Author Conor Byrne is apologetic; there’s very little information about Katherine Howard, the second “beheaded” in the mnemonic “Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived”. Her birthdate is uncertain; portraits that might be her are known but there are arguments that each is somebody else; there might be samples of her handwriting but some biographers suggest she was illiterate. It’s known that after he mother died and her father remarried, she was sent to live with a relative, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk. The Duchess ran a sort of training academy for poor but noble girls; the young ladies were expected to learn dancing, music, singing, and the various other accomplishments expected of their class and would eventually get positions at Court or married off to suitable husbands. At night, the girls were locked in a large dormitory room. Alas, the presence of a room full of nubile girls eventually becomes known to virile boys; the keeper of the keys was coerced or bribed or otherwise persuaded, and young gentlemen began visiting the young ladies in the middle of the night. One of the visitors was Katherine’s music teacher, Henry Manox; a later nocturnal visitor was Francis Dereham. Byrne speculates - on fairly scanty evidence, but then again all evidence about Katherine Howard is fairly scanty – that Katherine sought out Dereham as a “protector” against the unwanted advances of Manox; however Dereham seems to have seen himself as taking Manox’s, place rather than protecting Katherine from him.

Katherine’s fortunes suddenly took a fairy-tale turn; she was placed as a lady-in-waiting for Henry VIII’s fourth queen, Anne of Cleeves; then when that marriage was annulled, Katherine took over. She was the youngest Queen of England since Margaret of Anjou, and court observers reported Henry couldn’t keep his hands off her in public. Somewhere along the line, Katherine made the acquaintance of Thomas Culpepper, a page in Henry’s court. Katherine’s principal lady-in-waiting, Lady Rochford, arranged some private meetings between Katherine and Culpepper. Byrne theorizes these meetings were attempts by Katherine to persuade Culpepper to leave her alone; other biographers have claimed they were carnal encounters. Eventually the whole thing feel apart; somebody talked to Henry VIII and Katherine, Lady Rochford, Dereham, Culpeper, and various other people were all arrested. Katherine’s erstwhile friends and relatives fell all over each other in a rush to accuse her of sexual improprieties before and during her marriage to Henry VIII.

Katherine didn’t even get a trial; she was condemned by a Bill of Attainder (Byrne speculates Henry VIII was afraid that if there was a trial evidence of his sexual inadequacy might come out). Katherine, Lady Rochford, and Culpepper were all beheaded; Dereham received the full service traitor’s execution of hanging, drawing, and quartering. As the final insult, the girl with the unknown birthdate – the best guess is she was 18 at her death - and unknown portraits got an unknown grave in St. Peter ad Vincula; while Lady Rochford’s skeleton turned up in an excavation in the 1800s, all Katherine has is a plaque on the wall. (It’s noted the claim Katherine said “I die a queen but would rather die the wife of Culpepper” on the scaffold is not attested by people who were present).

So what actually happened? Byrne confesses there just isn’t enough evidence to tell. The extremes are: Katherine Howard was a promiscuous and sexually aggressive teenager who couldn’t control herself – which is the story many of her contemporaries and later biographers bought – versus Katherine Howard was a naïve and basically virtuous young girl suddenly thrust into court politics that were beyond her experience and comprehension – which is what Byrne thinks. Although Henry Manox, the music teacher, bragged about “groping” Katherine, he never claimed to have had full sexual intercourse. Katherine acknowledged that she had lain in bed with Dereham, partially clothed, but not that she had intercourse with him (of course, it’s always possible Katherine didn’t really understand what was involved; when I was that age – 13-15 – I had pretty strange ideas about what went on myself. I can easily imagine the dowager Duchess’s room full of preteen and teenage girls exchanging various theories after the candles were put out). One would expect Henry VIII had adequate experience to know if his new queen wasn’t a virgin right away and would have done something about it immediately rather than waiting in seeming amiability for almost two years. Katherine’s whole life invites speculation.

Because there’s so little evidence to go on, Byrne has to pad the book out a little; thus there’s a chapter on portrayals of Katherine Howard in movies and television, and another on speculation over her birth. Endnotes and bibliography; illustrations of the people (included some that may be Katherine) and places involved. A scholarly read, with a lot of caveats about the possibilities. ( )