Catherine Howard Lord Edmund Howard ( – 1539) and Joyce Culpeper ( – ). Her father's sister, Elizabeth Howard, was the mother of Anne Boleyn. Therefore, Catherine Howard was the first cousin of Anne Boleyn, and the first cousin once removed of Lady Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth I), Anne's daughter by Henry VIII. As a granddaughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk (1443–1524), Catherine had an aristocratic pedigree. Her father was not wealthy, being a younger son among 21 children and disfavoured in the custom of primogeniture, by which the eldest son inherits all his father's estate. When Catherine's parents married,
Records of members of parliament of the United Kingdom following were all known to be disabled when serving as MPs: Sir Francis Bryan, MP for Buckinghamshire in 1529, 1539, 1542 and 1545, who lost an eye in a tournament in 1526. William Page, MP for Bridport in 1559, Oxford 1562–67, and Saltash 1571–81, who had a hand cut off in lieu of execution for distributing a political pamphlet in 1579. John Stubbs or Stubbe, MP for Great Yarmouth 1588–89, who also had right hand cut off in lieu of execution for publication of the same pamphlet as Page in 1579. Hugh Bethell, MP for East Riding of Yorkshire 1654–56