15

Worthy and just punishment

At Syon, Katherine was treated with respect. She lacked neither food nor warmth, and was served by her own ladies. Yet, from her point of view, she had been deprivedofall the trappings of queenship that mattered to her and consigned to a seclusion that did little to alleviate her depression or allay her fears. She had no idea of what was to happen to her, nor was she informed of what was being said about her by those under questioning. She was certainly not aware that the interrogation of all the suspects had begun that very day, nor that letters had already gone out to all English ambassadors at foreign courts, relating her offences - her name would soon be a byword in Europe for immorality.

She was left to wander around the three chambers assigned to her. They were furnished in moderate comfort, but the hangings were of 'mean stuff. There was no cloth of estate. Edward Baynton, her chamberlain, dined in one room with the rest of the staff, while Katherine kept to the other two. She had four gentlewomen and two chamberers in attendance, as well as her confessor. Lady Baynton was chief lady-in-waiting. Katherine had certainly fared better than Anne Boleyn. There were no spies listening to her every word, and she was not yet in the Tower. There was, perhaps, still hope.

Archbishop Cranmer was not a cruel man, but he was determined that the Queen should be sacrificed in the cause of reform. If she was allowed to live, there was always the possibility that the King might relent and take her back. It was therefore imperative that a charge of adultery be brought against Katherine, even though there was as yet no evidence for it. It was hoped by the Archbishop and his supporters that the interrogations of the prisoners in the Tower would yield enough information to send the Queen to the block.

The musician, Henry Manox - said by Mrs Hall to have taken sexual liberties with Katherine - was the first to be questioned. He said that he had been engaged by the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk to teach Katherine music and singing. He admitted having tried to seduce her, and divulged how the Duchess had unexpectedly come upon them both one day while they were indulging in intimate foreplay. She had beaten them both for it, and commanded them never to be alone together again. This had not deterred Manox, and he had continued to lay siege to Katherine until she had agreed he might caress her private parts - in his own words, he had 'felt more than was convenient'. However, he swore on the damnation of his

soul that he had never enjoyed full intercourse with her. Eventually, he said, Katherine had tired of him, and transferred her affections to Dereham. He, Manox, had been extremely jealous, and had waylaid her one day, saying, 'Let me perceive by some token that you love me.' 'What token shall I show you?' Katherine had retorted, 'I will never be naught with you, and able to marry me you be not.' Manox had then sought to be revenged on his former sweetheart, and had gone straight to the Duchess with a friend surnamed Barnes and warned her that, if she were to rise again half an hour after retiring to bed, and go to the ladies' dormitory, 'you shall see that which shall displease you'. He did not know whether she had acted upon his advice. The Council, seeing that he had committed no crime and could help them no further, then released him.

They next called Katherine Tylney, one of the Queen's chamberers, as it was believed that she might help to prove adultery against the Queen. Knowing that Katherine had engaged Dereham as her secretary during the recent progress - an action that now seemed damning in the light of what had been discovered about her past - Sir Thomas Wriothesley questioned Mrs Tylney about the Queen's behaviour on that progress. Had she left her chamber any night at Lincoln or elsewhere? Tylney recalled that at Lincoln Katherine left her room late at night on two occasions and went to Lady Rochford's chamber, which was up two short flights of stairs. On the first occasion, Mrs Tylney and Margaret Morton had accompanied their mistress, but Katherine had sent them both downstairs again. Tylney went to bed, but Morton had later returned upstairs, and did not come to bed until around two o'clock. Tylney woke then, and said, 'Jesus, is not the Queen abed yet?', to which Margaret replied, 'Yes, even now.' On the second night, Katherine made all her other ladies go to bed, and took only Tylney upstairs with her. She remained in Lady Rochford's chamber as long as before, and Tylney was obliged to wait outside with Lady Rochford's waiting woman, so she never saw 'who came unto the Queen and my Lady Rochford, nor heard what was said between them'. Tylney was certain that Katherine had gone to Lady Rochford's room to meet someone. She also remembered taking 'sundry strange messages' from her mistress to Lady Rochford, so strange that she 'could not tell how to utter them'. This had gone on after the court returned to Hampton. There, one day, Katherine had told Tylney to go to Lady Rochford and ask her 'when she should have the thing she promised her'. Lady Rochford had answered that 'she sat up for it, and she would the next day bring her word herself

Wriothesley was pleased with Tylney's evidence, and told Sir Ralph Sadler that she 'hath done us worthy service' and that he was 'picking out anything that is likely to serve the purpose of our business'. Certainly Tylney's evidence pointed at something very odd going on, and the Council had little difficulty in concluding that the Queen had gone to meet a lover - possibly Dereham - in the room of Lady Rochford, who had acted as her bawd. If this were true, then Tylney's evidence would be damning.

In a mood of grim anticipation, the Council summoned Margaret Morton, Tylney's companion on the nights in question. She deposed that Lady Rochford had definitely been a party to some intrigue being carried on by the Queen, not only at Lincoln, but also at Pontefract and York. At Pontefract, the Queen had had angry words with herself and another chamberer, Mrs Luffkyn, and had forbidden them to enter her bedchamber. Morton was implying here that Katherine had an ulterior motive for keeping them out. Lady Rochford had also conveyed letters between the Queen and a third party, whom Morton supposed to have been Thomas Culpeper. One night, while the court was at Pontefract, Katherine was in her bedchamber with no attendant other than Lady Rochford-which, in itself, was unusual; Lady Rochford had not only locked the chamber door, but also bolted it on the inside. Consequently, when the King came unexpectedly to spend the night with his wife, he found the door fastened, and there was some delay before Lady Rochford opened it to admit him.

The Council now questioned Morton closely about Thomas Culpeper. Hitherto, they had suspected Katherine of intriguing with Dereham, but it now appeared that she might have been even more profligate with her favours. Morton confirmed their suspicions when she declared that she 'never mistrusted the Queen until at Hatfield I saw her look out of her chamber window on Master Culpeper, after such sort that I thought there was love between them'. Once, Katherine had been alone in her closet with Culpeper for five or six hours, and Morton thought 'for certain they had passed out' (a Tudor euphemism for orgasm). All the while, she remembered, Katherine had 'been in fear that somebody should come in'.

Katherine had not only been playing with fire, but she had also been indiscreet about it, and incredibly stupid. The Council now wasted no time in searching through Culpeper's effects, and found a letter, signed by the Queen (and appallingly spelt, for she was barely literate), which confirmed what everyone had begun to suspect, that she had, indeed, been conducting a love affair with her cousin. It read:

Master Culpepper,

I heartily recommend me unto you, praying you to send me word

how that you do. I did hear that ye were sick, and I never longed

for anything so much as to see you. It maketh my heart to die

when I do think that I cannot always be in your company. Come

to me when Lady Rochford be here, for then I shall be best at

leisure to be at your commandment. . . . And thus I take my leave

of you, trusting to see you shortly again. And I would you were

with me now, that you might see what pain I take in writing to

you.

Yours as long as life endures,

Katherine's letter, although undated, was the most telling evidence against her, supported as it was by a weight of incriminating allegations by Tylney and Morton.

The Council continued its relentless quest for evidence: it was now hot on the trail. Alice Restwold, one of the inmates of the Duchess's household at Lambeth, gave an account of the time Dereham came into Katherine's bed when she herself was sharing it. She had got out 'for shame' and refused to sleep there again, for she was a married woman, and knew 'what belonged to that puffing and blowing'. This might have brought a touch of humour into the otherwise grave enquiry, but it did not assist a charge of adultery. Joan Bulmer also gave evidence, but her statement is no longer extant. It appears that she had at some stage abetted the Queen's intrigues.

The Council decided to call Lady Rochford next. Jane Rochford, who was later described as 'the principal occasion of the Queen's folly', had by now calmed down a little, and was lucid enough to be questioned. Thinking only of saving her own skin - for she, more than anyone, had cause to know the penalties for adultery in a queen - she abandoned Katherine to the wolves and admitted that Culpeper had had sexual intercourse with her mistress - she could not think it otherwise, 'considering all things that she hath heard and seen between them'. She testified that their intrigue had begun back in the spring, probably at the time when the King was suffering from depression and had left his wife to her own devices. Apparently, Culpeper had always cherished an affection for his pretty cousin, and it was he who had made the first advances. At first, they had not been welcome. 'Will this never end?' Katherine had sighed irritably to Lady Rochford, and had asked her to 'bid him desire no more to trouble me, or send to me.' But Culpeper had been persistent, and eventually the Queen had admitted him into her chamber in private. Before very long, they were meeting in Lady Rochford's rooms, with Lady Rochford standing guard in case the King came. It is likely that Culpeper had been there on the occasion described by Morton when Henry had come to sleep with his wife.

According to Lady Rochford, Katherine was well aware of the risks she was taking. 'This will be spied one day, and then we will all be undone,' she had said. Marillac later told Francis I that Katherine had used Dereham to incite Culpeper's jealousy, telling Lady Rochford to say to Culpeper that, if he would not listen to Katherine's side in the petty arguments they frequently engaged in, 'there was behind the door another'. Lady Rochford, however, said nothing of this, but her evidence was of vital importance, because it was that of an eyewitness and a participant. She was also guilty of aiding and abetting acts of treason, and the King was not known to be merciful to such offenders. Thus, for all her willingness to co-operate, she found herself back in the Tower after her examination. It was then that madness took its final hold on her.

Thomas Culpeper was the next to be interrogated. He was 'a beautiful youth', and had stood high in the King's favour. He confessed to having fallen in love with the Queen some months before, and admitted that she would at first have nothing to do with him. Later, she had grown warmer towards him. He was aware of her past, for she told him that, had she remained in the maidens' chamber at Lambeth, she would have 'tried' him. But her high rank had, he said, precluded any intimacy between them. Nevertheless, according to Culpeper, she was before very long 'languishing and dying of love for him', and would call him her 'little sweet fool'. He admitted that he had visited her in private, saying that Lady Rochford had contrived the interviews. Yet it was Katherine who, at every house she visited on the progress, would 'seek for the back door and back stairs'. At Pontefract, she was fearful that the King had set a watch on the back door, so Lady Rochford made her servant watch the courtyard to see if this was so.

As the affair progressed, so the Queen's fear of discovery deepened, although it was not sufficiently acute for her to abandon her lover. She warned him to beware if he went to confession, lest he should shrive him of any such things as should pass betwixt her and him; for if he did, surely the King, being Supreme Head of the Church, should have knowledge of it.

Culpeper had promised not to say anything compromising.

At this stage, the Council wanted to know if Culpeper had committed adultery with the Queen. He answered that, although Lady Rochford had 'provoked him much to love the Queen, and he intended to do ill with her and likewise the Queen so minded to do with him, he had not passed beyond words'. This, of course, was not what the assembled lords had been expecting to hear. Lord Hertford spoke for them all, therefore, when he told Culpeper that his intentions towards Queen Katherine were 'so loathsome and dishonest' that in themselves they could be said to constitute high treason. By this, it became apparent to Culpeper that he was doomed, and Katherine with him, and, the interrogation being at an end, he was taken back to prison.

The privy councillors deliberated. At length, they concluded that they 'vehemently suspected' the Queen of adultery with Thomas Culpeper, especially in view of his having been brought by Lady Rochford to her chamber at Lincoln during August, and having stayed there alone with Katherine from eleven o'clock at night until four o'clock in the morning. It was also considered significant that the Queen had, around this time, given him a gold chain and a 'rich cap'. 'You may see what was done before marriage,' reasoned Cranmer; 'God knoweth what has been done since!' The Council thought it might be expedient for the Archbishop to examine the Queen again, 'for she hath not, as appeareth by her confession, so fully declared the circumstances of such communications as were betwixt her and Culpeper'. It was felt that Cranmer, by careful questioning, 'might get of her more information'. A signed confession of adultery was what was really required, and the councillors had few doubts that the young Queen could be bullied or coerced into making one. Accordingly, Cranmer and Wriothesley went to visit Katherine at Syon to question her 'with respect to her intimacy with Culpeper'. They promised her mercy if she would make full confession of her faults, but Katherine, under their interrogation, strenuously denied intimacy with Culpeper, and persisted in her denial, even though she was probably lying to save her own skin and her lover's.

Meanwhile, the rumourmongers were once again busy. Two London housewives had been hauled before the Council and reprimanded for their unthinkinglese-majeste.One, Elizabeth Bassett, had wondered if 'God is working His own work to make the Lady Anne of Cleves queen again'. Her friend, Jane Ratsey, had replied that 'it was impossible that so sweet a queen as the Lady Anne could be utterly put down', and Mrs Bassett had exclaimed, 'What a man the King is! How many wives will he have?' Speculation that Henry might take back Anne of Cleves was widespread, since it was understood by many that the reformist party was working to bring down the Queen and the conservative Howard faction. But such an idea had never crossed the King's mind, and the Bishop of Winchester was obliged to be quite blunt with an eager German diplomat, saying that Henry 'would never take back the said lady'.

The Queen's fall was now common knowledge. Instinctively, her Howard relations banded together, fearful in case her disgrace should reflect upon them. They guessed that Cranmer would bring down the whole clan if he could. The Dowager Duchess's servant, Pewson, had broken the news to her that the Queen had played the King false (he said, incorrectly, that it was with Dereham), and that Katherine Tylney, the Duchess's relative, was privy to her guilt. This rather inaccurate version of the truth so frightened the Duchess that she ordered the immediate burning of all Dereham's papers and effects remaining at Lambeth House. At the same time she made it known that she did not believe the tales about the Queen to be true; however, if they were, then Katherine and her lovers 'deserved to be hanged'.

The Duchess also took it upon herself to question William Damport, a friend of Dereham's who still remained in her household. She told him she had heard that Dereham and Queen Katherine had been arrested, and asked if he knew why. Damport said he thought the evidence was based upon 'some words spoken by a gentleman usher'. The Duchess confided to him that she was greatly alarmed 'lest any harm should befall the Queen in consequence of evil report'. She was also worried that the King would point the finger of blame at her for having neglected her duties in respect of Katherine's moral welfare. She realised now that she had been very remiss, and it was far too late to do anything about it.

Contrary to what the Duchess had heard, Katherine was as yet suspected of adultery with Culpeper only, and not with Dereham, though rumour was doing its best to magnify her crimes. The Duke of Norfolk, having washed his hands of his niece, told Marillac that she had 'prostituted herself to seven or eight persons'. Norfolk was in fact making sure that his own neck was safe by publicly slandering Katherine at every opportunity, in case people remembered who it was that had first brought her to the King's notice, and his voice spoke louder than any in denouncing her.

Henry now knew the worst, that Katherine had cuckolded him with Culpeper, whom he had favoured. He took the news relatively calmly, yet it must have been a dreadful blow to him. On 16 November, Chapuys told the Emperor that the King would be more likely to show mercy to Katherine than her own relatives, especially Norfolk, who said, 'God knows why, that he wished the Queen was burned.' Yet whether the King wished to show mercy or not, the law would take its course. Nor could he permit someone so unsuitable to enjoy the rank of Queen of England. On 22 November, a proclamation made at Hampton Court announced that Katherine had forfeited her honour and should be proceeded against by law; henceforth, she would no longer be called Queen, just plain Katherine Howard.

The Council was still collecting evidence. Norfolk was sent to search his stepmother's household at Lambeth and to interrogate its occupants. William Ashby, one of the Duchess's servants, revealed how his mistress had searched Dereham's coffers and removed all his papers, saying she would 'peruse them at her leisure, without suffering any person to be present'. She had declared, in the presence of her comptroller, that 'she meant not any of these things to come to revelation'. The Duchess, he added, had been 'in the greatest fear' lest her servants tell her son, Lord William Howard, about the 'familiarity' between the Queen and Dereham. She had wondered whether the King's promised pardon would extend to 'other persons who knew of their naughty life before the marriage'. Finally, Ashby told Norfolk that the Duchess had rifled through the papers of Damport, who by now was also a prisoner in the Tower, suspected of misprision of treason. The picture Ashby presented was one of a very frightened woman with an overburdened conscience, who was almost certainly guilty of that same crime. Her failure to disclose what she knew of Katherine's early life, and her attempts to destroy all evidence of it, pointed convincingly to this.

After the Duke had left, the Duchess began to realise what a nasty predicament she was in. Feigning illness, she took to her bed, but this did not prevent the lords of the Council, among them Wriothesley and Southampton, from coming to Lambeth to arrest her. She sent word down to them that she was 'not well enough to be moved', yet they insisted on seeing her, 'the better to perceive whether she were indeed as sick as she pretended'. They quickly perceived she was not, and informed her that the Lord Chancellor wished to question her. At this, the old lady pretended to suffer a relapse, but the lords, 'with much ado, got her to condescend to her going'. The Duchess's fears were not unfounded. By nightfall on the day of her arrest, she too was a prisoner in the Tower, after a most unsatisfactory session of interrogation by Lord Chancellor Audley, in which she said enough to incriminate the whole Howard family.

Towards the end of November, the Council decided to question the Dowager Duchess again. Wriothesley and Southampton visited her in the Tower, where they found her in bed, and genuinely ill this time. They assured her 'on his Majesty's behalf of her own life if she would in some sort make us her ghostly confessors'. She replied that 'she would take her death of it, that she never suspected anything wrong between them'. She had indeed 'perceived a sort of light love and favour between them more than between indifferent persons, and had heard that Dereham would at sundry times give [Katherine] money', but she had thought this all 'proceeded from the affection that groweth of kindred, the same Dereham being her kinsman'. She begged the King's forgiveness for not having disclosed what she knew before his marriage to Katherine, and the lords were able to assure Henry that she appeared 'wondrous sorrowful, repentant and sickly'.

They then asked her a long list of questions: How did she educate and bring up Mistress Katherine? What changes of clothing had she given her? When had she first realised that the King favoured her? Had they discussed the King's courtship? What advice had she given the girl? The Duchess's answers revealed nothing that could point to the continuation of the liaison between Katherine and Dereham after the former's marriage to the King. In fact, she said Katherine herself had admitted later that she had no idea where Dereham was. It was obvious that the Duchess could help no further with the enquiry, so she was left alone to brood upon her shortcomings as a guardian.

Living with the knowledge of Katherine's infidelity was no easy task for the King. On 26 November, Sir John Dudley told the Earl of Rutland that Henry was 'not a little troubled with this great affair'. To spare him further pain, therefore, the Council was carrying out the investigation on its own, while he sanctioned further action as necessary. It was all too obvious that the King was a broken man: this tragedy touched him too closely.

Thus the arraignment of Culpeper and Dereham on 1 December in Westminster Hall was arranged entirely by the Privy Council. Dereham was to be tried for 'presumptive treason', according to the indictment, which accused both the Queen and her accomplices of having led 'an abominable, base, carnal, voluptuous and licentious life'; Katherine, who was not being tried, was described as 'a common harlot'. While 'maintaining an appearance of chastity and honesty', she had led the King on to fall in love with her 'by word and gesture', he believing her to be 'pure', and had 'arrogantly contracted and coupled herself in marriage' in spite of being a harlot before and an adultress after.

A separate indictment was brought against Culpeper, who was charged with having had criminal intercourse with the Queen on 29 August 1541 at Pontefract, and at other times, before and after that date. Katherine was accused in the indictment of having insinuated to Culpeper 'that she loved-him above the King and all the others', and Culpeper was accused of inciting her to adultery. Jane Rochford was named as their go-between, who contrived meetings in the Queen's lavatory and 'other suspect places' and 'falsely and traitorously aided and abetted them'.

The two men were tried together. Dereham was accused of joining the Queen's service with 'ill intent', traitorously imagining that he and she might continue their wicked behaviour. He was further accused of having concealed the precontract between them to facilitate Katherine's marriage to the King; her acquiescence to this was taken as proof of her intention to continue in her abominable life. Of course, Dereham pleaded not guilty to all these accusations, although there was little he could say in his defence. Likewise Culpeper, although realising that the evidence was heavily weighted against him, changed his plea to guilty during the course of the trial and thus sealed his fate. A verdict of guilty was given against both prisoners, and the Duke of Norfolk, grim faced, sentenced them to be drawn on hurdles to Tyburn 'and there hanged,  cut down alive, disembowelled, and, they still living, their bowels burnt; the bodies then to be beheaded and quartered'. Such was the terrible penalty meted out to those who had dared to be intimate with the Queen of England.

Marillac quickly scribbled down news of the outcome of the trial to send to Francis I, saying he felt that Culpeper especially deserved to die, even though he would not admit to having full intercourse with Katherine, 'for he confessed his intention to do so, and his confessed conversations, being held by a subject to a queen, deserved death'. Many people had been disgusted by the unsavoury details of the Queen's intrigues that had been made public at the trial, and some felt that they should not have been divulged, but, as Marillac said, 'the intention is to prevent it being said afterwards that they were unjustly condemned'. As for the fate of the Queen, the ambassador held out little hope, predicting that 'the end of these tragedies will be no less scandalous than pitiful'. Pitiful indeed, for Katherine was not yet seventeen years old. Nor did it seem that the King would be merciful, for he had 'changed his love for the Queen into hatred, and taken such grief at being deceived, that of late it was thought he had gone mad'. On one occasion, he had called for a sword to slay her he had loved so much. Sitting in Council, he suddenly called for horses without saying where he would go. Sometimes he will say irrelevantly that the wicked woman had never such delight in her incontinence as she should have torture in her death.

On one occasion, Henry was so distressed that he burst into tears, 'regretting his ill-luck in meeting such ill-conditioned wives, and blaming the Council for the last mischief. A few days later, Marillac recorded that the King had gone 'twenty-five miles from here with no company but musicians and ministers of pastime, and spent most of his time hunting, seeking to forget his grief. Yet for all his anger, all his sport, and all his efforts to cheer himself up, Henry had never been so miserable in his life. Apart from the wound to his heart, there was the wound to his pride - he had been made to look a fool. Not everyone sympathised. Chapuys, who had had long experience of the King's ways, told Charles V on 3 December that Henry had shown more sorrow at Katherine Howard's misdemeanours than he had at the treason, loss or divorce of any of his previous wives. As Chapuys put it,

It is like the case of the woman who cried most bitterly at the loss of her tenth husband than at the death of all the others together. Though he had been a good man, it was because she had never buried one of them before without being sure of the next; and as yet this King has formed neither a plan nor a preference.

The Council was still trying to wring a confession of adultery from Dereham, or at least uncover evidence of it. They tortured his friend, William Damport, but although they used the brakes to force out his teeth, he would not or could not say anything to incriminate Dereham. All he would say was that, just prior to Katherine's marriage to the King, Dereham had boasted that, if Henry were dead, he would marry her. And, some months later, he had seen the Duchess of Norfolk point out Dereham to a gentleman in the Queen's chamber, saying, 'This is he, who fled away to Ireland for the Queen's sake.'

On 6 December, Dereham himself was tortured. Asked if he had said he was sure he might marry the Queen if the King were dead - it was treason to predict the death of the King - he denied it, until told that Damport had confessed it. Then he admitted it, although, as Wriothesley later told Sadler, 'no torture could make him confess this before.' Afterwards, the condemned man was made to sign a written confession, which set forth all the circumstances of his affair with Katherine. In it, he admitted that they had exchanged 'a promise of marriage', that they had lived together as man and wife while he was in the service of her grandmother, and that they were regarded as betrothed by their friends in that household. He had been accustomed to call her wife, and she had often called him husband before witnesses; they had exchanged gifts and love-tokens frequently in those days, and he had given her money whenever he had it. At Lambeth, he had haunted her chamber nightly, and they were then so far in love that they would 'kiss and hang by their bellies together as they were two sparrows'. Onlookers would joke, 'Hark to Dereham, broken winded!' to which he would reply, 'Who should hinder him from kissing his own wife?' He recalled that the Duchess had once caught him kissing her granddaughter, for which she beat him, also giving Joan Bulmer a blow for having allowed it. Dereham stated that he had been brought into the royal household by the Queen's desire, 'who told the Duchess of Norfolk to bring him'. It seems unlikely, however, that Katherine would have suggested such a thing: she was at the time involved with Culpeper, of whom Dereham was very jealous. It is more likely that it was Dereham, anxious for preferment, who wormed his way into the Queen's household, by means of the good offices of the Dowager Duchess, knowing Katherine dared not refuse him. He knew too much about her past, and her long-standing affection for Culpeper, for her to risk offending him.

In his confession, Dereham vehemently denied committing adultery with Katherine. Nevertheless, the Council felt that his applying to join the Queen's household, and her acceptance of him into it, was proof in itself of evil intent; it was said by some that 'they were worthy to be hanged one against the other'.

Later that day, the King was asked if he would remit the sentence against Dereham. He read the confession, and was angered that the prisoner had not admitted adultery with the Queen, declaring that he thought Dereham 'hath deserved no such mercy at his hand, and therefore hath determined that he shall suffer the whole execution'. On the following day, the Council, having also read Dereham's confession, wrote to Sir John Gage, the new Constable of the Tower, and Richard Rich, who had supervised the torturing, with instructions to proceed to the execution of the prisoners, if they felt that no more was to be gained from them by further interrogation. The condemned men must of course be allowed time to prepare to meet their God for the salvation of their souls, but unless the King decreed otherwise, the executions would take place on 9 December.

In the meantime, the families of both Dereham and Culpeper had been making frantic pleas to the Council to have the sentences commuted to beheading only. On 9 December, Gage was advised, early in the morning, that, though Culpeper's offence was considered 'heinous', he was to be drawn to Tyburn on a hurdle, but would be spared the full rigours of a traitor's death, and suffer only decapitation, 'according to his Highness's most gracious determination'. Culpeper was, after all, a gentleman born, unlike Dereham, and those of gentle birth were usually spared the full sentence.

The executions, however, did not take place on the 9th, as the Council was too busy with another urgent matter to issue the final order authorising them. This other matter concerned Anne of Cleves: the Council's attention had been drawn to a rumour, probably spread by Protestants, that she was expecting the King's child, and had also had a son by him, born at one of her country houses during the summer of 1541. The matter was debated all day by the lords, who felt they had quite enough on their hands with one immoral queen and that they could well do without another. After deliberating, they consulted the King, who thought it expedient to order a full enquiry into the matter. Members of the Privy Council were immediately despatched to Richmond to question the members of the Lady Anne's household, and the Lady Anne herself if needs be. The questioning was to take some time, but eventually, two members of Anne's household, Frances Lilgrave and Richard Taverner, admitted having slandered the Lady Anne, and were committed to the Tower for their impudence.

Dereham and Culpeper were put to death at Tyburn on 10 December. Culpeper died first, after exhorting the crowd to pray for him. No block had been provided: he knelt on the ground by the gallows, and was decapitated with one stroke of the axe. Dereham then suffered the full horror of being hanged, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered, after which both heads were set up on pikes above London Bridge.

There was no hope now for the Queen, although it was the King's wish that she should not stand open trial. Instead, an Act of Attainder was to be brought against her when Parliament reassembled in January. This would allow her a few weeks in which to prepare for death.

Even now, the reformist party was doing its best to bring further evidence against her and her family; it was imperative to them that the whole Howard faction be neutralised, thus paving the way for Cranmer and his partisans to gain ascendancy over the King. The Duchess of Norfolk was already in custody, 'so enmeshed and tangled up' in the affair that 'it will be hard for her to wind out again'. She was questioned again by Wriothesley on the day Katherine's lovers died, when she admitted having pushed Katherine into the King's way even though she knew of her previous affairs, and confessed to having persuaded the Queen to take Dereham back into her service. She also admitted to having destroyed all his letters. In the middle of December, other members of the Howard clan were arrested by Wriothesley in the King's name. Lord William Howard and his wife, and Anne Howard, the Dowager Duchess's daughter, were committed to the Tower; Lord William had had hardly anything to do with Katherine Howard, and 'stood as stiff as his mother and made himself most clear from all mistrust and suspicion'. His arrest was absurd anyway, as he had been acting as Governor of Calais for the past year or so, and could not have been a party to Katherine's adultery. But the lords of the Council were determined to bring him down with the rest of his family, and had summoned him home in foul weather, so foul that some of his staff had been swept overboard during the voyage from France. Lord William's sister, another Katherine Howard, the Countess of Bridgewater, was also put in the Tower, and her children sent with Lord William's to be cared for by Archbishop Cranmer and others. When, on 14 December, the Duke of Norfolk learned of these arrests, he was fearful for his own safety - he had, after all, more cause than they to fear the King's justice - and wrote at once to Henry, excusing himself from all guilt and abandoning his family. He was sure, he said, that the arrests were justified. After the abominable deeds done by my two nieces, I fear your Majesty will abhor to hear speak of me or my kin again. Prostrate at your Majesty's feet, I remind your Majesty that much of this has come to light through my own report of my mother-in-law's[sic]words f to me when I was sent to Lambeth to search Dereham's coffers. My own truth, and the small love my mother-in-law and my two false traitorous nieces bare me, make me hope, and I pray your Majesty for some comfortable assurance of your royal favour, without which I will never desire to live.

But no comfortable assurance came. Henry was displeased with all the Howards, including the Duke. He was no fool, and remembered vividly how Norfolk had furthered his intrigue with Katherine in the first place. He had placed a viper in his sovereign's bosom, and he should pay for it. He did not reply to the letter, and hearing nothing, the Duke deemed it politic to maintain a low profile, hoping that the King's displeasure would not last. After a time, he was received back, but Henry never fully trusted him again.

As for the rest of the Howard family and their servants, King and Council had decided on a highly profitable solution. Lord William and his wife, Katherine Tylney, Joan Bulmer, Alice Restwold, William Ashby, William Damport, and Elizabeth Tylney and Margaret Bennet, the two other witnesses to the Queen's misconduct, were all, on 22 December 1541, arraigned for misprision of treason 'for concealing the evil demeanour of the Queen, to the slander of the King and his succession'. All pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and loss of goods and lands; however, not long afterwards, the King pardoned most of them and had them freed. The old Duchess of Norfolk was also included in the indictment, but she was not brought to trial as she was 'old and testy' and 'may die out of perversity to defraud the King's Highness of the confiscation of her goods'. She too was sentenced to loss of liberty and lands, and the King ended up somewhat richer as a result.

This did not, however, provide a panacea for his misery. He knew now that the illusion of youth he had enjoyed with Katherine had gone for ever; all he had to look forward to were encroaching illness, old age and death. To begin with, he had meant to be merciful towards Katherine, but now he found he had no desire to save her from the headsman, and wished her to suffer as he was suffering. The law would take its course and he would not lift a finger to stop it. Then the world would see how he dealt with those who made a fool of him.

Francis I had reacted to the news of Katherine's fall with sympathy. 'She hath done wondrous naughty!' he exclaimed, when Sir William Paget informed him of the Queen's misconduct. And to Henry he wrote:

I am sorry to hear of the displeasure and trouble which has been caused by the lewd and naughty behaviour of the Queen. Albeit, knowing my good brother to be a prince of prudence, virtue and honour, I do require him to shift off the said displeasure and wisely, temperately, like myself, not reputing his honour to rest in the lightness of a woman, but to thank God of all, comforting himself in God's goodness. The lightness of women cannot bend the honourofmen.

Comforting words indeed from Henry's greatest rival and Europe's most debauched monarch. Henry must have squirmed when he read them.

The festive season passed gloomily that year, with the King making no effort to join in the half-hearted revels staged by his courtiers. -Marillac described him as 'sad, and disinclined to feasting and ladies'. He was putting on even more weight, and looked very old and grey. His ministers, however, were begging him to marry again, reminding him that he had only one son, but there was not one among the court ladies that he fancied: the wound left by Katherine Howard's infidelities was too raw as yet. The Council could only hope that time would heal it. With 'such an exceptional prince', all things were possible.

Parliament reconvened on 16 January 1542, and the Lords and Commons combined to urge the King 'not to vex himself with the Queen's offence, and that she and the Lady Rochford might be attainted'. To make this easier for him, it was suggested that he give his royal assent to the proceedings under the Great Seal, which could then be done by the Lord Chancellor. The King agreed to this, and the Lords at once began debating the fate of the Queen. The Lord Chancellor, recounting her 'vicious and abominable' deeds, urged that a Bill of Attainder be drawn up without delay, which was done that same afternoon. It was in the form of a petition, from the Lords and Commons, requesting the King to consent to the conviction of 'Mistress Katherine Howard, late Queen of England' and Lady Rochford for high treason, the penalty being death and confiscation of goods. The Act received its first reading that evening. Shortly afterwards, another Act would be passed, ruling that 'an unchaste woman marrying the King shall be guilty of high treason'. Anyone concealing any flaw in the character of a putative queen of England would likewise be guilty of high treason. And if any woman presumed to marry the King without admitting she had been unchaste, she would merit death.

Henry seems to have been concerned that Katherine had as yet had no chance to defend herself in public. 'Wishing to proceed more humanely', he sent some members of his Council to see her on 25 January; they invited her, in the King's name, to 'come to the Parliament chamber to defend herself. She declined, however, saying she submitted herself to the King's mercy and good pleasure, and confessed she had deserved to die. Her humility did much to soften the hearts of the privy councillors, and three days later the Lord Chancellor reminded the peers in the House of Lords

how much it concerned them not to proceed too hastily with the Bill of Attainder for the Queen, that she was no mean or private person, but a public and illustrious one. Therefore her cause ought to be judged in a manner that should leave no room for suspicion of some latent quarrel.

He proposed that a second deputation, comprising members of both Houses, should go to see her, 'partly in order to help her womanish fears', and partly to advise her 'to say anything that makes her cause the better'. It was only just, he concluded, that such a princess should be 'tried by equal laws with themselves', and he assured his listeners that 'her most loving consort' would find it acceptable if she cleared herself in this way, even now.

Katherine, however, knew she had no plausible defence, and was resigned outwardly to her fate. She told the second deputation that her only care was to make a good death and 'to leave a good opinion in people's minds now at parting'. Gone was the hysterical girl of a few weeks past, and in her place was one who even found the courage to be gay. Chapuys reported on 29 January that she was very cheerful, and more plump and pretty than ever; she is as careful about her dress and as imperious and wilful as at the time she was with the King, notwithstanding that she expects to be put to death, that she confesses she has deserved it, and asks for no favour except that the execution shall be secret and not under the eyes of the world.

Chapuys thought that if the King did not intend to marry again he might show mercy to her, or even divorce her on a plea of adultery. Learned theologians had debated the possibility of a divorce, but had as yet not made public their conclusions. But Chapuys was still pessimistic, and even as he was writing his letter news came to him that the Commons had debated the Queen's fate and had come to the same conclusion as the Lords, and the Queen, he feared, 'will soon be sent to the Tower'.

The Council, however, felt that Parliament was being too humane towards Katherine; the reforming faction felt there had been no need to give her any opportunity to defend herself, as the case against her had already been proved. Accordingly, the privy councillors petitioned the King that the Bill of Attainder be put through its second and third readings without delay so that the case could be concluded and judgement given. Henry gave his assent, and Parliament was urged to speed up the passing of the Bill. Its second reading took place on 6 February and, on the following day, after its third and final reading, it became law, which meant that the Queen and Lady Rochford were both sentenced to death and loss of goods and lands. All that was needed now was the royal assent. On that same day, the King went into the House of Commons and thanked them 'for that they took his sorrow to be theirs'.

Henry was feeling a little better now, more himself. Since November, he had hunted daily to divert his 'ill humour' and would not attend to much business. Now, however, he was again seeking the company of the ladies of his court. After the Act of Attainder against the Queen was passed, Chapuys told Charles V that Henry had 'never been so merry since first hearing of the Queen's misconduct'. On 29 January, he had given a banquet attended by sixty-one ladies, and was particularly attentive to the estranged wife of the poet Wyatt, 'a pretty young creature with wit enough to do as badly as the others if she were to try'. Yet Elizabeth Brooke was a notorious adultress, and the King did not pursue the matter. He also showed a marked preference for Anne Bassett, for whom he had long cherished a soft spot. 'The common voice,' went on Chapuys, 'is that this King will not be long without a wife, because of the great desire he has to have further issue.'

The passing of the Act of Attainder seemed to satisfy Henry, although he complained that there was as much reason to convict the Duchess of Norfolk of treason as there had been to convict Dereham. In her case the Council urged the King to leniency, and he relented, agreeing that the old lady might live. She was eventually released on 5 May 1542, and died three years later. But he was not so merciful towards his wife or Lady Rochford, and on 9 February sent the Duke of Norfolk to Syon Abbey with his fellow deputies to inform Katherine of her sentence. The only comfort the Duke brought was the promise that it would be carried out in private, as she had wished: she would die on Tower Green, as Anne Boleyn had.

Katherine took the news bravely. She again confessed to and acknowledged 'the great crime of which she had been guilty against the most high God and a kind prince and lastly the whole English nation', and begged Norfolk 'to implore his Majesty not to impute her crime to her whole kindred and family', asking instead that Henry extend his 'unbounded mercy and benevolence to all her brothers, that they might not suffer for her faults'. Lastly she asked if the King would kindly bestow her clothing upon her maidservants after her death, as she had no other means of rewarding them for their loyalty. Norfolk promised to convey her requests to the King, and then left without having been able to tell her the date set for her execution.

Her suspense did not last long, however. On Friday, 10 February, the lords of the Council returned to Syon with orders to convey the Queen to the Tower of London. As soon as she learned what they had come for, Katherine knew a moment of blind panic, finally realising in that instant that Henry did mean to have her executed. All her calm deserted her, and she refused to go. The lords tried persuasion and then bullying, but to no avail. Eventually, they bundled her, shrinking with fear, into the waiting barge, which was then escorted along the river by a barge containing the Lord Privy Seal, other members of the Council, and those servants who were to look after the Queen in the Tower. The barge carrying Katherine was enclosed; this was as well, for the rotting heads of Culpeper and Dereham were still to be seen above London Bridge. The Queen, wearing a black velvet dress, sat with four of her ladies and three or four members of the Privy Council. Behind came the Duke of Suffolk's barge, crowded with his retinue. At the Tower stairs, the lords disembarked first and the Queen followed. The same forms of respect were shown to her as in happier days. She was greeted by the Constable of the Tower, Sir John Gage, who 'paid her as much honour as when she was reigning', but he was concerned to find that his prisoner was in a state of such abject distress that she seemed on the verge of collapse. 'She weeps, cries and torments herself miserably without ceasing,' he wrote to the Privy Council, after having conducted Katherine to her lodging. It is uncertain where this was, but likely that it was the rooms in the Lieutenant's house once occupied by Anne Boleyn.

In the evening, John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, came to hear the Queen's confession and to offer her spiritual comfort. She swore to him, 'in the name of God and His Holy angels, and on the salvation of my soul', that she was innocent of the crimes for which she stood condemned. She had never 'so abused my sovereign's bed'. She did not seek to excuse the faults and follies of her youth; God would be her judge, and she looked for His pardon. She asked the Bishop to pray with her for divine mercy, and fell to her knees beside him, beseeching the Almighty for strength to cope with her coming ordeal.

The Act of Attainder against Katherine still lacked the King's signature, and the execution could not go ahead without it. To spare Henry any further distress, the Council arranged for the royal assent to be signified by attaching the Great Seal; and at the top of the Act was written the time-honoured phrase: 'Le Roy le veuf - 'The King wills it.' On Saturday, u February, the Act was read in Parliament to the assembled members of both Houses, and the royal assent proclaimed.

The Queen's execution could now take place, but not on a Sunday, so Katherine had a day's reprieve. On the evening of that Sunday, she was visited by Sir John Gage and instructed to 'disburden her conscience' to her confessor, for she was to die the following day. Calmer now, she spoke of her anxiety about making a good impression on the scaffold, and asked if the block might be brought to her room, so that she might learn how to place herself. Gage thought this a strange request, but he did not refuse it. The block was brought and Katherine spent the evening coming to terms with her fate.

The Tower was a hive of activity that weekend, for the Constable's staff were busy caring for the illustrious prisoners then lodged within the fortress. But at least Katherine's last night on earth was not disturbed, as Anne Boleyn's had been, by the noise of workmen erecting the scaffold.

Monday, 13 February 1542 was cold and dull, with a ground frost. At seven o'clock, every member of the King's Council except Norfolk, who had been excused this final duty, and Suffolk, who was ill, presented themselves at the Tower with a number of other lords and gentlemen, among them the Earl of Surrey, who was Norfolk's son and the Queen's cousin. All were conducted to Tower Green, where the scaffold had once again been hung with black cloth and strewn with straw. When Katherine was led out of her lodgings by Sir John Gage and a detachment of yeomen warders, she appeared so weak that she could hardly stand or speak. Nevertheless, she made what one onlooker, Otwell Johnson, in a letter written to his brother the next day, described as a 'godly and Christian end'. She asked all Christian people to take regard unto her worthy and just punishment with death, for her offences against God heinously from her youth upward in breaking of all His commandments, and also against the King's Royal Majesty very dangerously.

She admitted she had been justly condemned and that she merited a hundred deaths, and required the people to look to her as an example and amend their 'ungodly lives', urging them to obey the King in all things. She prayed for her husband, and willed everyone present to do the same, before commending her soul to God and 'earnestly calling for mercy upon Him'. Not for Katherine the elegant sword that had beheaded her cousin, but - as the chronicler Hall confirms - an axe, that severed her pretty auburn head in a single stroke just moments after she had made her last speech.

Lady Rochford followed her to the block. She was still 'in a frenzy', according to Chapuys, and the King had had to order the passing of a special Act enabling him to have insane persons executed before he could dispose of her. Yet, at the last, faced with the axe and the spectacle of the Queen's blood-soaked remains being wrapped in a black blanket by her sobbing ladies, she recovered her reason sufficiently to enable her to make an edifying speech before submitting to the executioner.

Katherine's attendants laid her remains in a waiting coffin and carried it into the nearby Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. There, later that day, she was buried near Anne Boleyn. Then her name was tactfully forgotten by all until, in 1553, the Act of Attainder against her was among those reversed by Queen Mary; because they did not bear the royal signature, such Acts were no longer recognised as legal.