Gallus Girls And Wayward Women (a Herstory Of The British Isles)

Teeny tiny Katherine Howard was Henry VIII's fifth and youngest wife. He met Katherine when he was almost fifty, and stuck in a marriage that made him miserable. Katherine, young and full of life enchanted him, and she was still only a teenager when she was ‘showed openly as Queen’ at Hampton Court in August 1540, having married Henry the day he sent Thomas Cromwell, who’d arranged his marriage to Anne of Cleves, to the block. However, poor Katherine was Queen of England for only a short while, and her  life, just as short, came to a tragic and violent end. Up until fairly recently, she's been painted as a bit of an empty headed bimbette who may have deserved what she got, but thankfully we (well, most of us, sigh) live in more enlightened times and we can take stock of what we know of Katherine's life, and at least give this young girl the sympathy she deserves.