The Rise and Fall of Catherine Howard – ENDED

Catherine Howard is often remembered as Henry VIII's foolish, flirtatious fifth wife - the "rose without a thorn" who betrayed an ageing king and paid the ultimate price.

But was it really that simple?

Behind Catherine's rise and fall lies a far more complex story: a powerful Howard family, a noble girl's upbringing in a crowded household, a king desperate for youth and affection, dangerous court politics, damaging secrets, interrogation, treason law, and a devastating Tudor investigation that ended on the scaffold.

The Rise and Fall of Catherine Howard was a 7-day online history event hosted by historian and author Claire Ridgway in 2026.

Over the course of the event, participants followed Catherine from her early life in the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk's household to her glittering rise at court, her short queenship, the uncovering of her past, the investigation into her conduct, and the legal machinery that ultimately destroyed her.

This was not simply the story of a Tudor scandal.

It was an exploration of youth, power, reputation, evidence, fear, royal marriage and the terrifying expectations placed upon a Tudor queen.

About the Event

The event combined six structured pre-recorded talks with live Zoom Q&A and discussion sessions, allowing participants to examine Catherine Howard's story in detail and discuss the surviving evidence.

Participants also received:

• 6 in-depth video talks
• Daily live Zoom Q&A and discussion sessions
• Downloadable transcripts of the talks
• A private event Facebook group and community
• A recommended reading list
• The Catherine Howard downloadable companion guide
• Lifetime access to the event talks and Zoom recordings

The Catherine Howard Companion Guide

A downloadable companion guide was created especially for the event to help participants navigate the people, places, chronology and surviving evidence connected with Catherine Howard's rise and fall.

The guide includes:

• A Howard family tree
• A timeline of Catherine's life, queenship and fall
• A chronology of the investigation
• A "Who's Who" guide to the key players
• Key locations, including Lambeth, Hampton Court, Syon and the Tower of London
• Primary source information and extracts
• A myth versus fact section

What We Explored

• Day 1 - Origins and Early Life - Catherine's Howard family background, her upbringing in the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk's household, Henry Manox, Francis Dereham, and the wider context of household upbringing for a girl of Catherine's class.
• Day 2 - Catherine at Court and Henry's Courtship - Catherine's service to Anne of Cleves, Thomas Culpeper, Henry VIII's interest in Catherine, court faction, and the beginnings of Catherine's relationship with the king.
• Day 3 - Queen Catherine Howard - Catherine as queen: her image, household, royal progress, court life, Henry VIII's health, and the relationship between the young queen and her ageing husband.
• Day 4 - The Past Returns - John Lascelles, Mary Hall, Archbishop Cranmer, the All Saints' Day revelation, Hampton Court, Catherine's reaction, and her removal to Syon.
• Day 5 - Investigations and Interrogations - Francis Dereham, Thomas Culpeper, Catherine's servants, Lady Rochford, evidence gathering, examinations, confessions, contradictions and the chronology of the investigation.
• Day 6 - Treason, Attainder and Executions - The legal machinery used against Catherine and those around her, the use of attainder, Jane Boleyn, the executions, Catherine's final days, and the myths that have grown up around her death.
• Day 7 - Final Discussion - The event concluded with an extended live Q&A, discussion and reflection on Catherine's life, queenship, fall and historical reputation.

Questions at the Heart of the Event

Throughout the week, we returned to some of the most difficult questions surrounding Catherine Howard.

• How much can we really know about Catherine's early relationships with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham?
• What did Catherine herself say during the investigation, and how reliable are the surviving accounts of her words?
• What was the nature of her relationship with Thomas Culpeper?
• How should we interpret the famous letter attributed to Catherine?
• Was Catherine guilty of adultery or treason?
• Why were Francis Dereham, Thomas Culpeper and Jane Boleyn destroyed alongside her?
• How did Henry VIII and his government turn revelations about Catherine's past into a case that could end with the execution of a queen?

And perhaps most importantly: how much of the Catherine Howard familiar to us today comes from contemporary evidence, and how much from centuries of myth, moral judgement and retelling?

The event approached these questions through contemporary records and primary sources, while also examining how historians have interpreted the evidence differently.

Beyond the Catherine Howard Myth

One of the central aims of the event was to move beyond the familiar caricature of Catherine as the silly, promiscuous young queen who recklessly deceived Henry VIII.

Her story raises much more complicated questions about age, agency, sexuality, household culture, royal expectations, reputation and power.

It also provides a remarkable opportunity to see the Tudor state at work.

The surviving records allow us to follow an investigation as Catherine's household was questioned, witnesses were examined, previous relationships reconstructed and statements compared. They also reveal the difficulties historians face when attempting to distinguish between evidence, allegation, confession, hearsay and later storytelling.

By examining these records closely, the event aimed not to replace one simplistic version of Catherine with another, but to understand what the surviving evidence can - and cannot - tell us about her.

Your Host

I'm Claire Ridgway, historian, author and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

I have long been fascinated by the queens of Henry VIII, particularly those whose stories have become clouded by myth, simplification and sensationalism. Alongside my work on Anne Boleyn and the Boleyn family, I have also been researching Catherine Howard, her queenship and her dramatic fall for the past few years as part of my work on a book.

Through my books, online events and YouTube channel, I specialise in examining Tudor history through primary sources and structured analysis, exploring not only what happened, but why it happened and how later interpretations have shaped our understanding of the past.

Catherine Howard's story is one of the most compelling and tragic of the Tudor period: a young queen caught at the intersection of court politics, reputation, personal relationships, royal expectation and the terrifying machinery of Tudor law.

The Rise and Fall of Catherine Howard brought together years of my research, close reading of contemporary evidence, and a detailed re-examination of the investigation, interrogations and legal processes that led to Catherine Howard's destruction.