[MR] BBC Reel: "The Treasonous Love Letter That Damned a Tudor Queen"

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Lady Sarah Sinclair stumbled across this very interesting 6-minute
video, "The Treasonous Love Letter That Damned a Tudor Queen", featuring
Royal Palaces curator Tracy Borman. It tells the sad story of Queen
Catherine Howard's illicit love letter to courtier Thomas Culpeper and its
disastrous consequences. Disastrous, like the axe and the block for them
both: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p09jp20m .

Borman makes the point that Catherine was used both sexually, and as a
power pawn, by various men in her life. She apparently had at least two
"affairs" before becoming Queen; with music teacher Henry Mannox which may
not have been consummated, and a more serious liaison with secretary
Francis Dereham. Yet Catherine presented herself to Henry as a virgin (as
did her conniving uncle Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk). Lying to
the King was treason in itself. It is possible, Borman alleges, that
Culpeper learned of Catherine's earlier affairs and was blackmailing the
Queen for his own purposes. Certain parts of the letter certainly hint at
this.

Queen Catherine and Culpeper were beheaded for treason. Dereham, somewhat
unjustly, was hanged. Also chopped was Lady-in-waiting Vicountess Rochford
(Jane Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's sister-in-law), who had managed the affair
between Catherine and Culpeper. Jane had thrown her own husband under the
bus during the fall of Queen Anne, possibly to save herself. Now it was her
turn. Mannox was arrested and interrogated, but not executed, and pretty
much slunk into obscurity. Norfolk, managed to avoid prosecution by blaming
the whole thing on Catherine, though he later went to the Tower over his
son's usurpation of royal arms. He remained in prison until pardoned by
Bloody Mary.

Catherine's sad life is profiled on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Howard .

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆