Catherine Howard's mother had died young and her father, though a nobleman, was perennially in debt.
So, from the age of about 10, she was brought up in the household of her father's step-mother, the dowager duchess of Norfolk.
The latter paid little attention to her step-granddaughter, and Catherine was poorly educated even for the time. However, the old woman was appalled to learn that her ward was having a sexual liaison with her own secretary Francis Dereham - being informed of this by the girl’s jealous music tutor, with whom she had had an affair from the age of about 11.
A grand political game
Catherine’s uncle, Thomas Howard, the 3rd duke of Norfolk, was head of an ambitious, largely Catholic clan that was the second most powerful family in England after the Tudors. He had already seen one of his nieces, Anne Boleyn, rise to queen of England, and in late 1539, he secured places at court for two more, Mary Norris and Catherine Howard.
Both became ladies-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves. Catherine loved the music, dancing, beautiful clothes, huge banquets and eligible young men. (Mary, on the other hand, married Admiral Sir George Carew, who perished in the sinking of the Mary Rose.)
Norfolk and his conservative allies spotted an opportunity to use his niece in a grand political game that would deliver Henry VIII from Anne, his unwanted Protestant queen, under whom their Catholic influence had waned. The 49-year-old king obligingly fell for Catherine at first sight. On 28 July 1540, two weeks after Parliament ratified the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Anne, the teenager married him in a quiet ceremony at Oatlands Palace in Surrey. He thought she was his pure Tudor flower.
Flirtatious romance
Although the ageing king had been rejuvenated by his young wife, he was slowed down by his obesity (he weighed about 21 stone) and a chronic leg abscess. Young Catherine loved to dance and Henry would sometimes have to watch as she performed with the pick of his young gentlemen. He closely scrutinised her behaviour, and when she was not pregnant after six months of marriage, he fell into a depression and shut her out of his life for a week.
After this, although it appeared that the marriage continued, the amount of gossip exploded. Catherine embarked on a flirtatious romance (which might not have been sexual) with Thomas Culpeper, a favourite of Henry’s, and when those who already knew about her youthful indiscretions found out about this latest one, they began to demand favours from her. To buy their silence, she gave them appointments at court - including, fatally, Francis Dereham.
Youthful liaisons
Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury, was a religious reformer strongly opposed to the Howards’ influence. When, in late autumn 1541, he learned of the queen’s past relationship with Dereham, he wasted no time in using it, passing to Henry letters that detailed her two youthful liaisons. They had been written by John Lascelles, a zealous Protestant whose sister Mary had been a chambermaid to Catherine’s step-grandmother.
When interrogated, Dereham claimed that Catherine and he had agreed to marry and had made love. If true, this would have meant that there had been a ‘precontract’ and thus Catherine’s marriage to Henry was void. However, Catherine, confined to her apartments and pressed to make a full confession, denied the precontract (even though admitting it would probably have saved her life) and claimed that Dereham had forced himself on her.
Deadly peril
This was still not enough to get rid of Catherine permanently. However, Cranmer came up with the name of another man: Thomas Culpeper. He initially claimed to be in love with Catherine - a love that was returned, as a love letter from Catherine, which was shown to Henry, attested - but denied that their relationship had gone any further. But under torture, both Culpeper and Dereham confessed to having had sex with the queen and were found guilty of ‘presumptive treason’. Culpeper was beheaded and Dereham was hanged, drawn and quartered.
Catherine was now in deadly peril, but Norfolk deserted her without a qualm, separating himself from her well enough that he was completely left out of the witch-hunt that followed. When she was informed of her death sentence, Catherine, like her cousin Anne Boleyn, requested a private execution. The night before it, she practised laying her head on the block, and on the day, 13 February 1542, she is said to have ‘died well’.
