‘The Tudors’ Season 4 Episode 5 might well be called The Fall of Katherine Howard. The story of how Queen Katherine finally arrived at the block is a curious morality tale as well as a lesson in how government can work when there are no limits.
Spoilers surely follow.
An investigation into Katherine’s teenaged dalliances reveals that she cavorted with first her music teacher and then with Francis Dereham. Katherine and Francis had consoled themselves as they behaved in a manner not fitting for proper 16th century English young people that they were to be married and so would be no wrong.
Of course, Katherine thinking that no one would find out when King Henry VIII cast his eye on her and married her instead was her ultimate undoing. Indeed, the whole situation bespeaks of a great deal of folly of certain young people living in Tudor times, when the King was answerable but to God.
So the Queen was not a virgin when she came to the King’s bed. A horrible shame, but not necessarily a fatal one. Indeed, the examination of Francis Dereham under torture suggested that he did not trifle with the Queen after she was married to Henry. His folly was thinking that he would be safe using his previous relationship with Katherine to further advancement at court. Instead he would have been advised to seek a diplomatic post in some far away land. China, for preference.
However once a special prosecutor starts digging, whether it is against a modern American president or a 16th century royal, all sorts of things come out. Thomas Culpepper and his dalliances with the Queen, for example. One would have thought that the moment Katherine was confined and Dereham arrested, Culpepper would have made a run for it. But no, he stayed around, apparently thinking he was safe.
So the silly fool that King Henry married went to the block, as did her two lovers and, most sad of all, Lady Rochford, who had helped Katherine perform her assignations. She went insane from the terror of what was to happen to her. This might have saved her because it was against English law to execute the mad. But with the help of the obsequious Richard Rich, Parliament passed an ex post facto law to allow for the execution of the mad and thus Lady Rochford went blubbering to the block.
Culpepper was beheaded as well. But the King’s wrath fell heaviest on Dereham. He was drawn and quartered, a horrific form of execution from which, as depicted in the episode, he quickly a mercifully passed out.
And Katherine went to the block all defiance. No cowering pleas for mercy and forgiveness from her. She had come to die. She would die a queen, but would fane wade rather die Mrs. Culpepper. Then, as she placed her head on the block, she said, “Life is beautiful.” For a short time, for her, it was.
Source: The Tudors, Season 4, Episode 5, TV.Com
