The Execution of Thomas Culpepper and Francis Dereham

One of the most exciting things about writing historical fiction based on real people and real circumstances is that the timelines are verifiable and the events in the novel can be attached to actual dates.

Four hundred seventy-two years ago today, Cat Howard caught a glimpse of her own future--and her own guilt--when Thomas Culpepper and Francis Dereham were executed for their disastrous relationships with her.  Not a happy occasion, to be sure, but in history pinpointed dates are often only set down for births, deaths and weddings, and sometimes not even then.  I have to take my precision where I can get it.

In honor of these two young men--one of whom may or may not have been as bad as I portrayed him, and one of whom may or may not have been as blameless--I'm going to let Kitty tell you how it happened...


In the next few weeks the Tower grew gluttonous on the incarceration of traitors.

They brought in the dowager duchess after she burned a coffer full of papers said to belong to Francis Dereham. The rest of the Coven came, too. The number of prisoners soon exceeded Tower capacity. Lower-ranking and obviously innocent members of the duchess’ household were shipped off to other prisons. But not I.

The duke stood outside the Tower gates, outside the prison, outside the very law itself and exclaimed loudly and constantly that he knew nothing of his slatternly niece’s dubious conduct. He vilified her. Condemned her. Stood free upon the back of her guilt.

The Howard men groveled at the feet of the king, swearing loyalty. And were allowed to go free.

And Edmund Standebanke continued in the king’s service.

Men, I thought. Even guilt can’t shackle them.

But then Francis and Culpepper were executed. Pulled from the Tower by an ox-drawn cart, met with the jeers and silent judgment of Londoners. Culpepper’s sentence was commuted to decapitation. 

Francis was not so lucky.

RIP Catherine Howard

On Friday, I wrote about Catherine Howard's trip to the Tower of London.  She was executed on February 13.

One of the things that most fascinates me about Catherine is that she requested the executioner's block to be brought to her room the night before.  She wanted to practice with it, and make sure she got it right.  The girl who didn't really act like a queen when she was alive wanted to look like a queen at her death.

There's something very poignant about this, and I think it's a beautiful glimpse into her character.  It is something, perhaps, that many of us would not be able to do.  It shows courage as well as a little vanity.

Catherine's body was buried in an unmarked grave in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower grounds.

This Day in History -- Catherine Howard

Four hundred seventy years ago today, young Catherine Howard was taken to the Tower of London.  She was no longer queen, as her titles and possessions had been stripped by an Act of Attainder earlier in the month.  She was just a girl, convicted of treason, taken to the Tower to die.  We don't know exactly how old she was, because her birthdate was never recorded.  She was somewhere between seventeen and twenty-two.

The stories say that Catherine was moved from Syon to the Tower by a barge that "shot the waters" that rushed under London Bridge.  When she saw the water gate (now called Traitors' Gate), she began to cry, and had to be hauled from the boat and into her lodgings.

Catherine wasn't the first queen in English history to enter the Tower through Traitors' Gate.  And she wasn't the last.

Before I started writing GILT -- back when this novel was just an idea -- I wandered alone through the Tower to get a sense of it.  To try to see it as it might have looked in 1542.  The Tower is probably as crowded now as it was then -- only these days with people carrying cell phones and long-lens cameras, and speaking languages from all over the planet.  But I don't think it's as forbidding.  Today, the Tower feels like history.  Back then, it must have felt like obliteration.

Traitors' Gate brought this side history home for me.  The sharp points at the bottom of the portcullis.  The slick stairs leading up from the river.  No wonder Catherine cried.

This Week in History -- Thomas Culpepper and Francis Dereham

This was a bad week for Catherine Howard.  Like, the worst.  Imagine your worst week and multiply it by a thousand.

As you know, my first novel, GILT, tells the story of Catherine from the point of view of her best friend.  My goal is to be as historically accurate as possible, placing people and events as they actually were, but lacing these events through a story with a more contemporary feel -- the story of the friendship between Kitty Tylney and Cat Howard.

The White Tower in the Tower of London

But I'll run through some of the facts here on the blog over the course of the year.  On the 1st of December, 1541, two of Catherine Howard's lovers were put on trial and found guilty of high treason.

Seriously.  Can you imagine how impossible it would seem for an ex-boyfriend to be tried and convicted of treason?  As a teenager, when you fell in love, did you stop and think, "Wait, maybe I shouldn't do this in case I marry the king one day?"  No.  Neither did Catherine Howard nor Francis Dereham.  Unfortunately for them.

But Thomas Culpepper was a different story.  Catherine started the affair with him after she married the king.  And adultery was a very bad thing for a woman (though not for a man.  Especially the king.  Double standard, anyone?)  Adultery with the queen could *ahem* adulterate the royal line, placing a non-royal on the throne, which was even worse.  Treason.

So on December 1st, Catherine heard that her bedfellows were going to die.  And I wonder if she knew then that she might follow.

On December 10, the men were executed on Tower Hill.  Culpepper was beheaded -- his sentence commuted by a generous king.  Dereham was not so lucky.

Not a good week, all in all.  I certainly hope yours is better.