The DISTURBING Postmortem Of Henry VIII's Executed Fifth Wife

[Music] one of the most tragic young women of the chuda period was Henry the ap's teenage fifth wife Katherine Howard many have considered the shocking age of the young victim of her husband and Catherine was executed by axe inside the walls of the Tower of London she was caught up in a shocking Scandal which involved her allegedly cheating on the king with one of his closest friends but after the axan had taken her head clean off in one swing from his instrument of death Katherine's body was then taken inside of the chapel of St Peter advincula within the Tower of London and she was then thrown into a rough grave and was allegedly covered in quick lime in an attempt to literally wipe her off the face of the Earth and to dissolve her remains in a quick manner as the king wanted to forget about his fifth wife however Catherine's fate was very shocking when compared to that of Henry's second wife amberin who despite also being executed was allowed to be buried and was also executed by sword but has the remain of Catherine Howard ever been found Katherine Howard as mentioned was the fifth wife of Henry VII and her uncle was a prominent member of the king's court the Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard he had been in service of the king for some time and he managed to get Catherine a position in the court serving in the household of an of cleaves Henry's fourth wife however Henry quickly noticed the young teenage Catherine and he and he shockingly sought to sleep with her and he tried to woo her and Catherine was approach to strike up a relationship with the king who described her as the very Jewel of Womanhood and Catherine was also said by other members of court to have been delightful but the King was around 25 years older than her at least but after his terrible fourth marriage had been dealt with Katherine Howard then married King Henry VII on the 28th July 1540 on the same day that his former close friend and chief advisor Thomas Cromwell lost his head on Tower Hill but Catherine was not in a fit state to have become a queen she was too young and carefree to get involved in important matters she was also rather naive but whilst the pair went on a honeymoon Catherine grew closer with Thomas C pepper a quartier inside the court who usurped the king in the affections of his wife and the pair may have its believed even had a physical relationship behind the back of the king they wrote Love Letters and had meetings arranged by a senior lady in waiting Jame berin and these Liaisons were allegedly physical and they were then discovered Thomas cranmer the Archbishop of Canterbury investigated what was being spoken about at court and he came across the love letter written by Katherine to Thomas this was a pivotal piece of evidence in The Saga and Scandal and the King whilst he was praying in inside the chapel Royal within Hampton Court was informed by Kar of his wife's adultery and her actions she then lost the title of Queen was then sent across to the Tower of London within days and was kept under lock and key in the same place that her predecessor the second wife of Henry lost her head Catherine must have known her time would be sometime soon up as espcially as Thomas C pepper and another man Francis darham who had been condemned for their involvement with the queen were now dead the pair were both executed and the heads were placed above London Bridge as traitors and the queen may have even passed under the heads of her former lovers as she made her way by barge to the Tower of London where she was then sent through traitor's gate it was at 7:00 a.m. on the 13th of February 1542 that Catherine Howard was to be executed and she sent the night before practicing how to lay her head upon the executioner block so that her death could be without issue and problem be as quick as possible anyone who was sentenced to death in this way hoped that their execution would be in one swift strike of the axe and let's remember that she was just a teenage girl some say she was 19 when she was preparing for her death the Executioner did not make a mess of the execution and in one swift blow he took the head off of Henry the ap's fifth wife and the blood of her Spilled Out All all over the scaffold Catherine was said to have stated that she deserved to die a thousand deaths for the Betrayal of her husband the king but her remains were then collected and they were thrown into a roughly dug grave or a hole under the floor of the chapel of St Peter advincula but the king had instructed that her remains would be covered in quick climb to make them Decay quicker as if Catherine had never existed when we compare the treatment of Catherine to that of Henry's second wife who was executed by sword Catherine was given very little ceremony or respect in death her remains is believed were not even collected and placed inside of a wooden box or chest and there was only hay on the scaffold for her blood to be soaked up she was given absolutely no funeral and it's believed that everyone who witnessed her execution quickly made their exits from the tower to forget her and those who buried her body did just that without any words being said for her she would have been wrapped inside of a cloth to collect her headless remains and her head inside of and these were then lowered into a roughly dug grave and then the liberal amount of quick lime was placed over her Remains the effects of this would be that a lot quicker decomposition would take place the remains of Catherine as well as the cloth would have decayed and rotted and then there would be as the king had hoped very little left of her on this Earth he did not want her remembered he did not want any grave for her Henry wanted to probably forget the scandal of his fifth wife however during the reign of Queen Victoria the chapel of St Peter advincula inside the Tower of London had a significant amount of restoration and repair as Victoria did not believe the chapel was fit enough to house the remains of Queens the builders and Specialists worked together and they dug up the bodies of a number of prominent people who were executed inside the Tower of London some of these figures had been executed on Tower Hill and their remains were then brought into the Chapel to be buried a large amount of Bones had been deposited inside the Crypt but the remains of Jame berin who helped the queen cheat on the king were found there was a significant problem the archaeologists and Specialists managed to find the remains of many people who were identified this included amberin the king's second wife who was identified by the Royal Physician who know noted a number of characteristics but because of Catherine's significance there was a search carried out near to the high altar but they could not find her body or skeleton A small collection of Bones which had been strongly affected by the presence of quick lme were discovered close to the body of Margaret Paul the Countess of Solsbury another victim of Henry VII and these bones were then attributed to have been possibly belonging to the king's fifth wife Katherine Howard but there was never any DNA testing or any form of invest investigation which detailed exactly who these came from if this investigation would have occurred then the parts of the body could have been at least dated and attributed to either a male or a female they could have also worked out roughly an age of the person who these belonged to meaning there would have been a better chance that these may have belonged to Catherine much of her remains had gone but this was something a small part of a young Queen who married the most tyrannical King England has ever seen and she deserved much better as she had been attributed today to have been more of an abused child than a plotting witch that she had been portrayed as in the past today the remains and body of Katherine Howard remain lost her body and skeleton has never been found leading to the conclusion that Henry VII got what he wanted and that she was literally erised off the face of the Earth upon his orders to dump copious amounts of quick lime on her there is a memorial stone today inside the chapel and many believe that this is a grave marker to the fifth wife of the chudah king however this isn't the case and there is simply no body that exists under the marker one theory is that because of her age as a teenager when she was executed that Catherine's bones had not hardened as they would have done if she was into full adulthood meaning the lime would have got rid of her bones quicker but Catherine Howard was a young girl who may have been LED astray betay by one of the king's courtiers who had heard about her talents in the bedroom that the king preached about and in the form of Thomas Co pepper Katherine may have had a lot more in common with him rather than her large and huge husband she had a horrific life and she was led astray a number of times throughout her short time on the Earth but the treatment of her in death and what happened to her remains after her execution is also horrific and Katherine Howard the fifth wife of Henry the e was quite literally made to disappear and nothing except that possible small collection of remains which may be all of her that exists thank you for watching and to support please subscribe to her remarkable history thank you

Channel: Her Remarkable History

Views: 16,626

Keywords: Henry VIII, Henry VIII executions, Henry VIII execution, Catherine Howard, Catherine Howard execution, Tower of London, the tudors, tudors, Tudor England, the tudor, Henry VIII Catherine Howard, Henry VIII 6 wives, Henry VIII six wives, execution Catherine Howard, tower of london tudor, Tower of London execution, Tower of London burial, Catherine Howard desecration, catherine howard love letter, catherine howard missing remains, catherine howard grave, henry viii fifth wife

Id: 8zaJeUMQUNc

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024