Francis Dereham hanged, drawn and quartered. Culpeper also died at Tyburn, but as he had been favoured by the King before his affair with Catherine, his sentence was commuted to beheading. Catherine and Lady Rochford were beheaded at the Tower of London on 13 February 1542. The Dowager Duchess was eventually released. Francis Dereham Francis Dereham (c. 1513 – executed ) was a Tudor courtier whose involvement with Henry VIII's fifth Queen, Catherine Howard, in her youth, was a principal cause of the Queen's execution. Francis Dereham was the son of John (Thomas) Derham, of Crimplesham in Norfolk, and Isabell, the daughter
Catherine Howard who had sufficiently distanced himself from the scandal by retreating to Kenninghall to write a grovelling letter of apology. The Duke of Norfolk's son Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, a poet, remained a favourite of the King. The Duke, knowing his family had fallen from grace, wrote an apology on 14 December to the King, excusing himself and laying all the blame on his niece and stepmother. All of the Howard prisoners were tried, found guilty of concealing treason, and sentenced to life imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. In time, they were released with their goods restored. The King sank