Queen Kathryn Howard Was Not Abused

01/15/2023

Kathryn Howard was the fifth wife and Queen of Henry VIII. Usually, her story goes something like this: "Kathryn was a promiscuous person from a young age. At age 13, she became sexually intimate with her music teacher, Henry Mannox. After Mannox was sent away, Kathryn was 14 when she met Francis Dereham and became sexually involved with him. They called each other husband and wife. They loved each other and planned to get married. But their relationship was discovered by Kathryn's great grandma, Agnes Howard, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk and she put an end to the relationship. Then, Kathryn got a position at court as a lady-in-waiting to Anna of Kleve, Henry's fourth wife and Queen. During his marriage to Anna, he met Kathryn and they started courting. After six months, the King's marriage to Queen Anna was annulled. Shorly after the annulment, King Henry and Kathryn were wed. Their marriage started out happy and full of bliss, with Henry calling Kathryn his "Tudor rose without a thorn" and showering her with gifts. Kathryn loved being Queen. Queen Kathryn began to see one of the King's courtiers, Thomas Culpeper. Rumors about Kathryn's scandalous past began to spread and the King was informed about her past. After King Henry initially dismissed the rumors as slanderous, an investigation was started and Kathryn was found guilty of adultery and treason. She was stripped of her title of Queen and was beheaded at the age of 19."

But now, many people say that poor Queen Kathryn was abused and sexually assualted since by the standards of our time, she was too young to consent to be sexually involved with any of those men. The fact that she was 17 when she married the 49-year-old King Henry doesn't help debunk that perception.

Here's a video in which a historian with a lot of knowledge about Tudor England addresses whether or not Queen Kathryn Howard was a victim of abuse.

So there you have it: Queen Kathryn Howard was not a victim of abuse.

However, I do want to address her "affair" with Thomas Culpeper. While Kathryn never slept with him, she was emotionally cheating on King Henry with Culpeper. While I understand Henry was way older than her, obese, smelly, and his leg gave him grief, which did not make him pleasant to be around and that Kathryn was young and wanting someone her age, having an emotional affair with one of the King's confidants, especially when your husband had wife and Queen #2, one of your predecessors as well as your cousin, executed on fabricated charges of adultery and incest, is an incredibly stupid move.

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Queen Kathryn Howard Was Not Abused

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