Me So Thorny

Nicole/Kathryn H here!

As I promised in an earlier entry, I need to tell you about The Rose Without A Thorn's thorns.

I keep delaying this post because I find Kathryn's story so compelling that I just keep reading, keep finding new information, and keep trying to compile it into one fabulous post of informational doom.

So, instead I'm going to divide it up once more, to make sure that I do justice to a person who I'm becoming more and more attached to.

Before she came to court, Kathryn had been very poor. Her father being the second son of the old Duke of Norfolk, her family had no real inheritance, and, with a lot of children, her family ended up in constant debt. He sent her to live with her step-grandma, the good ol’ Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. The Duchess had a house full of children—wards, servants, future courtiers, et cetera—and she paid almost no attention to their upbringing. Kathryn did not have a formal education, was allowed to [gasp!] befriend servant and aristocrat alike, and more or less run wild. As she grew into early adolescence, the wildness of childhood morphed into a sort of disregard for “normal” aristocratic conventions. Not realizing the effect her actions could have on her ever-manipulating family, she just sort of took what happened to her.

The first thing that happened to her was her music teacher, Henry Manox. He was supposed to be teaching her the flute and the virginal (…how ironic…). Instead, he was plying the pretty twelve-ish-year-old to have sex with him.

While Kathryn never went *ahem* “all the way” with him, she did “[suffer] him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require.”

Then came Francis Dereham, a gentleman in her step-grandmother’s service. By all accounts, they were in love. They exchanged lovers tokens; Francis gave her money when he had it; they even called each other “husband” and “wife”. How adorable. Not surprisingly, they were also getting busy. After the Dowager Duchess had gone to bed, Francis would sneak into the girls’ dormitory—a practice not unknown in the Duchess’s house—and engage in, as one witness put it, “puffing and blowing.” Heh.

All this constitutes evidence of a betrothal/pre-contract of marriage. In England at the time, if a couple exchanged vows of later getting married and then consummated their relationship, they were actually legally contracted to one another. Personally, it sounds like a convenient way of binding Tudor mansluts to the women that they would otherwise just be playing while simultaneously preventing an army of bastard children, but maybe that’s just me.

About the same time Kathryn was sent to court, Francis went to Ireland to earn money, likely for his later marriage to young Miss Howard. Some say he turned to piracy, which, of course, makes him extremely attractive in my mind.

Upon his return, he found Kathryn had become Queen of England. [Though she was not, as yet, crowned. Her coronation was delayed, likely because the King and his Council were waiting for her to conceive.] The Dowager Duchess urged him to seek employment in Kathryn’s court; the young queen, fearing blackmail, immediately hired Francis.

However, Francis would not receive the queen’s attention in the way he had come to expect. Kathryn’s eye had fallen upon Thomas Culpepper, a “beautiful youth,” a courtier, and a lord high in the king’s favour. They were absolutely in love. Letters from Kathryn to Thomas were filled with a heartsickness familiar to any lovers kept apart for more than a day.

Later, both would deny sleeping together, and it is not known to this day whether or not they ever did anything beyond steal kisses behind closed doors. Most historians assume that they were lying to cover up their misdemeanors, but, still, the mystery remains. How tragic if they were condemned only for falling in love? But, alas, loving someone more than the king is treasonous in thought even if deed cannot be proved...

More on how they were caught at a later date.