with her stepgrandmother. The finer accomplishments of life were not needed to enhance her eligibility as the wife of some country squire within the Howard circle, or some strategic courtier who might be useful to the family interests. No one, least of all Catherine, had any notion that she would be consulted when the time for connubial selection arrived, or that a Howard daughter would be thoughtlessly thrown away on just any hopeful aspirant to her hand.
For Catherine and the other maids of the Dowager’s household, it was sufficient if they learned obedience and the inner mysteries of domestic organization. It is magnificently ironic that it should have been the Duchess’s efforts to bring a touch of refinement into her granddaughter’s life that resulted in the first of those fatal acts for which Catherine eventually paid with her life. What began as playing on the virginal and the lute under the tender care of Mr Henry Manox ended in clandestine meetings in the dark places under the chapel stairs. In the other, if less dangerous arts, Catherine seems to have been neither an especially apt nor a well-trained pupil, but she was certainly not the illiterate and neglected damsel of the history books. She was as well-educated as most of the ladies of the period, and could both read and write, which is more than can be said for other ladies-in-waiting at Henry’s court. 42
Catherine, however, never transcended the narrow educational and intellectual horizons of her kind. Reared under the strict and conservative influence of the old Duchess, she was orthodox in religion and naively credulous. She learned her paternosters, but was quite content to leave matters of theology and interpretation to those who knew better, happily mixing ceremonial punctiliousness with a firm belief in supernatural omens and signs. Catherine’s world was crowded with blue crosses above the moon, flaming horseheads and swords, and church steeples demolished by the Devil’s hand. 43 It mattered little, however, whether this Howard girl could write courtly love sonnets, appreciate theological niceties, or even sign her name, for when the moment came, Henry was not looking for a second Anne Boleyn who could match his own amorous love-letters. With Catherine he was seeking a less vicarious experience.
Born into a family of ten children, reared in the peripatetic household of a father who constantly sponged on both friend and relation, and accustomed to the rough and ready existence of sixteenth-century childhood, Catherine was probably prepared for almost everything that she might encounter at the Duchess’s country house at Horsham – except perhaps its size. Agnes, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk , who presided over the manors of Horsham and Chesworth in Sussex 44 and the school for young relatives in her household, was herself something of an anachronism. Stiff-necked, testy and old-fashioned, she harkened back to the Wars of the Roses and the irresponsible anarchy of the old nobility. Rigidly religious, balancing the sins of her youth with a hair-shirt in the twilight of her life, the old Dowager was under it all a kind-hearted if shorttempered matriarch. She had most of the strength and shortcomings of her generation. She rarely went to court except on business or command, and she must have represented almost everything that Henry and the new men of the age most disliked. Her acid tongue, her stubborn defence of Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, her studied disregard for the refinements of high society, and her total disdain for courtly etiquette must have made her distinctly unpopular at court. But under this starched and feudal façade lay both shrewdness and knowledge of the ways of the world, and despite her outward religious orthodoxy, there remained a good deal of amused toleration of the antics and escapades of youth. Officially frowning upon what went on in her ‘maidens’ chambers’ at night, the Dowager probably knew a good
For Catherine and the other maids of the Dowager’s household, it was sufficient if they learned obedience and the inner mysteries of domestic organization. It is magnificently ironic that it should have been the Duchess’s efforts to bring a touch of refinement into her granddaughter’s life that resulted in the first of those fatal acts for which Catherine eventually paid with her life. What began as playing on the virginal and the lute under the tender care of Mr Henry Manox ended in clandestine meetings in the dark places under the chapel stairs. In the other, if less dangerous arts, Catherine seems to have been neither an especially apt nor a well-trained pupil, but she was certainly not the illiterate and neglected damsel of the history books. She was as well-educated as most of the ladies of the period, and could both read and write, which is more than can be said for other ladies-in-waiting at Henry’s court. 42
Catherine, however, never transcended the narrow educational and intellectual horizons of her kind. Reared under the strict and conservative influence of the old Duchess, she was orthodox in religion and naively credulous. She learned her paternosters, but was quite content to leave matters of theology and interpretation to those who knew better, happily mixing ceremonial punctiliousness with a firm belief in supernatural omens and signs. Catherine’s world was crowded with blue crosses above the moon, flaming horseheads and swords, and church steeples demolished by the Devil’s hand. 43 It mattered little, however, whether this Howard girl could write courtly love sonnets, appreciate theological niceties, or even sign her name, for when the moment came, Henry was not looking for a second Anne Boleyn who could match his own amorous love-letters. With Catherine he was seeking a less vicarious experience.
Born into a family of ten children, reared in the peripatetic household of a father who constantly sponged on both friend and relation, and accustomed to the rough and ready existence of sixteenth-century childhood, Catherine was probably prepared for almost everything that she might encounter at the Duchess’s country house at Horsham – except perhaps its size. Agnes, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk , who presided over the manors of Horsham and Chesworth in Sussex 44 and the school for young relatives in her household, was herself something of an anachronism. Stiff-necked, testy and old-fashioned, she harkened back to the Wars of the Roses and the irresponsible anarchy of the old nobility. Rigidly religious, balancing the sins of her youth with a hair-shirt in the twilight of her life, the old Dowager was under it all a kind-hearted if shorttempered matriarch. She had most of the strength and shortcomings of her generation. She rarely went to court except on business or command, and she must have represented almost everything that Henry and the new men of the age most disliked. Her acid tongue, her stubborn defence of Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, her studied disregard for the refinements of high society, and her total disdain for courtly etiquette must have made her distinctly unpopular at court. But under this starched and feudal façade lay both shrewdness and knowledge of the ways of the world, and despite her outward religious orthodoxy, there remained a good deal of amused toleration of the antics and escapades of youth. Officially frowning upon what went on in her ‘maidens’ chambers’ at night, the Dowager probably knew a good
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