Lord Edmund Howard 1st Earl of Bridgewater, and Elizabeth Howard, who married Henry Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Sussex. Howard spent his early years at court, and in 1509 he was listed as one of the noblemen who organized the jousts for the joint coronation of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Although his eldest brother, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, became a dominant figure at court, and another brother, Edward Howard, was a close companion of the King, Edmund appears not to have shared the King's favour and seems to have been considered ineffectual. Biographers have described Howard as
Catherine Howard with Henry's favourite male courtier, Thomas Culpeper, a young man who "had succeeded [him] in the Queen's affections", according to Dereham's later testimony. Culpeper called Catherine "my little, sweet fool" in a love letter; she considered marrying him during her time as a maid-of-honour to Anne of Cleves. The couple's meetings were arranged by one of Catherine's older ladies-in-waiting, Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (Lady Rochford), the widow of Catherine's executed cousin, George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's brother. During the autumn Northern Progress, a crisis began to loom over Catherine's conduct. People who had witnessed her earlier indiscretions while still a ward