Catherine Howard her mother already had five children from her first husband, Ralph Leigh ( – 1509); she went on to have another six with Catherine's father, Catherine being about her mother's tenth child. With little to sustain the family, her father was often reduced to begging for handouts from his more affluent relatives. After Catherine's mother died in 1528, her father married twice more. In 1531 he was appointed Controller of Calais. He was dismissed from his post in 1539, and died in March 1539. Catherine was the third of Henry VIII's wives to have been a member of the English
Catherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk Catherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk Catherine (or Katherine) Howard, Countess of Suffolk (1564–1638), was an English court office holder. She served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark. She was born in Charlton, Wiltshire, the oldest child of Sir Henry Knyvet and his wife Elizabeth Stumpe. Her uncle was Sir Thomas Knyvet, who foiled the gunpowder plot. Early in her life, she married Richard Rich, son of Robert Rich, 2nd Baron Rich, and grandson of Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich. After his death in 1580 she then married Sir Thomas Howard, who twenty years later was