Catherine Howard her mother already had five children from her first husband, Ralph Leigh ( – 1509); she went on to have another six with Catherine's father, Catherine being about her mother's tenth child. With little to sustain the family, her father was often reduced to begging for handouts from his more affluent relatives. After Catherine's mother died in 1528, her father married twice more. In 1531 he was appointed Controller of Calais. He was dismissed from his post in 1539, and died in March 1539. Catherine was the third of Henry VIII's wives to have been a member of the English
Catherine Carey, Countess of Nottingham at Hatfield House as a child during the reign of Elizabeth's elder sister Mary. On Elizabeth's accession, Catherine and her younger sister Philadelphia came to court as maids of honour under the auspices of their aunt, Catherine Carey, the queen's first cousin and a Lady of the Bedchamber. In July 1563, Catherine married Charles Howard (1536–1624), later 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England, and first Earl of Nottingham (1597). Catherine was appointed First Lady of the Bedchamber by 1572. Her daughter Elizabeth, the queen's goddaughter, was a maid of honour from 1576 until 1583, the year