It is well-known that Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were cousins. Anne’s mother Elizabeth Howard was the elder sister of Catherine’s father, Edmund Howard. Queen Elizabeth, therefore, would have many relations in common with Catherine’s Howard bloodline.
However, I was more interested in discovering the less well-known connections. Catherine Howard had a number of half-siblings from her mother’s first marriage. One of these was John Leigh, a man who was often in trouble and for whose life Catherine once had to plea from her husband, Henry VIII. It was from John that I made one of my favourite character discoveries for the second part of the saga The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy and this was Lady Katherine Paston.
Katherine provided me with a both a female blood link between Catherine Howard and Elizabeth I through not only the Howards but the Culpeper and Leigh line, from Catherine Howard’s mother, Jocasta Culpeper. Further digging provided a more unexpected link and this was through the Boleyn family.
Born around 1547, Katherine’s mother was Agnes Leigh, the daughter of Catherine Howard’s troublesome half-brother, John Leigh and, his wife, Elizabeth Darcy. John and Elizabeth rather unusually divorced sometime before he made his will in 1563.
There is no further information concerning Agnes’s birth, although by 1544 she had married Sir Thomas Paston. He was a gentleman of the privy chamber and part of the powerful Paston family from Norfolk. Agnes and Thomas had three children: Henry (b. 1545), Katherine (c. 1547 – 1605) and Edward (1550 – 24 March 1630).
As well as his position in the privy chamber, Katherine’s father, Sir Thomas Paston, was also an MP for Norfolk. He was respectable, powerful and well-connected. His father, William Paston had married Bridget Heydon, the daughter of Henry Heydon and Anne Boleyn (senior) who was the paternal aunt of the future Queen Anne Boleyn. The Pastons and the Boleyns were both wealthy and influential families and Katherine could claim kinship to them both.
Katherine’s father died on 4 September 1550. After this, Agnes married Edward Fitzgerald MP, giving young Katherine a host of half-siblings, including Douglas Aungier (a sister), Thomas Fitzgerald, Lettice Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzgerald, 14th Earl of Kildare. Yet despite Katherine’s impeccable connections, these days she is unknown.
In The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy, I used Katherine’s connections to the Paston family, who were voracious letter writers, to place her at the heart of Elizabeth’s network of informers, the Ladies of Melusine. Whether she was literate is not clear and despite extensive searching, I have been unable to discover any surviving documents written by her. There is another Katherine Paston whose words have been preserved but these are not written by the correct Katherine. However, the Pastons were famous letter writers and I would hope our Katherine was taught to write.
One contemporary comment about Katherine was that she was supposed to suffer from ill health, which caused her absence from court. I liked the idea and used her ‘illnesses’ as a cover for her being able to disappear for days at a time in order to write letters on behalf of Elizabeth and to deal with the correspondence of the Ladies of Melusine. In reality, it is possible these absences were due to childbirth. Katherine and her husband, Henry, had six children: Frances, Margaret, Theodore, John, Anne and Elizabeth with their birth dates running from c. 1570 to 1584.
The first mention of Katherine, is in Henry Clifford’s book, The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, suggesting that in 1559, Katherine was in Spain. Jane Dormer had been a lady-in-waiting for Queen Mary Tudor but on her death in 1558 and Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne, Jane had married Gómez Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba, 1st Duke of Feria. Both were staunch Catholics and they returned to Spain. Clifford believes that Katherine was the Mistress Paston who was named as part of the duchess’s household. This would have made her 12 years old, however, she was from an important family and being abroad did not hinder her marriage prospects.
In 1560, when Katherine was 13 years old she married Sir Henry Newton (1535 – 2 May 1599. As Katherine was in Spain it would have taken place by proxy. Henry Newton was 25 years old but as the Newtons first child was not born until ten years later, the marriage was in name-only until Katherine reached maturity.
Katherine’s husband, Henry Newton, was the eldest son of Sir John Newton of East Harptree and his first wife, Margaret Poyntz. He would have been 25 when the marriage to Katherine took place. They lived at Barr’s Court in East Harptree, Somerset, the family seat of the Newton family. Nothing of the house remains but there are records that the ancient mansion once looked out over Kingswood Chase, a royal hunting forest on the outskirts of Longwell Green. The mansion is discussed by the historian John Leland in 1540 when he describes it as a ‘fayre old mannar place of stone’. There are also records stating the property boasted a moat, more for decoration than defence, two fishponds, a dam and a vast parkland.
Katherine is first listed as being a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth I in 1576. A sought-after position with status attached. It is well-known that Elizabeth favoured her mother’s family, the Boleyns. The offspring of Mary Boleyn were prevalent at her court and were given the not altogether flattering nickname of The Tribe of Dan, a Biblical reference to one of the powerful tribes of Israel. Katherine, with her direct bloodline to Queen Catherine Howard and a link to the Boleyns was definitely part of the family, By 1598, Katherine was one of the senior ladies of the court.
Family life ran alongside court life and as Katherine and Henry’s brood grew, they divided their time between Henry’s estates in Somerset and Gloucester and the glittering life of court. However, tragedy struck when their eldest son, John, died. Katherine and Henry created an impressive tomb for him at their family church of East Harptree. In Henry’s will, his youngest son, Theodore, is listed as his heir, stating the child was 15 years old when his father died in 1599, giving him a birth date 1584.
Henry was an important man at court and Queen Elizabeth expressed a fondness for Katherine’s husband, showing him favour by bestowing a coveted and lucrative wardship upon him. She also sent him a note expressing her condolences when his son-in-law, Giles Strangeways died in 1596. Katherine remained at Elizabeth’s court throughout her marriage and when Henry died on 2 May 1599 at East Harptree, he left a lengthy will with many Latin quotations. He was a loving and caring father, as he created healthy dowries for his daughters and instructed Katherine’s brother, Edward Paston, to be executor. While there are no details of Katherine’s share, it is likely she was left with a sizeable dower.
After Henry’s death, Katherine and Henry’s eldest son, Sir Theodore Newton inherited his father’s estate. Theodore married Penelope Rodney and it was their son, Sir John Newton who would rise to the aristocracy when he was made 1st Baronet of Barr's Court. This title was bestowed upon him by Charles II on 16 August 1660 as thanks for providing troops to defend the plantation of Ulster. However, as John had no heir, when he died, it passed out of the Gloucestershire Newton family to the Lincolnshire Newtons. Strangely, there was no blood link between them.
The widow, Katherine, created a large dresser tomb for Henry at Bristol Cathedral, where several years later, she too was interred. The tomb survives and is in the Newton Chapel at Bristol Cathedral between the Chapter House and the south choir aisle. It is elaborate and elegant, demonstrating their blood links to many important families. Below the recumbent effigy of a serene and bearded Henry, their children are shown kneeling, with their hands in prayer, facing the scriptures to represent piety and obedience.
Katherine’s date of death is recorded as 1605, two years after Elizabeth I’s demise. In 1603, Elizabeth was replaced on the throne by James I, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. The new king’s court swept away the old hierarchy and Katherine, a widow of 56, would have been dismissed along with Elizabeth’s other women, with only a few bright stars from the Tudor court remaining at the heart of events.
Lady Katherine Paston was born into the privileged classes of Tudor England, that period of great change in British history. She was connected by blood to two queen consorts of Henry VIII and she married a respected and successful man. Five of her six children survived into adulthood and through her son, the family was raised to the levels of Baronet. During her life she witnessed four Tudor monarchs, three of whom were queens: Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth. Each reign, no matter how brief, making its mark on history.
As a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, Katherine was at the beating heart of the Tudor court. She witnessed the subterfuge, the brilliance, the rise of the arts, the skulduggery, the terror of threatened wars and the power of a queen when she had to fight to save her country from the Spanish Armada. Katherine was there. She witnessed these events and while she may have been pushed into the shadows of history for centuries, this brief glimpse of her life, proves that no matter who you are, where you were born or when you lived, hers was a life lived and this is my tribute to her.
Alexandra Walsh
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