Naomi Wallace

By Naomi Wallace

Content Warning: This piece includes discussions of sexual violence

On the eve of 13 February 1542, Catherine Howard, imprisoned within the walls of the Tower of London, sentenced to die on charges of high treason, had a final tragic request: she asked that the execution block be brought to her chamber for her to practice lying her head upon. The following morning, at no more than twenty years old, she met her death swiftly and with dignity. And so, we get the second wife of Henry VIII beheaded.

Six years prior, another Queen of England, the first wife of Henry VIII, stood on the scaffold convicted of treason. But while it is widely acknowledged that Anne Boleyn was falsely accused, Catherine Howard rarely receives the same sympathy. She is remembered as simply the foolish young wife of Henry VIII, whose impulsiveness and promiscuity were her death sentence. Tracy Borman cruelly branded her an ‘archdeceiver with morals of a whore’, and many agree that she was responsible for her fate. This article aims to challenge such perceptions of Catherine and offer alternative interpretations of the evidence brought against her.

In November 1541, not eighteen months after becoming Queen, Catherine Howard was accused of having sexual relations with two men before her marriage to the King; Henry Mannox and Francis Dereham, both of whom she had known whilst living in the household of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. Catherine confessed to having had carnal relations with them, however in her final confession she asserted that she had been sexually assaulted, which could very well be the truth given that both men were significantly older. Mannox had been her music teacher and abused her as an early teenager, and she stated in her confession that she ‘suffered him… to handle and touch the secret parts of my body, which neither became me with honesty for me to permit or for him to require.’ Equally, she claimed that Dereham had ‘procured [her] to his vicious purpose.’ Henry was furious that his innocent teenage bride, his ‘rose without a thorn,’ had a less than innocent past. When Dereham was interrogated, however, a graver allegation emerged - that the Queen had engaged in an adulterous affair with a courtier and gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Thomas Culpepper. Catherine summoned him to her rooms and gifted him a cap, which, as Gareth Russell rightly observes, was ‘a flirtatious gesture’. She later sent food to Culpepper whilst he was sick, and the two met privately, aided by Jane Rochford, Catherine’s lady in waiting, on multiple occasions during the Court’s 1541 summer progress. Eyewitnesses of illicit meetings between the pair, confessions from Culpepper and Rochford, and a letter written by Catherine herself, were sufficient evidence to condemn them. Catherine’s letter is cited as proof of her love for Culpepper; but with a closer look, we see that it is not the smoking-gun it is often considered to be.

Efforts to date the letter vary; Starkey suggests it was written from Greenwich in the spring of 1541, while some have placed it during the summer progress of the same year. Its usefulness as a source is limited by the fact that it is a piece of evidence untethered to a particular date, and therefore belongs to no definite context. Additionally, it is the only surviving piece of Catherine’s own writing. This again limits its merit, as we have no point of comparison to judge it against her usual tone or vocabulary. It is undeniable that the tone of the letter is overly friendly. Catherine says that ‘it makes [her] heart die to think what fortune I have that I cannot be always in your company,’ and wishes to see him, ‘praying you that you will come when my Lady Rochford is here.’ But while this admittedly does not look good for the Queen, it is not quite the brazen declaration of love that it has been lauded as. Adultery seems a hasty conclusion to jump to when Catherine essentially only says that she wants to speak with Culpepper. The affectionate expression, especially the sign-off ‘yours as long as life endures, Katheryn’ were not unconventional of the time, and therefore must not be judged from a contemporary perspective, in which such doting language would certainly be indicative of romantic desire. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that such conclusions would have been drawn if not for the accusations by which the letter was followed. Perhaps this teleological view has prompted an overstatement of the implications of its content.

Alternative explanations for Catherine’s letter can be offered; the first considers the culture of the Tudor Court. Ladies were expected to engage in a flirtatious yet innocent game of courtly love with male courtiers. 16As Queen of England, Catherine needed be desirable

and appealing, but off limits to all but the King. As Lady Rochford had told her, ‘You must give men leave to look, for they will look upon you.’ This was murky territory; the downfall of Anne Boleyn had demonstrated all too well how Thomas Culpepper was a notorious flirt and had numerous mistresses at Court. But gravely, he was accused of raping a park-keeper’s wife and murdering a villager who intervened. This is not evidence of an attractive young man who would

difficult this was to balance. So perhaps Catherine’s ‘flirtatious’ interactions with Culpepper, and the letter, for all its supposedly damning content, could have been a naïve new Queen’s idea of the courtly cause Catherine to behave ‘like a love-sick Juliet,’ but instead of a dangerous, violent individual. Some have attempted to argue that the accusations were against Culpepper’s elder brother of the same name,

however records show that the accused received a pardon from the King. This makes it far more likely to have been the Thomas Culpepper linked to Catherine Howard, whose coveted position as groom of the stool would explain such merciful behaviour from Henry.

Seeing Thomas Culpepper for the sexual predator that he was changes our interpretation of Catherine’s letter. Retha Warnicke postulates that Culpepper had learnt of the Queen’s unchaste past and was blackmailing her. Both she and Lucy Worsley believe the letter was Catherine’s attempt to placate a man

Illustration by Aoife Céitinn

love that the Tudor Court, and her lady in waiting, encouraged. Culpepper’s failure to burn the letter, incredibly foolish as this was, may further imply that it was less intimate than appears. Granted, this is a weaker theory- while Catherine was young and inexperienced, it is difficult to imagine she did not recognise that meeting secretly with Culpepper and professing her desire to see him in writing, crossed the line.

The stronger explanation is far more sinister and requires an understanding of the character of the man with whom Catherine was accused of adultery. 17

who was forcing himself upon her. Given the evidence of Culpepper’s violent nature, this is a convincing suggestion. After all, the letter is addressed to ‘Master Culpepper,’ which is impersonal and formal, suggesting that passionate love was not at the forefront of Catherine’s mind. Further supporting this theory is the fact that Culpepper likely saw there was a great deal to gain from being in the Queen’s favour. Antonia Fraser suggests that the ruthlessly ambitious Culpepper intended to claim her as his wife after the death of the King, whose health had declined in the early 1540s. It certainly seems possible that Culpepper pursued Catherine with the financial and political benefits of marriage to a former queen in mind. Consequently, Culpepper’s confession that ‘he intended and meant to do ill with the Queen’ is recontextualised. How seriously should we take the words of a man who was evidently a sexual predator? Considering Catherine herself denied committing adultery, despite confessing to sexual relations with Mannox and Dereham, why are we so quick to believe Culpepper’s words over hers? He may not have intended to ‘do ill’ with her, but this should not necessarily be taken as conclusive evidence that she did with him.

It is less commonly known that Catherine was not officially charged with committing adultery but with the intent to do so, having ‘traitorously held illicit meeting and conference to incite the said Culpepper to have carnal intercourse with her.’ This proves difficult for historians, who tend to disagree on how far the relationship went. Russell does not believe they slept together but argues that they certainly would have if they had not been caught. Fraser believes that they did not commit adultery only in the crudest sense, suggesting that the pair used coitus interruptus to stop just short of full intercourse. The issue with both interpretations is that they are speculative; Russell’s conclusion is theoretical, and Fraser ignores the fact that both Catherine and Culpepper denied ever going further than touching hands. Only Jane Rochford attested that she ‘thinks Culpepper has known the Queen carnally,’ but this was her opinion and, as she suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after, her words are not reliable evidence against Catherine.

History persists in its attempts to sort women into dichotomous roles of Madonna or whore, and Catherine Howard has been carelessly tossed into the latter category. She is remembered as a ‘reckless slut’ by historians and the public alike, which is painfully unfair. Ultimately, she was an abused child, and this should be considered when discussing the evidence. The Tudor Court was an environment in which rumour and scandal ran rife, where someone’s own words could be twisted and manipulated, sending them hurtling towards their death; Catherine Howard is just one of many infamous examples. At some point in 1541, she penned a letter that would be used against her for centuries to follow. Truthfully, we will never know for certain what she hoped to communicate; but when we examine the context in which she was writing, and uncover the true nature of the letter’s recipient, it becomes clear that history has over-enthusiastically jumped to conclusions about Catherine Howard’s guilt.