Katherine Howard

Early Life

Katherine Howard was the fifth wife of Henry VIII, and the second one he killed. Her fateful love story began when her uncle, Thomas Howard, who was her cousin Anne Boleyn’s father, secured a place for her in Anne of Cleves’ household: Henry famously chose his next wife from his previous queen’s staff, so Katherine always had a significant chance at being Henry’s next bride. 49 year old Henry married the 17 year old just 19 days after his annulment with Anne of Cleves — a fairly quick respite period but not his fastest — making her his youngest queen.

Katherine was a member of the English gentry; her family was aristocratic but not wealthy, and she was sent to live with her father’s stepmother, the Dowager Duchess, in a house for children of aristocratic but poor relatives when she was young. Supervision, though, was lax and Katherine’s famous flirtatious behaviour began as she was influenced by older girls to meet men in their rooms. She wasn’t well educated like Henry’s other wives, but her personality was bubbly and she was quite the vivacious character, exactly the kind of woman who attracted the King.

When Katherine was 13 she engaged in a relationship with her first music teacher, Henry Mannox, and the nature of their love has been hotly debated among historians. Some claim that Henry took advantage of the young Katherine and she was completely helpless while others suggest that the relationship was consensual. His age has also been contested: some suggest he was in his mid thirties while others claim he was much closer in age to her, and a historians’ belief one way or the other generally tends to influence their perception of the relationship. Historian Gareth Russell has claimed that regardless of Mannox’s age, “their relationship was nonetheless inappropriate, on several levels.” Katherine herself was recorded to have said “at the flattering and fair persuasions of Mannox, being but a young girl, I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body, which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require.”

After her relationship with Mannox ended she quickly became involved with Francis Dereham, secretary to the Dowager Duchess. By all accounts, it seems that they were much more in love than Katherine and Henry Mannox, addressing each other in their love letters as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ but there is still plenty of evidence of grooming and abuse. When the Dowager Duchess found out, they had to part and Dereham was sent to Ireland, but they signed a pre-marriage contract, which means that any intercourse they did have would have been allowed in the eyes of the Church. This was later ignored by Henry, however.

Life at Court

Her arrival at court went unnoticed for a short while, but soon her vivacity and youthfulness, as well as her cheeky personality caught the King’s eye and they married fairly quickly after beginning their relationship. At first, Henry was rather infatuated as he always was in the early stages of his marriages, and according to some eyewitness accounts he ‘indulged her every whim’. The match initially changed little at Court, however. Katherine was still only 17, too young to take on any administrative duties or play a leading role at Court in the same way other queen consorts did.

At this time, Henry was also suffering from extreme chronic pain as the leg that he injured in 1527 was rotting away beneath him and his health was deteriorating. As such, he had a furious temper and the romance that was often reported in his other marriages soon disappeared from this one. Katherine was attractive to him, but their actual compatibility left a lot to be desired. Although his mood did pick up a few months after the wedding, the marriage quickly headed south.

Katherine began receiving blackmail threats from people who knew of her sexual activities during her time with the Dowager Duchess. She may also have been involved with a man named Thomas Culpeper, Henry’s favourite courtier and a distant cousin of hers who she had once considered marrying. The letter she wrote him that was found in his accommodation is the only surviving letter left of Katherine’s and was used against her in the infidelity inquisitions.

Once Henry was satisfied that Katherine was unfaithful to him, she was sentenced to death. Thomas Cranmer, a man known for his cold composure, reportedly felt terribly sorry for Katherine after delivering this news to her and arranged for measures to prevent her suicide after seeing her in such a pitiable state.

The night before her death, she practiced how to lay her head on the block for hours after specially requesting it arguably highlighting her youth: even in her final moments she was desperate to appear composed, older than her years. She was a teenage girl sentenced to death because of an entitled king and greedy onlookers wanting to profit from her tragedy.

Although she died in a relatively dignified manner, she was apparently pale and terrified and required assistance to climb onto the scaffold. Folklore stories have reported that her final words were ‘I die a queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper’, but there is little evidence for this. It seems she gave the standard speech of a disgraced criminal sentenced to death for treason, saying that she deserved this punishment for betraying a king who had only ever been kind and generous to her. Dereham was hung, drawn and quartered and Culpeper was beheaded after being tried for high treason, implemented in Katherine’s crimes.

I think Katherine’s story may be the one I find the most tragic out of all of Henry’s wives. She was 19 when she died and 17 when she was forced to marry a 49 year old man whose leg was rotting away and had a horrible temper. After being taken advantage of by various men in her youth, she was naive and desperate for the right kind of attention, seeking it out in Culpeper in the end when she couldn’t find it in the man who was supposed to provide for her. Some suggest that her relationship with Culpeper wasn’t even a sexual one, but more of a protective mentor, and a shoulder to cry on. Either way, I feel so sorry for Katherine. No other tale quite shows Henry’s cold, calloused cruelty in such an acute manner, and I think Katherine died a victim of predatory old men and a misogynistic culture that ultimately she paid the price for while they escaped true justice.