The Case Against Katherine Howard

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royal party enthusiastically on their way to Yorkshire. The king and queen were in fine spirits when they returned to Hampton Court on All Saints Eve, October 31, 1541. The king never before seemed more happy and content. He continually referred to his wife as, my Rose without a thorn. Next morning at early mass on All Saints Day, Henry gave a prayer of thanks to God in honor of his wife Katherine, saying, “I render thanks to Thee, O Lord, that after so many accidents that have befallen my past marriages, Thou hast been pleased to give me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclinations as I now have.” It was his intention to decree that all churches in the land make prayers of thanks to God for the his most gracious Queen, the epitome of married virtue. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer saw the king enter the Hampton Court Chapel, and had heard the king’s prayer of thanks for the perfect wife for his old age. Cranmer cautiously and fearfully gave the king a manuscript that summarized evidences that had been volunteered to him and the Privy Council that the virtue of Queen Katherine was far less than desirable for one in her station in life. The paper indicated that the queen may have been unchaste with several men including Thomas Culpepper, who was in the king’s present employ, and with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham in the queen’s present household. King Henry was dumbfounded by the report. He did not believe the accusations. He was sure they were malicious fabrications. He ordered Cranmer to study the matter, “You are not to desist until you have gotten to the bottom of the plot.” He was sure of Katherine’s innocence, but ordered that she remain in her palace apartment with only Lady Rochford in attendance until the court of in... ... middle of paper ... .... It was necessary for Parliament to pass a special dispensation to permit execution of an insane person. She was forcibly carried struggling and incoherent to the scaffold where, kicking and howling, after many blows, she was finally hacked to death. Katherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, was the least qualified of his six wives to be queen of England. Her reign of a year and a half ended before she had any influence on the course of events that followed. She was best equipped to be a courtesan, not a queen—in that role, she could better have been England’s Madame de Maintenon, Madame de Pompadour, or Madame du Berry. Sadly, Katherine Howard’s country was England, not France. Ever after Katherine Howard’s fall, King Henry VIII was a broken man. Yet, his final five years of his life were blessed by marriage to his sixth and best Queen Katherine Parr.

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