#tculpeper tag

[ednyfedfychan]

“As was usual, the queen’s women frequently encountered the gentlemen of the king’s privy chamber in the course of their duties. Equally naturally, flirtations sprang up, ran their short course and died as regularly as the waxing and waning of the moon. Among the king’s gentlemen in the winter of 1539 was Thomas Culpeper, much in favour with the king. Culpeper was the kind of man who enjoyed useful connections and pretty women, and among the queen’s maids of honour he had both. Katherine and Culpeper had got along well. But Katherine was not a stranger to flirtation, and apparently held firm against him: there would be nothing else unless he promised her something more concrete. This was not part of Culpeper’s plan, and he turned instead to other women. Katherine, unused to rejection, was shocked, sad and no doubt had to watch these other relationships blossom in front of her. ‘Her grief was such’, she later told him, ‘that she could not but weep in the presence of her fellows’, the other girls. But soon the king himself made his interest clear and it was not long before she was elevated above her wildest dreams, and far above Thomas Culpeper.

Queen Katherine chose to make him smart for his earlier rejection. One of his new conquests was Bess Harvey. Bess had previously served Queen Anne Boleyn, and had been among the group of women who had been to view the king’s ships at Portsmouth in August 1539. At some stage in the spring or summer of 1541, Queen Katherine gave Bess a gown of damask and sent Jane, Viscountess Rochford to Culpeper with a pointed message: ‘he did ill to suffer his tenement’ – Bess – ‘to be so ill-repaired’ and so Katherine ‘for to save his honesty’ had covered the cost on it. It was a bold and relatable, if petty, triumph and says much about Queen Katherine’s personality. We don’t know precisely when Katherine played this card, but at some stage after she became queen Katherine and Culpeper reconnected. Of itself this wasn’t necessarily a problem. Queens naturally encountered men who were not the king. They had to work with them: the queen’s council, over half of her household and the entirety of the king’s were men. To interact with men for the sake of politics, patronage and even friendship was normal, but Queen Anne Boleyn’s execution five years previously had shown that such relationships might be all too easily, even wilfully, misinterpreted.”

— Nicola Clark, The Waiting Game

[ednyfedfychan]

“It is impossible to know whether Catherine and Culpepper had engaged in a full-blown affair. Both denied that it had gone beyond words. But the will was clearly there – ‘if I had tarried still in the Maidens’ Chamber,’ Catherine had told Culpepper, ‘I would have tried you’ – and their nocturnal trysts pointed to a way. […] Even if she had not surrendered her body to Thomas, Catherine had clearly given him her heart. This was the bitterest pill for Henry. Cuckolded, betrayed and publicly humiliated, his wrath now knew no bounds.”

— Jessie Childs, Henry VIII’s Last Victim

[ednyfedfychan]

“On the surface [Katherine Howard’s letter to Culpeper] appears to be an expression of love and desire - certainly that is how it was later interpreted by the king’s officials. Culpeper had been ill, so the couple had not been able to meet for a while, and Katherine expressed a yearning to see him. ‘It makes my heart die to think I cannot be always in your company,’ she wrote, before signing off: ‘yours as long as life endures’.

This letter may not be all it appears, however. The emotional language could have been driven less b Katherine’s desire than by her desperation to escape the plight that she was in. Culpeper had a reputation for lechery as well as violence, and it is easy to imagine him as a dangerous and controlling suitor who refused to let the young queen escape their liaison. Katherine herself was vulnerable to such a domineering and manipulative man. Attractive and vivacious but hopelessly naïve, she had been preyed upon by unscrupulous men since her youth, and seems to have played an essentially passive role, responding to their demands rather than her own inclinations.”

Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

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The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune: The Life of Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk, David M. Head

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“During the spring of 1541, Katherine became entangled in a relationship with Culpeper. A distant cousin, he was the second of three sons of Alexander Culpeper of Bedgebery, Kent, and Constance née Chamberlain. Thomas had an unsavory reputation. In a letter dated May 10, 1542, at Strasbourg, Richard Hilles identified one of the two men executed for adultery with Katherine, as “one of the king’s chamberlains,” referring to the English office Culpeper held by the name utilized at the Habsburg court. Hilles had heard about two years earlier that Culpeper “violated the wife of a certain park-keeper . . . while his most profligate attendants were holding her at his bidding.” After the villagers placed him in custody, Henry pardoned him for the rape and for a “murder committed in his resistance to them.” This is an unverifiable rumor that Hilles gleaned from his English correspondents, among them his brother. It could easily have been generated by news about Culpeper’s execution, although it is also true that no such rumor was spread about Dereham. [...] Culpeper’s most important asset was his position as gentleman of the king’s privy chamber, where Henry ate, slept, and was entertained indoors. Admission to the privy chamber was permitted only to its members, whose charge included keeping the entrance closed to protect Henry’s privacy. The gentlemen, well bred, charming, and athletic, helped him dress, carried out various official functions, joined him in sports and hunting, and undertook diplomatic assignments. David Starkey observed in some sense, the royal “unction . . . rubbed” off on them, as their “person stood in a sense for the king’s own.” Representing him lent them a special aura, as they were a symbolic presence of the king, a semidivine monarch blessed by God in the coronation ceremony. Henry was thought to cure scrofula by his touch and epilepsy and muscle spasms via the cramp rings he blessed.”

Wicked Women, Retha M. Warnicke

[ednyfedfychan]

“During the spring of 1541, Katherine became entangled in a relationship with Culpeper. A distant cousin, he was the second of three sons of Alexander Culpeper of Bedgebery, Kent, and Constance née Chamberlain. Thomas had an unsavory reputation. In a letter dated May 10, 1542, at Strasbourg, Richard Hilles identified one of the two men executed for adultery with Katherine, as “one of the king’s chamberlains,” referring to the English office Culpeper held by the name utilized at the Habsburg court. Hilles had heard about two years earlier that Culpeper “violated the wife of a certain park-keeper [...] while his most profligate attendants were holding her at his bidding.” After the villagers placed him in custody, Henry pardoned him for the rape and for a “murder committed in his resistance to them.” This is an unverifiable rumor that Hilles gleaned from his English correspondents, among them his brother. It could easily have been generated by news about Culpeper’s execution, although it is also true that no such rumor was spread about Dereham.

[...] Culpeper’s most important asset was his position as gentleman of the king’s privy chamber, where Henry ate, slept, and was entertained indoors. Admission to the privy chamber was permitted only to its members, whose charge included keeping the entrance closed to protect Henry’s privacy. The gentlemen, well bred, charming, and athletic, helped him dress, carried out various official functions, joined him in sports and hunting, and undertook diplomatic assignments. David Starkey observed in some sense, the royal “unction . . . rubbed” off on them, as their “person stood in a sense for the king’s own.” Representing him lent them a special aura, as they were a symbolic presence of the king, a semidivine monarch blessed by God in the coronation ceremony. Henry was thought to cure scrofula by his touch and epilepsy and muscle spasms via the cramp rings he blessed.”

Retha Warnicke, Wicked Women

[ednyfedfychan]

“Lately, Katherine could not recall when, she said to Lady Rochford: “I pray you, bid him desire no more to trouble me or send to me.” He responded he would accept no such statement but “still send to me as he might have a messenger at which time she called him little sweet fool.” That she repeated “sweet” to the interrogators and coupled it with the noun, “fool,” must have meant that she was using the adjective ironically. She told Lady Rochford she did not wish to be bothered with “such light matters.”” 

Retha Warnicke, Wicked Women

[ednyfedfychan]

“Lately, Katherine could not recall when, she said to Lady Rochford: “I pray you, bid him desire no more to trouble me or send to me.” He responded he would accept no such statement but “still send to me as he might have a messenger at which time she called him little sweet fool.” That she repeated “sweet” to the interrogators and coupled it with the noun, “fool,” must have meant that she was using the adjective ironically. She told Lady Rochford she did not wish to be bothered with “such light matters”.” 

Retha Warnicke, Wicked Women