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Revision as of 11:15, 23 January 2011 by 80.189.160.7 (talk) (→Popular Fiction)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) For other people named Thomas Culpeper, see Thomas Culpeper (disambiguation).Sir Thomas Culpeper (ca. 1514 – 10 December 1541) was a courtier of Henry VIII and the lover of Henry's fifth queen, Catherine Howard. He was born to Alexander Culpeper of Bedgebury, Kent, and his second wife, Constance Harper. He was the middle child and his older brother, also named Thomas, was a client of Thomas Cromwell. The brothers were known for collecting valuable items for the royal family during their time in court. He was distantly related to the Howard clan, who were immensely powerful at the time, and to Joyce Culpeper. They were particularly influential after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529, and for a brief time under the reign of Anne Boleyn, who was one of their cousins.
Royal service
In 1535, Culpeper was acting as courtier for the Viscount Lisle and his wife. During that time he collected a number of items for them. In 1538, Honor presented Culpeper with a hawk. During that same year, Culpeper worked with Richard Cromwell to gain a hawk for King Henry VIII.
Culpeper was described as 'a beautiful youth' and he was a great favourite of the king's. It was because of this favoritism that Culpeper had major influence with the King and was often bribed to use his influence on others’ behalf. He even used this influence on his own behalf. In 1539, Culpeper was accused of raping a park-keeper’s wife and then murdering a villager. Most likely due to his influence and favor with the King, he was given a royal pardon and escaped punishment for his actions. Culpeper was given the honor of being keeper of the armory and Henry eventually made Culpeper gentleman to the King's Privy Chamber, giving him intimate access to the king, as the role involved dressing and undressing Henry and often sleeping in his bedchamber. He was part of the group of privileged courtiers who greeted Henry's German bride Anne of Cleves when she arrived in England for her marriage.
From 1537-1541, Culpeper was given several gifts, including keeper of the manor at Penshurst Palace and property in Kent, Essex, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire.
Affair with Catherine Howard
Thomas Culpeper was first introduced into Catherine Howard’s personal life in March 1541, when King Henry VIII went on a trip to Dover and left Catherine behind at Greenwich. At this time Culpeper began asking favors of Catherine, who was distantly related to him. The private meetings between them are thought to have begun sometime around May of that same year. Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, Jane Boleyn or Lady Rochford, arranged the meetings between Culpeper and Catherine. On these occasions only she and another lady-in-waiting, Katherine Tilney, were allowed entrance to the queen’s chamber.
On June 30 Catherine and King Henry VIII travelled north to York in hopes to meet James V of Scotland. They arrived at Lincoln on August 9, where Culpeper met Catherine for another secret meeting in her bedchamber. These meetings continued in Pontefract Castle, after the court arrived on August 23. It is believed that the infamous letter Catherine sent to Culpepper was sent during these proceedings. In this letter she wishes to know how he is and is troubled that he is ill. Catherine also writes, “I never longed so muche for thynge as I do to se you and to speke wyth you, the wyche I trust shal be shortely now,” and “my trust ys allway in you that you wolbe as you have promysed me...” These statements cause some audiences to believe that their affair was not one of passion, but rather centered towards Culpeper’s political agenda. With Henry in poor health and with only his very young son Edward to succeed him, being Catherine's favourite would undoubtedly have put Culpeper in a very strong political position. As a well-liked member of the king’s Privy Chamber he enjoyed a close relationship with the King. If the promise Catherine mentioned was in reference to his possible knowledge about her previous sexual relationship, Culpeper was most likely using this as leverage to gain power and control over the Queen herself. In her letter Catherine states that she longs to talk with Culpeper, and does not mention any desire to be intimate with him.
Stories of the Queen's premarital indiscretions had meanwhile come to the attention of Thomas Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury. During Cranmer's investigations, he came across rumours of an affair between the Queen and Culpeper; Culpeper was soon arrested for questioning. Both he and the Queen denied the allegations, but a love letter from Catherine to Culpeper found during a search of Culpeper's quarters, provided the evidence Cranmer was looking for. Whether the association between Culpeper and the queen was ever consummated is still debated by historians, but the letter gives clear evidence of Catherine's feelings for Culpeper. Also in the love letter was a reference to Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford.
Downfall and execution
Culpeper was arrested on orders from the King. In December 1541, Culpeper was tried for treason alongside Francis Dereham, who was separately accused of sexual relations with the Queen before her marriage to Henry. Catherine had not hidden the affair with Culpeper from members of her household, who now testified against her to protect themselves.
The Queen was portrayed as having seduced Culpeper at Chenies Palace, although it could easily have been the other way around. With testimony given of private meetings at Hatfield House and during the royal progress to the north of England in the summer of 1541, his fate was sealed. Culpeper admitted after torture to having had sexual relations with Catherine. Both Culpeper and Dereham were found guilty and sentenced to death.
The means of death was to be particularly gruesome: They were both to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Both men pleaded for leniency; Culpeper, presumably because of his former closeness to the King, received a commuted sentence of simple beheading. Dereham received no such mercy.
Culpeper was executed along with Dereham at Tyburn on 10 December 1541, and their heads were put on display on London Bridge. Culpeper was buried at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate church in London. Queen Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Rochford were both subsequently executed on 13 February 1542.
Popular Fiction
Within popular fiction, very little is told about Thomas Culpeper, save his association with King Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard. However, he appears in several plays and several writings, but always closely associated with Catherine.
Culpeper was a gentlemen of the King's privy chamber at court. Therefore, he had close access and often came into contact with the Queen and her attendants.
Portrayal in literature
In the book A Tudor Tragedy; The Life and Times of Catherine Howard, the author writes that there were rumors during the time period that Thomas Culpeper and Catherine Howard intended to be married, before Henry VIII set his sights on her. The book describes Thomas Culpeper as a young man in his twenties, hence his appeal to Catherine, who, during the time of her marriage to Henry VIII, witnessed his steadily declining physical state and overall health. This was in conjunction with his steadily declining sanity; during his last year with Catherine Howard, Henry VIII was seen as more and more emotionally erratic.
The affair seems to have always garnered the attention of authors who are looking to write about scandal. One such particular writer was a Spanish chronicler who may have been at King Henry VIII’s court, who wrote his very romantic — and for the greater part inaccurate — interpretation of Catherine’s career. In his version of the story, he portrays King Henry VIII as the cruel, selfish husband, who bullied the unwilling Catherine into marrying him against her will, despite her previous involvement with Thomas Culpeper, who is portrayed as the devoted and heartbroken hero who resisted his love for Catherine for as long as he possibly could, until one day he secretly slipped her a note declaring his love for her. When their love was discovered by the King, Thomas was arrested and tortured but, according to the writings, he bravely stated: “Gentlemen, do not seek to know more than that the King deprived me of the thing I loved best in the world, and, though you may hang me for it, I can assure you that she loves me as well as I love her, although up to this hour no wrong has ever passed between us. Before the King married her, I thought to make her my wife, and when I saw her irremediably lost to me I was like to die.” According to the story, the Duke of Somerset retorted to this monologue with, ”You have said quite enough, Culpeper, to lose your head.”
In Ford Madox Ford's trilogy on Catharine Howard, entitled The Fifth Queen, Culpeper is portrayed as an intimate of Catharine's who, early on in the novel, arrives with her in tow on a mule as the wedding with Anne of Cleves is about to take place. In dragging the mule forward, as a riot is starting outside the King's garden, he is described as "a man in green at the mule's head, . . . sprang like a wild cat under the beast's neck. His face blazed white, his teeth shone like a dog's, he screamed and struck his dagger through the butcher's throat . His motions were those of a wild beast". His introduction to Court is brought about through Catharine. He is sent to Calais to keep him from getting in trouble at Court for his brawling. He is often mentioned as having sold property to buy his impoverished cousin Catharine a proper dress and is not at all consistent with the historical record.
On-screen portrayals
In the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII, Culpeper was played by Robert Donat. In the BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, he was played by Ralph Bates, and in the Showtime television series The Tudors, Thomas Culpeper is portrayed by Torrance Coombs, where his character is portrayed as a cruel, arrogant man whose interest in Catherine in purely sexual. The series does not portray his knighthood.
References
- ^ Retha M. Warnicke, ‘Katherine (1518x24–1542)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004
- Wagner, John A. Bosworth Field to Bloody Mary: An Encyclopedia of the Early Tudors. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2003.
- Wagner
- Howard, Catherine. Letter to Thomas Culpeper. 1541. TS. The National Archives, U.K.
- ^ Smith, Lacey Baldwin. A Tudor Tragedy. New York: Pantheon Books, 1961.
- A Tudor Tragedy, The Life and Times of Catherine Howard, Lacey Baldwin Smith, 1961, The Reprint Society Ltd., page 61
- A Tudor Tragedy, Lacey Baldwin Smith, 1961, The Reprint Society Ltd, page 150, 151
- A Tudor Tragedy, Lacey Baldwin Smith, 1961, The Reprint Society Ltd, page 151
- Ford, Ford Madox (1963). The Fifth Queen. New York: The Vanguard Press. p. 36 et al.