Hans Holbein
circa 1540
The Buccleuch Collection
1541
‘This letter was collected in evidence against Katherine and her lady-in-waiting Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford. It testified to Katherine’s relationship with the courtier Thomas Culpeper during her marriage to Henry.
Signed ‘yours as long as life endures, Katheryn’, it has been interpreted as both a love letter, and a desperate attempt by Katherine to placate a man who could threaten her position.’
November 1541
‘In his report to Henry, Cranmer wrote that he found her ‘in such lamentation and heaviness as I never saw no creature.’
1540-1
