Saturday, June 12, 2010

Question from Sharon - Kathryn Howard's final speech

I found Katherine of Howards fianle comment before her beheading in which she states she wishes she were dying as the wife of Thomas Culpepper brave and heartfelt and also heart breaking.Are they in fact recorded as to what she actually said?

1 comment:

Marilyn R said...

That Kathryn is supposed to have said, “I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpeper,” is romantic fiction, as she made very much the typical sort of speech expected of a condemned person immediately prior to execution.

Ottwell Johnson, who was present at the scaffold, wrote to his brother John that the Queen said she was justly condemned, for she had sinned against God in breaking all His commandments, and then asked the onlookers to pray for the preservation of the King. Culpeper was not mentioned.

Loves young dream takes on a sour side during the interrogations of Kathryn, Manox, Dereham and Culpeper when she blames them and they her for the predicament in which they all find themselves. It would seem that perhaps Culpeper was not a particularly nice person, but still, one has to feel sorry for him: if the Queen had summoned him to her apartments in the first place to renew a previous acquaintance he could not refuse to go, and even under torture would not admit to physical contact with her other than touching hands.