was married at fourteen to a lad of fifteen; the Duke of Suffolk’s brother, a boy of eighteen, was espoused to a widow of fifty; and young Master Robert Barre, aged three, had to be lured with an apple to get him into the church, to celebrate his engagement to Elizabeth Rogerson. 31
Child marriages were the constant custom of the age, and most of Catherine’s relatives were married young. Her mother, at the age of twelve, had taken as her first husband a man who belonged to a previous generation; 32 and the Earl of Surrey had his marriage arranged for him at thirteen and was betrothed by the age of fourteen. 33 It is true that this was beginning to exceed the legal limits, since the law prohibited the marriage of boys under fourteen, and legally the ‘flower of a female’s age’ was twelve. 34 But as Bishop Latimer complained, a society that regarded marriage primarily as the joining of ‘lands to lands, and possessions to possessions’ paid scant heed to either the physiological or psychological factors involved. 35 When it was rumoured that Sir Brian Stapleton had been offered 1,200 marks in ready gold and land worth 100 marks for the hand of his son and heir ‘and yet he trusteth to have more’, 36 one could hardly expect anxious parents to have waited until their progeny reached the legal age. This, of course, did not necessarily mean that girls of twelve, or even the ‘forward virgins’ of fourteen, were exposed to the doubtful care of their spouses, and they often lived at home until eighteen lest they endanger themselves through childbearing. As far as the parents were concerned, the essential aspect of wedlock had been established, for once the marriage settlement was signed then the estates involved were fixed and settled by law. When we come to Catherine Howard’s youthful escapades and her marriage to a sovereign, it might be well to remember how the Howards regarded the subject of marriage and the contemporary view: the girl ‘who strikes the fire of full fourteen, today [is] ripe for a husband.’
The education and training of a young lady or gentleman of good birth was geared to these considerations. ‘A good housewife is a great patrimony’, and the honest wife, who also had an honest income of her own, was even more highly treasured. It was not necessary that a young lady be accomplished in the arts. 37 That both Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were highly educated ladies is the royal exception, and not the common rule. Catherine Howard had few intellectual accomplishments, and it was considered unnecessary that she should. It was a ‘gentleman’s calling to be able to blow the horn, to hunt and hawk’, and to leave learning to the ‘clodhoppers’ who made scholarship a substitute for birth. 38 For a young gentlewoman, it sufficed if she was of honest, humble and of a wifely disposition. As late as 1598, Robert Cleaver could write that parents had only four duties that they owed their children – to instruct them in the fear of God, to instil in them a love of virtue and a hatred of vice, to keep them from idleness, and (the most important of all ) to rear them to acknowledge the strict authority of the father, whose judgment must be obeyed at all times, especially in matters of matrimony. 39 It was this last duty that was most often discussed, and Roger Ascham bewailed that ‘our time is so far from that old discipline and obedience’ that not only young gentlemen but even girls dared to marry ‘where they list and how they list’ without respect to ‘father, mother, God, good order and all’. 40
Though Ascham’s condemnation may have been justified as far as court circles were concerned, the country families still maintained that the ‘principal commendation in a woman [is] to be able to govern and direct her household, to look to her house and family’, and ‘to know the force of her kitchen’. 41 It was to learn such honest and wifely duties that Catherine was sent to live
Child marriages were the constant custom of the age, and most of Catherine’s relatives were married young. Her mother, at the age of twelve, had taken as her first husband a man who belonged to a previous generation; 32 and the Earl of Surrey had his marriage arranged for him at thirteen and was betrothed by the age of fourteen. 33 It is true that this was beginning to exceed the legal limits, since the law prohibited the marriage of boys under fourteen, and legally the ‘flower of a female’s age’ was twelve. 34 But as Bishop Latimer complained, a society that regarded marriage primarily as the joining of ‘lands to lands, and possessions to possessions’ paid scant heed to either the physiological or psychological factors involved. 35 When it was rumoured that Sir Brian Stapleton had been offered 1,200 marks in ready gold and land worth 100 marks for the hand of his son and heir ‘and yet he trusteth to have more’, 36 one could hardly expect anxious parents to have waited until their progeny reached the legal age. This, of course, did not necessarily mean that girls of twelve, or even the ‘forward virgins’ of fourteen, were exposed to the doubtful care of their spouses, and they often lived at home until eighteen lest they endanger themselves through childbearing. As far as the parents were concerned, the essential aspect of wedlock had been established, for once the marriage settlement was signed then the estates involved were fixed and settled by law. When we come to Catherine Howard’s youthful escapades and her marriage to a sovereign, it might be well to remember how the Howards regarded the subject of marriage and the contemporary view: the girl ‘who strikes the fire of full fourteen, today [is] ripe for a husband.’
The education and training of a young lady or gentleman of good birth was geared to these considerations. ‘A good housewife is a great patrimony’, and the honest wife, who also had an honest income of her own, was even more highly treasured. It was not necessary that a young lady be accomplished in the arts. 37 That both Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were highly educated ladies is the royal exception, and not the common rule. Catherine Howard had few intellectual accomplishments, and it was considered unnecessary that she should. It was a ‘gentleman’s calling to be able to blow the horn, to hunt and hawk’, and to leave learning to the ‘clodhoppers’ who made scholarship a substitute for birth. 38 For a young gentlewoman, it sufficed if she was of honest, humble and of a wifely disposition. As late as 1598, Robert Cleaver could write that parents had only four duties that they owed their children – to instruct them in the fear of God, to instil in them a love of virtue and a hatred of vice, to keep them from idleness, and (the most important of all ) to rear them to acknowledge the strict authority of the father, whose judgment must be obeyed at all times, especially in matters of matrimony. 39 It was this last duty that was most often discussed, and Roger Ascham bewailed that ‘our time is so far from that old discipline and obedience’ that not only young gentlemen but even girls dared to marry ‘where they list and how they list’ without respect to ‘father, mother, God, good order and all’. 40
Though Ascham’s condemnation may have been justified as far as court circles were concerned, the country families still maintained that the ‘principal commendation in a woman [is] to be able to govern and direct her household, to look to her house and family’, and ‘to know the force of her kitchen’. 41 It was to learn such honest and wifely duties that Catherine was sent to live
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