Katherine Howard: A New History (27 page)

Lord Chancellor Audley, however, warned that the queen should not be proceeded against too hastily for she was ‘an illustrious and public’ person and so her case should ‘be judged with [...] integrity’. He recommended that Katherine should be allowed to speak in her own defence to the peers of the realm.
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The Earl of Southampton, Archbishop Cranmer, the Duke of Suffolk and the Bishop of Westminster later met with the queen, who confirmed her guilt and asked for the king to bestow some of her clothes upon her ladies for she had no other way of paying them for their service.

On 11 February the attainder against the queen and Lady Rochford became law. It was made a criminal offence for any future consort who was not a virgin to conceal her sexual past from the king. Unlike Anne Boleyn, Katherine was never granted a trial in which to publicly proclaim her innocence and state her case before the peers of the realm. Although acts of attainder had been consistently used by earlier monarchs such as Richard III and Henry VII, to deny the queen consort an opportunity to stand trial was unusual. As would later be stated by the defenders of Mary Queen of Scots, ‘it is against all law and reason to condemn any living creature without first hearing them in their defence’.
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Unsurprisingly, it has been stated with regard to Katherine that she was ‘led like a sheep to the slaughter, without being permitted to unclose her lips in her own defence’.
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Why Henry denied his wife the opportunity to stand trial must be considered. Perhaps it was, as some historians have suggested, because of negative experiences relating to Anne Boleyn’s trial, but an alternative explanation is possible. Since the Duke of Norfolk related rumours that his niece was suicidal, and the French ambassador later referred to her weak physical condition, coupled with reports of Lady Rochford’s supposed insanity, the king might have denied his wife and her lady a public trial because of their psychological conditions. If both women were feared insane, the king and peers might have feared the nature of the proceedings.

Chapuys heard at this time that Katherine, still imprisoned at Syon Abbey, was ‘making good cheer, fatter and handsomer than ever, taking great care of her person, well dressed, and much adorned; more imperious and commanding, and more difficult to please than she ever was when living with the King, her husband’.
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Surely Chapuys was deceived, for her uncle heard that she was tormented and sorrowful, and Marillac also reported that she wept and cried, tormenting herself regularly. Katherine cannot but have been aware that during her short life she had been surrounded by avaricious and arrogant men who sought to exploit her to further their own influence and gain a measure of control over her. Fear of female sexuality and family dishonour governed her downfall in 1541-2, aided by the scandalous information provided, perhaps only by chance, by Mary Lascelles. Her failure to provide the king with a second male heir confirmed the king’s belief that he had erred grievously in selecting her as a consort. Rumours circulated at this time that she was unable to bear children. Adhering to contemporary cultural and social beliefs regarding pregnancy and fertility, Katherine was blamed, as were three of the king’s previous four wives, for failing to bear her husband a son. Although she might have been relieved and hopeful at this time to end her wretched existence, it is hardly likely that she was ‘making good cheer’ as Chapuys believed.

On 10 February Suffolk and Southampton arrived at Syon Abbey to escort the queen to the Tower of London, where her accomplice Lady Rochford already resided. Chapuys heard that Lady Rochford ‘had shown symptoms of madness’, but others have doubted this.
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When the lords arrived to escort Katherine, she broke down and had to be forcibly conducted into the barge waiting for her. Late on the evening of the 12th, both she and Lady Rochford were informed that they would die on the morrow.
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It was reported that Katherine spent her last hours practising how to lay her head on the block in order to die well. Although the English people were by now somewhat familiar with the sight of blood, they experienced ‘feelings of national abasement’ as ‘they beheld another queen ignominiously led to the scaffold’.
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Some observers were in doubt as to whether or not Katherine was guilty, for the lord chancellor admitted that ‘some do suppose her to be innocent’.
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On the morning of her death, Katherine swore to her confessor Dr Longland Bishop of Lincoln that: ‘as to the act, my reverend lord, for which I stand condemned, God and his holy angels I take to witness, upon my soul’s salvation, that I die guiltless, never having so abused my sovereign’s bed. What other sins and follies of youth I have committed I will not excuse; but I am assured that for them God hath brought this punishment upon me, and will, in his mercy, remit them, for which, I pray you, pray with me unto his Son and my Saviour, Christ.’
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Strangely, although Anne Boleyn’s admission of innocence before the Sacrament on the eve of her death has been seen as compelling evidence by historians that she must have been guiltless of the crimes attributed to her, Katherine’s act of doing so has not prevented them from judging her to have been guilty.

The following morning at nine, Katherine and Lady Rochford were conducted to the scaffold within the Tower of London. The foreign ambassadors were present, although both Katherine’s uncle Norfolk and the Duke of Suffolk were absent.
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Marillac described the queen as ‘so weak that she could hardly speak’, which is plausible given earlier reports that she had been in a fragile state during her imprisonment. Chapuys confirmed that neither Katherine nor Lady Rochford spoke much on the scaffold.
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Hall reported that both women confessed their offences and died repentant.
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A merchant, Ottwell Johnson, who was present, later wrote to his brother John that the queen and Lady Rochford ‘made the most godly and Christian end that ever was heard tell of [...] uttering their lively faith in the blood of Christ only, and with godly words and steadfast countenances, they desired all Christian people to take regard unto their worthy and just punishment for their offences against God’, and admitted that they had sinned traitorously against the king and deserved to die by the laws of the realm.
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The queen’s head was removed with a single stroke before Lady Rochford was also decapitated. It is a myth that she admitted on the scaffold her sinfulness in providing false evidence of incest between her husband and Queen Anne Boleyn, although it was felt that she spent too long in recounting the ‘several faults which she had committed in her life’.
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Both women were later buried in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, the Tower chapel. Katherine’s remains have never been found, although the remains of a woman aged between thirty and forty found in the 1876 excavation led the Victorian team to presume that they belonged to Lady Rochford, who was aged around thirty-seven at her execution.
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Katherine Howard had been queen consort for little over sixteen months when her title of queen was stripped from her in November 1541, and died on the scaffold in her eighteenth year. Although her interrogators and her husband were unanimous in their belief that she had committed adultery with both Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper during her queenship, the distorted, prejudiced and manipulated nature of the evidence calls into question any belief that Katherine was unfaithful to her husband. Only when it emerged that Katherine had not been a virgin at the time of her marriage did her ladies step forward and provide damning evidence that she had committed adultery with Culpeper on the northern progress. It has already been noted that if this was true, it is strange that they did not come forward when these events were allegedly happening, in the summer of 1541, and instead waited until months later to confess that their mistress was an adulteress. Although by her own admission Katherine had indiscreetly agreed to meet with Culpeper several times during the spring and summer of 1541 with the assistance of Lady Rochford, there is no convincing evidence to indicate that her meetings with him, from her perspective if not his, were willing or desired. Only under the threat, and perhaps use of, torture did Culpeper state that he had intended to know each her carnally, and Lady Rochford’s dubious evidence can be judged untrustworthy in view of the fact that her sole purpose was to save herself from a brutal death by providing damning evidence against her mistress. Moreover, as has been noted, Katherine was never given a trial and the opportunity of defending herself before the peers of the realm, in direct contrast to the processes granted Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey and Mary Queen of Scots.

As queen, Katherine had sought to fulfil the traditional duties of queenship, acting in the expected capacities of intercessor, patron and wife, while consolidating her family’s influence at court and rewarding her supporters. This study has reinterpreted her queenship and suggests that the prevailing modern image of her as a party-loving, hedonistic ‘juvenile delinquent’ rests on no extant evidence.
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Instead, it appears that she took her duties seriously and genuinely sought to be a good wife to her king. In the end, however, Katherine was brought down by cultural and social beliefs comprising hostility towards female sexuality, fear of female powers, religious prejudices and political dislike of the Howard family. Even if Mary Lascelles had not chosen to report Katherine’s scandalous past to her brother, perhaps quite by chance, in 1541, it is likely that Katherine would never have been safe as queen. Hostile individuals surrounded her at court, and she was well aware of the dangers involved in meeting with Culpeper. As he began to manipulate and control her, she belatedly broke off meetings with him as a misguided attempt at preserving her own security, but to no avail. Katherine never consented to sexual relations with Culpeper because of her probable association of sex with violence and dishonour, and because of her awareness of the connection between adulterous queens and disgrace.

Summarising the misalliances of Katherine’s life, Henry Manox had corrupted her at twelve years, reporting that she allowed him to fondle her privately. Francis Dereham aggressively seduced her and may have raped her at the age of fourteen, probably with the purpose of marrying her. And Thomas Culpeper manipulated Katherine, having come into sensitive information about her past, while blaming her for the meetings since she was supposedly dying of love for him and had forced him into meeting with her. Katherine’s actions indicate that she was aware of the dangers involved in meeting him, especially because male hostility towards powerful women usually influenced a dishonourable interpretation of such encounters. However, in the absence of any convincing evidence that Katherine committed adultery or treason against her husband, particularly since the indictments were grossly distorted, manipulated and invented, she should be judged innocent of the crimes attributed to her. It is perhaps fitting to close this study with the words of the antiquarian John Weever, written in 1631, in view of what it suggests both about Katherine’s innocence and the reasons for her fall:

Many strong words are given, both by English and foreign writers, to confirm that belief, that neither this Queen Katherine [Howard], nor Queen Anne [Boleyn], were any way guilty of the breach of matrimony, whereof they were accused, but that King Henry, unconstant... in his affections,... did cut them off upon false suggestions, soon weary of the old, and ever aiming at new espousals.
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