Katheryn Howard Introduction

My name was Katheryn Howard. I was once the Queen of England.


My birthday was not recorded: my birth was humble. I was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard by his first wife, Joyce Culpeper. Joyce had been widowed earlier in her life, and had four children from her previous marriage. I was her tenth child. My parents could afford their progeny, as my father was very bad with money. My mother would later die in 1528, leaving my father to remarry twice more.

My father sent me to the household of my grandmother, Agnes Howard, so that I might not drain the expenses that we did not have and in hopes that I might be educated. Although it was a respite from the issues at home, Agnes Howard’s home bred a whole different type of issue: there were young men in her household who sexually exploited her wards. Agnes was aware of what was happening, but did nothing to stop them.


This was akin to throwing myself and the other girls to the wolves.


My first “liaison” was with my music teacher, Henry Mannox. He was a man of about 26, while I myself was barely 11: a child by mediaeval and modern standards. I confessed before my death that there were touchings, whispered promises in hallways, but never did we lie with one another, although he did try: the bedchamber the girls slept in was not locked, and he often gained access. Mannox later married, and another adult came into my life who did similar: Francis Dereham. He was a distant cousin, and was some older than Mannox. Dereham promised to wed me, and went further than Mannox ever did with me. I was still too young to understand the weight of what he was doing, nor did I know what my future would entail.

Dereham left for Ireland, and I left for court to be lady-in-waiting to Anna Von Cleve.

That is where I met Henry.


Henry was much, much older than I was: fifty to my fifteen. He took me as his mistress, and then after divorcing Anna, as his fifth wife. I wanted for nothing in his household, yet there was an aching emptiness in my heart; he did not see me as often, and what time we spent together was in bed. I was vulnerable, and it was at court that Tom Culpeper, a groom who had a history of sexual violence, sought me out and manipulated me into being his lover.


I was still under the age of majority.

After some time married to the king, the Archbishop of Canterbury informed my husband that I had been no maid when I had married him, and I was imprisoned in my apartments with Lady Rochford, who had been accused of letting Culpeper into my bedchamber. We were not told of the charge against us, and so I broke free of the guards near my chamber and ran to Henry in hopes that I might convince him to spare us, but he would not listen. I thought it was something small, yet it was not: I was labelled an adulteress and stripped of my titles and jewels. I was sent to Syon Abbey to await the king’s will.

While I was at Syon, there was a Bill of Attainder passed that made it treason to not inform the King of one’s sexual history within 30 days of marriage, a rule that had not existed when I had married him. There was no trial, there was no justice. I was taken to The Tower Of London on 10 February 1542, where I remained until my death.

On the 10th of December, my abusers were executed, yet there was no relief in their deaths. The 13th of February soon approached, and the night before my death, I asked for the block to be brought to my chamber, where I practised. My death the next day was swift, and I was dispatched very quickly. I was buried in the Chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula, and my body covered in quicklime so that it would dissolve faster. There was nothing left of me from that day on, save for some mentions in manuscripts.

Historians from that day on called me a harlot, although it should have been clear to them that I was too young to have consented to such things. “The whore queen” some called me, and other cruel monikers as well. It wasn’t until the 2000s that historians soon realised their error and called what happened to me what it was “child abuse.”

That was my vindication, finally. After centuries I had found justice.