Tudor Mirror World: Anne Boleyn vs Catherine Howard

In the Henry's Wives post we noted how the story of Catherine Howard parallels that of Anne Boleyn. They both were said to have committed adultery, and both lost their heads for it. Here, in this post, we'll outline some of the further parallels and points of interest.

Left: Anne Boleyn

Right: Catherine Howard (possibly - we have

no confirmed portraits of her)

According to Wikipedia there is no authenticated contemporary likeness of Catherine, and no documented evidence that she ever had her portrait painted. We don't even know her exact birthdate, with estimates ranging from 1518 to 1527.

Anyway, the similarities go beyond just adultery and headless-ness. They were both members of the Howard family. Both being granddaughters of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and his wife, Elizabeth Tilney. Anne Boleyn's mother was Elizabeth Howard (later Boleyn after marriage) and Katherine Howard's father was Lord Edmund Howard.

The powerful figure from the era, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was uncle to both girls.

Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk

He was effectively the conservative/Catholic enemy of Thomas Cromwell. Incidentally, his daughter, Mary, married Henry VIII's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy.

[As a further aside, Anne and Katherine's grandfather, Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, had a life full of doppelgangers. He married two Tilneys: his first wife being Elizabeth Tilney, his second wife, her cousin, Agnes Tilney. He had many children by both women, and some even had the same name. He had two daughters called Elizabeth and two sons called Thomas. It's also possible he had two sons called Richard. Very confusing.]

Burials

Both queens were also buried at the same place: The Church of St Peter ad Vincula - naturally, given it was the parish church of the Tower of London, were both women were executed.

(It's also the resting place of Lady Jane Grey and various other "treasonous" Tudor figures.)

The marble slabs marking the graves of the two women sit next to each other.

Anne's on the left and

Catherine's on the right

However, these markers were added after the chapel was restored in the latter half of the 19th century. Interestingly, when the graves were opened, Anne Boleyn's body was identified, but Catherine's was missing. According to the following webpage Catherine's body was buried, "with quicklime, which is a chemical that quickens the decompensation of a body." The body of Jane Boleyn, who was buried alongside her on the same day, was not buried in quicklime apparently (more on her later). Like Anne Boleyn, her body was identified when the graves were excavated.

The Burial Place of Katherine Howard

I also came across the following article, which notes that the author, Alison Weir, claims the bones thought to belong to Anne Boleyn are in fact those of Catherine Howard. However, the author of the article thinks she's wrong about this.

Anne Boleyn's Body Found?

Weir also speculated that the bones found in the grave where Jane Boleyn and Catherine Howard were buried (identified as Jane Boleyn's) were possibly those of Anne.

Either way, a set of bones is missing :)

Back to the Book

This brings me back to the book I mentioned in the Katherine Willoughby post: Nicola Clark's The Waiting Game.

The were a few passages that noted the lack of documentation concerning the fall of Anne Boleyn.

Page 155: Nothing immediately came from this investigation [into Anne Boleyn]. Nothing was made public; no records survive. But this did not mean that it did not occur. Thomas Cromwell's papers were later deliberately 'thinned' over the period covering Anne's arrest and execution. Any evidence provided in writing or taken at dictation from Anne's women would no doubt have been among the papers that were culled.

Then further, on page 172: The indictment that was read accused the queen of seducing five men, including her brother, and of 'entertaining malice' against the king. The official records of the queen's [Anne Boleyn's] trial are no longer extant.

Finally, later in the book, when we get to the fall of Catherine Howard, it's noted that, "The abundance of surviving evidence here is in contrast to the lack of evidence we have for Queen Anne Boleyn's fall, which must have once existed." (pg. 258)

Obviously, the lack of a body in the grave, along with the lack of contemporary evidence for one of the downfalls, leaves us with a situation where both halves make a whole. Making it tempting to speculate (admittedly quite wildly) that perhaps only one story is true, and that the other is simply a mirror or garbled retelling. Perhaps stemming from confusion or political necessity.

(In the tug of war between Protestant and Catholic perhaps both sides competed in the rewriting of history to match their own ends?)

Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London

Édouard Cibot, 1835

Jane Boleyn

Finally, this brings us to Jane Boleyn (née Parker), who figured in both downfalls.

During the downfall of Anne Boleyn, her husband, George Boleyn (brother to Anne Boleyn), was beheaded for treason. He was accused of having had an incestuous relationship with Anne. There are claims that Jane was one of her husband's accusers. Though this is contested.

Then, when Catherine Howard went to the block, approximately five years later, Jane went with her, losing her head as well. It's said that Jane had been arranging Catherine's secret meetings with her lover, Thomas Culpeper.

So both Jane and her husband lost their heads, in similar, but differing circumstances.