Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Catherine Howard's life ended in tragedy on 13 February 1542, when the young Queen of England was led from her prison in the Tower of London to the execution scaffold on Tower Green. She was probably no older than nineteen or twenty-one years old. Just over a year earlier she had been one of the most powerful women in England as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. Now she had been condemned for treason, accused of having affairs before and during her marriage to the king. After her execution, however, another story began—the story of what happened to her body. Unlike most queens of England, Catherine was not given a magnificent royal funeral or buried beneath an impressive monument. Instead, her remains disappeared quietly beneath the floor of a small chapel inside the Tower of London, where they remain to this day.
Catherine Howard's life ended in tragedy on 13 February 1542, when the young Queen of England was led from her prison in the Tower of London to the execution scaffold on Tower Green. She was probably no older than nineteen or twenty-one years old. Just over a year earlier she had been one of the most powerful women in England as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. Now she had been condemned for treason, accused of having affairs before and during her marriage to the king. After her execution, however, another story began—the story of what happened to her body. Unlike most queens of England, Catherine was not given a magnificent royal funeral or buried beneath an impressive monument. Instead, her remains disappeared quietly beneath the floor of a small chapel inside the Tower of London, where they remain to this day.
