Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/310

Catherine 3730-1). At last he was made controller of Calais, but even the emoluments of that post hardly sufficed by themselves to relieve him from his difficulties without some additional assistance, which Cromwell seems to have procured for him (Cal. vol. v. No. 1042). His first wife died, and he married a second, named Dorothy Troyes, when apparently he was glad to hand over the care of his daughter Catherine to his mother, the old Duchess Agnes of Norfolk.

A musician named Henry Mannock or Manox, belonging to the duchess's retinue at Horsham in Norfolk, who taught Catherine the use of the virginals, got on terms of familiarity with the neglected girl, and one of the duchess's women, named Isabel, carried tokens between them. After a while Isabel married and left the household, and one Dorothy Barwick of Horsham became confidante in her place. The Duchess of Norfolk, however, removed her household to Lambeth, the suburban residence of the Howard family, not, as has been suggested, with a view to the coronation of Anne Boleyn, because it appears from the deposisition of Mannock that he first entered her service about 1536, the year of Anne Boleyn's fall, so that the earliest instance of Catherine's misconduct must have occurred within four years of her marriage. Catherine, however, came to Lambeth, and had for a companion in the same dormitory one Mary Lassells, who had been nurse to her aunt, Lady William Howard, and after her death in 1533 (Howard Memorials, 87) had passed into the service of the duchess. Here some conversations took place, of which Catherine was the subject, between Mary Lassells and Dorothy Barwick, who said that Mannock was betrothed to Catherine. 'What!' exclaimed Mary Lassells, addressing Mannock, 'meanest thou to play the fool of this fashion? Knowest thou not that an' my lady of Norfolk know of the love between thee and Mrs. Howard she will undo thee?' Mannock replied with gross effrontery, and in a way that certainly showed very little real respect for Catherine, declaring that she had promised to be his mistress, and had allowed him already to take the most indecent liberties with her. On being informed of what he said, she was indignant, and went with Mary Lassells to seek him out and reproach him. The affair passed over, and nothing more seems to have been heard of it for years. But another lover appeared in the retinue of the Duke of Norfolk, one Francis Dereham, who was some way or other a kinsman of her own, and was favoured by the old duchess. The couple interchanged love tokens. He gave Catherine a silk heart's-ease, and she gave him a band and sleeves for a shirt. It is clear that the couple were fully engaged to each other, and such an engagement, according to the views then prevalent, invalidated any subsequent marriage that was at variance with it. So Francis Dereham and Catherine Howard called each other husband and wife, although their engagement was not known to the world. One day it was remarked that he kissed her very freely, and he replied, 'Who should hinder him from kissing his own wife?' Still the matter was kept so quiet that the old duchess under whose roof Catherine lived knew but little of what passed between them. Dereham brought his mistress wine, strawberries, apples, and other things after my lady was gone to bed, and Catherine was even suspected of having sometimes stolen the keys to let him in at a later hour.

It appears that this attachment was broken off on Catherine's being called to court. In anticipation of that event Dereham had said that he would not remain in the duchess's household after she was gone, to which, according to her own account afterwards, she replied 'that he might do as he list.' Dereham himself apparently gave a different account of the parting, according to which Catherine replied that it grieved her as much as him, and tears trickled down her cheeks in confirmation of what she said. Catherine, as queen, denied this utterly. Perhaps it is more charitable to herself to believe the story of her lover. He left the duchess's household and went to Ireland, or perhaps scoured the Irish seas for some time, for he was afterwards accused of piracy. He returned before Catherine was queen, and heard a report that she was engaged to be married to her cousin young Thomas Culpepper. He demanded an answer from herself if it were true. 'What should you trouble me therewith?' she answered, 'for you know I will not have you. And if you heard such report, you heard more than I do know.'

In 1540 the king had married Anne of Cleves. The marriage was from the first distasteful to the king. A catholic reaction had already set in, and Bishop Gardiner, who had for some time been excluded from the king's councils, was recalled to court. He entertained the king in his own house, and it was under the bishop's roof that a familiarity first grow up between Henry and Catherine Howard, which the bishop apparently did his best to encourage. No one, of course, could have ventured to hint at a divorce from Anne of Cleves till it was clear that the king himself was bent on it, and Richard