King Henry VIII & Catherine Howard

Rose Without a Thorn?

In 1540, King Henry VIII was 49 years old, and not a young 49. He had already married four wives and dumped three of them, one into a grave. The one he didn't dump - third wife Jane Seymour - gave him what he wanted most, a son, then ensured that she would never lose his gratitude by dying in childbirth.

All of these marriages, in Henry's view, had been a matter of obligation. It was his duty as king to marry and father a son and heir - a pleasant duty, it might be, but still a duty. Finally he had done it. His fourth marriage, to Anne of Cleves, was a political move for the sake of an alliance. Henry found her so distasteful he wasn't even angry at her; instead he quickly divorced her, and beheaded the advisor who had suggested it.

For his fifth marriage Henry VIII was simply looking for a good time. He didn't want witty and sophisticated, like Anne Boleyn; he just wanted sexy. He looked in the usual place - among the ladies-in-waiting of his soon to be ex-wife, Anne of Cleves - and found exactly what he wanted. Her name was Catherine Howard, and she was about sixteen years old.

No one said she was a great beauty, and there is no definite portrait of her. (The picture shown in many books is no longer thought to be her.) Henry didn't need beautiful, he just needed nice looking and hot, and Catherine was plenty hot. Unfortunately for her, just how hot came out later in court proceedings. But in the weeks and months after marrying her, Henry was in better spirits than he'd been in years: Clearly she was bringing out his inner teenager. He called her his "rose without a thorn."

Bad Girls

Catherine, like Anne Boleyn, was a distant relative of the Duke of Norfolk. Unlike Anne she had actually grown up in the duke's household at Lambeth Palace, living with several other young female relatives in what amounted to a girls' dorm . To the great ducal Howards these girls were mostly a family inconvenience, to be taken care of as long as necessary, then dumped off onto minor hangers-on of the nobility...unless one of them happened to catch the king's eye.

Suddenly Catherine Howard went from family afterthought to favored charge, allowing her powerful relatives to extend their influence into the royal bedchamber. They eagerly promoted Catherine's budding romance with Henry. Unfortunately for everyone involved, and especially Catherine, no one thought to put her through what is now called the vetting process, and find out how she had spent her time while growing up at the Howards'.

If they had, they would have found out that King Henry VIII was not the first man to be turned on by Catherine Howard. The first was Henry Manox, a music teacher for the girls of the household. Next in Catherine's affections came Francis Dereham, a "gentleman" of well-established but non-noble family, and after him Sir Thomas Culpepper. Catherine was working her way up the social ladder, and presumably having a great time doing it.

Our mental image of sixteenth-century upbringing and moral codes, especially as applied to girls and young women, is of strict "traditional values.". Contemporary child-raising guides and many first-hand accounts confirm this image. The Duke of Norfolk's household, however, shows another side of English social life in the 16th century. Supervision in the girls' dorm was clearly lax. No one checked in on what the family's unimportant teenage relatives were doing after hours, or what sort of lessons they were learning from the music teacher.

If Catherine Howard had married one of her early boyfriends, her active sex life might have led to a local scandal (or a very happy husband). Unfortunately for her, she married Henry VIII. Even then she might have slipped away from her past, except that she was not willing to let go of it - or it was not willing to let go of her. Francis Dereham turned up, pestering her for a job. Worse, Thomas Culpepper also turned up, and he and Catherine picked up where they had left off.

Popular history and tradition, which assigns a pigeonhole to each of Henry's six wives, has cast Catherine Howard as the Slut. She was no sophisticated Anne Boleyn, who enchanted a poet as well as a king. Also unlike Anne Boleyn, who was executed on unbelievable charges of adultery, Catherine Howard was beheaded for adultery charges that were likely true.

Catherine was certainly a bad girl by the conventional standards of the 1540s, or the 1950s. Her fatal sin, however, was being desperately naive. When she found that Henry VIII of all people was suddenly interested in her, there was nothing she could do to change her past. Nor, probably, could she think of a graceful way to explain that if Henry was looking for a virgin bride, she was not the girl for him. (Henry apparently didn't notice her non-virginity on their first night.)

Carrying on an affair with Thomas Culpepper, however, was incredibly reckless for anyone married to Henry VIII, just three years after Anne Boleyn bent her head to the ax. Catherine Howard herself had no political enemies, since she had no political or religious views to speak of. The Howard family did, however, and the queen's slipping out-and-about got noticed. Inevitably word reached Henry. He flew into a rage, grabbed a sword, and threatened to kill her on the spot.

He didn't. Instead Henry VIII did as he always did, using the machinery of the law to get his way. Hearings were held, witnesses questioned. For once Henry actually had a case. In a hereditary monarchy a queen's adultery was a serious matter - it raised the very delicate question of who the next king's real father might be. Other kings, though, might settle for imprisoning their soiled dove or even for simply bundling her off in disgrace, rather than having her beheaded.

Henry had Catherine Howard beheaded, along with Thomas Culpepper, and another lady-in-waiting (Lady Rocheford, sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn) who had helped them arrange their trysts. Frances Dereham - whose only crime had been sleeping with Catherine before she married Henry - suffered a more horrific fate. Because of his humble birth, instead of being simply beheaded he was hanged, drawn, and quartered.