Katherine Howard: A New History

by Byrne, Conor

  Despite the censure she faced for her unique position within the annulment struggle, the kinship between Anne and her Howard relatives brought tangible benefits, increasing the influence held by the Howard family within the English court. The Venetian ambassador Lodovico Falieri was able to report by November 1530 that Henry ‘makes use of him [Norfolk] in all negotiations more than any other person [...] and every employment devolves to him’.34 Similarly, Charles V in 1532 was informed that the Duke of Norfolk was ‘a man who willingly takes trouble in this matter, but would suffer anything for the sake of ruling’.35 In 1532 Norfolk’s thirteen-year old daughter Mary participated in the ceremony creating Anne Boleyn Marquess of Pembroke and was later to attend her during her first appearance as queen. Rather more obvious and lucrative benefits were acquired in the months leading to the marriage and coronation of Anne Boleyn, when Norfolk was created Earl Marshal on 28 May 1533, four days before the public coronation of his niece at Westminster Abbey, who was then six months pregnant. Norfolk’s role in the demotion of Katherine of Aragon, whose marriage had by now been formally annulled, was confirmed by Wriothesley: ‘on Easter evening, Anne Boleyn, Marquess of Pembroke, was proclaimed Queen at Greenwich. The Wednesday before the good Queen Katherine was deposed at Ampthill, Bedfordshire by the dukes Norfolk and Suffolk; the marquis of Exeter; the earl of Oxford; the treasurer; and comptroller. On 29 May 1533 she was received as Queen of England by all the lords of England.’36 Members of the Howard family played a prominent part in Anne’s coronation, with her uncle, Lord William Howard, carrying the rod of the marshal of England and the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, step-grandmother of Anne and Katherine, present in the procession.37 Other relatives, however, such as the Duchess of Norfolk, aunt of the queen, personally opposed Anne’s rise and openly expressed their sympathy for the old queen.

  Although Norfolk was not personally present at the pinnacle of her triumph, the coronation in June 1533, being on embassy in France, this particular point must surely be interpreted as the golden age for the Howard family when their connection with the Tudor dynasty was substantially confirmed by virtue of the marriage of their relative to England’s monarch. This was further strengthened by the birth of Princess Elizabeth to the king and his new queen in September, although the ambitions of the Howard family and the personal expectations of the Tudors required that the queen present her husband with a son in order to secure her position completely. While traditionally historians have interpreted Norfolk’s relations with his niece the queen as being strained due to their differing religious beliefs – the Howards being firmly conservative in their religious orthodoxy – the duke and his niece maintained a mutually beneficial relationship during the initial years of Anne’s marriage. Norfolk’s mistress, Bess Holland, was made one of the new queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and the fortunes of the Howard family and their closeness to the Tudors was further strengthened in the winter of 1533 through the marriage of Norfolk’s fourteen year-old daughter Mary to the king’s bastard son Henry Fitzroy. Uberto de Gambara further proposed that the duke approach the king with the idea of a marriage alliance between Mary Tudor, the bastardised daughter of Katherine of Aragon, and Henry Howard earl of Surrey, Norfolk’s heir:

  Only the duke of Norfolk can persuade him to do this by his influence, and relationship to the new queen, pointing out that the peace of the Kingdom and the settlement of the king’s son weighs more with him than the good of his own niece, and that if the king were to die before the son became a man, the next heirs might trouble the succession – the king of Scotland and the sons of the other sister and of the duke of Suffolk [...] I think I could point out to him that this course would so endear him to the emperor and the pope that they would enable him to have the princess for his son; whose right would not really be put aside, and they would afterwards help to maintain him by force.38

  Whether this report can be credited is difficult to ascertain, for ambassadorial reports were often heavily based on rumour, hearsay and gossip circulating at the English court. It is impossible to know whether or not the duke did suffer a long-term estrangement with Queen Anne, based on differing religious interests, for the Spanish ambassador reported that the queen personally scolded the duke as if he were a ‘dog, so much so that Norfolk was obliged to quit the royal chamber’, referring to his niece as a ‘whore’.39 Historians have traditionally asserted that a personal crisis occurred in the relationship between Norfolk and the queen soon after the birth of Elizabeth, with the duke resenting his niece’s assertiveness and power within the court, which threatened his own religious and political interests. Although it may be likely that he, like his male contemporaries, believed that women should not hold substantial power and influence to the detriment of male figures within the court, the surviving evidence compiled by resident ambassadors must be considered sceptically, since the queen had brought unprecedented prestige to the Howard family, firstly through her marriage to Henry VIII and secondly through her personal involvement in the marriage alliance between her cousin Mary, daughter of Norfolk, and Henry Fitzroy, son of the king.

  It is unlikely that the duke would have forfeited his favour with his niece the queen on the basis of personal religious beliefs to the detriment of the overall fortunes of the Howard family, for Anne had been instrumental in ensuring that the Howards achieved greater success and prominence at Henry VIII’s court, which acted politically as a microcosm of the English state. Her female attendants included several Howards, with Mary Howard, Elizabeth Boleyn, Mary Shelton, Mary Boleyn and Jane Parker, Lady Rochford, foremost amongst Anne’s ladies-in-waiting.40 Directly relevant to Anne’s young cousin Katherine Howard, in 1535 the queen acting together with Norfolk successfully achieved for Edmund Howard some forfeited goods worth 200 marks.41 The appointment of Howard women within the queen’s household to increase the prestige of the Howard family and further this family’s influence at court can be looked at when considering the age of Katherine Howard, for had she been born in 1520-1 as many historians still believe, then surely her uncle or her step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, would have sought a position for her within Anne’s household as a maid-of-honour. That there is no evidence of them doing so indicates that Anne’s young cousin was still too young to serve at court.42 Further rewards were granted to Norfolk through his association with the new queen, including a French pension and an invitation for his son, Surrey, to accompany the king’s bastard son and Norfolk’s son-in-law, Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Richmond, to the French court.43

  The suggestion here that the duke did not suffer a personal fall-out with his niece the queen has also been offered by other historians, who argue that ‘when Norfolk suffered reduced power and influence after 1531, it was less the result of a strained relationship with his niece than his own lack of talent and commitment’, ‘[...] in terms of his leadership of the Howard clan and political faction at court, this senior member of the family [Norfolk] spent a lifetime chasing after the unattainable’, ‘he was no more successful as a politician at court’.44 Seemingly the likelier view, the nature of fertility politics within the Henrician court, means that Anne’s position as queen was not fully secure through giving birth to Elizabeth in September 1533. A son was needed in order to ensure her legitimacy as queen consort and to preserve the continuation of the Tudor dynasty. From a European perspective, the new queen was no more than a mischievous harlot who had bewitched, or manipulated, a pliable king into annulling his marriage with a good Spanish princess and marrying her instead, fathering a bastard daughter who was no more legitimate than Henry Fitzroy. In view of this, it is likely that Norfolk counselled his niece on the necessity of bearing Henry VIII a male heir, in order to avoid the fate of Katherine of Aragon and to ensure that the Howard family’s burgeoning influence at court increased further.

  The succession troubles that affected the royal family directly involved the queen’s relatives. Mary Tudor, aged seventeen at the birth of her half-sister in 1533, ref
used to renounce her title as princess, leading to the king her father ordering Norfolk to visit her ‘concerning the diminishing of her high estate of the name and dignity of Princess’. Visiting her at Beaulieu, the Duke of Norfolk informed the king’s eldest daughter that the king ‘desired her to go to the Court and service of [Elizabeth], whom he named Princess’, but Mary refused since the title of princess, in her eyes, rightfully belonged to her and not to her infant half-sister. The duke, however, informed her that ‘he had not come to dispute but to accomplish the King’s will’, before Mary finally agreed to depart, ‘with a very small suite’.45 Around the same time, the Duke of Suffolk was involved in compelling Katherine of Aragon’s servants to refer to her as princess dowager rather than queen, and attempting to encourage the king’s first wife to retire to Somersham, a mission that was spectacularly unsuccessful. These troubles that plagued the English succession had brutal repercussions, with Bishop John Fisher of Rochester and Sir Thomas More, both of whom had formerly been close to Henry VIII, suffering execution for high treason in the summer of 1535.46 According to the Spanish ambassador, demonstrating contemporary values that perceived women, as deceitful and sinful creatures as to blame for their husbands’ follies, Queen Anne following these executions entreated the king ‘that he does not act with prudence in suffering the Queen and Princess to live, who deserved death more than all those who have been executed, and that they were the cause of all’.47 Anne’s deep fears and hostility towards the former queen and her daughter can meaningfully be understood in context of the prevailing concern about the Tudor succession within both the court and England as a whole. Well aware that Katherine had been rusticated for her inability to solve the succession crisis, Anne perceived that, only through bearing Henry VIII a healthy son could her position as queen remain secure, for no blame could be attached to her husband were her attempts to prove futile. In view of this, it is evident that ‘by his divorce and remarriage Henry had created for himself a domestic tangle that was unusual for his day [...] when his second consort presented him with a female child, confusion reigned in the minds of many about which daughter had the better claim to the throne’.48

  Contemporaries generally adhered to the prevailing view that ‘the queen’s lying-in is the foundation of everything’.49 Yet it is likely that it was the king, rather than his queens, who was responsible for the lack of a son to succeed him to the throne.50 Although this seems plausible, and will be discussed in greater detail during the reign of Anne’s cousin Katherine, it can hardly be doubted that the queen’s failure to bear a son compounded her personal difficulties, for she was never a popular queen consort in the same way in which her predecessor, Queen Katherine, had been. The Abbot of Whitby likely voiced the opinion of many when he declared that ‘the king’s grace was ruled by one common stewed whore, Anne Bullan, who made all the spirituality to be beggared and the temporalty also’.51 Her association with Thomas Cromwell and reformist bishops, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, meant that Anne was viewed with even greater hostility amongst traditional Catholics within England who resented the break from Rome and the rapid rate of religious changes occurring during Henry’s reign. The Succession Act, directed by Cromwell and which required every person in the country to swear an oath to support Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne, fuelled discontent with the king’s new marriage. George Cavendish, who resented the queen and directly blamed her for Cardinal Wolsey’s downfall, created an arrogant and vindictive Anne in his Verses written during the reign of Mary I, who was to blame for the unpopular changes: ‘I was the author why laws were made for speaking against me [...] it was my full intent lineally to succeed in this Imperial crown.’52 Cavendish’s discontent seems to have been shared by many, for ‘the people, horrified to see such unprecedented and brutal atrocities, muttered in whispers about these events and often blamed Queen Anne’.53

  Because, as has been noted, aristocratic women directly contributed to and affected the successes and failures of their families as daughters, wives, and widows, the Duke of Norfolk and his kin could only have been relieved to discover that the queen was once more pregnant in the spring of 1534, particularly against a backdrop of mounting discontent in England and the troubled state of international politics from an English perspective.54 The king personally informed Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, in February 1534 that he would soon become a father again, while at court the queen’s ‘goodly’ belly was remarked upon by those present.55 It is likely that both the ambassador and his master Charles V feared the news of Anne’s pregnancy, for were she to bear a son to the king, this would conclusively mean that Princess Mary, daughter of Katherine, could never succeed to the English throne. This was not to be, however; for some months later, on 23 September, Chapuys reported that the king believed that his wife was not truly pregnant, signalling an end to the couple’s hopes.56 The failed pregnancy was shrouded in mystery, meaning that historians have not been successful in discovering what the outcome of Anne’s second pregnancy was, but the likelihood was that she had suffered a miscarriage in the late summer of 1534, probably weeks before her due date.57

  The state of the English succession was placed in further difficulties resulting from European politics, which was characterised mainly by a continuing refusal to accept Henry’s second marriage as valid in view of the fact that not only was his first marriage lawful but his second wife had failed to provide her husband with the desired male heir. Both Henry and Anne were eager to maintain their friendship with the French, inviting French envoys resident in England during the spring of 1534 to convey their support of the marriage through meeting the new princess. Chapuys reported the meeting: Elizabeth ‘was brought out to them splendidly accoutred and dressed, and in princely state, with all the ceremonial her governess could think of, after which they saw her quite undressed’.58 At the same time, Lord Rochford, younger brother of the queen, journeyed to France to discuss plans with the French king for a marriage alliance between Elizabeth and Charles, Duke of Angoulême. Following the queen’s miscarriage that summer, however, relations between England and France deteriorated. Chapuys informed the emperor in January 1535 that, following a banquet at which the sieur de Brion attended, Anne had burst out laughing, explaining that: ‘I could not help laughing at the King’s proposition of introducing your secretary to me, for whilst he was looking out for him he happened to meet a lady, who was the cause of his forgetting everything’.59 Palamedes Gontier, treasurer of Brittany, who met the queen that same month, was informed personally by her that: ‘the Admiral must think of applying some remedy, and act towards the King so that she may not be ruined and lost, for she sees herself very near that, and in more grief and trouble than before her marriage. She charged him to beg the Admiral to consider her affairs, of which she could not speak as fully as she wished, on account of her fears, and the eyes which were looking at her, her husband’s and the lords’ present. She said she could not write, nor see him again, nor stay longer.’60

  It is clear that the queen found herself in a troubling predicament by 1535, for not only had she failed to provide Henry VIII with a male heir, which she had promised to do through her marriage to him, but her daughter’s legitimacy was placed in considerable doubt through the collapse of the promises of the French that Elizabeth should marry their prince, Angoulême. Hostile observers further recorded that Anne had suffered a breakdown in her relationship with the Duke of Norfolk, who complained that he had not received sufficient rewards from her who he had so vigorously supported.61 Other evidence intriguingly indicates that other Howard relatives, aside from the duke, experienced mounting discontent with their kinswoman and the policies they associated with her and Master Secretary Cromwell. During the royal couple’s progress in the summer and autumn of 1535, Lady Rochford, sister-in-law to the queen, and Lady William Howard, the step-aunt of Anne, were likely among a number of wives of London citizens and some of the queen’s ladies who demonstrated at Greenwich Palace
in support of the Lady Mary. Chapuys later reported that ‘the marchioness of Exeter sent to say that four or five days ago the king talking about the princess, said that he should provide that soon she would not want any company, and that she would be an example to show that no one ought to disobey the laws and he meant to fulfil what had been foretold of him [...] he would be gentle as a lamb and at the end worse than a lion’.62 Chapuys’ report is telling in relation to who was the real author of Mary’s ill-treatment. In keeping with contemporary mores, however, like other male chroniclers the Spanish ambassador castigated Queen Anne for her alleged cruelty and spite towards the rightful princess, failing to recognise that it was actually her husband who treated his daughter thus out of outrage at her, in his eyes, disobedience and stubborn behaviour.

  The death of Katherine of Aragon in January 1536 and the revelation of Queen Anne’s third pregnancy around the same time enacted the beginning of a new phase in the fortunes of the Howard family, which was to have long-term consequences. As has been recognised, the death of the old queen should have ensured that Anne was in a stronger position than ever before, for this event encouraged the European powers of France and particularly the Holy Roman Empire to view Henry VIII’s second marriage as lawful in view of his first wife’s death. Henry VIII’s joy at Katherine’s passing was clearly visible: ‘the king was clad all over in yellow, from top to toe, except the white feather he had in his bonnet, and the Little Bastard [Elizabeth] was conducted to mass with trumpets and other great triumphs. After dinner the king entered the room in which the ladies danced, and there did several things like one transported with joy. At last he sent for his Little Bastard, and carrying her in his arms he showed her to one and then another.’63 Despite Katherine’s death, and her third pregnancy, the queen was aware that her enemies were keen to utilise fertility politics to their advantage, for in the eyes of Imperialist sympathisers the king was now a widower and could be encouraged to marry again and, perhaps, return to the Roman Church and resolve the English schism.