Katherine howard letter to thomas culpepper
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That which doth comfortly me very much when I think of it, and when I think again that you shall depart from me again it makes my heart die to think what fortune I have that I cannot be always in your company. His own account of the matter, and there’s a superb letter here that he’s written to the King, describing her state of mind… He describes her as being in a frenzy, being hysterical, he has to calm her down.
After Catherine’s fall from grace, Culpeper was among the men charged with committing adultery with the queen. Catherine’s original tormentor, Henry Mannox, when he learns of this relationship jealousy kicks in and he informs Catherine’s grandmother, who under the conditions of the time blames young Catherine, but Francis Dereham is shipped off to a post in Ireland and it’s all hushed up.
She’d been sexually abused by one of her tutors, Henry Mannox – he was her music tutor – and then a few years later, Francis Dereham – who is a kinsman of the Duke of Norfolk – it’s likely they had sex, she’s certainly allowing him into her bed chamber and they appear to have exchanged vows. He’s certainly referred to her as his wife. Knowing what happened to Anne Boleyn, who was executed, you can imagine that she got very scared…
Yes.
Cranmer is sent in to investigate.
It’s complicated and they didn’t know how to proceed, so she’s not tried in a court, under special commission, she’s tried by Parliament using a legal procedure called a bill of attainder.
What is that exactly?
So it strips her civil rights and it authorises them to execute her.
The Royal Succession, the Act of Succession of 1534, also declared it treason to do anything of peril to the King’s person, or to give occasion where the King might be disturbed or interrupted of the Crown, and it’s under this legislation that the case against Catherine is raised.
So that’s quite the gap.
So, she becomes queen in 1540. In this episode, Neil Johnston and Christopher Day discuss a letter we hold here at The National Archives that was written by Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, to Thomas Culpeper. It’s hard to know if they had a full sexual relationship or not. Catherine herself, she’s… she’s effectively implicated and things that she had said, supposedly, reported to her ladies and her family when she was younger… she was supposed to have said that she was pleading with Culpeper to remember that Henry was the supreme head of the church and if any of this was reported in confession that it would inevitably make its way up the chain of command back to the King because he was the head of the church.
The process then splits in two.
"Queen Catherine Howard to Master Thomas Culpeper" https://englishhistory.net/tudor/letter/queen-catherine-howard-master-thomas-culpeper/, February 4, 2015
Hello and welcome to The National Archives podcast series. What happens is, while the court is still in progress, in 1541, so a year or so into their marriage.
He did so by writing to the King – handing the King a letter and effectively scarpering by all accounts because he didn’t want to really hang around as Henry was informed of what was happening. Henry supposedly reacts with disbelief, he’s quite taken aback and he’s very, very upset. As far as he’s concerned they are married. Purportedly he had no real romantic interest in her and he couldn’t divorce her quickly enough.
After all, the queen did write ‘it makes my heart die to think what fortune I have that I cannot be always in your company.’
The affection she felt for Thomas Culpeper led to a legend surrounding Catherine’s last words – ‘I die a Queen, but would rather die the wife of Culpeper.’ This final declaration of love did not occur; its invention was an attempt to give Catherine’s pathetic and tragic story some mark of distinction.
Catherine Howard was not as well educated as Henry’s other wives, though her mere ability to read and write was impressive enough for the time.