A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Howard, Catharine
HOWARD, CATHARINE
Fifth wife of Henry the Eighth, of England, was daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce, his wife. This marriage proved prejudicial to the Reformation, as Catharine was no friend to the Protestants. She gained such an ascendency over the king, that he gave public thanks to God for the happiness he enjoyed with her. But the next day. Archbishop Cranmer came to him with information that the queen was unfaithful to him. Henry would not at first believe this; and on Catharine's guilt being clearly proved, he wept. She was tried, found guilty, and executed on Tower-hill, in 1542, about seventeen months after her marriage. Catharine acknowledged that she was not innocent at the time of her marriage, having been seduced by a retainer of her aunt's the Duchess of Northumberland, who had taken charge of her at her parents' death, when she was only fourteen; but persisted in asserting her fidelity to the king since their marriage. She was young and beautiful at the time of her death.