Hi I'm Kevin Hicks and
welcome to my YouTube channel the History Squad. Now today's video is on about
Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII and how she was used, abused and then finally
executed on the orders of the king for treason. So Catherine Howard who was she yeah? Obviously
she was a Tudor lass, born around 1523, we're not sure. She was born in Lambeth yeah,
part of London. Her father Lord Edmund Howard and her mother Joyce Culpepper. Now they had six
children together one of which was Catherine but her mother had already got five which made
Catherine child number 10 for her mother. Wow. Now her mother and father die while Catherine
is quite young but traditionally they used to farm out their children, especially
if you were one of the poorer gentry, you would farm out your children to the more
wealthy and it was the Norfolk family, that was her uncle, that was the duke of Norfolk and it
was the Duchess of Norfolk who actually takes in the young Catherine into her household. And she
lives with the other cousins shall we say in the maid’s dormitory and this is where the story truly
begins. So the young Catherine finds herself in a dormitory with other cousins in a large house, one
of the houses of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who doesn't really care that much what these girls
are getting up to and this is the sad side of it, because when she's very young, I've actually
read she was as young as 11 maybe 12, but because we don't know her date of birth it's
hard to substantiate. But this man Henry Mannox, he is one of the music teachers and he there's
only one way to describe it. He abuses her right? I've read various accounts, he's
much older, he was the same age, all these different things. From what I can glean
he was much older and he basically helped himself. It's written down that he knew her private
parts. It's questionable whether they actually had intercourse because they were keeping
things quiet yeah, but there was a lot of this kind of thing going on of a night. Doors would be
opened yeah, and food and drink would be smuggled up to the girls and men would come along and
help themselves. Nowadays of course we do, we call it abuse. So at a very young age Catherine
is becoming aware that men find her attractive, that her body, her sexuality is is developing
and when she moves out of the house to Lambeth she's introduced to a visitor there, uh Francis
Dereham, and there's a bit of a spark for sure, and they carry on an affair. It's her first love
and they call each other husband and wife, but this will come back to bite them because now we
see how Catherine is going to be used. She is attractive, vivacious, a sense of humor. She's
not well educated but she can read and write, but the one thing she doesn't understand is
the politics of the day. Just how dangerous the court of Henry VIII really is. So you
imagine that you have a boyfriend, you pretend that you're husband and wife but you're finding
yourself kind of liberated, you're enjoying this freedom that you have and you've also been
taught how to have sex without getting pregnant. She's quite happy when very, very early in
the morning. You know this is a dark side and you'll have to trace this yourself because I
can't remember where I found this because it was some years ago, but go figure. In the middle of
the night, early in the morning whatever it was, she's aroused from her bed or roused from her bed.
Not aroused, sorry, she's roused from her bed, bought downstairs and there's her uncle the
Duke of Norfolk. She is paraded in front of him, stripped, he looks her up and down and around,
asks her a few questions she's then dismissed. He will get her position at court she will
be a lady and waiting to Anne of Cleeves. She will be dangled in front
of the eyes of Henry VIII So sweet Catherine Howard finds herself at the
court of Henry VIII, lady in waiting to Queen Anne of Cleeves. She's been instructed by her uncle the
Duke of Norfolk, a very powerful man, to dance, make eyes, catch the eye of the king which she
does. The king is kind of bowled over by this beautiful young lady, vivacious and
funny. Catherine Howard, that poor lass has no idea what's coming. So Catherine Howard
that beautiful lovely English rose, she’s married to King Henry VIII on the 28th of July 1540. She
was around 17, he was 49 or 50. She was slender, beautiful, vivacious full of life. His waist
was 52 inches around, he had terrible open ulcer sores on his leg which stank and he had
terrible, terrible breath. A match made in heaven. Well her uncle yeah, the Duke of Norfolk, he
believed it was a match in heaven because now the Howard family are there, they're in the court
of Henry VIII. All is going great, she dances, she performs, but she's got to perform in
one particular way, she's got to be made pregnant by the King. Now think about this. He's
a festering old man, look at his previous marriage it was annulled because it was unconsummated,
it was all blamed on poor Anne of Cleeves yeah? No, I reckon it's the other way around. The King
couldn’t, no matter how hard Catherine tried, she was not going to get pregnant from that King. So
let's then feed somebody in, a favourite actually of the King, Thomas Culpepper. He is allowed
access should we say, to the young queen. It's Jayne Boleyn, the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn,
Lady Rochfort, she is actually a member of the staff for Catherine Howard. Now I've read about
how liaisons were made how Culpepper was allowed up to her room in secret and other liaisons
but Catherine just wasn't aware of the court. Boy did she have an enemy. You see she'd upset
Princess Mary. Princess Mary had in her employ, members of the household where Catherine
Howard was a young girl. They tittle tattled about a certain music instructor yeah? Henry
Mannox. The princess tells Archbishop Cranmer, he is an arch enemy of the Howard family,
now the conspiracy, it all comes together when Mannox is taken into custody and questioned.
Now when I say question in the torture time, in the in the torture, in the Tudor times, it's
torture isn't it. They tortured him and he ‘I didn't have any sexual relations no I didn't have
intercourse, no, I did know her private parts’. He then talks about Francis Dereham, they
were gonna get married. Oh you see in law, if you agree that you're gonna
get married you are betrothed, that's how it works. And you can't get married
after that unless it all comes out, you tell your prospective husband yeah actually I'm not
a virgin I've had a relationship, we did discuss about marriage but we're not going to do it
anymore. None of that, so now they bring in Jane Boleyn and she is absolutely terrified of being
tortured. So terrified in fact that she loses her sanity, she goes mad, she literally becomes
mad during this entire process, so she by law cannot be executed or anything, she's
mad. The King is informed, he's furious Culpepper and Dereham are actually put on trial
for treason. They will be executed, hung drawn and quartered except the King's favourite Thomas
Culpepper is allowed just to have his head chopped off. The queen, she is found guilty,
treason, she will have her head cut off too. So poor Catherine, she's been found guilty
of treason, she's been removed to Sion Abbey, there she has her titles and all of her
possessions her jewels all of these things systematically stripped from her. She is known as
Mistress Catherine Howard. Well she's going to be conveyed to the Tower to have her head cut off and
that poor lass can barely stand. She’s manhandled from her chambers down the stairs into a barge
which has been covered over so nobody can see it but this poor lass she can see up because they
row underneath London Bridge and they slow down, and they bring to her attention two freshly cut
off heads Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpepper. It must have broke her heart. And then as they row
her into traitor's gate at the back of the tower, ‘why are we coming in here?’ This terrified young
girl then has to be manhandled out of the barge. Sir John Gauge, he is the constable of the
tower, turns his face away with tears in his eyes as Catherine is carried
past him up to her chambers. But she tries to compose herself, she
has the block brought to her room, she tries it out. Now one account says that
the next day, was it the 13th of February 1542, she's dressed in black. She walks composed
to the scaffold, she's helped up the steps she gives her speech in her gentle voice. But
there is a little story I have, that she turned to one of her ladies in waitings who was still there
‘I don't want to die, I've done nothing wrong I'm too young to die’. She lowers her head. Bang
the head is off. She's placed in a coffin nearby, but the headsman had somebody else to deal with
now. Jane Boleyn, insane, mad. You don't execute a mad person, but Henry VIII in his spite changes
the law and this decrepit woman is held down on the block forcibly, which is dripping in blood and
gore. This woman had to kneel in sweet Catherine's blood and her head was hacked off. The two bodies
are buried in the Tower chapel of St Peters. You can actually go and there is now a tile
commemorating them. This to me is such a sad story of a young woman who suffered abuse, was used
and finally killed for what? Often history looks at her as being nothing more than a naughty
girl, stupid, but I hope my little story here has given you an insight of how she was truly used.
Now I can't say hey i hope you enjoyed this, well I hope you found it interesting. If you
did thumbs up, if you're a subscriber hey thanks it's going great, I'm enjoying the
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now thank you very much for your time. Bye-bye.
