A tormented Tudor queen's treasonous 'love letter'

In this episode, Neil Johnston and Christopher Day discuss a
letter written by Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII,
to Thomas Culpeper, a groom of the King's Privy chamber. The
document was part of a body of evidence collected against
Catherine and Culpeper that ultimately led to their execution. It
is now preserved at The National Archives.


Here Neil Johnston explains how it is crucial to examine this
letter in the context of Catherine's sexual past in order to
understand how the queen accused of living "an abominable, base,
carnal, voluptuous, vicious life" was effectively blackmailed
into a path of action that led to her untimely death.