Agnes Howard, Duchess of Norfolk Agnes Howard, Duchess of Norfolk Agnes Howard (née Tilney) (c. 1477 – May 1545) was the second wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Two of King Henry VIII's Queens were her step-granddaughters, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Howard. After her mother's death, Catherine Howard was in the Dowager Duchess's care during her youth, and as a result of the Duchess's lax guardianship, committed sexual indiscretions while in the Duchess's household which led to her execution as Queen. Agnes' brother, Sir Philip Tilney of Shelley (d.1533), was the paternal grandfather of Edmund Tilney (1535/6–1610), Master of the Revels to Queen
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