Catherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk in 1539 to marry the King, and in 1541 they helped arrange a royal progress for the King and his next wife, Catherine Howard. This progress later became notorious for the Queen's adulterous trysts with her kinsman, Thomas Culpeper, though the Duke and Duchess's home at Grimsthorpe Castle was "one of the very few places on the route ... where Catherine Howard had not misbehaved herself". Noted for her wit, sharp tongue, and devotion to learning, by the last years of Henry VIII's reign the Duchess of Suffolk was also an outspoken advocate of the English Reformation. She became a
Catherine Murphy (counterfeiter) removed from under her feet and 30 minutes passed before the fire was lit, and thus, she was not actually burned alive. Whatever the case, Catherine Murphy remains the last person to have been sentenced and at least officially executed by the method of burning. In part through the efforts of Sir Benjamin Hammett, who took the execution of Murphy as an example when he criticised this form of punishment, burning as a method of execution was abolished the next year, by the Treason Act 1790. Catherine Murphy (counterfeiter) Catherine Murphy (died 18 March 1789) (also known as "Christian Murphy")