Katherine Howard: A New History

by Byrne, Conor

  Henry’s later actions in response to Katherine’s downfall support both this point and Lipscomb’s argument. He refused to grant his queen a public trial and threatened to kill her himself. The use of attainders has been described as follows:

  In total, in Henry VIII’s reign, sixty-eight people were condemned without trial by common law. Thirty-four of them were executed [...] Many of these had been condemned by parliamentary attainder precisely because they had either not technically committed treason or there was insufficient evidence to prove their guilt, leaving the record vague and unspecific as to their crimes. It was a legalistic way of evading the law, of acting illegally [my italics].6

  It was enough to Katherine’s disadvantage that she was singularly inexperienced, having only served at court for a maximum of eight months when she became queen of England, in contrast to her predecessors Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, who had enjoyed long years in royal service. When her youth and relatively limited education is added to this, one senses serious difficulties with her attempts to establish a secure and successful foundation as queen of England. But taking Lipscomb’s argument into account, these difficulties were exacerbated by the personal situation Katherine found herself in. She was married to a paranoid, suspicious and irascible monarch who feared betrayal and treachery at every corner. It has been credibly suggested that the Henrician court became a darker place in the last decade of Henry VIII’s reign, a period when the court was rocked by political scandal, heightened religious controversy and factional conflicts. It might be going too far to suggest that Katherine was doomed from the beginning, but her eventual downfall just over a year after her marriage might, in view of the increasingly tyrannical nature of Henry VIII and the poisoned nature of the court, convincingly be characterised as resulting from the queen being placed ‘in circumstances beyond her control’.7

  Although the rumours alleging that the new queen was pregnant in the summer of 1540 turned out to be false, Katherine was introduced to the Tudor dynasty in a different form through her relations with Henry’s three surviving children by his first three marriages. It is likely that, of Henry’s three children, it was Princess Mary, daughter of Katherine of Aragon, with whom the new queen first became acquainted with, according to court reports and Mary’s own residence within the court. Following the downfall of Anne Boleyn, Mary had agreed that her parents’ marriage was invalid and consequently had been restored to favour, residing at court where she enjoyed amicable relations with Queen Jane. She had served as godmother at the christening of Prince Edward, and her father took steps to negotiate foreign marriage alliances with European princes. The downfall and disgrace of the family of Mary’s former governess, Margaret Pole, in 1538-9 personally endangered Mary’s security, for her own position to the throne remained suspect.8 Despite this, her place at court remained secure and she probably personally greeted Queen Katherine shortly after her marriage. Most modern historians, however, characterise relations between the two women as difficult if not openly hostile.9 At Christmas 1540, the imperial ambassador, who had enjoyed a warm relationship with Mary for much of the preceding decade, reported that the queen sought to remove two of Mary’s maids as a punishment for her failure to treat Katherine with the same respect with which she had shown Jane and Anne of Cleves. Chapuys remained positive, however, stating that Mary had ‘found means to conciliate her, and thinks her maids will remain’.10

  In view of this, it is supposed that ‘it was almost inevitable that the two ladies should have clashed, for they were the antithesis of each other’.11 Apparently ‘there seems to have been a wide temperamental gap between the two women despite their common taste for fine clothes and jewellery’.12 Historians suspect that relations were not helped by the fact that the new queen was considerably younger than her stepdaughter. But although relations between the two may initially have been difficult because of a misunderstanding, it is dangerous to assume that Mary openly resented her new stepmother, or that Katherine disliked the eldest daughter of her husband, when there is virtually no evidence to support this conclusion. If Mary did initially view Katherine somewhat negatively, it was probably not the new queen’s youth or her temperament that offended Mary, for Anne of Cleves had been aged only five months older than herself and sixteenth-century royalty was often characterised by youthful marriages between sovereigns. Neither Chapuys nor the author of the Spanish Chronicle related that it had been the age difference that had resulted in hostilities. A more reasonable explanation is that Mary might have been informed, perhaps by ambassador Chapuys, of the damaging gossip circulating in England during the summer of 1540 regarding Queen Katherine, in which a Windsor priest had openly accused Henry’s new wife of immorality. If Mary had become aware of this slander, she may have questioned the suitability of her father’s new bride. Other observers, however, suspected that Katherine, as ‘a mere child’, resented the affection shown towards Mary at court.13 It was possibly Mary’s dislike of the Howard family, associated with Anne Boleyn, that rendered her initially suspicious towards her father’s latest bride.

  If relations between the two may have been initially difficult, extant documentation indicates that shortly afterwards the two resolved any outstanding conflict and behaved cordially towards one another. At New Year 1541, Mary sent her new mistress a gift, at which the king was said to show pleasure. Henry responded by sending his daughter two gifts from himself and Katherine.14 In May 1541, Chapuys reported that Katherine had ‘countenanced [...] with good grace’ the king’s decision to permit Mary to reside at court.15 During her period as queen, Katherine granted Mary the gift of ‘a pomander with gold wherein is a clock enamelled with divers colours, garnished with xij small rubies, having a chain of gold hanging at it, containing viij pieces of gold of one fashion enamelled black, garnished with xvj small rubies and xvj small turquoises, xxiiij small pieces of gold, and xxxij pearls in links of gold of the same chain’.16 Relations with the younger Lady Elizabeth, aged seven, may have been less complex. The queen similarly bestowed upon her stepdaughter gifts of jewellery.17 In May, she journeyed to Baynard’s Castle and Chelsea, perhaps with the intention of supervising the residence of Elizabeth.18 Around the same time the queen apparently encouraged a visit to the household of Prince Edward at Waltham in Essex, accompanied by Lady Mary and the king.19 Katherine cannot have failed to have been aware, however, that while it was beneficial for her to enjoy warm relations with her stepchildren, it was more essential that she bear her husband a son in order to completely secure the Tudor succession.

  In early 1541, while both her husband and her family prayed hopefully for the queen to fall pregnant, Katherine’s jointure was settled on her. The queen received the castles, lordships and manors that had formerly belonged to Jane Seymour during her queenship, and was also granted the lands of Master Secretary Thomas Cromwell, Walter Lord Hungerford (also executed on 28 July 1540) and Hugh Abbot of Reading. Together these lands were extensive and made the new queen a wealthy landowner. She owned land in the counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Dorset and Somerset.20 Katherine also enjoyed the usage of a private barge when departing from Chelsea to Baynard’s Castle and vice versa, with twenty-six bargemen commanded by Robert Kyrton and twenty gentlemen ‘serving the train’.21 As mentioned earlier, the queen was supplied with a lavish and costly household, supervised by the Earl of Rutland as lord chamberlain, Sir Thomas Dennys as chancellor and Sir John Dudley as master of the horse. Her household cost the king £4,600 annually and comprised four gentlemen ushers, a cup bearer, a clerk, two chaplains, two gentlemen waiters, six great ladies, four ladies of the privy chamber, five maids, twelve chamber yeomen, four footmen, seven sumptermen, two litter men and seventeen grooms.22

  As Queen of England, Katherine was expected to act as patron, as her predecessors had done, and become accustomed to dealing with financial transactions and matters of property. During her period as queen, there is extant evidence of Katherine’s desire to fulfil her
traditional responsibilities. She leased the manor of Much Marcle to the gentleman Richard Scudamore of Wilton, Herefordshire, with note of surrender for renewal in 1557. In November 1540, at Windsor, the queen wrote to Edward Lee Archbishop of York seeking him to grant the advowson of the arch-deanery of York upon her unnamed chaplain, reminding him of a previous unsuccessful attempt on her behalf. The archbishop responded in early December by noting that he ‘never granted advowson saving at the king’s commandment, but one, which I have many times sore repented’. He did promise, however, the next position available to another of the queen’s chaplains, Lowe, worth £40 per annum.23 Although evidence is inconclusive, Katherine may also have helped her page Anthony Stoughton in his quest to obtain the hospital of St John at Warwick in late December 1540, and may also have assisted her footman Laurence Lee in acquiring the keepership of seven woods in Rutland.24

  The queen also participated in ceremonies befitting her status as the king’s wife and reflective of her gender. On 22 February 1541, she became a godparent alongside her stepdaughter Mary at the birth of Jane Seymour, daughter of Edward, Viscount Beauchamp and his wife Anne Stanhope. Her role as patron was further demonstrated in the winter of 1540, when Richard Jones dedicated his treatise The Birth of Mankind, a Study of Childbirth to ‘our most gracious and virtuous Queen Katherine’, completing his translation of the treatise from the Latin ‘for the love of all womanhood, and chiefly for the most bound service the which I owe unto your gracious highness’.25 Soon after Jones’s dedication to the queen, Katherine and her husband presided over the Christmas festivities at court. Royal relatives, such as the queen’s predecessor and now the king’s ‘sister’, Anne duchess of Cleves, were invited to court for the celebrations. On 3 January, Anne accompanied by Lord William Howard personally visited Katherine and paid homage to her, having sent the king a New Year’s gift of two horses with violet velvet trappings. She kneeled before the queen and the queen responded by showing Anne ‘the utmost kindness’. At this point the king entered the room and, following a bow, embraced and kissed his former wife. After the king retired to bed, Katherine and Anne danced together in the evening and dined together the next day alongside the king. Katherine generously gave her former mistress the present of a ring and two small dogs, which Henry had given to her as a present. Later that day Anne returned to her residence at Richmond.26

  Katherine’s activities in the spring of 1541 suggest her intent to act as a traditional queen consort in acts of intercession. Her actions were entirely traditional, especially because ‘churchmen stressed the queen-consort’s duty to intercede with the king on behalf of the poor and oppressed’.27 The queen has traditionally been credited with meeting with her tailor on 1 March and ordering him to send garments to Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, a prisoner in the Tower of London on charges of treason. The Countess was sent a furred nightgown, a kirtle of worsted, a furred petticoat, a satin-lined nightgown, a bonnet and frontlet, four pairs of hose, four pairs of shoes and a pair of slippers.28 Tragically, the 68-year old noblewoman was beheaded in May 1541, but one would hope that Katherine’s gifts provided her with at least some comfort. Whether Katherine herself personally asked her tailor to do so or whether he was ordered to by others is unclear. If she herself had personally acted it is likely that she required the king’s direct permission, for members of the Pole family had been arrested and executed a few years previously for their involvement in the Exeter Conspiracy.

  Three weeks later Katherine requested a pardon for the renowned court poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had also been imprisoned in the Tower, which was duly granted ‘at the great and continual suit of the Queen’s Majesty’. Sir John Wallop, charged with treason, was also pardoned at the same time through the queen’s intercession. In October of that year in Lincolnshire on their progress, Katherine was successful in beseeching her husband to pardon Helen Page of Lyndesey for felony.29 Her four recorded acts of intercession demonstrate Katherine’s desire to take her position as queen and its accompanying responsibilities seriously.

  Often dismissed as a senseless and irresponsible teenager who spent her days in wanton pleasure, the recorded evidence suggests a different picture of Katherine when read in light of court customs and prevailing notions of queenship in the sixteenth century. Her desire to grant prisoners pardons and her bequests of jewellery upon her relatives and ladies suggest a kind and warm young woman. Traditionally, historians have depicted Katherine as a hedonistic teenager who spent her days partying and merrymaking, rather than attending to the requisite duties of queenship. David Starkey, for instance, characterised Katherine as a ‘good time girl’, and this representation has prevailed in most aspects of popular culture. Tamzin Merchant in the Showtime television series The Tudors portrayed a queen who participated in mud fights and banquets, and who danced in the rain and traipsed around her chambers naked. Yet no historical evidence supports this representation of the queen’s activities. Chroniclers limited their accounts of Katherine’s tenure with confirmations of her appearances in court festivities. Charles Wriothesley reported, for instance, that the queen accompanied the king in March 1541 to Greenwich, and was celebrated by the London citizens, which was ‘a goodlie sight to beholde’.30 The prevailing interpretation of Katherine as a party-loving ‘good time girl’ is, in short, a misconception.

  Evidence suggests that she took her duties as queen seriously. She acted as patron for an author, she interceded on behalf of four individuals, and she supported her family, rewarded her friends, and corresponded with Archbishop Cranmer. Collectively, this indicates that Katherine, although young, may have been an individual who was shrewder, harder working, and more sensible than historians have usually believed. If any of Henry’s consorts were merrymakers and fun-lovers, it was Katherine’s cousin Anne Boleyn. As Edward Baynton wrote to Lord Rochford in June 1533: ‘and as for pastime in the Queen’s chamber was never more.’31

  Other scattered evidence from her tenure as queen indicates that Katherine was a lover of fashion and somewhat of a trendsetter at the English court, although it would be misleading to identify her as revolutionising style in the manner of Elizabeth I or Marie Antoinette. She appears to have revelled in fashion and clearly wished to impart that passion to other members of her court. Katherine may actually have been using fashion in a more clever and calculated effort to enhance and celebrate the prestige and power of the Tudor dynasty, by appearing well-dressed and mesmerising at the side of her husband, Henry VIII, a man who, of course, was well-known for his love of splendour and glory. Observers who were acquainted with the queen during her short tenure focused, above all, on her dress in their writings, ranging from the appreciative comments of the French ambassador, who met her in the glorious days of her honeymoon in the late summer of 1540, that she had taken to wearing French clothes, to the imperial ambassador’s recollection that she had been wearing a gown of black velvet when she was taken to the Tower of London barely eighteen months later.

  In September 1540, just two months after she had married Henry VIII, the French ambassador Charles Marillac visited her while the court was on progress. Although he found her to be graceful, rather than beautiful, Marillac appreciatively noted that she had dressed both herself and her ladies in the latest and most becoming French fashions. The notorious Chronicle of King Henry VIII of England, more commonly known as The Spanish Chronicle, was written by an unknown Spaniard in the mid-sixteenth century, and has been derided by historians for its inaccuracies and sensationalised nature. Interestingly, however, this account provides further insights into Katherine Howard’s love of fashion, and suggests that this love was known beyond the confines of the court. Just as Katherine of Aragon was revered for her piety, and Anne Boleyn famed for her interests in theology and music, so too might Katherine Howard have come to be associated with elegant and glamorous dress. The author wrote: ‘The King had no wife who made him spend so much money in dresses and jewels as she did, who every day had some fres
h caprice.’ It is a comment that could easily be written about the likes of Marie Antoinette. Add this remark to Ambassador Marillac’s comments and a clear picture emerges of a fashion-loving queen famed for her love of luxurious and expensive dress.

  But if Katherine loved adorning herself in the finest of fabrics and the most dazzling of jewels, she was ready and willing to impart that love to others and share it with them. A look at her inventory demonstrates this, and suggests a kind-hearted and caring girl who wanted others to love fashion in the same way she did. Katherine bestowed upon her two stepdaughters, the twenty-four year-old Mary and the seven year-old Elizabeth, gifts of jewellery, including a pomander of gold with rubies and pearls, and she was also to grant her former mistress and predecessor, the rejected Anne of Cleves, a ring.

  The last few months of Katherine’s life offer final tantalising glimpses into the close associations she was clearly felt to possess with fashion. Upon being imprisoned in Syon Abbey in November 1541, it was specifically ordered that her clothing should only be plain, and her French hoods should contain no jewels. Just as her expensive and lavish French fashion and royal jewellery had demonstrated her power and legitimacy as the beloved consort of the king in the times of her queenship, so too did Katherine’s downgraded fashion demonstrate visibly her disgrace and disfavour. Upon being taken to the Tower in February 1542, the imperial ambassador felt it apt to record that the queen, who had once taken such pride in French designs and glittering jewels, was merely wearing a gown of black velvet. This fashion choice may have been a calculated move on Katherine’s part, allowing for a measure of dignity and a suggestion of the gravity of her situation, or it may merely have reflected the limited array of clothing she now had at her disposal.