Queen Katherine and the Howards : A Tudor Family on the Brink of Disaster

Reevaluates Katherine Howard's life, exploring her family's role and her tragic demise through original research.Writings of certain nineteenth and twentieth-century historians continue to colour our perceptions of the past, but is the picture of Katherine Howard painted by some of them necessarily fair? Was she really a neglected young girl set up by an unscrupulous family to enable them to exercise control over Henry VIII, or a secure teenager brought up in the home of her illustrious step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who treated her well? Ultimately, was her untimely death the fault of others or the result of Katherineown ill-advised choices?Through original research and use of primary sources, Queen Katherine and the Howards: A Tudor Family on the Brink of Disaster examines the Howardsjourney from practising law in East Anglia to their elevation to the dukedom of Norfolk by Richard III and, following the Yorkist defeat at Bosworth, their decades of service and loyalty to the fledgling

Tudor dynasty.The final weeks of Katherine Howardshort life, presented as a day-to-day narrative, enables the reader to appreciate how terrifyingly quickly the old duchess and Katherineassociates, most involved against their wishes, were rounded up and consigned to the Tower for concealing what they knew of her lively past.The last chapters examine how the third Duke of Norfolk, Katherinepaternal uncle, although surviving the turmoil of the scandal and continuing in his roles as Lord Treasurer and Henry VIIIleading general, remained highly vulnerable; he and his son eventually fell victim to the kingdeadly paranoia. [Publisher's Text]