Catherine Howard Catherine Howard Catherine Howard ( – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She (then aged 16 or 17) married him (then 49) on 28 July 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged. Catherine was stripped of her title as queen within 16 months, in November 1541. She was beheaded three months later, on the grounds of treason for committing adultery while married to Henry, similarly to Anne Boleyn. Catherine was one of the daughters of
Catherine of Alexandria of Alexandria (c. 350–370 – March 415 CE). Modern scholarship supports Davis’ assumption that the legend of Catherine of Alexandria was probably based on the life and murder of Hypatia, with the roles of Christians and pagans reversed. Hypatia was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, who was brutally murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria, the governor, Orestes, and the bishop, Cyril of Alexandria. Sometimes cited as a possible inspiration of Saint Catherine, the writer Eusebius wrote, around the year 320, that the Emperor had ordered a young