Catherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk

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Katherine Knyvett, Countess of Suffolk – Miniature by Nicholas Hilliard
"Catherine Rich" redirects here. For the French actress, see Catherine Rich (actress).

Katherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk (née Knyvet/Knyvett; 1564–1638)[1] was an English court office holder who served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark.

Private life[edit]

She was born in Charlton Park, Wiltshire, the oldest child of Sir Henry Knyvet (or Knyvett) and his wife, Elizabeth Stumpe.[2] Her uncle was Sir Thomas Knyvet (or Knyvett), who foiled the "Gunpowder Plot".

Charlton Park, Malmesbury, Wiltshire

Early in her life, she married Richard Rich, son of Robert Rich, 2nd Baron Rich, and grandson of Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich. After his death in 1580, she married Sir Thomas Howard, who, twenty years later, was named the Earl of Suffolk.

On the death of her father in 1598, she inherited Charlton Park, Wiltshire, which thereafter became the seat of the Earls of Suffolk.[3]

Courtier[edit]

Howard gained a place in Queen Elizabeth's bedchamber and the title of Keeper of the Jewels in 1599. She continued to hold comparable positions after the Union of the Crowns in the reign of James VI and I. On 8 June 1603 King James sent her north to meet Anne of Denmark with some of Elizabeth's jewels from the Tower of London.[4] Howard became a lady of drawing chamber to Anne of Denmark, and keeper of her jewels until 1608.[5][6]

Satirists alleged that Spanish diplomatic gifts funded the building of Audley End

According to Arbella Stuart, Anne asked the Countess of Suffolk and Audrey Walsingham to select some of Elizabeth's old clothes from a store in the Tower of London for a masque in January 1604, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses.[7][8] Anne of Denmark appeared as Pallas, flanked by Lady Rich as Venus and the Countess of Suffolk as Juno.[9]

When the Spanish ambassador Juan Fernández de Velasco y Tovar, 5th Duke of Frías came to London to sign a peace treaty, Anne of Denmark and the Countess observed his arrival at Somerset House from a barge on the Thames on 14 August 1604.[10] The barge carried no insignia and they wore black masks.[11][12][13] The ambassador, known as the Constable of Castile, gave gifts to several English courtiers.[14] Spanish agents discussed the possibility of "liberty of conscience" with her, a plan that Catholics might be allowed to worship in private in Protestant England.[15] Spanish diplomats referred to her by an alias or codename "Roldan". She received a pension from Spain.[16]

According to the 1650 satirical history The Court and Character of King James, the Countess received gifts of great value and bounty payments that contributed to the costs of building Audley End. The author, possibly Anthony Weldon, also asserts that she benefitted as a "double sharer" as a mistress or close associate of Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State.[17]

Howard danced in another of Anne of Denmark's masques, the The Masque of Blackness written by Ben Jonson.[18] Anne of Denmark wanted the actors to look African so the actors painted their faces black.[19] In 1611, the poet Emilia Lanier chose to dedicate her poem Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum to her.[20]

She was granted authority over the lodgings at Greenwich Palace where Anne gave birth to the Princess Sophia in 1606. She was in such a position of high esteem within the court, she would have been given the honour of being a godmother if the child had not perished.

Howard strove successfully to gain rank in court but proved to be corrupt. She served as a liaison between Spain and the Earl of Salisbury, and demanded bribes for doing so. Her husband Thomas Howard was appointed Lord Treasurer, which allowed her more opportunity for financial gain. She was beautiful in her younger years, and during her time at court had many suitors and a string of alleged love affairs, using the position her husband achieved in the government to extort kickbacks from her lovers.

Northampton House[edit]

When the Earl of Northampton died in 1614, the Suffolks inherited Northampton House. The Countess of Suffolk paid £5000 for the furnishings.[21] Lady Anne Clifford mentions visiting the Suffolks at Northampton House in December 1616.[22] There, in 1619, at the age of 55, Catherine, Countess of Suffolk was the victim of an attack of smallpox. According to Lady Anne Clifford, this "spoiled that good face of hers, which had brought to other much misery and to herself greatness which ended with much unhappiness".[23]

Star Chamber trial[edit]

Details of corrupt practices came out in the Suffolk's Star Chamber trial in February 1619. The main charges against the Earl were embezzling royal jewels, diverting money provided for artillery, exporting artillery, abuse in the alum works, and misuse of crown money. Sir John Bingley was their broker for the "misemployment of the King's treasure".[24]

The Suffolks claimed to have received perks and gifts, but the judge Francis Bacon said "New Year's gifts do not last all the year".[25] Sir John Finet alleged "to be spared a bond of £500, a citizen gave £83 and a sable muff to the countess".[26] It was alleged that the Countess obtained a rake-off from money owed to the silkman Benjamin Henshawe for supplies to the royal wardrobe. Henshawe was Bingley's brother-in-law.[27]

The Suffolks were found guilty of corrupt practices, and the Countess and her family were banned from court.[28] They faced heavy fines and imprisonment at the Tower of London.[29] Peers generally sympathised with the Earl for being caught in her web of corruption, and she endured the brunt of the blame for their fall from grace. After being expelled from court, she continued to write letters on behalf of others seeking court positions.

Portrait at Gorhambury[edit]

Katherine Knyvett, Countess of Suffolk by Paul van Somer

Her portrait by Paul van Somer shows her dressed in a silver satin gown embroidered with emblems and insects using spangles or oes. It has been suggested the embroidered motifs derive from Henry Peacham's Minerva Brittana.[30] Thomas Pennant wrote in his 1782 Journey from Chester to London of her portrait, then at Gorhambury, Hertfordshire:

In the room is a fine full-length of the countess of Suffolk, daughter of Sir Henry Knevit, and wife to the lord treasurer.  She is dressed in white, and in a great ruff; her breasts much exposed: her waist short and swelling; for she was extremely prolific.  This lady had unhappily a great ascendancy over her husband, and was extremely rapacious.  She made use of his exalted situation to indulge her avarice, and took bribes from all quarters.  Sir Francis Bacon, in his speech in the star-chamber against her husband, wittily compares her to an exchange-woman, who kept her shop, while Sir John Bingley, a teller of the Exchequer, and a tool of her’s, cried What d’ye lack? Her beauty was remarkable, and I fear the made a bad use of her charms.  “Lady Suffolk,” says the famous Anne Clifford, in her diary, under the year 1619, “had the smallpox at Northampton-house, which spoiled that good face of her’s, which had brought to others much misery, and to herself greatness, which ended in much unhappiness.”[31]

An engraving of the portrait by James Caldwall is in the same book on page 228. Sir George Scharf (1820–1895), artist and art historian, first Director and later trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, later drew a sketch based on this portrait.[32] George Perfect Harding drew a pencil, watercolour and bodycolour copy of the portrait in 1811.[33] Bodycolour is watercolour which is mixed with white pigment to make it opaque.[34]

Descendants[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Forename sometimes spelled Katherine
  2. ^ Payne, Helen (2004). "Howard, Katherine, countess of Suffolk (b. in or after 1564, d. 1638)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70618. Retrieved 3 May 2016. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ "VCH 14, Malmesbury Hundred:Brokenborough". Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  4. ^ HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 15 (London, 1936), p. 380.
  5. ^ Nadine Akkerman, 'The Goddess of the Household', Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2014), pp. 305-306.
  6. ^ John Leeds Barroll, 'The court of the first Stuart queen', Linda Levy Peck, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991), p. 204.
  7. ^ Sara Jayne Steen, The letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), p. 197: Ethel C. Williams, Anne of Denmark (London: Longman, 1970), p. 96.
  8. ^ Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court (Manchester, 2002), p. 107.
  9. ^ Mark Hutchings & Berta Cano-Echevarría, 'Between Courts: Female Masquers and Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy', Early Theatre, 15:1 (2012), p. 95.
  10. ^ Ethel C. Williams, Anne of Denmark (London: Longman, 1970), p. 96.
  11. ^ Henry Ellis, Original Letters, series 2 vol. 3 (London, 1827), 209.
  12. ^ Relación de la Jornada del Condestable de Castilla (Antwerp, 1604), 47.
  13. ^ Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1603–1610, 141, SP 14/9A/f.12r.
  14. ^ Cynthia Fry, Perceptions of Influence: The Catholic Diplomacy of Queen Anna and her Ladies, Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2014), p. 283: Gustav Ungerer, 'Juan Pantoja de la Cruz and the Circulation of Gifts', Shakespeare Studies, vol. 26 (1998), p. 151.
  15. ^ Albert J. Loomie, 'Toleration and Diplomacy: The Religious Issue in Anglo-Spanish Relations, 1603–1605', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 53:6 (1963), pp. 19, 25–27, 32, 36.
  16. ^ Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández, England and Spain in the Early Modern Era: Royal Love, Diplomacy, Trade and Naval Relations (London, 2019), pp. 30, 99, 111–12, 134.
  17. ^ Pauline Croft, 'The Religion of Robert Cecil', The Historical Journal, 34:4 (December 1991), p. 785: The Court and Character of King James, 1650 (London: Smeeton, 1817), 9.
  18. ^ John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1828), p. 488.
  19. ^ Mara R. Wade, 'Anna of Denmark and her Royal Sisters', Clare McManus, Women and Culture at the Courts of the Stuart Queens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 60–61.
  20. ^ Lanyer, Aemilia (1993). Susanne Woods (ed.). The Poems of Aemilia Lanyer: Salve Dues Rex Judaeorum. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
  21. ^ Manolo Guerci, London's Golden Mile: The Great Houses of the Strand, 1550–1650 (Yale, 2021), p. 207: Linda Levy Peck, 'Building, Buying and Collecting in London', Lena Cowen Orlin, Material London (Philadelphia, 2000), p. 274.
  22. ^ Jessica L. Malay, Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writing, 1590-1676 (Manchester, 2018), p. 46.
  23. ^ Jessica L. Malay, Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writing, 1590-1676 (Manchester, 2018), pp. 75–76.
  24. ^ James Spedding, Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, vol. 7 (London, 1874), p. 56–59: Thomas Birch & Folkestone Williams, Court and Times of James the First, 2 (London: Colburn, 1849), pp. 130–31.
  25. ^ Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (Routledge, 1990), p. 184.
  26. ^ Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 22 (London, 1971), p. 99.
  27. ^ Bingley, John (c.1572-1638), of Chester, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
  28. ^ A. Perceval Keep, 'Star Chamber Proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk and Others', English Historical Review, 13:52 (1898), 716–728
  29. ^ Jessica L. Malay, Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writings (Manchester, 2018), p. 92: Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (Routledge, 1990), p. 184.
  30. ^ Aileen Ribeiro, 'A Paradice of Flowers: Flowers in English Dress' , Connoisseur, 201 (June 1979), p. 119 fn. 1
  31. ^ Pennant, Thomas (1782). The Journey from Chester to London. B. White.
  32. ^ "Possibly Katherine Howard (née Knyvett), Countess of Suffolk". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
  33. ^ "George Perfect Harding (c.1780-1853)". www.christies.com. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
  34. ^ "Body colour - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
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