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      That Norfolk was responding to circumstances as they unfolded is supported by the fact that he clearly knew very little about his niece. There is, for instance, absolutely nothing to suggest that he was aware of her previous romances with Henry Manox or Francis Dereham. The dowager did not rush to enlighten him. If the Howards had wanted to entice Henry VIII, they would not have chosen Catherine. She was damaged goods. Had they been as Machiavellian as the usual presentation of them suggests, at some point in the vetting process either the dowager duchess or the Countess of Bridgewater could have pointed out that elevating Catherine would put them all at risk in the long run. Rather, the king’s infatuation seems to have caught them all off-guard, and while her family seem to have played the hand dealt to them – they would have been foolish not to – that is not the same thing as stacking the deck.

      Confronted with the king’s frequent demands for her company, Catherine sought the wisdom of her relatives. They gave her advice on the proper way to behave when she was with him, ‘in what sort to entertain the King’s Highness and how often’, as it was put later.55 On one of her trips back to Lambeth to visit her grandmother, Catherine discovered that Francis Dereham had absconded without telling anyone where he was going. The dowager asked her if she knew where he had gone, but she answered, probably quite truthfully, that she had no idea.56 After he heard about the king’s interest in his beloved, Francis confided his despair to a friend, and since the indulgent dowager consistently refused to give him permission to leave, Francis had taken matters into his own hands and fled.57