Another quickie about Katherine Howard today, this one to establish how the dear girl got mixed up with the royal family to begin with:

Flashback to the Wars of the Roses, which were basically a military expression of a family feud between two sides of the royal family, the Yorks and the Lancasters. The Howard family was on Team York, and their guy became Richard III (the one described as a murderous hunchback by Shakespeare) in 1483. The king rewarded one of the Howard men, John, with the fancy title of Duke of Norfolk.

John was so loyal he stuck with the king as he went up against a certain Welshman named Henry Tudor in 1485. Richard III and John Howard were killed, and Mr. Tudor became Henry VII.  However, Howard’s son Thomas became the 2nd Duke of Norfolk (in fact, all the Dukes of Norfolk have been descended from Richard III’s buddy).

Thomas married and had a slew of kids, including an Elizabeth and an Edmund. Elizabeth eventually had a little girl named Anne (Boleyn) and Edmund’s little girl was Katherine (Howard).  

So, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard were first cousins, and had the great misfortune to be close to the royals because their great-grandfather was a close friend of the defeated Yorkist king, Richard III. And you thought your family had problems!