Catherine Howard - Blog Posts

So much jewellery was flung at her in the opening months of her queenship that she may have struggled to keep up with it all. Her clasps were capped off by emeralds, her buttons were set with diamonds, and for her brooches rubies were crafted into the shape of flowers, then trimmed with diamond and pearl petals. There were earrings and French hoods trimmed with gold. She had seven diamond-and-gold rings. The ladies of the privy chamber circled Catherine’s little waist with golden girdles or double rows of pearls routinely interrupted by rubies.

[Later, during] the great purgatorial wait for a horrible finale, Catherine was once again ‘taking great care of her person’. Like a candle flaring before it went out, she had apparently never been more beautiful than she was during that winter at Syon. Staring death in the face in a mood of hubristic hedonism, she became as preoccupied with her toilette as she had been at Hampton Court. She made the most of her denuded wardrobe, dressing and coiffing herself, donning her few remaining jewels. Preening in her loveliness, Catherine kept her pulse beating at Syon with the appearance of someone who might live for ever; but in her more sombre moments, when no amount of make-believe could distract her, Chapuys heard from her servants that ‘her only prayer is that the execution be secret, and not in public’. - Gareth Russell, Young and Damned and Fair