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become versed ‘in the worthy knowledges which do belong to her vocation’ – that of a prospective housewife to a Tudor gentleman. 50 Life at Horsham must have been the epitome of luxurious discomfort. Early Tudor mansions were cold, damp, and dirty. The stone floors of the draughty halls remained bare, except for rushes that were rarely changed as often as they should have been, and the cavernous fireplaces did little to cut the chill. The sanitary facilities were both primitive and infrequent, and at best a house the size of the Dowager’s would boast but a single ‘house of easement’ which was usually in cellar or the corner of the courtyard; occasionally, however, they were supplied with double seats. Chamber-pots were usually furnished in the various ‘privy chambers’, and their contents were disposed of with careless and dangerous abandon.
    Such an establishment was not only labyrinthine and selfsufficient, it was also crowded and intimate to a degree unimaginable to modern society. Privacy was almost unknown; eating was a formal and communal function; and not even the Duchess herself slept alone. The sixteenth century was not particular where or with whom it slept, and the usual arrangement consisted of dormitories divided between men and women. Only in the most elevated and distinguished cases did married couples sleep together, and more often than not two couples shared the same bed. It is dillicult to conceive of a society in which the bed was a household luxury, where chairs were scarce and kings ate at collapsible trestle tables. In the early part of the century, even in the homes of the rich and powerful, linen was a rarity, and a down mattress or a feather bed was a possession worthy of mention in one’s last will and testament. Probably only the Duchess and a few honoured visitors were esteemed deserving of such luxury. For Catherine and her dormitory-mates a straw mattress and dagswain blanket with ‘a good round log under their heads’ sufficed, while pillows were kept for women in childbirth. 51 Moreover, society made little distinction in assigning beds, and where children were concerned, servants and noble progeny were indiscriminately mingled.
    So far the life of Catherine Howard in Sussex has been merely a historical reconstruction – the surroundings of any girl given a similar position in society. Historical reality commences in the year 1536 when Catherine had reached the ‘fire of full fourteen’ and Henry Manox, the son of the Duchess’s neighbour, George Manox, was summoned to Horsham to instruct the children of the house in the art of playing the virginal and the lute. 52 Henry Manox, like so many others of the Dowager’s entourage, occupied a tenuous position somewhere between that of a servant and a gentleman; nor was he the only member of his family to be in service at Horsham, since his cousin, Edward Waldgrave, was one of the gentlemen-inwaiting to the old lady of Norfolk. He may have been something of a cad, but he certainly was not the systematic corrupter of innocent youth portrayed by some historians. In a society which left children to their own devices behind the back stairs, it is not surprising that Manox flirted with his pretty, auburn-haired pupil, who seems to have shown no sign that she in any way resented his advances or was ignorant of his designs.
    Catherine was obviously not swept off her feet. On the contrary, it was the music teacher who was captivated, and he begged her, if indeed she loved him, to let him ‘perceive by some token that you love me’. Catherine’s rejoinder made it cruelly evident that she was acutely aware of the social gulf that existed between a duke’s niece and the son of a simple landed family. ‘What token should I show you?’ she answered. ‘I will never be naught with you and able to marry me you be not.’ Manox persisted and begged for a few intimate (very intimate) caresses, to which the lady replied that she was willing