joan Bulmer, Alice Restwold, William Ashby, William Damport, and Elizabeth Tylney and Margaret Bennet, the two other witnesses to the Queen's misconduct, were all, on 22 December 1541, arraigned for misprision of treason 'for concealing the evil demeanour of the Queen, to the slander of the King and his succession'. All pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and loss of goods and lands; however, not long afterwards, the King pardoned most of them and had them freed. The old Duchess of Norfolk was also included in the indictment, but she was not brought to trial as she was 'old and testy' and 'may die out of perversity to defraud the King's Highness of the confiscation of her goods'. She too was sentenced to loss of liberty and lands, and the King ended up somewhat richer as a result.
This did not, however, provide a panacea for his misery. He knew now that the illusion of youth he had enjoyed with Katherine had gone for ever; all he had to look forward to were encroaching illness, old age and death. To begin with, he had meant to be merciful towards Katherine, but now he found he had no desire to save her from the headsman, and wished her to suffer as he was suffering. The law would take its course and he would not lift a finger to stop it. Then the world would see how he dealt with those who made a fool of him.
Francis I had reacted to the news of Katherine's fall with sympathy. 'She hath done wondrous naughty!' he exclaimed, when Sir William Paget informed him of the Queen's misconduct. And to Henry he wrote:
I am sorry to hear of the displeasure and trouble which has been caused by the lewd and naughty behaviour of the Queen. Albeit, knowing my good brother to be a prince of prudence, virtue and honour, I do require him to shift off the said displeasure and wisely, temperately, like myself, not reputing his honour to rest in the lightness of a woman, but to thank God of all, comforting himself in God's goodness. The lightness of women cannot bend the honourofmen.
Comforting words indeed from Henry's greatest rival and Europe's most debauched monarch. Henry must have squirmed when he read them.
The festive season passed gloomily that year, with the King making no effort to join in the half-hearted revels staged by his courtiers. -Marillac described him as 'sad, and disinclined to feasting and ladies'. He was putting on even more weight, and looked very old and grey. His ministers, however, were begging him to marry again, reminding him that he had only one son, but there was not one among the court ladies that he fancied: the wound left by Katherine Howard's infidelities was too raw as yet. The Council could only hope that time would heal it. With 'such an exceptional prince', all things were possible.
Parliament reconvened on 16 January 1542, and the Lords and Commons combined to urge the King 'not to vex himself with the Queen's offence, and that she and the Lady Rochford might be attainted'. To make this easier for him, it was suggested that he give his royal assent to the proceedings under the Great Seal, which could then be done by the Lord Chancellor. The King agreed to this, and the Lords at once began debating the fate of the Queen. The Lord Chancellor, recounting her 'vicious and abominable' deeds, urged that a Bill of Attainder be drawn up without delay, which was done that same afternoon. It was in the form of a petition, from the Lords and Commons, requesting the King to consent to the conviction of 'Mistress Katherine Howard, late Queen of England' and Lady Rochford for high treason, the penalty being death and confiscation of goods. The Act received its first reading that evening. Shortly afterwards, another Act would be passed, ruling that 'an unchaste woman marrying the King shall be guilty of high treason'. Anyone concealing any flaw in the character of a putative queen of England would likewise be guilty of high treason. And if any woman presumed to marry the King without admitting she had been unchaste, she would merit death.
Henry seems to have been concerned that Katherine had as yet had no chance to defend herself in public. 'Wishing to proceed more humanely', he sent some members of his Council to see her on 25 January; they invited her, in the King's name, to 'come to the Parliament chamber to defend herself. She declined, however, saying she submitted herself to the King's mercy and good pleasure, and confessed she had deserved to die. Her humility did much to soften the hearts of the privy councillors, and three days later the Lord Chancellor reminded the peers in the House of Lords
how much it concerned them not to proceed too hastily with the Bill of Attainder for the Queen, that she was no mean or private person, but a public and illustrious one. Therefore her cause ought to be judged in a manner that should leave no room for suspicion of some latent quarrel.
He proposed that a second deputation, comprising members of both Houses, should go to see her, 'partly in order to help her womanish fears', and partly to advise her 'to say anything that makes her cause the better'. It was only just, he concluded, that such a princess should be 'tried by equal laws with themselves', and he assured his listeners that 'her most loving consort' would find it acceptable if she cleared herself in this way, even now.
Katherine, however, knew she had no plausible defence, and was resigned outwardly to her fate. She told the second deputation that her only care was to make a good death and 'to leave a good opinion in people's minds now at parting'. Gone was the hysterical girl of a few weeks past, and in her place was one who even found the courage to be gay. Chapuys reported on 29 January that she was very cheerful, and more plump and pretty than ever; she is as careful about her dress and as imperious and wilful as at the time she was with the King, notwithstanding that she expects to be put to death, that she confesses she has deserved it, and asks for no favour except that the execution shall be secret and not under the eyes of the world.
Chapuys thought that if the King did not intend to marry again he might show mercy to her, or even divorce her on a plea of adultery. Learned theologians had debated the possibility of a divorce, but had as yet not made public their conclusions. But Chapuys was still pessimistic, and even as he was writing his letter news came to him that the Commons had debated the Queen's fate and had come to the same conclusion as the Lords, and the Queen, he feared, 'will soon be sent to the Tower'.
The Council, however, felt that Parliament was being too humane towards Katherine; the reforming faction felt there had been no need to give her any opportunity to defend herself, as the case against her had already been proved. Accordingly, the privy councillors petitioned the King that the Bill of Attainder be put through its second and third readings without delay so that the case could be concluded and judgement given. Henry gave his assent, and Parliament was urged to speed up the passing of the Bill. Its second reading took place on 6 February and, on the following day, after its third and final reading, it became law, which meant that the Queen and Lady Rochford were both sentenced to death and loss of goods and lands. All that was needed now was the royal assent. On that same day, the King went into the House of Commons and thanked them 'for that they took his sorrow to be theirs'.
Henry was feeling a little better now, more himself. Since November, he had hunted daily to divert his 'ill humour' and would not attend to much business. Now, however, he was again seeking the company of the ladies of his court. After the Act of Attainder against the Queen was passed, Chapuys told Charles V that Henry had 'never been so merry since first hearing of the Queen's misconduct'. On 29 January, he had given a banquet attended by sixty-one ladies, and was particularly attentive to the estranged wife of the poet Wyatt, 'a pretty
young creature with wit enough to do as badly as the others if she were to try'. Yet Elizabeth Brooke was a notorious adultress, and the King did not pursue the matter. He also showed a marked preference for Anne Bassett, for whom he had long cherished a soft spot. 'The common voice,' went on Chapuys, 'is that this King will not be long without a wife, because of the great desire he has to have further issue.'
The passing of the Act of Attainder seemed to satisfy Henry, although he complained that there was as much reason to convict the Duchess of Norfolk of treason as there had been to convict Dereham. In her case the Council urged the King to leniency, and he relented, agreeing that the old lady might live. She was eventually released on 5 May 1542, and died three years later. But he was not so merciful towards his wife or Lady Rochford, and on 9 February sent the Duke of Norfolk to Syon Abbey with his fellow deputies to inform Katherine of her sentence. The only comfort the Duke brought was the promise that it would be carried out in private, as she had wished: she would die on Tower Green, as Anne Boleyn had.
Katherine took the news bravely. She again confessed to and acknowledged 'the great crime of which she had been guilty against the most high God and a kind prince and lastly the whole English nation', and begged Norfolk 'to implore his Majesty not to impute her crime to her whole kindred and family', asking instead that Henry extend his 'unbounded mercy and benevolence to all her brothers, that they might not suffer for her faults'. Lastly she asked if the King would kindly bestow her clothing upon her maidservants after her death, as she had no other means of rewarding them for their loyalty. Norfolk promised to convey her requests to the King, and then left without having been able to tell her the date set for her execution.
Her suspense did not last long, however. On Friday, 10 February, the lords of the Council returned to Syon with orders to convey the Queen to the Tower of London. As soon as she learned what they had come for, Katherine knew a moment of blind panic, finally realising in that instant that Henry did mean to have her executed. All her calm deserted her, and she refused to go. The lords tried persuasion and then bullying, but to no avail. Eventually, they bundled her, shrinking with fear, into the waiting barge, which was then escorted along the river by a barge containing the Lord Privy Seal, other members of the Council, and those servants who were to look after the Queen in the Tower. The barge carrying Katherine was enclosed; this was as well, for the rotting heads of Culpeper and Dereham were still to be seen above London Bridge. The Queen, wearing a black velvet dress, sat with four of her ladies and three or four members of the Privy Council. Behind came the Duke of Suffolk's barge, crowded with his retinue. At the Tower stairs, the lords disembarked first and the Queen followed. The same forms of respect were shown to her as in happier days. She was greeted by the Constable of the Tower, Sir John Gage, who 'paid her as much honour as when she was reigning', but he was concerned to find that his prisoner was in a state of such abject distress that she seemed on the verge of collapse. 'She weeps, cries and torments herself miserably without ceasing,' he wrote to the Privy Council, after having conducted Katherine to her lodging. It is uncertain where this was, but likely that it was the rooms in the Lieutenant's house once occupied by Anne Boleyn.
In the evening, John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, came to hear the Queen's confession and to offer her spiritual comfort. She swore to him, 'in the name of God and His Holy angels, and on the salvation of my soul', that she was innocent of the crimes for which she stood condemned. She had never 'so abused my sovereign's bed'. She did not seek to excuse the faults and follies of her youth; God would be her judge, and she looked for His pardon. She asked the Bishop to pray with her for divine mercy, and fell to her knees beside him, beseeching the Almighty for strength to cope with her coming ordeal.
The Act of Attainder against Katherine still lacked the King's signature, and the execution could not go ahead without it. To spare Henry any further distress, the Council arranged for the royal assent to be signified by attaching the Great Seal; and at the top of the Act was written the time-honoured phrase: 'Le Roy le veuf - 'The King wills it.' On Saturday, u February, the Act was read in Parliament to the assembled members of both Houses, and the royal assent proclaimed.
The Queen's execution could now take place, but not on a Sunday, so Katherine had a day's reprieve. On the evening of that Sunday, she was visited by Sir John Gage and instructed to 'disburden her conscience' to her confessor, for she was to die the following day. Calmer now, she spoke of her anxiety about making a good impression on the scaffold, and asked if the block might be brought to her room, so that she might learn how to place herself. Gage thought this a strange request, but he did not refuse it. The block was brought and Katherine spent the evening coming to terms with her fate.
The Tower was a hive of activity that weekend, for the Constable's staff were busy caring for the illustrious prisoners then lodged within the fortress. But at least Katherine's last night on earth was not disturbed, as Anne Boleyn's had been, by the noise of workmen erecting the scaffold.
Monday, 13 February 1542 was cold and dull, with a ground frost. At seven o'clock, every member of the King's Council except Norfolk, who had been excused this final duty, and Suffolk, who was ill, presented themselves at the Tower with a number of other lords and gentlemen, among them the Earl of Surrey, who was Norfolk's son and the Queen's cousin. All were conducted to Tower Green, where the scaffold had once again been hung with black cloth and strewn with straw. When Katherine was led out of her lodgings by Sir John Gage and a detachment of yeomen warders, she appeared so weak that she could hardly stand or speak. Nevertheless, she made what one onlooker, Otwell Johnson, in a letter written to his brother the next day, described as a 'godly and Christian end'. She asked all Christian people to take regard unto her worthy and just punishment with death, for her offences against God heinously from her youth upward in breaking of all His commandments, and also against the King's Royal Majesty very dangerously.
She admitted she had been justly condemned and that she merited a hundred deaths, and required the people to look to her as an example and amend their 'ungodly lives', urging them to obey the King in all things. She prayed for her husband, and willed everyone present to do the same, before commending her soul to God and 'earnestly calling for mercy upon Him'. Not for Katherine the elegant sword that had beheaded her cousin, but - as the chronicler Hall confirms - an axe, that severed her pretty auburn head in a single stroke just moments after she had made her last speech.
Lady Rochford followed her to the block. She was still 'in a frenzy', according to Chapuys, and the King had had to order the passing of a special Act enabling him to have insane persons executed before he could dispose of her. Yet, at the last, faced with the axe and the spectacle of the Queen's blood-soaked remains being wrapped in a black blanket by her sobbing ladies, she recovered her reason sufficiently to enable her to make an edifying speech before submitting to the executioner.
Katherine's attendants laid her remains in a waiting coffin and carried it into the nearby Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. There, later that day, she was buried near Anne Boleyn. Then her name was tactfully forgotten by all until, in 1553, the Act of Attainder against her was among those reversed by Queen Mary; because they did not bear the royal signature, such Acts were no longer recognised as legal.
16
Never a wife more agreeable to his heart
The marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine Howard was never formally annulled, even though there were good grounds for so doing, and consequently the King became a widower on her death. For a time, though, he was anything but a merry one, and it was eighteen months before he found the woman he wanted to make his sixth wife and before he recovered fully from the blow dealt by Katherine's adultery.