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,
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