Born 1521  `Married 1540   Executed 1542   

Catherine Howard 

Fifth wife

Catherine Howard was the first cousin of Anne Boleyn. She was a gay, high spirited girl, free with her favours and uninhibited in her behaviour. Had the king not taken a fancy to her she would probably  have been married off to some aspiring social climber to whom the satisfaction of marrying into one of the foremost noble houses of the day would have been adequate compensation for the inadequacy of her dowry. She would undoubtedly have led any husband a dance and would probably have featured quite frequently in scandalous tales at court. But what might have been tolerated in the career of a minor court personage, could not be permitted in a queen. It was Catherine's tragedy that she so completely failed to understand that queens must be totally above suspicion. Catherine was only 19 when she first attracted Henry's attention and aroused his interest. This happened only a few weeks after she had gained her first entry to court as being appointed of the ladies of waiting to attend the new queen Anne of Cleves. Henry rapid disillusionment with the Cleves marriage, which was proving both political inconvenient and personal distasteful to him, was undoubtedly accelerated by the tantalizing presence in the queen's entourage of this latest bright-eyed charmer. the long drawn-out bargaining which had preceded his forth marriage had brought the king no satisfaction. It had clearly been a mistake to let himself talked into a purely political match. If he was free he would choose for himself next time. Henry was married to Catherine on 28 July 1540 just 16 days after the nullification of his marriage with Anne Cleves.  For the greatest part of a  year, this strange marriage of opposites was a marked success. Henry was now nearly 50 years of age. He had lost most of his youthful charms and a lot of his youthful vigour. he was severely handicapped by his increasing corpulence and his ulcerated leg, and yet for a while after his marriage to Catherine he quite miraculously recovered a lot of his former zest for life. Early rising, long hours in the saddle by day and in feasting and dancing at night were once more the pattern of his days The young queen, his " very jewel of womanhood" was all to him. She was adored by her loving and delighted spouse who showered her with gifts and favours and pampered and petted her in every way. Catherine for her part reveled in it all. Fine clothes  and flattery she enjoyed. The gay whirl of court festivities was heaven to her and she had the youth vigour to enjoy it to the full. The loving caresses of her ageing and obese husband may not have trilled her so much, but she took pleasure in the powers and privileges that belong to her as queen. But the dream was not to last. In April there were disturbing signs of growing tension. For one thing there was still no sign of Catherine being with child, and not for long could such bareness go pardoned in a queen of Henry the V111. She also began to seek and find pleasure of gay young gallants of her own generation. It was of course very foolish of her not to realize that even the innocent flirtations could and would be misrepresented by enemies at court. In November when the king returned from a visit to the north, he was informed of the queen's misconducts. Henry's immediate reaction was one of disbelief. He could not accept that his adored young wife had played with him false. He dismissed the evidence against her as slanderous. But at the same time he ordered that further enquiries be made, perhaps in expectations that they would reveal the hollowness of the accusations. The result was the reverse. the further the investigators probed the more damming the evidence they unearthed. Henry's idyll was scattered. His much idealized wife was revealed as unscrupulous deceiver who had played with his affection and dishonored his crown .For such a double affront to his honour as husband and king there could be no mercy. Catherine went the way of her cousin Anne Boleyn. She was tried, condemned and beheaded in the tower on 13 February 1542.  

The haunted Gallery at Hampton Court Palace, from which Catherine was dragged , after trying to reach Henry for her life.