The Boleyn-Howard Connection

portrait of Anne BoleynMany historians and biographers mention that Catherine Howard was related in some way to Anne Boleyn.  Historically, they are joined by a gruesome bond - they were the only two wives Henry VIII had executed.  Catherine married Henry just four years after Anne's execution; yet during those four years, he had married two other women (Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves.)
   Catherine and Anne were first cousins.  Catherine's father, Lord Edmund Howard, was the brother of Anne Boleyn's mother, Lady Elizabeth Howard.  Edmund and Elizabeth were the children of Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk.  However, despite their close familial ties, the two women never met.  There are many obvious reasons for this - first of all, Anne was about fifteen years older than Catherine.  Secondly, the Norfolk family was a tangled collection of cousins (far too many to list here) and, since Catherine was one of many children of a poor younger son, her status was relatively unimportant in the mid-1530s.  Third, and perhaps most important, Anne Boleyn disliked her uncle Thomas Howard, the 3rd duke of Norfolk (and formerly earl of Surrey) - he was conniving, opportunistic, and arrogant.  (This perhaps affected her relationships with all her Norfolk cousins; the only family member she was noticeably close to was her brother, George.) Anne and Norfolk were never close and he only barely managed to hide his dislike while she was queen.  When she was arrested and tried, he made portrait of Catherine Howardhaste to distance himself from her at all costs.  His groveling was effective - and still worked four years later when yet another niece (Catherine Howard) was arrested.  At Catherine's arrest, virtually every member of the Norfolk family was taken to the Tower - except the duke.  His frantic letter to Henry VIII included insults of all his imprisoned relatives, most importantly the 'abominable deeds' of Anne and Catherine.  He was certainly an unappealing character but, unlike so many others, he managed to survive in the treacherous Tudor court.  Later imprisoned and with his goods seized by the king, Norfolk was condemned to death but Henry VIII died without signing the warrant for his execution.

Catherine Howard is the subject of L.B. Smith's biography, A Tudor Tragedy.
Sadly, it is out-of-print - so if you stumble across a copy at a second-hand shop, buy it!  It is a wonderful book and ably documents the state of Henry's reign in the 1540s.
Beyond that, I can recommend no other books solely about Catherine Howard - as far as I know, none exist.  The fictional history The Fifth Queen by Ford Madox Ford is recently reissued and is an imaginative exploration of her life.
 

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