Jackie Wells-Fauth
I had a terrible night’s sleep last night and you have to believe me when I tell you that it was all Kitty Howard’s fault. But I may be getting ahead of myself. Before I can tell you more about my restless night, I am afraid I must digress a little. Everyone knows (I think) that I am addicted to history. It was my college major and I am unable to resist anything that pertains to it.
That’s why I was drawn to a book about Henry VIII. I have studied the life of the English Tudor King Henry VIII for many years. The man was an absolute monster, but he managed to completely renovate the religious structure of his world and at the same time, go through wives like they were toilet paper in the pandemic. He ended with no less than six and rumor has it he was looking around for number seven when he died.
This latest book on him that I couldn’t resist was the story of his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves—noteworthy because she actually survived the terrifying monster, his fifth wife, Katherine (known as Kitty) Howard—noteworthy because she didn’t make it out alive, and Jane Boleyn, the unfortunate lady-in-waiting who served them both.
If this is too much history, I apologize, but if you bear with me a little longer, I can prove that this history is directly related to my terrible night’s sleep.
Now, the book I was reading focused on Kitty, who was executed at the delicate age of 16 by her bombastic and dangerous husband who had reached the great age–of the time–of 50. She was beheaded, a dreadful way to go, along with Thomas Culpepper, her foolish lover and Jane Boleyn, the equally foolish lady who assisted them in their incredibly foolish love affair, while the ex-fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, contemplated her own narrow escape.
Now, for my night’s lack of sleep. The author of the story was an excellent, well-informed and highly graphic writer. Her account was detailed and riveting and I absolutely could not put it down. So, last night, I read to the last page and the final ax fall, and it was very late when I went to bed with this sad and horrible tale on my mind.
I was distraught over the description of Kitty, grasping at people with frantic hands as she was dragged to the Tower. There was also a description of the gruesome spectacle of Thomas Culpepper’s head on a pike on Tower Bridge. I was squeamish over the description of Jane Boleyn, forced to put her hands in pools of Kitty Howard’s blood as she followed her to the execution block. I was tensed up by the nerves of Anne of Cleves as she sweated buckets, afraid Henry would take her down too, just for spite.
Needless to say, I was not prepared for a restful night and for a long time, I just tossed and turned. At one point, I threw an arm across my body and over the edge of the bed. To my horror, there was Kitty’s pathetic hand, reaching up to grasp mine. Before I could leap, screaming from the bed, I realized that the hand grasping mine was just my own, other hand.
Feeling very foolish, I settled back down, but I couldn’t seem to get the ideas of that story out of my mind. I lay there, asking myself such soothing questions as, “What would it be like to be married to a man forty-five years older than you who had terrible hygiene and the ability to kill you on a whim?”
Surprisingly this was not soothing to go to sleep with and while I was thinking about it, I glanced over to the blinds on the windows and real horror! There was a roundish shadow on the outside of the blinds about the size of a human head! Thomas Culpepper! I reached over to turn on the lamp, and put my hands in a pool of Kitty Howard’s blood!
Too choked to even scream, I finally found the lamp switch and got the light on. The “pool of blood” I had put my hand in was water leaking from my water bottle. When I got the nerve to look out the window, the “head on a pike” was a shadow caused by the neighbor’s yard light. I shut off the light and lay back down, wishing devoutly that Henry VIII, nearly in his dotage, hadn’t married a child, or that Kitty Howard had given Thomas Culpepper a cold shoulder instead of a warm bed.
In the future, I’ve decided I am going to watch a little television to relax at night—a soothing movie like “Psycho” or “It”—something less scary than Tudor Henry and his tragic child bride!
dropsinthewell 