High Treason at Henry VIII's Court: Our 13th Great-grandparents, Edward Waldegrave and Joan Acworth

Possible surviving miniature of Queen Catherine Howard, c1540. All of her images were destroyed after her execution.

I will tell you a tale of the times of King Henry VIII (a very distant cousin of ours through his maternal grandmother) and how, during his bloody reign, our 13th great-grandparents, Edward Waldegrave, gentleman (1514-1585) and Joan Acworth (1519-1590), heiress descended from knights of the realm, nearly lost their heads because of allegations of adulterous high treason brought against another distant cousin, Queen Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII, who was beheaded in February 1541, while our ancestors languished in the Tower of London, having been interrogated regarding her conduct. 

But, first, here is how Edward and Joan are related to our family. William Clopton (1655 County Essex, England - c1730 New Kent Co., Virginia Colony), our 9th great-grandfather, immigrated to Virginia before 1673, the year he married Anne Booth. Their daughter Anne Clopton married Nicholas Mills in 169l. Their daughter Anne Mills married Thomas Jackson in Brunswick County, Virginia, about 1720, and had daughter Mary Jackson (b. 1724), who married in about 1746 William Rainey (b. circa 1723), becoming our 6th great-grandparents. 

Going back to that 9th great-grandfather, William Clopton, the Immigrant, whose Clopton lineage is traced  back to the Domesday Book of 1086 (a survey of land ownership), his great-grandparents were William Clopton, gentleman (1551-1615 Suffolk Co., England), who married Margery Waldegrave (c1558-1616) in 1578. Margery's parents were Edward Waldegrave, gentleman, and Joan Acworth, the subjects of our story. Much of my information comes from the nonfiction Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII by Gareth Russell, Simon & Schuster, 2017. It's a fascinating and well-documented biography of Catherine Howard's short life amid Tudor times, available on Kindle. Our ancestors were intimately involved in Queen Catherine Howard's story.

A younger Henry VIII (1491-1547)

Catherine Howard (1523-1542), second cousin to Anne Boleyn (2nd wife of Henry VIII, whom he had beheaded in 1536), came from a large family. When her father Edmund participated in the coronation of the young Henry VIII in 1509, he bested the king in jousting - and was never invited to joust with the king again - nor was he granted court appointments, as were his more thoughtful brothers, William, and Thomas, the future 3rd Duke of Norfolk. The monarchy was the font of all patronage and potential wealth and only through service to the Royal Family could a family hope to achieve or protect their greatness and social position. Unable to care for his large family, Edmund farmed Catherine out to his stepmother, Agnes the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who lived in Norfolk House in Lambeth, now a south London suburb. The Duchess had other female wards and all the girls slept in curtained beds in a large room. 

How Joan Acworth (our 13th great-grandmother) came to be under the care of the Dowager Duchess Agnes is unknown, but she was distantly related to the Howards, and her grandmother was a Broughton, connected to the Howards. Joan's father, George Acworth, was a member of Parliament in 1529, but died in 1530 and her mother Margaret remarried. Joan, a gentlewoman, born 1519 at Luton, County Bedfordshire, could read and write, and she soon acted as Catherine Howard's companion and secretary, composing her correspondence.

County Bedfordshire, England

The girls being educated in dance and manners under the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk's care were in their teens, as were many of the males in the Duchess's large household. The young men began sneaking into the girls' chamber late at night with fruit and wine.  In the spring of 1538, it was allegedly through Joan's praising of her former amour, Francis Dereham, that Catherine took a fancy to him. He was "confident to the point of arrogance, a rule-breaker who possessed a blazing temper, which Catherine initially chose to regard as thrilling proof of his affection for her." Eventually, behind the bed curtains they had sexual intercourse, and Dereham apparently believed he and Catherine would eventually marry. If Catherine had agreed to this, it would have been a binding pre-contract to marry. Notes, poetry, and gifts were exchanged, and their affair continued into the new year. All this time the Duchess, often at court, was unaware of their behavior. 

Smallbridge Hall, County Essex, where our 13th great-grandfather, Edward Waldegrave, was born

Francis' close friend was Edward Waldegrave, our future 13th great-grandfather, also in the Duchess's service, who helped arrange the nighttime trysts in the maidens' bower. Born in 1514 at Smallbridge Hall, County Essex, which had been in the Waldegrave family since about 1402, he was also related to the Howards.

County Essex, England

With so many witnesses to Catherine's behavior, the Dowager Duchess was eventually informed of the goings-on, but Catherine and Dereham braved their way through her accusations and their denials. A harmless flirtation, they claimed. One afternoon the Duchess walked in on Catherine and Dereham "wrapped in each others' arms, chatting with Joan Acworth, who was acting as Catherine's woefully inept chaperone." The Duchess slapped each of them, but still she kept Dereham in her service. Although Catherine played the game of their calling each other 'husband' and 'wife', she gradually grew weary of Dereham's possessiveness and volatile temper.

Catherine's uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, portrait by Hans Holbein

 

Catherine's father died in March 1539. Her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, knowing that King Henry would marry Anne of Cleves, had Catherine enter the royal household as her maid of honor in the autumn of 1539, months before Anne of Cleves arrived from the Duchy of Cleves in what is now Germany. When Catherine bade Dereham goodbye, she failed to make it clear that she would not marry him. 

Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein

 

Joan Acworth left the Duchess of Norfork's household in 1538 to marry William Bulmer, a member of a prominent land-owning family in York. Joan's mother, Margaret Wilberfosse/Wilberforce, was the 2nd wife of George Acworth (our 14th great-grandparents) with Joan her only child and heir. When Margaret died c.1538/9, Joan inherited numerous estates in Durham and elsewhere, including the manor of Eggleston (20 messuages, 300 acres of land 100 acres of meadow, 500 acres of pasture with appurtanances in Eggleston and Nesbet). The Bulmers were neighbors of Margaret's Wilberfosse family and trustees of her estates, indicating earlier family connections.

County Durham, England

 

Edward Waldegrave also left the Duchess's service and entered the household of the infant Prince of Wales (b. 1537), the future Edward VI, son of Henry and his 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, who had died after giving birth.

Jane Seymour, 3rd wife of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein

 

It was Thomas Cromwell who arranged King Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves, sight unseen, just as he had managed Henry's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the divorce from Henry's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, so the king could marry Anne Boleyn. But Henry did not like this new Germanic bride. The marriage lasted only a few months. Henry had already fallen in love with young Catherine, maid of honor to his new queen. He divorced Anne of Cleves. 

Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein

 

Assisted by the Duke of Norfolk, the king had Thomas Cromwell tried as a traitor on trumped up charges. On the day Cromwell was beheaded, 28 July 1540, Henry married Catherine Howard in a private ceremony.

Parish of York in northern County Yorkshire, England

 

When, up in York, Joan Acworth Bulmer discovered through a visit from Sir George Seaford that Catherine was to become queen consort of England, she wrote to her old friend in July 1540, asking permission to join her in London, revealing her unhappy marriage. The letter's spelling has been modernized:

If I could wish you all the honour, wealth and good fortune you could desire, you would neither lack health, wealth, long life, nor yet prosperity. Nevertheless, seeing I cannot as I would, express this unto you, I would wish these my most hearty salutations might you to know, that whereas it had been shown unto me, that God of his high goodness hath put unto the knowledge of the king a contract of matrimony that the queen hath made with another before she came unto England and thereupon there will be a lawful divorce had between them;and as it is thought that the king of his goodness will put you in the same honour as she was in, which no doubt you be worthy to have, most heartily desiring you to have in your remembrance the unfeigned love that my heart has always borne towards you, which for the same kindness found in you again hath desired always your presence, if it might be so, above all other creatures, and the change of fortune that hath brought me, on the contrary, into the utmost misery in the world and most wretched life. Seeing no ways, then, I can express in writing, knowing no way out of it, without you, or your goodness, will find the means to get me to London, which will be very hard to do; but if you write unto my husband and command him to bring me up, which I think he dare not disobey, for if it might be, I would feign be with you before you were in your honour; and in the mean season I beseech you to save some room for me, what you shall think fit yourself, for the nearer I were to you the gladder I would be of it, what pains soever I did take. I would write more unto you, but I dare not be so bold, for considering the great honour you are towards, it did not become me to put myself in your presence; but the remembrance of the perfect honesty I have always known to be in you, and the report of Sir George Seaford, which hath assure me that the same thing remains in you still, hath encouraged me to this.

Whereupon I beseech you not to be forgetful of this my request for if you do not help me, I am not likely to have worldly joys. Desiring you, if you can, to let me have some answer of this for the satisfying of mind, for I know the queen of Britain will not forget her secretary, and favour you will show.

Your humble servant,

With heart unfeigned, 

Jone Bulmer

Although most historians believed Joan was brought into Catherine's household, no record of her employment there has been found. She may have remained in York, perhaps because she knew too much about Catherine's past indiscretions. And yet, others from Catherine's past found places in her household. In the surviving 1541 interrogations or notes taken from them, persons are described as "now servant to the Queen" or "now chamberer to the Queen," but Joan is described as "young Bulmer's wife." When Joan was questioned in 1541, she was  asked only about Catherine's life before her marriage, not during her queenship. Although others from Catherine's earlier life found places in her household, it's probable that Joan was fobbed off with a promise of a future invitation. When later questioned, Joan exhibited no clear animus toward the queen. 

Francis Dereham, Catherine's earlier lover, was unable to gain a place in a royal household, so before Catherine was married, he left one hundred pounds in her care, and went to Ireland, where he appears to have worked as a merchant for most of 1540. When he returned to London, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, fearful that the king would divorce Catherine if evidence of Catherine's liaison with him came to light, demanded all proofs Dereham had that a possible precontract for marriage existed between Catherine and himself - ballads, poems, notes, - and these were locked in a chest in the Duchess's Norfolk House, the key retained by Dereham.  Dereham wanted a place in Catherine's household. Either refusing him or accepting him could be dangerous, for he was "impulsive, besotted, possessive and loquacious." 

The Countess of Bridgewater (b.1499), a daughter of the Dowager Duchess Agnes and the 2nd Duke of Norfollk and Catherine's aunt, was one of her ladies in waiting. A widow in her thirties, her husband had been beheaded for treason a few years earlier. She convinced Catherine to grant Francis Dereham an audience and perhaps show him some sign of her favor. Catherine did so, but did not bring him into her household.

Henry VIII in later life

 

Thomas Culpeper, a member of the king's privy chamber, a promiscuous young man Catherine had flirted with at court before the arrival of Anne of Cleves, re-entered her life. A favorite of the king, he was young and handsome and the king was fifty, enormously fat (by his death a few years later he weighed over 400 pounds); and Catherine was afraid of him. More murderous then ever, Henry was condemning clerics of various religious persuasions to be hanged and quartered or burned at the stake, aristocrats and members of the gentry, too. No one could be certain which was the religious philosophy the king adhered to, he was so changeable. 

Catherine's lady of the privy chamber, Jane Boleyn, Dowager Viscountess Rochford, assisted in reuniting Catherine with Thomas Culpeper in the spring of 1541. Lady Rochford had been married to George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's younger brother, who was convicted of incest with Queen Anne on no evidence and beheaded the day before the queen's execution in 1536. Lady Rochford chose to remain at court.  On their first meeting Catherine gave Thomas a velvet cap, but begged him to keep it hidden under his cloak until he was back in his chambers. And thus began late night conversations behind locked doors, with only the Lady Rochford in attendance, which raised eyebrows among Catherine's ladies. Later, Catherine and Culpeper admitted they had exchanged words of love for one another, and that Culpeper kissed her hand, claiming it was the only physical intimacy he would allow himself. Catherine was in love with the arrogant, risk-taking womanizing Culpeper, which made her take risks. 

While Catherine and Henry were on a four-month tour of the north, Francis Dereham returned from Ireland and argued with the Dowager Duchess, who threw him out of Norfolk house; he headed straight for Catherine, who was staying at Pontrefract Castle in Yorkshire.

Pontefract Castle in County Yorkshire, destroyed during the English Civil War

 

In a dilemma, Catherine, not wishing to alienate him, had little choice but to find him a place in her household as a gentleman usher. He proved to be a braggart and boorish, failing to adhere to proper household etiquette, lingering at table after meals, intimating that he'd known her well before she came to court. She gave him money, begging him to 'take heed' of his words.

One love letter Catherine sent to Thomas Culpeper survives, in which she ends, "Yours as long as life endures." It was discovered in 1541 when his rooms were searched.

Hampton Court Palace, where Queen Catherine lived in the autumn of 1541

 

In late October 1541 a former servant of the Dowager Duchess, Mary Hall, revealed to a relative, who suggested she petition to enter the queen's service, that Catherine had been "light, both in living and conditions," and then revealed Catherine's relationship with Francis Dereham. The relative carried word to Archbishop Cranmer, who left a letter of details for the king on All Souls Day. The king was at Whitehall, the queen at Hampton Court. The king never saw Catherine again.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer

 

Interrogations began. Francis Dereham readily admitted he'd had sexual relations with Catherine numerous times at Norfolk House, and his old companion, Edward Waldegrave, verified his story.  The Dowager Duchess broke into the chest containing Dereham's correspondence, and possibly destroyed some of it. She turned the rest over to her stepson, the Duke of Norfolk, perhaps hoping the outcome would be only the annulment of Catherine's marriage to the king, premarital sex not being a capital crime, and that her granddaughter would come home to her. 

Tower of London

 

The imprisonment in the Tower of London and questioning of former servants and old friends of Catherine was well underway before Catherine knew what was happening. When a delegation led by Archbishop Cranmer confronted her with information that she had entered into a precontract to marry Francis Dereham, she at first denied it. On one of Cranmer's subsequent visits, while she sobbed in terror, he told her if she confessed, the king would be merciful, Catherine finally admitted her early transgressions, but denied promising to marry Francis Deneham. She recounted gifts given, words said, and then she made a tragic mistake. Speaking of when Dereham came into her royal household, she said, ". . . [H]e then asked me if I should be married to Mr. Culpeper, for so he said he heard reported. Then I made answer, 'What should you trouble me therewith, for you know I will not have you; and if you heard such report, you heard more than I do know.'" Questioned again, to show his innocence since her marriage, Dereham stated that Thomas Culpeper had succeeded him in the queen's affections.

Thomas Culpeper was questioned on November 12th, when he returned from hawking. That same day Catherine was questioned about three nocturnal meetings with Culpeper during the summer while on tour of the North. She blamed her lady-in-waiting, Lady Rochford, for pleading that she speak to Culpeper, whom she claimed had only good will toward her. It was all Lady Rochford's doing, these meetings. When questioned the following day, Lady Rochford allowed that it was the queen who initiated the meetings and requested silence about them. She admitted she suspected they had known each other carnally. Lady Rochford was sent to the Tower and her goods inventoried, usually a Tudor indication of approaching death. And there she lost her mind.

 Culpeper's rooms were searched and the love letter from Catherine found. He admitted everything, but denied committing treason with Catherine by having  sexual intercourse, which would have interfered with the succession. He confessed, however, that they both expected to do so in the future, perhaps thinking his honesty would save him. But misprision of treason pertained to the intention to commit the act. Culpeper was sent to the Tower and his goods and houses inventoried.

Wanting more information about the goings-on before Catherine's marriage, Joan Acworth Bulmer was summoned to London. She and eight others appeared before the Duke of Norfolk and Sir John Gage, comptroller of the royal household and constable of the Tower of London.

Sir John Gage, interrogator of our 13th great-grandmother Joan (Hans Holbein)

 

Joan corroborated only what the government already knew.  Edward Waldegrave and three others were questioned by the Earl of Herford and Sir Thomas Audley, whose daughter was married to the Duke of Norfolk's heir, the future 4th Duke of Norfolk. 

Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor of England

 

Francis Dereham was tortured numerous times, probably on the rack, but never admitted he planned to resume sexual relations with the queen.

Catherine's household was disbanded on November 14th and she was moved with four gentlewomen and two chamberers to the disused Syon Abbey across the Thames. Afterward her jewelry was inventoried.  None of the six dresses she was allowed were garnished with pearls or jewels. Catherine's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, was determined to have her condemned, just as he'd supported the condemnation of his other niece, Queen Anne Boleyn. He said aloud that he wanted Catherine burned at the stake.

Culpeper's and Dereham's trial was on December 1st. They pleaded not guilty to the treason of intending to commit adultery with the queen, but once the jury brought back a verdict of guilt sufficient to warrant the death penalty, they followed the rote of changing their pleas in the hope for mercy from the king. They were sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering. The Duke of Norfolk is reported to have laughed when the sentence was read. Francis Dereham was submitted to another round of torture.

Joan Acworth Bulmer was brought back for three days' of questioning over a nine-day period regarding what she knew of the Dowager Duchess's knowledge of Catherine's affair with Dereham. Edward Waldegrave was again questioned about Dereham's intentions toward Catherine and his actions after she became queen. The Dowager Duchess Agnes was ordered to be moved from Norfolk House to answer questions and her palace was inventoried. The Duchess denied all knowledge of Catherine's affair with Dereham. In the middle of December, the Duchess, Joan Acworth Bulmer, Edward Waldegrave and nine others, some who were members of the Howard family, were sent to the Tower. "[E]veryone was expected to to have their worldly goods and possessions confiscated as a prelude to 'their bodies [sentenced] to perpetual prison'."

Dereham's and Culpeper's executions were carried out on December 10th. Francis Dereham was hanged, cut down before unconsciousness, castrated and disemboweled, before being beheaded. Then his body was quartered, its parts to be displayed in various parts of the kingdom.  Culpeper was mercifully allowed to be beheaded and buried, no doubt because he had been a favorite of Henry. Their heads were stuck on pikes on London Bridge, which Catherine passed under as her barge carried her to the Tower. 

On December 22, three of the aristocratic Howard family, and eight others, including Joan Acworth Bulmer and Edward Waldegrave, were arraigned for misprision of treason. The Duchess and her daughter, the Countess of Bridgewater, were arraigned later. Eventually they all pleaded guilty and received sentences of life imprisonment and confiscation of property.

Catherine declined a trial, throwing herself figuratively at her husband's feet to beg for mercy, which he withheld. On February 10th Catherine was taken by barge to the Tower. In a panic, she struggled and was manhandled into the barge. When told she would be executed the following morning, she asked that the block be brought so she could practice laying her head upon it. It was the same block on which her cousin Anne Boleyn had been executed. She was beheaded on the morning of 13 February and, after her, her lady of the privy chamber, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, who had regained her wits, was similarly executed. Catherine was not yet twenty-one.

Henry VIII died at age 55 in January 1547, morbidly obese, with ulcerated legs, likely suffering from type-2 diabetes. His death saved the life of the imprisoned Thomas, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who had been condemned to death.

And what of those sentenced to life imprisonment? All were pardoned and set free, most by May 1542. Edward Waldegrave managed to return to the service of the Prince of Wales (b.1537), the future Edward VI. 

Edward VI, c. 1550

 

By 1545 Edward had sufficient standing at court for Henry's last queen, Katherine Parr, to refer to him as "our well-beloved Edward Waldegrave, servant to our most dear and entirely beloved son the lord prince." After Joan's release, her husband William Bulmer refused to reconcile with her as of October 1542.  Joan had petitioned the Privy Council in March 1542 for redress regarding her husband, perhaps while still in the Tower, or just released. There is a record of Bulmer being ordered to return her lands to her; his failure to follow through on this landed him in Fleet Prison in London in February 1543. They were officially separated by June 1543.They never had children.

When William Bulmer died in 1556, Joan and Edward Waldegrave married. It's likely they had been together for some time and had daughter Ann before their marriage. In 1550, Joan transferred some of her property to her brother Thomas, who transferred it back to her and Edward Waldegrave jointly and their heirs, although they had yet to marry.

Lawford Hall, County Essex, England, somewhat renovated from Edward's and Joan's original home

 

Edward purchased a reversionary interest in Lawford Hall from the Crown in 1560 and, after obtaining a lifetime lease of the manor, he entirely rebuilt the hall, where he died in 1585 and Joan in 1590.  Their children were Edward, Ann, Mary, Bridget, and Margery, the latter our 12th great-grandmother. Their graves and a marble and alabaster memorial are in the Church of St. Mary, Lawford, County Essex, bearing the inscription : The End of the Just is Peace. 

Memorial for Edward and Joan Waldegrave

Church of St. Mary, Lawford, Essex, England

 

We'll finish with a lute version of Greensleeves, which was not composed by Henry VIII as some think, but became popular in the 1580s, while Edward and Joan Waldegrave were yet alive.