After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Why Did Henry VIII Kill Catherine Howard?

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

In 1540 Henry VIII was getting old, and his eyes turned to teenager Catherine Howard.He fell hard and fast for Catherine - his "rose without a thorn" - but when he found out about her past, all hell broke loose.Amidst all the panic and confusion, who was this young woman who rose to be queen? Why did Henry VIII want her killed? And how should we remember her?Joining Anthony and Maddy is author and historian Gareth Russell, to help us get to know this woman.This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Henry VIII's court, every corridor is like a cheeseboard. What? Huh? Is it chessboard? It's so chestboard. Does it say cheese? Did you please tell me you misread it? Oh my God.

I'm going home. Leave that in. Whoever is recording this, that has to stay in. Everything is like a cheeseboard. And Catherine Howard, come and bear it. Oh! In Henry VIII's court, every corridor is like a chessboard. Alliances are struck at supper and broken by sunrise.

A misplaced laugh can make an enemy. Into this crossfire steps Catherine Howard, young, dazzling, flirtatious. And held in such unreasonably high regard that a fall is almost inevitable. It's a fragile world where loyalty becomes tested by oaths and where a memory or a meeting can count as treason. Who profits when such a young queen is killed? The increasingly disturbing king or rivals watching from the shadows. This episode follows the threads of gossip in a merciless world that implicates a teenage queen and all those around her. From the dark heart of the Tudor court, this is after dark.

Before dawn, the tower runs cold through the stone. Catherine Howard sits awake, listening to the crows gather and the bells tall outside, fingers pressed to the grain of the table. The lieutenant's men wait behind the door. Within a small fire gutters, a queen's last luxury. Except she is no longer queen. Stripped of titles, her young mind spins from the endless questions she's faced. She's experienced far too much in her short life. In an attempt to make sense of all

that's happened, her memories mix with accusations which come and go like ghosts, a careless youth that became evidence, a young love that became treason. Her cousin, Anne Boleyn, faced a similar fate and lies yards from where Catherine now sits. The kingdom calls what comes next, justice. It's also or treason. When the key turns, Catherine stands, her final prayers whispered, and walks towards the green in silence, the only choice she's now able to make. Hello and welcome back to After Dark. My name's Anthony. And I'm Maddie.

And today we are giving you what you want, which is more tutors. We know that you love our tutor history episodes. We have had Philip Gregory recently, of course. We also constantly have the brilliant Tracy Borman back to talk about. Constantly. It sounds like you're sick of her. No, never sick of Tracy. Tracea Borba, never sick of Tracea Borgia. She's one of our, she's one of our favorite guest, like 100%. And now we have another favorite Tudor historian guest, and that of course

is proper introduction this time, because you will have heard him in a previous episode where I totally spill the beans on who we're talking to. And that, of course, is Gareth Russell, who is the historian and author of a young and damned and fair, the life and tragedy of Catherine Howard at the court of Henry VIII, here to tell us about the tragic death of Catherine Howard. Welcome to After Dark, Gary. Thank you. Proper introduction this time. This is interesting because when we come to talk about the wives of Henry the 8th, probably you'll be a better place to answer this. She being Catherine Howard is probably further down the list of the wives that people are most familiar with, right? Yeah.

Tell us who she is in this world at this time. So Catherine is the younger daughter of a younger son of the former Duke of Norfolk. Oh my God. The younger daughter of a younger son of the former Duke of Norfolk. So we're not expecting huge things here. No, so there's a good name, but not a lot of money. Her father, Edmund, was Justice of the Peace, hero the battle of Flodden, but had never really prospered. The good name only took him so far. She had been sent to live with her step-grandmother's award, fairly standard among the English aristocracy. And she makes her court debut in the winter of 1539 to serve as a maid of honour, which is the unmarried ladies and wedding to Henry's incoming fourth wife, Anne of Cleaves.

Catherine is there a little before her employer. They had expected Anne of Cleves just before Christmas, but she's coming from Germany and the weather is terrible, so she's delayed. She becomes an active lady in wedding, if you like, in January of 1540. And at some point, probably around March or Easter, Henry shows an interest in her. The marriage to Anne of Cleaves is annulled in July. Catherine becomes queen at the end of July. Wow. Yeah, it's very very, very quick. That is quicker than I realized. That is a major part of the ingredient because she is not stupid and there's often this poor little Catherine as if she had no education and I like to rescue her from the shadow of the axe as best I can. She was an extremely skilled negotiator

of etiquette. And if you read Tudor etiquette manuals that they were taught from, these are, I mean, they're like the crystal maze. They're so complex. They're a bit like a cryptex really. You're always having to figure out how things move and who people are. And she wins applause for how deftly she handles it. So she's very aware of the elite that she moves in. There's a bit of debate around her age, but in fact, there probably shouldn't be a massive debate on it because of all of Henry's wives, she is the one that we have a specific comment on her age from someone who was pretty well placed to know, who was the French ambassador to England who saw her in several hunting weekends and obviously at court regularly. And he states that she was 18 very first.

firmly. And this is the moment when she marries Henry. Yes, 1540. He's writing in 1541, but it's about 1540 when he writes. And Henry's what age at this time? 49. Well, so it's, it's a big gap. It's not big enough that people comment on it by contemporary standards, but it is, it is substantial. There's an idea that he was in really terrible health by this point. He's not quite there yet. It's really after her that it accelerates, or actually probably she gets her first whiff of how bad it will get halfway through the marriage. Literally, the first whiff. Literally, the first whip. they marry in summer, she is immediately the change in mood is palpable. He'd been unhappy in his fourth marriage. He's euphoric in his fifth. The Christmas of 1540 is kept at Hampton Court. And you get a

real sense when you go there. It is a palace indelibly associated with the peaks and troughs of Catherine's queenship. She wins hands across the board applause for how well she handles that because she's forced by her husband to host his ex-wife Anne of Cleave so they can show off to the diplomatic core, how generous Henry is and Anne's accepted this. And she, I mean, she's a masterful, masterful first lady for want of a better term. And then at Lent, three quarters of a year after the marriage, the first whiff hits. And Henry is very ill at Hampton Court. And it goes into lockdown. And she is there, but she's not allowed to see him. No one is allowed to come in. No one is allowed to go out. And two of her brothers, Charles and George, now work for the king in his privy chamber.

and I would be very surprised if they had not told her how close he had come to death. And so at Easter, so Holy Week, actually, Monday Thursday, so right after Henry has recovered from his Lenton's spell of ill health, Catherine reaches out to a former admirer, a former beau that she'd been involved with before she met Henry, who also works for him called Thomas Culpepper, and they meet in the corridor leading to her private rooms, and she gives him a hat. And Culpeper makes a joke saying, alas, madam, why did you not do this when you were a maid, which is why didn't you do this when you were single

and Catherine gets a bit miffed and doesn't speak to him for a while. But then there's a massive public relations campaign for the monarchy, a progress through the North which had rebelled against Henry a few years earlier. And this is a policy of honey and vinegar. They will forgive the former surviving rebels but only in condition that the North

publicly prostrates itself to the King. So Catherine is on tour off the North and they're moving between house and house at this point. and she, through her favourite lady-in-waiting, Lady Rochford, starts to arrange nocturnal meetings with Thomas Culpepper throughout the progress. A dangerous game. A dangerous game.

And then, in August, they reached the key to the north, Pontefract Castle. And when she is in residence there, she's a long stint there. She's about two weeks at Pontch-Fright. Her ladies-in-witting tell her that someone else has arrived, a man called Francis Deerum, who had worked for the step-grandmother and had fallen out with her. And Catherine and Francis had had a sexual relationship before. There are debates about the nature of that. Certainly, there was a long account from Catherine that it was very serious indeed.

And her grandmother and her aunt, I say grandmother, step-grandmother, such a cumbersome term, had her, the Dodger, Duchess, Norfolk and the Countess of Bridgewater, from the minute Catherine had become queen, had tried to keep Francis quiet. And they had entered into a sort of hush money deal with him, which is that he would hand over all the love letters. that Catherine had sent to him and the poetry he'd written about her put it in a chest the Duchess would keep the chest and he would keep the key so it's sort of like mutually assured destruction

but he very much wanted to work for Catherine and obviously the Duchess and the Count just knew this was a terrible idea eventually he got sick of them putting him off and putting him off and so he rode north from London to Pontefract so you think of how many times he had an opportunity to think this is a lunatic idea turn around and he blackmills her

into giving him a job as gentleman usher and he starts making comments about how well he's known the queen before. She starts bribing him to be quiet. It's like this man doesn't live in the Tudor world. No, no. Or no, who Henry the 8th? Yeah, exactly. But to me, this, he just could not handle her.

I mean, I'll come onto my theories about Francis German in a minute, which is, again, the joy of doing this. And again, I will be saying, I know it's thrown around a lot, but the term narcissist. Anyway, so there's a lot brewing. The ladies in wedding are really irritated because Lady Rochford is now the favourite. That's because she's all the Queen's secrets.

Catherine is getting really antsy with her staff because she's sleep deprived because she's meeting Thomas Culpepper at night. She's threatening to fire the maids who forget her new instructions as she's trying to cover things up. And at the same time, Francis Durham is dropping heavy-handed hints. And then they get back to London

and all of these little plates are spinning on the top and someone comes in and knocks them over from outside. And it is an evangelical creature. called John Lassels, whose sister had worked for the Diage of Duchess of Northbrook when Catherine was there and knew all about Catherine and Francis, told her brother, who went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and told him, and said, from what I understand, they had agreed to marry and they did have sex together, which under contemporary religious law, it means that she was legally ineligible to marry anybody else. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, is a man of deep faith, but limited spine.

And in a panic, he goes and he leaves a note for Henry at Hampton Court, explaining this, Henry orders an inquiry. And to the Archbishop's shock, this man is now working for the Queen, her alleged former fiancé. And so that's where the investigations begin. So that's a gallop through who Catherine is. Isn't it so insidious, actually, and insipid in many ways, where you're like the titill, tattel, tell-tale, double standards world that this woman enters into. And I was just getting so anxious by proxy when you're talking about these spinning plates, Gareth, about going, shit. Yeah.

Like already she's in trouble. And these men who are pushing her around because they've been close to. They want power now. And they're, you know, they just want to manipulate her. Yeah. Frances also cannot, we cannot let her go. I mean, it's really an obsessive relationship from his part. Well, let's talk about that because it seems to me that Catherine, more so maybe than Henry's of the Queens, her downfall is her path.

as much of her presence, in a way that it isn't necessarily for the other queens. Yes, they bring baggage with them, but it's the events once they're married that kind of lead to that downfall. Will you tell something a little bit about her past, and in particular her sexual past? Because this has been so kind of, it's been made so titillating in her own moment and her own lifetime. But, I mean, it's quite troubling. You talked earlier about her age and she's only 18 by the time she's married to Henry. I'm looking at my notes. I'm looking at the age that she is when she has her first supposed sexual experience with her music teacher. Can you tell us about her relationship to her own sexuality and to men?

So I pushed back against the idea of them being seen as either child abuse or sexual coercion for a number of reasons. And I still, I suppose you'll have had this yourself, I think. You take things out of episodes or books and you think, should I have? I'm not sure. and I had a much more speculative section on Francis in particular talking about how I think the idea that it was sexually coercive misses the point of why it was dangerous. It was just a dangerous in a different way. And I still think it was probably the right thing to take it out and then leave it because it was so psychological in its basis. So I'll explain my own taking it. So the standard narrative that we have is that in about 1536, Catherine embarked upon some kind of sex.

entanglement with her music tutor, a man referred to in the documents as young Manix, Henry Manix is his name. And how old is she in this moment? She would have been, if 1536 is correct, about 14. Actually, the evidence that we have, because we know that basically the person who identifies

this doesn't come into the household. And it's very complicated, another relative joins in. Looking at that timetable, actually it must have been the spring of 1538. So Catherine would have been about 16 at this point. Manix would have been probably in his early to mid-12. 20s, solely because of young. Obviously, that is permeable. He could have been a little bit younger.

So that separates it from the darkest version, because it's all date dependent with Manix, really, in which case it could have been pedophilic if you moved the dates around from her being younger and him being older and also the date earlier. So that's important to acknowledge that that is more based on a date of birth that doesn't work for her and also a chronology that doesn't work for him. But that doesn't mean that simply because it's not the worst case scenario that it's not a bad scenario. So I think that's important to look at. So they do not have sex. There is, judging from what Manick said, there's sort of foreplay and digital penetration that is what he admits to this other woman in the household. And it gets back to Catherine and she breaks

it off. And he, Manick's like most douchebags, is a crier when he's caught. And he's like, but I love you so much. And Catherine's very much off the opinion. That's a you problem. So you insulted me and embarrassed me. Which is quite powerful for, you know, potentially a 16-year-old. I love how she cuts the cord because when she's ready to cut, it's done. And they're both Francis Durham and Henry Mannix are criers. Like, I love you so much. I only did it because I love you.

And she's like, that is so irrelevant to me. Which, I mean, I don't want to dismiss a potential power dynamic that's a little bit troubling. Yeah. And, you know, there is an age gap. Obviously, our age of consent today is different from, you know, So there's a lot going on here. But to me, what you're saying is that she has some ownership over her own fate, her own, in terms of the context she's living in, and in terms of the relationships that she's having.

And she is maybe willing and consenting to have some kind of sexual relationship. But then when they overstep, she has enough self-power and self-awareness to say, no, thank you. Also, there's an imbalance of class. Yes. So she is, she's of the higher class. But what I will say is, it's interesting to paraphrase a line from House of the Dragon. Important text. Absolutely.

Reference in the footnotes. Essentially, what she is doing is building a window inside her own prison cell. Because these men will, yes, within the dynamic of their relationship, she can say no and she can end it when she wants to. But ultimately, it will be them that have the power to destroy her life. So that's kind of within the minutiae, certainly, but in the broader spectrum of things, excuse me. Yes, it's not untroubling. No, no, it's not on troubling. So with Francis Durham, I think, again, I always say that narcissism is overused and then I overuse it. But I do really think that I'm going to, I think I would do a podcast episode at some point myself about does he fit. Just to discuss it with listeners, does it fit the dynamic of a narcissistic relationship. And he really, really does. She ends things with Manix. Deerum is in the household as a ward. He's the younger son of a wealthy family from Lincolnshire. So he's more on her level. And there does seem to be discussion. marriage. It is consummated. Catherine steals the key from her grandmother's room to make a key so he can

visit her. Those sort of picnics he steals like apples and strawberries, all of which some people present as quite lovely. I don't see it that way. I think really early on you see love bombing with him. So she has no money of her own, as I say, a younger daughter, younger son. Francis gives her money to go and buy silk flowers from a tailor in Lambeth and get clothes. But he then starts. So the first little whisper of that being love bombing rather than loving is that he, it's through her clothes. So Francis goes to the tailor in Lambeth. I think Mrs. Johns is her name. And he tells her what to stitch into the clothing. And he stitches floral symbols for unbreakable love. And that's not what Catherine asked her to do. It's intense. Yeah. So you start to

see in her, one of the confessions I uncovered that had me published in a long time, there's a paragraph from like, oh, I can so feel her frustration with him, where she, you know, he starts talking about marriage and Catherine is trying to politely slow this march to the altar. And he's becoming obsessive. And she wants out, I think, and she finds a way out when the king's marriage is announced, because the Queen's household hasn't existed since Jane Seymour died in 1537. So this lasts for about a year. And Catherine tells later, she says,

all who knew me know how desirious I was to come to court. And she tells him that it's over. He again is a crier. I'm so bored of him already. I have to remind myself that Francis Derrim died a really hideous death and to pepper my remarks with some charity. But he is the author of his own tragedy.

people's, which I have to remind myself, and I feel... We've all had a boyfriend like this, I think. Get away from me. Like, just, yeah. And I'm crying and you're like, that's sad. That's a you problem. But it's not my job to buy you tissues. Yeah.

Yeah, we're done. I don't think I've ever been wandered into that territory. Oh, lucky you. Yeah. No, no, no, no. It's sort of the... My tolerance is low. Yeah.

Well, her tolerance is... Well, that's true. Low. Yeah. It's very low, actually. I'm also, when people talk about them, I'm like, please give her the breakup moment. Like, please talk about it.

Because her whole whole... whole life was snatched from her by her husband and these two men. And I love the moment of like, by the way, she takes them to the same spot to dump them. She takes them in, she takes them in. She's like, do you want to go to the orchard? I was going to say, we need to go to the lake or the orchard whatever. Yeah, because the orchards where I press rotten fruit, Francis. So Francis, but Francis is, um, cannot seem to accept that she has done. And he says, but I love you. You're my wife. I'm going to leave you my savings £100. And she's like, but again,

that's what you do. It's marking his territory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Correct. So then she goes to court and she has a bit of a flirtation with Thomas Culpepper. He wants to have sex and she says no, she's not ready. So then he moves on to someone She really doesn't know herself. Yeah. I love Catherine. The other thing that she has in this that I'm seeing throughout these sexual relationships, these emotional relationships, and then this desire to get to court, is that she is understanding pathways of power. Yes, yes.

In ways that we don't often acknowledge with women in the tutor court, she's going, there's agency over there. I'm going over there. Yes, yeah. Or I'm going away from that. And also, she's very much. beautiful. So that is currency. Yeah. So it, you know, the diary is not there. It's not going to be there. So she has the name. She's her diary. She is her own diary. And she realizes that the younger son of the Lincoln's, Lincolnshire gentry is not for her. Also, I think she genuinely is bored

of him. And we don't, we never allow these women the right to just be bored. But this is the idea of being saddled to you for my whole earthly life is more than I can bear. And, and I, I just. Is that what you say? I don't believe in reincarnation, so I can't risk this. Yeah, this is not a permanent state that I'm prepared to do. I'm going to do this again. I'm more like on a one-way ticket here, guys. This is an advanced single ticket.

I can't train it in. So I wish you well, but don't ever contact me again. So she does, and Thomas Club ever sleeps with someone else called Bess Harvey. And Catherine is actually genuinely hurt, and she cries in front of the other ladies and wedding. how humiliated she feels. But then the king becomes interested and life moves on to what we discussed earlier. What is her feeling when Henry becomes interested? Because, you know, we're three wives in, four wives in at this point. Three and a half. He's about to chuck number four. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yes, that's true. And, you know, there's an obvious pattern. Yes.

Nothing is ending well for these ladies. Yeah, yeah. Is she thinking, this is the agency that I've been searching for. This is great. Or is she thinking, shit? It could be a mixture of both, but I think think it's the first one. I really do. Because how are you going to not be the queen? Exactly. And also, I think one question is often asked. And again, this is speculative just for your listeners. I think it's something I always wonder. If I was writing a novel, I would put this conversation in, because I think it's credible fiction or credible, counterfactual or factual, whatever. People will often say to me, how could she have done this, knowing what happened to Anne Boleyn, who was her first cousin on her father's side? And I will always say, do you think Anne Boleyn did?

And then they'll say no. And I'll say, well, then why would you think she did? so she is actually she has people around her including her step-grandmother who were very fond of Anne Boleyn at the Counties of Bridgewater was very close to her at one point Catherine's aunt

there is no way that Catherine wasn't told that there was at the very least vibrant doubts about Anne Boleyn's guilt and has she heard the comment Henry made to Jane Seymour

which is what Anne did the reason why she lost her head was because she meddled in politics which Catherine never does she does not touch politics the 10 foot barge pole so to me she has actually did learn the lesson of Ambulin, which is

apolitical, apolitical. And because she knows herself, maybe she's thinking, I can handle this. I'm going to do a job. Like, actually, I'm made for this. I'm going to be the one who doesn't. It's the same thing of like, you know, people, when you look at, like, don't smoke. You think it applies to everyone but you. You know, like, there's, it's very, people always think they will be the exception. Yeah, of course. And also, there are fairly limited ways she can get rid of this. It's like, you know what, actually, I don't want to be in this flight, but I am now, so I may as well see, can I fly first class?

That's sort of the way I look at it. But the really interesting thing is it's an accident that he falls for her. So this idea of her being the pawn moved in the chessboard by her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, is not true. Because Norfolk's not in the country when Henry notices her for the first time. He's on a diplomatic mission to France. And a really interesting letter I discovered is he's told by Francis's sister, Queen Marguerite, if you want to get a good relationship with the King of France, you need to please his mistress.

And Norfolk thinks it's ridiculous. What influence did a royal mistress have? So at this point, he's still, even on the cusp of Catherine's assent, isn't that playing the chessboard that way. Or the cheese board. Or the cheese board. Crucially.

And he's in France. Thank you for ensuring that that edit makes it in. Now we can't lose it. He is in the land of cheese. Yes. He's in France. And he is picking up some absolutely. Delightful little numbers

from the wild. From our but back home some serious cheddar is being made. Thank you for going with this. Thank you so much.

I'm leaving you both to do. So when he, so I think, I mean, and the statements from within the family imply that Henry is caught by her beauty. And then the grandmother

and the aunt give her advice on how to behave. And then the uncle comes back and they sort of, I don't think they stack the deck but they play the cards dealt to them. And Norfolk sees this opportunity to use Catherine's rising favor to attack Thomas Cromwell, who is destroyed in the

downfall of Queen Anne of Police. And it just to, you know, when you said the grandmother and the aunt is, yeah, the grandmother and the aunt are seeing this person that's kind of telling her how to behave. Are they, are they doing that with you could be queen or take this position as, as mistress and queen, I think, yes, because they move her back to the grandmother's house out of court for propriety sake. See, I love that. That's good tactics. Well, it turns out to be. And also, it's like there's like, oh my God, you're going to be queen, and we're going to have to cover up that Francis Durham chap. So he has, now, the sources differ on whether he has a temper tantrum and runs away or they nudge him into running, but he runs all the way to Dublin, and he works as a merchant,

but that is later categorized as piracy. So Catherine Hard and the pirate chap is a novel that no one's written yet. So he's in Ireland for a while. Probably I would say he goes south for a bit, because that's where more of the ports would have been. But he vanishes. and everyone's thoroughly relieved. And so that, in a nutshell, there's really three, Henry Mannix, Francis Durham, Thomas Culpepper, and the ghosts of all three will come back.

But from my own sake, I really do think the rot begins with Francis Durham and it's him that sets everything in motion. That's my own interpretation. It's so, I was thinking then, as you were talking like, Henry should just do vetting of the queens,

like proper vetting where he looks, if this is a concern for him, then I also think, why the hell is her sexual past of any interest to her get a grip? So this is the thing

that actually when she falls the people of London agree with you. So there's a law brought in where the Imperial Habsburg ambassador is like great and I can only marry widows which is what a sixth wife is

that you have to disclose your sexual history if you're not a virgin before you marry into the royal family and it's so unpopular with the people that Edward the sixth repeals it. And even though it's affecting

what one person every day generation or in Henry's case every three years. It's still outrageous. What someone said, one of the complaints in London was, what did he expect her grandmother to do? Why is it the grandmother's job to tell him that? What grandmother would do that and reveal the past? And so there is actually that people are not completely sold on Catherine having been

in the wrong with this. And this is a very imperfect modern comparison. But it's sort of like how they view it is someone having done weed and then they have a political career later. And you're like, okay, it's not ideal what she did, but come on, you know, it's that sort of thing. And all of a sudden, now it's something that we're pretending to be outraged about because there's someone significant. And she didn't know that that's what was going to happen. But I did a sort of speaking to her recently where we retraced part of her route.

And we did the coach trip up from London to Lincolnshire. And then we ended up with Pontefract. And I remember looking up being like, this has taken the guts of a day on a bus. how many times did Francis have to stop in the way up when he left London to get her at Pontefract how many times did he stop at an inn

and think yeah I'm gonna keep going to keep going Yeah To me that is obsessive And he is obsessed with her And a complete lack of self-awareness Completely like it's regardless of You know we've talked about

How could you know Did she think she could be the one Who had the agency Did to make the queenship of success Okay no one has a crystal ball But you cannot tell me By the summer of 1541 There is any

one in Western Europe who is looking at Henry the 8th and thinks, do you know what? Compassionate, forgiving, easygoing. Not a cuddly guy, I think is a fairly safe assessment. What is Francis Durham doing? So to me, again, like I understand concerns about modern language being used. And it's a fair debate to have. But also the history is just the story of the past through the words of the present. It might not be what we think stalking looks like, but it's an awful lot like it.

To follow her to where she is, to blackmail her into. giving her a position to use their shared past against her. That is stalking. He would be posting revenge porn. 100%. It's very much no one will ever love you like I love you. I own you. I am hoping no one loves me.

Yeah, please back off. Yeah, please get. Yeah, exactly. And he has the receipts in this chest. Sure. And you've taken us right up to this moment now, Gareth, which is the pivotal moment just before the downfall. So we've seen the threats mount.

Now we're here, these letters, we have Francis. She's back in London from Pontefract. How does this downfall unfold? So the first, it really begins on All Souls Day, the Feast of the Dead, when Henry gets the letter. How fitting. I know it really is. Well, it's sort of, it's like Halloween, all hallows and then, or all saints, and then all souls. And in traditional belief, it's the day when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest.

And in some belief, it's when the gates of purgatory open the other ones. way and the unquiet dead and the ghosts are all around us. And certainly all of Catherine's biographical ghosts. They're all coming back to haunter. So when the archbishop starts the investigation, the first red flag is the king of all red flags, Francis Durham. And they cannot understand why he is working for her if what they've heard is true. That they don't want Catherine to know there's an investigation yet because at this stage they still think they're might, they don't want to offend her. And that's so interesting as well. They don't look at that. situation and think maybe he's pressuring her into a job. They're like, why would she have him

anywhere near her? There's like shame on her. That isn't even taken into consideration. I don't even think it would have crossed their mind. No, no, no. But they have a good legal excuse to arrest him and not raise her suspicion, which is the piracy in Ireland. So he's taken and Catherine doesn't, if she notices he's gone at this stage, I mean, they're back at Hampton Court. It's full household. And then they start asking questions of one of her maids, a woman, Catherine Till me, who, had also lived and worked for the Dietary Duchess of Norfolk. And then they tracked on Henry Manix in Lambeth and get the information from him. They come to Catherine and she initially, so it's headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester and the Duke of Suffolk. And they ask her

and she flatly denies it. And she says there is no truth in this, that is a lie. And it would have been difficult for her to stick to it with the amount of evidence they uncovered. So what they do is, what they did with Anne Boleyn, which is they cut off oxygen. They cut off the outside world. And they reduce her staff. They keep her in her rooms at Hampton Court. And she panics. And she cracks.

And she starts, the Archbishop Canterbury comes. And he admits, I let her contradict herself so that you can see she's lying. And she does tell multi. I mean, the versions keep changing. Even her versions. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's about five different versions.

So she's panicking. She is in complete. Meltdown. Meltdown. And it's so heartbreaking because the rooms were, you know, she's rattling around these rooms. And she gives three full confessions, the third of which is the shortest. The first was apparently long, but it's missing. The third one is the most famous one, but the second one should put in the book in full length,

because I think I would like people to have this a source because it's quite tricky to track down, is the longest. And it's really a wonderful thing to have because it is her voice. and a lot of what she liked with her clothes and it made me a bit emotional reading it because I kind of felt I could have been friends with her and then he was a real he was a real person like a really vibrant person and someone also was a bit sharp

like she could be difficult to work for and I love I love that in her like 19 or 20 years of life we still managed to get sharp edges like we got a person we got it we got her she's there on the page and you've met her exactly and I'm so glad he didn't smooth

because sometimes tragedy smooths away the edges and that's as much of a tragedy because losing them to the shadow of death is losing them in another way. And that's what Henry does to these women, right? He grinds them down. He just strips them bare of the power, the intellect, the personality, everything.

And we can do that when we... The thing is, a victim does not need to be a victim entirely. We should acknowledge that they are victimized by this, but it's not restoring them to just... Love that, Gareth. We call it on After Dark, we refer to this a lot, the robustification of these people where it's like if they become this

one monolithic thing yeah they either have to be super powerful and like oh go girl or it's the opposite where they're just nobody they're just to make them they fall by the wayside and I think Catherine is so complex and so interesting and I you know spent I did my postgraduate dissertation on her

and then I went into writing the book so I spent I think about five years with her which is twice as long that she was politically active and when I finish the book I just remember this like vath I checked to a hotel to finish it. And then all of a sudden, you missed it. I was like, where is she? Like, this has been my company for five years.

But actually, there's a line in Brideshider, a little room, but it's about Julia Flight. And they talk about, you know, she, there she is standing on the edge of the pool of life, like a kingfisher humming around in the evening. And she doesn't realize that she's the heroine in a dark fairy tale, and that this Titanic

servant of hers is actually a monster being belched forth that will do her command, but will bring her them in an unwelcome way. I've butchered that quote, but that to me, that to me was Catherine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the heroine of the dark fairy tale. with the downfall.

She contradicts, the confessions blatantly contradict each other, and Kramer is using those as proof to the king that she has done something wrong. And then, in her fear, she makes a decision that is foolish but understandable, which is that she realizes that they're only looking into Francis, and her terror must have been, what if they find out about the meetings with Thomas Culpepper?

So she tries to throw them off Culpepper's scent by saying, Darren was jealous of Culpepper, and I just thought that was ridiculous because obviously he's nothing to me and because the confessions have contradicted each other the archbishop cannot understand why she would mention him at all

The lady doth protest too much So they order a search of Catherine's of Thomas Culpepper's room at Hampton Court and they find a love letter that Catherine wrote to him after Thomas, what are you doing? Well, why is he keeping it? Well, yeah, exactly.

Why is he keeping it? That's insurance. Yeah, and I do think this is my other counterfactual and again, can't prove it, but I do think it's a credible thing. Thomas Culpeper, when he's taken in for question, says we hadn't slept together yet

and I believe him. I think that was true. I think they hadn't done the deed yet. I think this is the dress rehearsal for Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour. I think Catherine thinks she's about to become a widow. Ridger's self of the knowledge he makes it to 1547. He's almost died that year.

Yeah. It is very common for widows of the upper classes to marry beneath them socially, to marry it for choice. Gender and class balance each other. Look at Mary Berlin. Look at Margaret Shooter. Mary Chitter, the elder, Chiquette of Luxembourg. They all do it. I think Catherine Hard is preparing to become Dieter Queen. And I think Thomas Culpeper knows he could be hugely wealthy. They're definitely very attracted to each other. They joke about their past sexual history to each other.

They make sort of quite saucy jokes with each other. There's also moments where he confesses he loves her. There's a lot in this. It's really that rush of being in love at 19. It's quite touching. It is. Let them have it. Let them have those night meetings and I try not. I don't, I mean, there's something, we don't need to make this story any more tragic than it is. If you can find a moment of light in her story, let it shine because there's enough the sunsets gathering in. And so they then arrest Lady Rochford. They interrogate the servants in three groups. So there's no cross-contamination of testimonies. Because the councillors don't know which way this is going to go. This is something that always shocks me about the Tudor world that whenever anyone's being investigated and the wolves kind of closing, it's so efficient. Yes, I'm not bureaucratic. Yeah, yeah.

They actually do it very well. Well, because at this point, they're like, scary and all it is. Yeah. It's done well. Well, you don't want to look like you are inefficient through lack of loyalty. Henry is quick and spotting people

who seem insufficient in zeal. Mm-hmm. So they break themselves off. They also, they don't allow counselors to question in different groups. So they can't be influenced with what the other group have said. So it's subdivided into these three groups.

And Henry is convinced that Francis Durham has come to court hoping for his death so that he can resume a sexual relationship and marry Catherine. And so actually it's Durham who's tortured to get that information. Culpepper is not.

They are executed the same day on the 10th of December, but Culpeper gets the axe and Francis Durham is hanged drawn and quartered. One of his friends, Robert Damport, has lost half of his teeth being ripped out trying to get him to testify that that was the plan. And it's very clear from the surviving documentation that Henry was pushing the interrogation at every stage. So they've dealt with the men. Most of Catherine's immediate family apart from the Duke of Norfolk are imprisoned.

The Countess of Bridgewater emerges as sort of someone staring at the barrel of a loaded gun and shrugging. She just refuses to buckle. She thinks the councillors are beneath her. And neither of the Dodge or Duchess nor the Countess of Bridgewater will say that, nothing did anything wrong. And they could have stayed themselves by saying she was a harlot. She tricked us. Nope. They will not abandon her. Uncle William, the Duke's younger brother, is summoned back from his embassy to France and they're going to seize all his silverware. And they're like, where is it? He was like, I lost it. He was like, there was a storm coming back.

And it fell to the bottom of the sea. If you can find it, you're welcome to it. It's yours. It's definitely hidden in one of the Howard's gardens because all of them are suspiciously financially comfortable when they go out of prison. Yeah, yeah, good for them. So I enjoy that. So they're imprisoned and the Dodger Duchess, the Countess, Catherine and the imprisoned Lady Rochford, they need Parliament because of their rank. And so one of the most important parliaments of Henry's reign, that last Parliament,

is reconvened for the start of 1542, specifically to deal with the downfall of Queen Catherine. And the House of Lords, when they reconvene in January, have questions about this. And when people say what Catherine had done clearly was death penalty offence, how could she be so stupid? Yes, it was unwise. No question of that. Understandable but unwise. However, the House of Lords know more than you or I or anyone watching this will do about the law at the time they're living it. And the House of Lords have serious questions about the legality of Catherine going to the block. They are not convinced that this is legally mandated. They ask questions. We're not sure that this qualifies as treason. and Henry sends his Lord Chancellor and basically says the king wants this and it will be done and so an act of a tenderer has passed

to condemn Lady Rochford and Queen Catherine to death by beheading Lady Rochford has suffered a complete mental breakdown in prison so they pass a new law saying that you can legally execute the insane for the first time in English history lots of debate about was she pretending to be insane to get off we don't know

all we know is that Henry changed the law to get this done again the efficiency of his desire to Henry smash. There is a maniacal push for the blood sacrifice to be given for the king having been humiliated. It's like a visceral response in him, isn't it? It's like

everyone must die. I can't acknowledge that I'm a bit pissed off about this so even the King of France doesn't think this is going to happen. He thinks Catherine will be sent to rot into irrelevance and old age in the countryside somewhere but Henry wants the death penalty. So it's pushed through.

Catherine has spent the last winter of her life under house arrest at a disused convent at Zion, which is now on the site of the Duke of Northumberland's resident Zion House is on the site of where this convent was. And on the 10th of February 1542, she realizes there is, she's not going to be pardoned, she's not going to survive this. And they come and they tell her that they're taking her to the Tower of London. And she has a complete breakdown. And they drag her out to the wedding boat.

and they row her up to the Tower of London. But Catherine had always been someone, that breakdown as understandable as it is is all sort of character. This is someone who dazzled on the international stage of that Christmas. And again, Henry has ground her down to the bare minimum. So she is going to leave as she wants to leave.

And she wants to be note perfect in the final performance of her life. So she does what any good performance does and she rehearses. so she asks them after her final confession with Father White where she again reiterates apparently that she did not commit adultery she asked would they bring the block to her room so she can rehearse the execution and she does she rehearses it genuinely gives me shivers

that's something so wow it's still that young woman in the orchard and the one who knows herself and knows what she needs to get through this you have put me in this position but I will walk out of it how I want to I didn't want to take this journey but I will be walking my own way through it that's the Catherine I think I came to know and she doesn't say that famous sort of it's the let them make cake of tutor history

of I die the wife of a king but I'd rather die the wife of Culpeper there's an eyewitness account from a Calais merchant called Otwell Johnson he says that she was brave and both her and Niddy Rothford made right good Christian ends which means sort of pious, conventional

and dignified Are they all those women executed together? No, the Georgia Duchess and the Countess were sentenced to life imprisonment and then once the blood is spilled, Henry sort of loses interest and then they're released in May. Yeah, they're irrelevant to him. They've been punished and the real punishment is happened. Yeah, yeah.

And then they go off and the Dodger Duchess lives for three more years, the Countess for another decade. And William is later back in court, Uncle William, who's hid the silverware, becomes a favourite of Mary the First and Elizabeth the first and will die at Hampton Court where it all started in 1573. three. But to my point, he looks after his mummy and his sister and I think it's the missing silverware. So because everything was, all their goods were seized, but they're comfortable. So do you know what? I mean, the hard's got a rough wrap, but those three. Good for them. Yeah. And I suppose,

you know, talking about Catherine, as I say, sharp edges and light where you can. But to people who often think of her as, you know, poor little Catherine or the kind of like frivolous airhead, you You have to have something of steel within you to rehearse your own execution. Yes. So I think there was, and interestingly, on that final tour of the north, there are sources that have since been lost to us, but a 17th century bishop, Gilbert Burnett, Saul. And where he did transcribe documents that have survived at the present, we saw he did them perfectly, he saw sources that vanished in a 1731 fire, an accidental library fire, about

the tour of the north. and he refers to her as fair and beloved Queen Catherine who grew to have more influence. So I think before the mistakes that she did make, but also the many more mistakes that people around her made, I think we started to see her growing in political heft. And she'd interceded for Thomas Wyatt, who was a reformist and John Wallop,

who were a conservative to be pardoned. She had reached out to reformist bishops and said, don't worry, I know I come from a more conservative family. Things will be fine. It's something to paraphrase Queen Mary in the Crown, doing nothing is the hardest thing of all. There is a wisdom and a discipline that comes from neutrality. It takes a great amount of discipline to be politically neutral in an environment like that and to be bipartisan, which she was. So I like to remind people of that.

And I also like to remind them of, yes, someone meeting late at night and writing love letters and being a bit unwise. And as many of us, I mean, my God, if I was remembered how I was at 19. yeah. If I was remember who I was in love with at 19, good God. Yeah, exactly. Oh my God. 19 is a very specific thing, actually. Because if I were, yeah, let's not be judged for that. Listen, you're old enough. You're like, I don't know who he's talking about. You're old enough to make decisions, but you are not old enough to make good ones. No, exactly. Or to have to live the rest of your life with those consequences. Or to have the rest of your life snuffed out because of them. Yeah. So I liked, I like to remind

myself and people of the woman rather than poor little Catherine because I think that's the dust that Henry ground her into and we've tried to stitch her back and to me the Catherine I got to spend

five years with I understood why some of her maids found her insufferable and inconsiderate and I understood why the Imperial ambassador who worked for the Habsbergs who knew a thing or two

about etiquette found her seriously impressive and dignified she's all of those things And at the end, the best tribute I think we can give to her downfall is its rebuttal and to say it's just part of the story. I'm going to join you in another reframing of her. And it sounds to me based on this conversation, because I knew very little about Catherine Harbour before we have this conversation. Now I know loads, but it sounds like the gays would have loved her.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. She is one of those that we would have flocked to and just being like, we choose her. Yeah. That is a place we would have felt safe and inspired. Also, I always feel that about Anne. And it's interesting that they are cousins.

Yes, but here's the thing. Anne Boleyn is an older gays icon. She's the Joan Crawford of the children. I would not have flocked to Anne, but I might have flocked to Anne. Also, Anne is out for herself in a way that Catherine isn't necessarily... Anne would have had a close coterie of gay friends who she saw in the Riviera. Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah.

But she... But still made a vote against gay marriage. Yeah, yeah. gay marriage she would be fine with because she would love to have been able to say I'm so just like at least one of her friends be like yeah I assume you're against it because otherwise her husband would have married you and she would never have gone to a pride match because she just trusts mobilization of the masses yeah yeah yeah she's clustered this is it the minute someone came near her with body glitter she was like this is bespoke and I need you

to get away I'm an ally but not that kind of an ally yes yeah I'm an ally for a letter writing campaign and maybe a black and white ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do, you, Queen. Yeah, absolutely. I'll mention it in vogue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Catherine's on the float.

On the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I'm seeing real gay, gay icon with Catherine Howard. And also somebody who may be producers of the world unite and read Gareth's book and then make an adaptation, because that's filmic. And it's very contained and it's this, it actually feels a little bit more robust of a fight back against a system than maybe even

Anne Boleyn does to a certain extent, even though it's much shorter and much less definitional for a nation. But, you know, there's something individually feeling about it. Anne is brutally shattered. And it is the tearing apart of a political heavy wit.

And people will, I remember once having a discussion with a friend and they said, oh, but Anne, you know, I feel more, less sorry for her than Catherine because she was political. And I was like, that's fair enough, but that's not what they went after her for. If they had gone after her for just treasoned or heresy, fine. But they went as low as they possibly could.

And it's the same that you see with many women. They go for the gynecological destruction. They go as base as they can. And so that's why I think actually, Anne is a more savvy political operator than Catherine, but I feel sorry for them both because actually it is the, it's the destruction of Anne through something that she didn't do.

It's the destruction of Catherine that she had done, but it was not, A, as bad as they made it out to B, and B, also it was not a crime when she did it. but at the end it is they both the same man is responsible for the same conclusion which does not happen anywhere else in the length and breadth

of the British monarchies which is a husband publicly executes his wife it's not normal and we're always asking how could Anne do it? How could Catherine do it? What did they do that made that possible? There is only one common unifying factor

and it's hubby dearest. Yeah, absolutely. Also concluding thought, Francis Deerum can absolutely get in the bin. I only feel, I mean, a brutal end. Not great. Wouldn't wish it on anyone. But I'm not sorry.

No. I'm not sorry about it. Yeah. And he 100% brought that himself. Well, and that's one thing actually. I mean, well, he did. He did. And he also, he didn't just bring it on himself.

Well. He's the kind of person who was like, I'm going to jump in the water here with rocks in my pocket. And I'm going to hold on to her as I jump. That's the kind of. So I think he's. God, that's petrifying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a sort of what did you think was going to happen.

Listen, just a really good lesson from history or in life is simply because you are equipped with the ability to feel something does not mean anyone is under an obligation to reciprocate. Yes, and if someone dumps you in an orchard, go with it. Yeah. Brew some cider and on you go, sweetheart. Yeah, it's enjoy your life as a pirate. I mean, you know, Calcanny's beautiful. Enjoy it. Yeah.

Go back to Colcanny. Oh my gosh, she's my new favorite queen. Yeah, yeah, I've overlooked her. I absolutely love her. If you have enjoyed this episode, if Gareth has changed your mind about the queens of Henry VIII, then let us know in the comments. Leave us a five-star review, wherever you get your podcast.

And if you want to hear more Tudor History or History from any other period, get in touch after dark at HistoryHit.com. That is the email address, right? Yeah. Sponsored by Derry League. Oh, my God, I'm never going to live this down. Cheers, Ford. Cheers, Ford.