Catherine Howard (20 page)

Just before the King’s progress to the northern shires in the summer of 1541, Catherine was thrown into a fit of gloom. When her husband inquired after the reason for such sadness she answered that, ‘it was owing to a rumour that he was going to take back Anne of Cleves’ as his wife. The Queen only regained her usual high spirits after Henry had assured her of his undying love.
23
She was slighted by the fact that the ladies of the court paid homage to the King’s eldest daughter, the Princess Mary, and Catherine complained that Mary had offended her by failing to treat ‘her with the same respect as her two predecessors’. In a fit of spiteful revenge the Queen endeavoured to have two of the princess’s maids removed from court.
24
It was almost inevitable that the two ladies should have clashed, for they were temperamentally the antithesis of each other. Mary was like her father – strong-wiIIled, oddly masculine, with a deep, mannish voice and athletic frame. She had all the inherited ‘pride of a Spaniard from
Aragon
’, conjoined with a Tudor flair for learning. In contrast, Catherine was ignorant of all languages save her own, and even that she handled with the clumsy mentality of a juvenile. The mercurial and infantile temperament of the Queen could have found little to love or admire in the granite determination of a stepdaughter almost four years her senior.

On the other hand, Catherine discovered in her rival from
Germany
a more congenial companion. In a way they were kindred spirits, for it was noted that the phlegmatic Lady Anne, who had since the divorce become the King’s ‘beloved sister’, did not seem in the least put out by the abrupt termination of her reign. In fact she was ‘as joyous as ever’, and happily amused herself by appearing every day ‘in a new dress of some strange fashion or other’. Society was unable to decide whether the lady was ‘preternaturally prudent in concealing her feelings’ or ‘utterly stupid and insensible’.
25
Whatever the truth, she endeared herself to Queen Catherine when, at their first meeting at
Hampton Court
, she insisted on kneeling to address the new Queen. The two ladies made much of each other, and danced together; then Henry joined them and all three dined together in an atmosphere of connubial bliss.

The happy meeting of Henry and his two wives may have been a ridiculous farce, but it concealed the very real dangers to which Catherine was constantly exposed. The gilded cage had many of the characteristics of a goldfish bowl, and Catherine was shortly to learn that activities that could be carried out in relative secrecy in the Duchess of Norfolk’s residence at Lambeth, could not be concealed at court.

From the start the Queen’s position of regal grandeur masked the existence of a fatal weakness, for Catherine proved herself unable to produce the single bond that might have withstood both the studied intrigues of political and personal enemies, and the cooling ardour of an ageing husband – a male child. The world watched, waited, and made periodic inquiries as to the state of the Queen’s health, and it was whispered abroad that because Catherine was still unfruitful, Henry might seek yet another wife.
26
The rumours were vigorously denied, but they were not without an element of truth, for Henry had signally failed to bestow upon his bride the royal title. Though the King ordered that his subjects make room for her in their prayers, and she was ‘proclaimed Queen of England’ on the eighth day of August, Catherine was never crowned, and remained Queen consort only.
27
Coronation evidently was contingent upon fertility, and in April of 1541 the French Ambassador noted that the Queen was ‘thought to be with child, which would be a very great joy to this King, who, it seems, believes it and intends, if it be found true, to have her crowned at Whitsuntide.’
28
For Henry, as with most of his age, the burden of proof rested with the wife, who had promised at the wedding ceremony to ‘be bonair and buxom in bed and at board’, and at the time of Catherine’s disgrace, one of the many crimes arrayed against her was that ‘physicians say she cannot bear children.’
29

Insecure as the position of the royal spouse was, the danger was immeasurably increased by the fact that a queen was something more than ‘part of the state furniture’ and a fruitful bedmate to the monarch. Catherine was also essential to the successful operation of party and family politics. For all the exorbitant and abundant favours lavished upon her by a doting husband, the Queen was never her own mistress. She remained a Howard, and now that that ‘foul churl’, Thomas Cromwell, was disposed of, the Howards and their allies fondly expected to reap the harvest of their sowing, for policy and patronage – those two words that held the secret of political success – were now finally theirs. The Bishop of Winchester had regained his seat on the council, and as ‘the King’s own bishop’ set the course of conservative action.
Norfolk
remained Lord Treasurer and a year later was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the North. Robert Rateliff, Earl of Sussex,
Norfolk
’s old ally and relation, became the Great Chamberlain; and another conservative by blood, if not by politics, William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, assumed Cromwell’s key post of Lord Privy Seal. Thomas Cranmer still retained his place upon the council, but the Archbishop was marked by his enemies for destruction. Finally Thomas Audley, Anthony Browne and Thomas Wriothesley all made their peace with the conservative faction, while Gardiner and
Tunstal
,
Sussex
and
Norfolk
, ruled the roost and controlled the approaches to the royal presence.

The Howards were quick to grasp the fruits of power, and dutifully Catherine filled her household with Howard friends and relations. Every claimant to the new Queen’s affections, every acquaintance, kin and servant who could conjure up a right to Howard patronage, now hoped for preferment, and even the family tailor said that ‘if she [Catherine] were advanced he expected a good living.’
30
Joan Bulmer, the Queen’s old associate and confidante of those almost forgotten days in the Dowager’s dormitory at Lambeth, immediately wrote wishing Catherine all honour, wealth and good fortune, and suggesting that she share some of that prosperity with her childhood friend. The lady in question begged that the Queen recall the ‘unfeigned love that my heart hath always borne towards you’, and she beseeched Catherine to save room for her at court, for the nearer she was to the Queen the happier she would be.
31
Catherine, unfortunately, did not ignore Mistress Bulmer, and a place was found for her as one of the Queen’s chamberers.

Generosity and family patronage were carried to the point of dangerous idiocy when, in August of 1541, Catherine remembered Francis Dereham and made space for her former paramour as her private secretary.
32
On all sides, former friends, servants, and relations made good their claims, and the Queen’s household rapidly became a Howard stronghold. Three out of the six ‘great ladies’ of her court were close family relations; Catherine’s sister, Isabel Baynton, became one of the ladies of the privy chamber; and Sir Edward Baynton was made governor of her household. Those three old friends from Lambeth and Horsham days, Katherine Tylney, Alice Restwold and Margaret Morton, received favoured and intimate positions as chamberers, and so close was their association with the Queen that the other ladies of the chamber began to complain that they were being ignored and replaced in the Queen’s affections. Finally Lady Margaret Arundel, the Queen’s aunt, and Lady Dennys, cousin to Catherine, were added to the growing family control as gentlewomen attendants.
33

The good things of political life were not limited simply to the Queen’s household. Catherine’s brother, George Howard, was named one of the gentlemen of the King’s privy chamber, and her brother-in-law, Sir Edward Baynton, received possession of the manor of Semleigh. The grants and favours bestowed by the Crown upon the Queen’s immediate family are almost endless; the Howard brothers, Charles and George, acquired licence to import 1,000 tuns of Gascon wine and Toulouse timber into England; uncle William Howard and cousin Henry, Earl of Surrey, received new gowns and jackets from the royal wardrobe; brother George was presented with lands formerly belonging to the monastery of Wilton; brother Charles was appointed to the exclusive and coveted position of one of the King’s spears; and the Queen’s sister, Lady Baynton, received a gift of 100 marks in fee simple.

Catherine’s influence did have its limits, however, and she soon discovered that the clamour for patronage far exceeded her ability to oblige. When, for instance, she wrote to the Archbishop of York asking him to bestow the advowson of the archdeanery of
York
upon one of her chaplains, he firmly but politely refused. The Archbishop explained that he never granted an advowson, ‘saving at the King’s command’, and complained that those who conspired for such positions were like vultures who espy aged ecclesiastics and then ‘hearken and gape every day’ waiting for them to die.
34
On the other hand, the Queen, at the Duke of Norfolk’s request, succeeded in persuading Henry to send her uncle William Howard as ambassador to France. The Queen’s influence was felt in yet other ways – she could play the lady merciful as well as the lady bountiful, and on occasion interceded with her lord and husband to pardon those who had fallen foul of the law. It was reported that it was Catherine’s tender tears that saved the life of a spinster lady by the name of Helen Page; her intercession rescued her cousin John Legh from the Tower and the suspicion of treason; and her efforts preserved the family friend, Sir Thomas Wyatt, from the unpleasant consequences of his follies.
35

The price that Catherine paid for power, success and proximity to the King was the envy and hatred of those less favourably stationed. A wiser and more imaginative woman might have observed the mounting enmity and tension that began to close in about the Queen. Catherine was now absolutely essential to the fortunes of her party and family. As a consequence, she was caught up in the vicious game of political intrigue and manoeuvring on the part of those who sought vengeance upon the conservative faction and upon the Howard tribe, by striking at the source and symbol of their authority – the Queen herself. The French Ambassador sagely put his finger on the truth about Henry’s court and Catherine’s environment when he wrote that ever since Thomas Cromwell had sought to liquidate the conservative forces of Norfolk and Winchester, ‘others have arisen who will never rest till they have done as much to all Cromwell’s adherents, and God knows whether after them others will not recommence the feast.’ The jackal of politics constituted an omnipresent threat to any party in power, and ever since the forces of vehemence and change had been set loose by the King’s Great Matter, bitterness, religious passion and personal hatred had risen to plague the English political scene. Marillac was absolutely correct when he concluded that ‘as long as they are making war on each other they will innovate nothing against France.’
36

The Queen not only had her political ill-wishers; she also had those who hated her for herself and who saw her as an instrument of Satan. Protestant malice was a constant menace, and the man who eventually betrayed the secret of the Queen’s intimacies with Francis Dereham undoubtedly did so out of religious fervour. This was John Lassells, whose sister had been one of the Duchess’s servants at Lambeth. At the time of the conservative triumph, Lassells left no doubt about his position when he asked two friends what news there was pertaining to ‘God’s holy word’. He was informed that the faith languished and the forces of the Devil triumphed. The worthy Lassells proved himself a zealous, if cautious, Protestant, for he urged his colleagues to have faith and ‘not to be too rash or quick in maintaining the Scriptures’, for the enemies of God would shortly destroy themselves.
37
He was quite right; within a year, his sister, Mary Hall, had placed in his hands information which, if it did not restore ‘God’s holy word’, at least led to the disgrace and overthrow of the Howard Queen of England.

Added to Protestant hatred was personal animosity, for Catherine never seems to have inspired loyalty or devotion in others. From the beginning she was surrounded by enemies, and at Lambeth John Lassell’s sister, Mary Hall, was heard to remark in reference to the Dereham affair: ‘Let her alone, for if she holds on as she begins we shall hear she will be nought within a while.’
38
Later, the same Mrs Hall was delighted to gossip about the Queen’s evil and unchaste youth, and her brother was quick to perceive that here was the means by which the enemies of God might be brought low. Both for the ‘discharge of his duty’ and the welfare of his soul, John Lassells hastened to communicate to the council in London the story of that ‘puffing and blowing’ that had gone on at Lambeth.
39

Mary Hall was not alone in her distaste for Catherine. There were plenty of others among the Queen’s immediate household who also cordially disliked their Howard mistress. On all sides were animosity, spite and intrigue, and Catherine, in life as well as in death, became the victim of that malice. Almost everything we know about the girl stems from the mouths of enemies or colleagues frantic to dissociate themselves from the Queen’s disgrace and to oblige their interrogators by painting as vicious a picture of Catherine as possible. Everywhere the evidence is confusing, contradictory, and on occasion downright dishonest. If the testimony purporting to prove the Queen’s carnal desires and activities demonstrates anything, it indicates that imagination largely supplemented memory, and that almost everyone concerned lied like a trooper.