Dana Schwartz (0:00)

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Dana Schwartz (0:12)

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Erin Manke (0:17)

A production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Erin Menke. Listener discretion advised. Dana Schwartz here. I am still on maternity leave and so we're continuing the archival series on the sick six wives of Henry viii. Today's episode is focused on Catherine Howard, the teenager that King Henry VIII fell in love with, who ultimately, spoiler alert, lost her head. But was she actually guilty of what the King accused her of? Enjoy.

Dana Schwartz (0:54)

On November 8, 1541, Queen Catherine Howard was brought to a small room to sit opposite Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop had assured King Henry VIII a few days prior that his interrogation would be harsh and merciless, that he would import on the king's young bride the severity of her crimes and scare her into full honesty. But when Cranmar saw the young girl, he felt his resolve drain away. She was weeping, already frantic with grief and terror, her bloodshot eyes darting around the room as if an executioner's blade could appear at any moment. But she also looked so small, so young. She was a 19 year old girl, and she was in a chair that looked far too big for her. Cranmar really had all the information already that his investigation really needed. Only two weeks ago, the allegations had just been a rumor. A single rumor from a single source. The claim was this that the new queen had been less than virginal when she had married the king. Someone had informed the archbishop that that in Catherine's home growing up, she had not one but two affairs, first with her music teacher and then with her grandmother's secretary. Did you or did you not, cranmar began as soon as Catherine had caught her breath, have a sexual relationship with your music teacher, Henry Mannix, when you were living with your grandmother, the Dowager Duchess in Lambeth? Catherine wailed. No, sir. It was a flirtation, that's all. He never knew me in the way a husband knows his wife. I have only ever been true to King Henry. And what of a secretary sometime later? A man named Francis Dereham. Did you know him intimately? Catherine's breath began to quicken erratically. Cranmar noticed her cheeks and dress sleeves were both wet with tears. Be honest, child, cranmar said. The Lord is merciful to those who are honest. As almost an afterthought, he added, I have already Spoken to both men. Catherine didn't respond, and Cranmar continued. You and Derem called each other husband and wife, did you not? Catherine nodded. Were you formally bound to Dereham? The Archbishop continued, still unable to quite locate the harsh tone that he had rehearsed. Did you lie with him? Once more, Catherine nodded her head. We did lie together two or three times in my bed, in the maiden's chamber when I lived in Lambeth. But I never betrayed King Henry. I never betrayed my husband or sinned against him in any way. But she had already said enough. She had betrayed the King, betrayed him by pretending to be a virgin in a lie, by omission, humiliated the King, by now letting the whole world know that he had been fooled by a teenager. Catherine broke down insane sobs as he left. The Archbishop quietly whispered to the guards that they should remove any items from her chamber that might allow her to commit suicide. Catherine Howard and King Henry VIII had only been married about 16 months. And now, with her past revealed, she knew that her time as Queen was over. With Henry's history, she would be lucky to make it out with her head. For a little while, it seemed as though she might. After her interrogation, Catherine was sent away from court to Sion Abbey. It seemed as though the King was going to show her mercy. Her arrangement with Francis Dereham could technically qualify as a pre contract, which would mean her marriage to Henry was invalid, getting him off the hook. Easy. Catherine would have to give up her jewels and possess possessions and live in exile away from court for the rest of her life. It looked as though that was what was going to happen. It looked that way for exactly three days. Three days after Catherine Howard's interrogation, Frances Dereham revealed under torture something else about Queen Catherine. Something that the King wouldn't be able to look upon with mercy. From that moment, Catherine's fate was sealed. I'm Dana Schwartz and this is noble blood. When Katherine Howard, motherless girl, was eight years old, she was sent to live at the estate of of her father's stepmother, her step grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. The Dowager Duchess seemed to collect wards. She had about a dozen or so girls under her care, mostly the daughters of poorer relations. And the idea was that under the Dowager Duchess's supervision, the girls would learn the skills of court and aristocracy, Although in effect, supervision was a little lax. The year Catherine Howard turned 13, two major things happened. First, her cousin Anne Boleyn was beheaded for adultery during her marriage to King Henry viii. Second, Catherine Howard began a flirtation with her Music teacher, a man named Henry Manno, who had been hired to teach the girls how to play the virginals. Mannix was exactly the type of man that Catherine would fall in love with for the rest of her life. He was every stereotype of a poetic musician. Moody, romantic, wildly passionate. We don't know how old Mannix was at the time. He could have been a teenager himself, somewhere around 19. Or he could have been approaching 40. Either way, it was not a relationship that an extremely young, aristocratic woman should have been engaged in. Especially not in a world in which a woman's sexual purity was her primary currency. Catherine, for her part, refused to let Mannix go all the way. The relationship occurred mainly in the hiding spots around the estate grounds, where they could kiss each other and whisper words of love into each other's ears. That's where the dowager duchess found them, kissing in an alcove near the chapel. The dowager duchess slapped Catherine twice and forbade the couple from ever seeing each other again. The warning didn't deter the pair. I don't know why you're still seeing her, said Mary Lassells one day. To Mannix, Mary Lassells was another young woman under the dowager duchess's lax supervision, but lower ranked than Catherine. And so she felt a sort of kinship with Mannix, who was more or less a servant. She's much too highborn for you, Mary said. She's never going to marry you. You know that, right? Mannax sneered and curled his lip. He took a step closer to Mary Lassell's and told her that he already knew Katherine Howard by her private parts. And he said, she's already promised her maidenhood to me. From Mary Lassell's word got around, and back to Catherine Howard what Mannix had said. She ended their relationship the next day in the estate's orchard. Mannix pleaded that he was just so far in love with her that he didn't know what he said. But Catherine didn't care. Besides, Mary Lassell had been right. She was too highborn for him. That's why teenage Catherine felt as though she was a much better fit for Frances Dereham, the dowager duchess's secretary. Dereham already had a reputation and seduced a good percentage of the women at the estate, including Catherine's own secretary. In fact, it was she who recommended Dereham to Catherine, praising him so highly that Catherine couldn't help but be intrigued. It was the type of whirlwind passion that only a teenager can have. Within months, they were calling each other husband and wife, planning for an imaginary future together. They sent each other gifts and wrote each other letters. Catherine, still under her grandmother's custody, didn't have the income to buy the dresses she wanted. And so Deerham bought her beautiful fabric and taught her which dressmaker to go to. I'll pay you back, I promise, Catherine said. Dereham just smiled. Though the girls at the Dowager Duchess's estate slept in a single room, the Maiden's Chamber, and though the girls usually slept to a bed, there were still ways for girls to entertain male visitors. The Maiden's Chamber was locked every night to preserve the girl's virtue, of course. But Catherine had an answer for that. While her friends giggled and encouraged her, Catherine snuck into the Dowager Duchess's chamber while her step grandmother was sleeping and stole the key, quickly making a copy and replacing it. Men snuck into the room then. Catherine wasn't the only one of the wards who had an illicit boyfriend. The men brought with them wine, strawberries and apples, and the boys and girls would laugh and talk or sneak off to beds together until 1 or 2 in the morning. We can be almost certain that Dereham and Catherine, who by this point had been spending every moment together, were having sex. Dereham privately assured his friends that he knew enough to ensure that Catherine wouldn't be get pregnant. Meanwhile, Mannix, the bitter music teacher, was furious at Catherine and her new paramour. In his neatest script, he wrote a letter to the Dowager Duchess informing her that if she were to come to the Maiden's Chamber an hour or so after she normally went to bed, she would see something she wouldn't like very much, involving a certain one of her secretaries. Mannix anonymously left the note in the Dowager Duchess's pew in the chapel so she would find it. That night. She stormed into the Maiden's Chamber to catch not Catherine and Deirham, but a man named Hastings, another one of her secretaries, who had already been caught once flirting with one of the other girls. Catherine was in the clear. But Catherine knew who the note had been written by, and she knew that it had been intended for her. And Deerham agreed. Puffing out his chest, Deerham confronted Mannix, telling him that his behavior made it appear as though he'd never loved Catherine at all. Mannix called him a cad. Two jealous men dressing each other down over their secret love affairs. It was like a scene from Gossip Girl half a millennium before its time. People knew that Dereham and Catherine were having an affair. People other than the Dowager duchess. But people also liked Catherine. She was Vivacious and funny and entertaining. Plus, she was high ranking. They had no reason to rat her out or risk incurring the wrath of her grandmother for being the ones to deliver the bad news. But like almost all wildly passionate love affairs, the one between Dereham and Catherine became less exciting. Catherine stopped being entranced by Dereham when she was presented with a new gilded opportunity. Her family connections had secured her a position as a lady in waiting for the new Queen, Anne of Cleves, who would be arriving to England later that fall in the same apple orchard where she had broken up with Mannix. Catherine Howard told Dereham that she was leaving. His version of the story involves her weeping with sorrow. Her version is her losing her temper at his insistence that they stay together. It's possible both occurred. She cried and she lost her temper. And she left Dereham thinking that there was still a chance they were going to end up together. But there wasn't. She was just going. Catherine had grown up thinking her house in Lambeth was grand. She had no idea what would await her at the court of Henry viii. So many people, so many dances, so much food, so much to learn. For the confident girl who had only ever been the queen bee of the band of teenagers in the maiden's chamber, she was paid ten pounds a year. With her first paycheck, she sent money back to Dereham to repay him for the fabric he had bought her. The new Queen of England, Anne of Cleves, wasn't set to arrive for another few months. So in the meantime, the new ladies got to know each other and got to know the men of court. For Catherine, that meant being instantly drawn to a gentleman named Thomas Culpepper. Culpepper was tall and athletic, the type of man that Henry kept around him because he made him feel young again. Culpepper, for his part, had an incredibly checkered past. There was a rumor about him being convicted of raping a woman in the village and murdering a villager who saw them only to get off without consequences with a royal pardon. Catherine knew none of that. She only saw the handsome, charismatic man that women seemed to gravitate towards like hummingbirds to a flower. And Culpepper saw Catherine, a stunningly gorgeous girl of 16. Every contemporary description of Katherine Howard has that in common. Common the understanding that Catherine was uniquely pretty. For a few weeks, Culpepper and Catherine engaged in a typical court flirtation. Catherine would report back to her fellow ladies in waiting, giggling, helping to decipher everything that Culpepper had said to her that day. Catherine knew that her virtue at court would be essential in ensuring that she make an advantageous marriage. And so when Culpepper started making sexual overtures, expecting her to come to bed, she declined, even as he professed his courtly love. If he loved her, Catherine believed he would understand. But Culpepper wasn't a man accustomed to sexual rejection or even delay with Catherine's refusal, he shrugged and set his sights upon a new girl. It was Catherine Howard's first time getting her heart broken. The other ladies in waiting saw her spend days crying and ripping up his letters. Luckily, Catherine wouldn't have to wallow too long in heartbreak. Almost immediately after Anne of Cleves arrived in England, Henry VIII decided that he didn't care for her and set about trying to arrange an end to their arranged marriage. In the meantime, the King began doting on his new bride's very pretty, very young lady in waiting, Catherine Howard. He sent gifts and gave her land. Everyone saw, including Anne of Cleves. But she hoped it was just an affair. It wasn't. Henry secured the annulment from Anne of Cleves within a few months and married Catherine Howard so quickly afterward that people assumed that she must be secretly pregnant. In fact, Henry was just absolutely besotted with his new bride, who was just 16 or 17 years old. Henry was 50. They were married the very same day that Henry's former minister, Thomas Cromwell, was executed for securing the disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves. The middle aged Henry was so amorous to Catherine Howard that it almost embarrassed the rest of court. He didn't take his hands off of her in public, caressing her almost constantly, to the point where ambassadors noted that he had never been this publicly affectionate with any of his wives to this extent before. Of course, Henry believed that his young bride was a virgin and that he was the only man she had ever laid with. Catherine was so young and so beautiful that she made Henry feel as though he were back in his prime, even as it became exceedingly obvious that he was not. Pain in his legs from his long troublesome ulcers kept getting worse. Henry had difficulty with impotence in the bedroom, even as he made his attraction to Catherine increasingly obvious. Outside the bedroom, Henry's doctors advised him to spend time away from his new bride so that he could recuperate. In the meantime, they put him on a weight loss regimen and wrapped his injured leg in boiled olive leaves and myrrh. Henry's ill health and generally mercurial nature, combined with his Shame at his inability to perform in the bedroom meant that he spent most nights away from Catherine. A year into their marriage, Catherine had no pregnancy to show for it. Catherine knew full well what happened to queens who didn't give Henry sons. As her relationship with the king continued to strain, Catherine began to shut herself away, unhappy and anxious, refusing to go to dances, uncertain of her future position. That summer, strain or not, Catherine was to accompany Henry on the Northern Progress, a show of force and majesty to the rebellious northern parts of the country. Catherine as the beautiful young queen was an essential prop for the outing, to make Henry look all the more vital and powerful with her at his side. But Catherine took ill on the journey, spending days and nights alone in her room. When the king sent a servant to her chamber one night, he found it bolted. The queen's ladies fretted about her listlessness, but they also whispered about the way she gazed down from her window at Thomas Culpepper, the young, handsome man in the king's entourage who had caught her eye from the moment that she had arrived at court. The way she looked at him with her hand cupped in her palm. It was almost like love. When the trip to the north of the country ended and they all returned to Hampton Court on October 29, Henry gave a speech, giving hearty thanks for his good life with Catherine and his trust in their happy future together. The very next day, everything would fall apart. Do you remember Mary Lassells? The girl from Catherine's time? With the Dowager Duchess away from court, Mary Lassell's brother John was reprimanding her for not being able to secure a position in the new queen's household. Didn't you two know each other? John scoffed at her. Mary Lassels bristled at her brother's derision. Yes, I knew her. I wouldn't even want to be in that household under a queen like her. I remember how she behaved back when she was in Lambeth. John paused and asked for more details. Mary Lassells told him about Henry Mannox and Francis Deering. Everybody knows the queen wasn't so pure when she married the king, Mary said. John stopped in his tracks and demanded that Mary tell him everything she knew. And John Lassells, a devout Protestant reformer, went to tell the archbishop, Thomas Cranmer. Cranmer was in a delicate position. On one hand, this was just a rumor, and he didn't want to incur Henry's wrath over nothing. But on the other hand, if he didn't tell Henry, and somehow word got out, he would be Responsible. And so, on November 2, in incredibly measured words, Cranmar put the delicate claims in writing in a letter and left it on Henry's seat in chapel. Henry was of course, outraged. He didn't believe the rumors for a moment, but still he demanded a full investigation. Mannix and Dereham both confessed. On November 6, without telling Catherine Howard, Henry VIII left Hampton Court and rode to Greenwich. She would never see him again. Once Henry was done with a wife, he wanted her out of sight. At Greenwich, Henry held a midnight meeting that lasted for six hours, in which he and his ministers decided what to do. At one point, Henry broke down in tears. Why have I had such bad luck in meeting these ill conditioned women? He cried. He grabbed a sword. Maybe I should just go and kill her myself. However much pleasure she had in her sins, it won't be half as much as her torture. In death, Henry's men subdued him. He really had been in love, he thought, with his beautiful young fifth wife. The next day, Catherine knew something was a mess. No one had told her anything. The investigation had been completely secret. But Henry was gone and had left no word about where he was. She could sense something in the air. When her musicians started to play, she silenced them. It's no time for dancing, she said. That night, she was brought before Thomas Cranmar, where she confessed Henry showed mercy enough that Catherine should be spared death and a real imprisonment in favor of a life of exile at Sion House. But then, on November 11, under torture, Francis Dereham said something new. No. He promised. He had never slept with the Queen while she was married to the King. But everyone knew Thomas Culpepper did. Now, there is no hard evidence to prove that Thomas Culpepper and Catherine actually slept together. She went to the grave denying it. But soon details began to emerge. In the spring, after her wedding, feeling distant from Henry and lonely at court, Catherine and Thomas began exchanging love letters. They sent little gifts. Back and forth, their letters became more and more emotional and personal. I trust in you that you will always be as you have promised me, katherine wrote. She signed the letter, yours as long as life endures. And that summer, Culpepper had been in the large group of courtiers who accompanied Henry and Catherine on the Northern progress. Had she really been sick? When she insisted on staying alone in her room, ladies were interrogated. Jane Rockford confessed that at one of the stops, Culpepper used a secret door that led up back stairs directly to Queen Catherine's bedchamber. Other ladies were in town. Interrogated about whether Catherine and Culpepper were having an affair. I don't know for certain, one lady said. I am inclined to believe the Queen. Except. Except, The Archbishop prompted. Except the way she looked at Culpepper from her window. I would have believed her if I hadn't seen the way she gazed at him. Catherine had been in love and she hadn't been able to hide it. Deerham was hanged, quartered and disemboweled. Culpepper, as a gentleman, was simply beheaded. Meanwhile, Catherine waited at Scion House, knowing her fate would be arriving swiftly. In January, an Act of Attainder made it treason for a woman to marry the King without plain declaration of having previously lived an unchaste life. That was it. The final peace had been put into place to ensure that Catherine would receive the death that Henry wanted for her. Anne Boleyn had been taken to the Tower of London under full light of day. Catherine had the privilege of arriving at night, although when the guards arrived at Sion House to take her to the barge, she collapsed in a fit of panic. Lucky it was dark during her boat ride down the Thames, or else she would have seen the rotting heads of Frances Dereham and Thomas Culpepper leering down at her from London Bridge. That night, locked in the Tower of London, she heard the gates clang shut and the locks on the doors turn. She was told that she would be killed. Two days later, after her final confession, Catherine made a request that the guard, taken aback, couldn't refuse. She asked for the block that she would be beheaded on to be brought to her chamber so that she could practice. Catherine wanted. Wanted to at least die with grace or as little humiliation as possible. And she had heard stories of botched executions, including the execution of Thomas Cromwell, in which it took 4, 5, even as many as 10 strokes for the head to fully come off. And so, for hours, on her last day on earth, Catherine Howard kneeled in her cell at the Tower of London and raised and lowered her pretty neck on the black block. When the time finally came and she was escorted to the very spot where her cousin Anne Boleyn had died only six years earlier, Catherine knew exactly what to do. Though she shook, she lowered her head into the valley of the block with well practiced ease and the executioner took her head off with a single blow. She had gone from orphan to lady, to queen, to dead in two years. Catherine Howard hadn't yet reached her 21st birthday. That's the very short, tragic life of Katherine Howard. Stick around. After a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about the consequences of the investigation of Catherine's infidelity.