Katherine Howard: A New History Read online

  It appears, however, that Katherine refused her former acquaintance’s request. Most historians have assumed that Katherine acceded to Joan’s desire for a position within her household, and granted her the office of chamberer. However, the lists for the queen’s household name only four chamberers, none of whom included Joan Bulmer. The chamberers mentioned were Katherine Tylney, Margaret Morton and mistresses Friswith and Loffkyn.15 Joan Bulmer, therefore, seems never to have served Katherine Howard, either as chamberer or in any other position. The lists for the queen’s household make no mention of her, and she does not appear as a prominent witness in the later interrogations. In fact, in her letter to Katherine it is apparent that Joan had not asked for a position within the queen’s household but instead sought ‘some room, the nearer her the better’. It appears that Joan was eager to escape her turbulent marriage, and desired to depart for London where she could meet and converse with the new queen, perhaps to confide in the severe difficulties she was experiencing. Possibly, with knowledge of Katherine’s own sexual experiences, she desired to offer Katherine condolences for what she had been forced to undergo, having herself become aware of what it was to be unhappily married. Rather than attempting to blackmail or threaten Katherine, as some historians have supposed, it is likely, since Katherine was to marry Henry VIII only two weeks later, that Joan both comforted her and warned her of the necessity of keeping quiet about her sexual affairs, particularly with Manox, for both socially and legally, women were commonly blamed and punished for sexual transgressions rather than their male counterparts. Why Katherine may not have responded to Joan’s letter is unknown. Possibly it was because of her own illiteracy, which will later be discussed, but more probably it was because she felt that, days before she married the King of England, anything connected with her former life within the household of the dowager duchess should be forgotten and discarded. On the other hand, perhaps Joan’s husband refused her permission to meet with Katherine.

  It cannot be doubted, as has wryly been noted, that ‘we still do not know enough about the position of the queen consort in England’, reflecting ‘the essential maleness of history’.16 This is particularly relevant in relation to Henry VIII’s queens, for while those who made a considerable impact, such as the king’s first two queens, have left considerable evidence of their activities, patronage, and interests, the activities of Henry’s later wives, who reigned for much shorter durations, are less well-known. In contrast with the Renaissance humanism espoused by Katherine of Aragon through her education and the evangelical French humanism of Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard is commonly thought to have been illiterate and entirely conventional in her religious beliefs.17 However, Katherine of Aragon had been educated as a foreign princess and Anne Boleyn’s father, as an influential courtier and diplomat, had successfully utilised his connections with European courts to ensure that his daughter received an education quite unique for English gentlewomen. By contrast, Katherine Howard’s education befitting her position was more typical of her day, for it had never been envisaged at her birth that she might one day become a queen. Despite this, the king’s new queen is often popularly assumed to have been frivolous, uneducated and even stupid. In the words of one writer, she had ‘little more than puppy fat for brains’.18

  However, there is actually no evidence to support this claim – it is Katherine’s alleged adulteries during her period as queen that leads most to assume that she lacked common sense or wisdom. As with Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, who both ruled for similarly short periods of time, there is virtually no surviving documentation that indicates the true personality of the king’s fifth queen. As will be discussed in regards to her later activities, it is more likely to have been Katherine’s relative inexperience at the Tudor court, rather than her alleged stupidity, which influenced her actions as queen. Without compelling evidence from the early period of her reign to demonstrate her personal characteristics it is unfair and unwise for historians to characterise Katherine in a negative light, for much of what we do know of her comes from hostile observers under desperate circumstances, in the last few months of her life. Thus the suggestion that her personality was comprised of ‘wild hysteria and agonizing self-appraisals with haughty disdain and senseless cheerfulness’ is not necessarily at all accurate, for surviving source material makes no mention of these supposed traits during the months of her marriage.19

  Unlike Anne Boleyn, who had served Katherine of Aragon for at least four years before the king fell in love with her, and Jane Seymour who had similarly been in royal service for around seven years, Katherine was relatively inexperienced at the Tudor court, for it seems apparent that Henry had decided to marry her within months of their first meeting. Having served Anne of Cleves from the winter of 1539-40, at the time of her marriage in July 1540 the new queen had been at court for just seven or eight months. Furthermore, when she married the king she may not yet have been sixteen years of age. Surrounded by knowledgeable and educated women within her household, most of whom were several years older than her, it is not going too far, surely, to suggest that Katherine was somewhat out of her depth when she became Queen of England. This is essential to bear in mind when considering her later activities as queen.

  Like her predecessors, the new queen’s image was immortalised in portraits painted by the finest court artists, although it is possible that there are no extant portraits of Katherine still in existence today. The French ambassador described Henry’s new wife in the summer of 1540 as a lady of ‘great beauty’, but upon meeting her in September 1540 found her to be ‘of moderate beauty, but of very attractive deportment, little and strong, of modest demeanour and mild countenance’.20 He also added that she favoured French fashions and encouraged her ladies to follow her, which is interesting in light of Katherine’s portraiture.21 Certainly, during her period as queen, it seems likely that Katherine would have been painted by the masterful Hans Holbein, who had created images of previous queens such as Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. However, whether any portraits of Katherine painted by Holbein survive today has been the subject of considerable controversy. In the nineteenth century, a portrait of a young woman in her twenty-first year was identified as Queen Katherine. As has been pointed out, at this time Holbein was in much favour with Henry VIII, making it likely that the king would have commissioned Holbein to paint his young queen.22

  Housed today at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, the sitter, not yet twenty-one, wears a rich gown of black silk (see Figure 5). There is some controversy as to whether this signifies that the sitter is a widow, and thus dressed in mourning apparel, or whether or not it merely portrays her high status and excellent lineage, for black was an extremely expensive dye during this period and, as such, only the wealthiest were able to wear it.23 It is instructive that, in most of her portraits, Queen Anne Boleyn is attired in gowns of black. On the basis that the sitter’s attire signifies that she is a widow, and because of a supposed resemblance to Queen Jane, some historians have cautiously suggested that the image portrays Elizabeth Seymour, younger sister of Queen Jane, who was a widow in 1534 following the death of her first husband Sir Anthony Oughtred. However, there are substantial problems with this identification, namely that Elizabeth’s actual birth date is unknown and so it cannot be known for certain whether she was aged twenty or twenty-one in the mid 1530s when she was widowed. Moreover, as Alison Weir usefully suggests, it would be extraordinary for a younger daughter of a mere knight (Sir John Seymour) to wear such extravagant costume, when she herself was relatively unknown in the mid-1530s before her elder sister rose to prominence, and it seems unlikely that, given the proliferation of the image – three versions exist – the sitter was a mere maid-of-honour to Anne Boleyn. It is also doubtful whether or not the sitter really does resemble Jane Seymour, for her colouring, in particular, seems somewhat darker than that of Henry VIII’s third queen.

  It is, however, problematic to identify the sitter as Queen Katherine H
oward, for the costume of the sitter may date actually from the mid- to late-1530s rather than the early 1540s, when she was briefly queen consort. A further issue is the sitter’s age for, as has been suggested in this study, the queen was aged sixteen in 1540 and almost certainly never reached her twenty-first birthday. The sitter wears a serious, thoughtful expression, almost bordering on matronly propriety. Her hair appears to be reddish-brown, or auburn, with dark eyes, pale skin, a prominent nose and firm chin. The sitter sits with her hands clasped and the fingers interlaced, displaying expensive jewellery. She wears a French hood edged with white, embroidered in gold, with a black veil, a popular headdress that had become fashionable in England during the 1520s and later became associated with Anne Boleyn. By the late 1530s and early 1540s, the headdress began to be worn further and further back on the head until it required a strap worn beneath the chin to keep it in place, as evidenced in this particular portrait. The sleeves are adorned with gold embroidery, with rich cambric ruffles at the wrists. The sitter’s jewellery is also noteworthy, for she wears a narrow necklace, clearly expensive, set with pearls and diamonds, with a large pendant jewel attached. She wears a brooch on her gown from which hangs a circular jewel, edged in gold, with a diamond prominent in the centre. This has intriguingly been suggested as depicting the story of Lot’s wife and the flight of Lot from Sodom.24 Yet ‘it is strange that Catherine [sic] Howard should have selected so ominous a subject, so suggestive of the frailty and irresolution of the female mind’.25 Other versions of the portrait exist, with a copy housed in the National Portrait Gallery, which dates from after 1612 and was purchased in 1898. Another version sits in Hever Castle.

  Certainly Katherine was famous for the jewellery she enjoyed. Indeed, the author of The Chronicle of Henry VIII somewhat bluntly remembered her as the ‘wife who made him [the King] spend so much in dresses and jewels [...] who every day had some fresh caprice’.26 At New Year 1540-1, the queen was presented with a ‘square containing 27 table diamonds and 26 clusters of pearls’, a brooch constructed of 33 diamonds and 60 rubies with an edge of pearl, and a ‘muffler of black velvet furred with sables containing 38 rubies and 572 pearls’.27 At the time of her downfall, Katherine’s jewellery was delivered to Anne Herbert, sister of the queen’s successor Katherine Parr. During her period as queen, Katherine Howard owned many luxurious items, including:

  •an ‘upper habiliment of goldsmith’s work enamelled and garnished with vij. fair diamonds, vij. fair rubies and vij. fair pearls’

  •‘an upper habiliment containing eight diamonds and seven rubies’

  •a ‘carcane for the neck, of goldsmith’s work, wherein is set in gold vj. very fair table diamonds, and v. very fair rubies, and betwixt every of the same stones is two fair pearls containing in the whole xxiiij’

  •a ‘collar’ of 16 diamonds; two ‘laces’ of ‘xxvij fair table diamonds and clviij fair pearls’

  •‘a rope of fair large pearl containing cc pearls’

  •‘one fair brooch of gold enamelled with white having a border of antique boys about the same, with a very fair square diamond holden by a man whose coat and boots are enamelled with blue, and a king, crowned, with a sceptre in his hand at th’one end thereof’

  •‘a gold brooch with 35 small diamonds and 18 rubies with three persons and two horses in the same being the story of Noye’

  •‘a Jesus of gold containing xxxij diamonds having three pearls hanging at the same’

  •seventeen girdles of gold

  •twenty-three pairs of beads

  •eight chains of gold

  •tablets of gold

  The sheer amount of expensive jewellery Katherine enjoyed is incredible. She also made presents of jewellery to her ladies, including to both of the king’s daughters and to his niece Lady Margaret Douglas.28

  In view of Katherine’s inventory, it has subsequently been theorised that the sitter must be the queen. However, there are noteworthy issues, namely the sitter’s age and her appearance. According to the French ambassador, who met Katherine in the autumn of 1540, the new queen was ‘small and slender’, even ‘very diminutive’, whereas Holbein’s sitter appears to have been bulkier in build. Katherine’s beauty was also consistently remarked upon, with the court observer William Thomas, for example, describing her as ‘a very beautiful gentlewoman’.29 George Cavendish also repeated Katherine’s ‘beawtie’ in his Metrical Visions.30 Holbein’s sitter wears a matronly, serious expression, and appears worn and tired, which must further call into question whether the sitter actually is the ‘beautiful’ Katherine. Although the lavish costume and expensive jewellery certainly indicate that the sitter was extremely well-born, probably royal, and definitively rules out Elizabeth Cromwell, it may not necessarily represent Queen Katherine. If the portrait dates from the late 1530s rather than the early 1540s, it is possible that it depicts a different royal woman, for during this period there were four other royal women at Henry VIII’s court, all of whom could have been the sitter in this portrait. These women were Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and aged twenty in 1536-7, Lady Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII and aged twenty in 1535-6, Frances Brandon, niece of Henry VIII and aged twenty in 1537-8, and her younger sister Eleanor, aged twenty in 1539-40. It is noteworthy that Holbein’s portrait was originally identified as a portrait of Eleanor Brandon, Countess of Cumberland, and later as Mary Tudor.31

  It is also interesting that the portrait was found in the collection of the Cromwell family.32 Although Katherine herself may not personally have played a prominent role in Thomas Cromwell’s downfall, it would have been extraordinary for the Cromwell family to have owned a portrait of the woman associated most closely with his downfall and execution, particularly in terms of her Catholic beliefs, which would have been unacceptable by the reformist Cromwell family. If one takes this further, not only may the sitter have had some connection with the Cromwells, but her religious beliefs were surely Protestant, for Thomas Cromwell was associated with the suppression of Catholicism within England and, thus, it is highly unlikely that his family would have retained a portrait of a Catholic sitter, at a time of violent conflict between Catholics and Protestants. If this thinking is correct, then Katherine Howard must be completely ruled out as the sitter in view of several points: her age, her religious beliefs, her appearance and the dating of the portrait.

  It is likely that this portrait was painted between 1535 and 1540. At that particular point the fortunes of Princess Mary were singularly random, for while she had been in disgrace during Anne Boleyn’s period as queen, she had later been restored to her father’s favour during his marriage to Jane Seymour and later to Anne of Cleves. Because she spent much greater time at court in 1536-7, it is possible that Mary might have been the sitter in Holbein’s portrait. However, the sitter’s features do not square with what is known of Mary’s appearance, whose portraits evidence much paler skin, grey eyes, compressed lips, a high forehead, golden hair and a delicate frame.33 Her Catholic faith and her uneasy relationship with Thomas Cromwell also call into doubt her likelihood as the sitter. More possibly the sitter could be Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII and later Countess of Lennox. Reported in 1534 to be ‘beautiful and highly esteemed’, the king’s niece is believed to have had ‘heavy-lidded, deep-set eyes, a long nose, broad jaw, and fairly thin lips’, features evident in Holbein’s portrait.34 Aged twenty in 1535-6, she enjoyed good relations with Queen Anne Boleyn and became engaged to Thomas Howard, uncle of the queen, in the spring of 1536. However, the king was furious when he learned of his niece’s engagement, and imprisoned both Howard (in the Tower of London) and Margaret, who was only released on 29 October 1537. It is intriguing, in light of this discussion, that Margaret reputedly offered Howard a miniature portrait of herself during their courtship. She also appears to have enjoyed a courteous relationship with Cromwell, for she referred to herself as ‘her that has her trust in you’ in a letter of June 1537, written to him in which she ab
andoned Howard. She promised to ‘pray our Lord to preserve you both soul and body’.35 However, the issue of her Roman Catholic faith must call into question whether the Cromwells would have owned a portrait of a Catholic royal noblewoman, although it is possible, since she was the grandmother of the Protestant King James I of England, that she was associated with the Protestant cause. Alternatively, the portrait may represent one of the Brandon sisters, who were prominent at court in the late 1530s. In Frances’s case, her status as mother of the Protestant queen Lady Jane Grey might have made an image of her an attractive gift for the Cromwell family.

  It is therefore extremely unlikely that Holbein’s portrait of this young woman aged in her twenty-first year depicts Katherine Howard, for although the luxurious jewellery could support her candidacy as the sitter, it should be taken into account that other royal noblewomen, including the king’s daughters and nieces, were able to wear expensive items of jewellery, making it more likely that the sitter is one of three of Henry VIII’s nieces: Margaret Douglas, Frances Brandon, or her sister Eleanor.

  More conventionally, a miniature by Holbein in the Royal Collection at Windsor (see Figure 6) has usually been identified as a portrait of Queen Katherine, perhaps during her first winter as queen. A second version exists in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch. Starkey confidently asserts that, on the basis of the sitter’s jewellery and costume, ‘[...] the picture is of her [Katherine]. It can even be dated as a wedding portrait.’36 By the mid nineteenth-century, the sitter had been identified as Henry’s fifth queen but had probably not been viewed as such before the eighteenth century. Painted watercolour on vellum, the portrait measures 6.3cm in height. The earliest reference to the portrait miniature in the Royal Collection dates from the Restoration of 1660-1, when it may have been identified as ‘a small peice Inclineing of a woman after ye Dresse of Henry ye Eightes wife by Peter Oliver’. The version owned by Buccleuch can be traced back to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, in whose collection it was engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar as unnamed. Yet in neither case was Katherine Howard identified as the portrait’s sitter. The fact that the portrait in the Buccleuch Collection was owned by Thomas Howard, a descendant of Queen Katherine, could lend support to the fact that the sitter was a Howard and, probably, the queen herself.