In 1531, he was appointed Controller of Calais.He was dismissed from his post in 1539, and died in March of the same year.ĭuring her early childhood, Catherine was sent to live in the household of her step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. As a result, he was often reduced to begging for handouts from his more powerful relatives. Therefore Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn were first cousins and Catherine Howard and Lady Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I) were first-cousins-once-removed.Īs a granddaughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, Catherine had an aristocratic pedigree, but her father, who was a younger son, was not wealthy owing to primogeniture and the large size of his family. She was the niece of Elizabeth Howard, who was the mother of Queen Anne Boleyn.

Catherine's exact date of birth is unknown, although the year has been estimated as being after 1520, but before 1527. Catherine was the third of Henry's consorts to have been a member of the English gentry.Ĭatherine Howard was a child of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper.

However, she was beheaded after less than two years of marriage to Henry on the grounds of treason for committing adultery while married to the King. Catherine married Henry VIII on 28 July 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged. The new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives her date of birth as anywhere between 1518–1524. 1518–1524 – 13 February 1542), also spelt Katherine, Katheryn or Kathryn, was Queen of England and the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England sometimes known by his reference to her as his 'rose without a thorn'.Ĭatherine's date and place of birth are unknown, but are occasionally cited as 1521 or 1525, and in Wingate, County Durham.

The King's Rose by Alisa M. Libby