Monday, May 16, 2011

Question from Anon - Henry Manox

Was Henry Manox ever in serious danger of execution?


Marilyn R said...

It’s a good question.

Was there really that much they could charge him with? One of the first brought in for questioning, Manox seems to have answered his interrogators freely and frankly, persuading them that at the Horsham mansion Katheryn Howard had allowed him to ‘feel more than was convenient’ but to go no further because of the gulf in their social status. Statements in Letters & Papers indicate he had since married and was probably keeping what we today would call a low profile following his letter to the dowager duchess telling her what was going on in her Lambeth house.

More important, unlike Dereham and Culpeper, he had not become re-acquainted with Katheryn after her marriage. In my own opinion he was just small fry not worth pursuing, who had told all he knew at his first interrogation.

Has anybody come across any references to him after Katheryn’s downfall, apart from the questioning, that is?

On the hunt for these elusive characters I have done a lot of legwork in Lambeth around Old Paradise Street and Lambeth Road where Norfolk House once stood in its fine gardens and orchards, but at the end of it am no clearer in my mind as to what sort of a girl young Katheryn really was.

Apparently Alison Weir is hoping to offer conclusive proof of what really happened in the Katheryn saga with a new biography of her. As far as I can tell, sources are very thin on the ground, and the ‘evidence’ against Katheryn recorded in Letters & Papers is so questionable and so dependent upon hearsay that it can be interpreted in a number of different ways. I’m really looking forward to seeing whether Alison Weir has uncovered something new.

Cate Drewry said...

Wikipedia states that Mannox did become reacquainted with K Howard, he was appointed to her household after she became queen. However, there is no source given for this claim.

In regard to the initial question, my guess would be, yes. There was far less evidence for the executions of Anne Boleyn's "lovers." In fact, it has often occurred to me to be surprised that he was allowed to live and go free. I think it would have been easy to convict him of concealing treason - the charge for which the Howard family members were tried and convicted at the time - since he knew she was unchaste and did not disclose it prior to her marriage. I am not saying he SHOULD have been, but in an era when the courts answeres directly to the king, convictions and sentences were often a foregone conclusion.

Why did Henry not pursue Manox? It is a good question, one which I suspect only Henry himself could answer. He certainly took a more round-'em-up approach with the men accused with Anne, even to executing some of his best friends.

Maybe the powers that be were startled by the backlash of sympathy that people felt for K Howard. Perhaps they felt the executions of Culpepper and Dereham were enough already, and that the entire thing was becoming a very black joke.

Marilyn R said...

Would love to know where the Wiki article got information that Manox was appointed to the Queen’s household.

Manox fades from view very early on in the proceedings and is not repeatedly interviewed over a period of several weeks as the old Duchess of Norfolk and her household are. I believe the reason for his escape from the scaffold lies in the fact that both he and Katheryn when questioned independently insisted there had been no more than a few naughty fumbles at the Duchess’s Horsham mansion years before, and it appears that Manox was well out of the picture before Katheryn went to Court as a maid to Anne of Cleves.

On the other hand, Francis Dereham’s appointment was a disaster, and the case against him leaned heavily on Katheryn’s assumed adultery with him when she was Queen – they were accused of picking up where they had left off at Lambeth – which was not proven at all. The men accused with Anne Boleyn were ‘guilty’ of misconduct with the married Queen of England, whose children at all costs must be fathered by the King, which is very different from merely having groped a relatively unimportant single girl, as Katheryn had been at the time of her dalliances with Manox.

Culpeper confessed to hoping he and Katheryn would become lovers, insisting that he had not yet ‘had carnal knowledge of her’, but she was the Queen and it was sufficient for the accusation of treason to stick – because they must have been wishing for Henry’s death.

The marriage of King Henry VIII and Mistress Katheryn Howard was a very low-key private affair at Oatlands Palace very shortly after his divorce from Anne of Cleves; even the Court was not fully informed until a week or so later, and the lowly Henry Manox would not know until after the event. It would have been a brave man who turned up at Hampton Court bearing the news that the new bride had a lively past, and then proceeded to describe ‘privy marks’ on her body! Possibly as much as two years before Katheryn’s marriage, Manox had informed her step-grandmother by letter of what was going on in the maidens’ chamber at Norfolk House, so in a way he could claim to have done his duty in drawing her family’s attention to her involvement, and to have therefore taken it for granted that the Howards themselves had made Henry aware of Katheryn’s colourful past.

Cate Drewry said...

I see what you're saying in the difference between what Anne's lovers were accused of, versus what involvement Manox had with Howard. I still feel surprised, though, that there was not some startling treason invented for him so he could be included in the executions.

I would also like to know where the Wiki article got its information, I have never before read anywhere that Manox was part of the queen's household. I would guess someone has confused Dereham with Manox.

Marilyn R said...

Hi Cate

What do you make of this? I've just plucked it off Wiki; have heard of it before but had forgotten about it. Have no idea whether it's the same Manox!

"Lord Howard died on 19 March 1539 a year before his daughter Katherine became Henry VIII's fifth Queen. His widow, Lady Margaret, was among the ladies appointed to serve her stepdaughter, Queen Katherine Howard, when the Queen's household was re-formed in mid-August 1540. Lady Margaret later married Henry Mannock. Steinman conjectures that this was the Henry Manox who had been music master to Queen Katherine in her youth, and had been involved in sexual indiscretions with her which later contributed to the Queen's downfall; however Bindoff is of the view that there is no reason to connect the two. Margaret was buried at Streatham on 22 January 1565."

Just looked at Bindoff online - doesn't appear to connect Margaret with these Howards just says she was born Mundy and was married to a Jennings and 'one Howard' before Mannock. Very confusing. Can anyone clarify?

Marilyn R said...

Having said that, I have just read it again, & Bindoff mistakenly says Henry Manox the music master was executed for his involvement with K H!

Cate Drewry said...

I have seen Manox's name spelled Mannock, and also Mannox. However, I am nowhere near educated enough about old English spellings or names to know whether this is a case of two men with similarly spelled names, or the same man.

My first reaction is to say that a woman from the class that would have married a Howard would have been unlikely to have ended up married to a "working class" guy subsequently. I suppose it would not be unheard of, but it seems unlikely.

It is appalling that there are so many mistakes and conjectures printed as fact (in reference to the statement about Manox having been executed, and the one on Wiki about him serving KH at court). I'm old enough that when I started my obsessive reading about the period, I had to do it all with good old-fashioned books from the library. I feel bad for younger generations trying to unravel threads from zillions of sources that all seem to be at odds with each other.

I am also very curious now about whatever became of Manox and hope someone will happen by with some facts. It may be that there is nothing further known of him, because he felt a sudden and pressing urge to move to another continent and leave no forwarding address lol.

Aly said...

Well, Manox could have married a woman like Margaret Jennings. I mean, yes, she was married to a Howard, but he was a very low Howard. I'm not totally convinced she married THE Manox though. Doesn't sound like any of you are either LOL.

I don't think he was in danger of execution. Anne's "lovers" were around her all the time; Manox hadn't put in an appearance in Katheryn's life for awhile. I think he was just used as a means to an end, he was the foot in the door of Katheryn's sexual history and maybe his life was the reward he received for being that foot in the door.

Stessy said...

What is interesting is that Catherine's father, Edmund Howard, married three times - the 3rd time to Margaret Mundy (daughter of John Mundy and Juliana Browne.

After Edmund's death in 1537, Margaret married a Henry Mannock (of London, Haddenham and Hemingford Grey.

Their daughter, Margaret Mannock married Francis Willams CROMWELL (a younger son).

So it's nothing definitive, BUT this Henry Mannock was married to Catherine Howard's stepmother. said...

I am very interested by the last comment. Margaret Mundy is my 13x great aunt and so far I had not found any evidence of her having children by any of her three husbands.

Could you please advise the source for this information as it would help me greatly?

Margaret's father was Sir John Mundy who was for a time. Lord Mayor of London. Her family traces back via a number of other Lord Mayors of London, most notably Sir Edmund Shaa, who even gets a mention in Shakespeare's Richard III.

I am descended from her brother John, who I understand was dispatched to Cornwall by Henry VIII to assist with the disolution of the monasteries.