Katherine Plantagenet

by Peter Hammond

Katherine, the only daughter, albeit illegitimate, of Richard III, first comes to notice in 1484, when William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon (formerly Earl of Pembroke) covenanted ‘to take to wife Dame Katherine Plantagenet, daughter to the King, before Michaelmas of that year’. Nothing is known of Dame Katherine before this, no mention is made anywhere of her mother, nor when she was born. That she married in 1484 is no guide to her age: child marriages were not uncommon in the fifteenth century, (Anne Mowbray was five when she was married to Richard, Duke of York) but she could hardly have been older than about eighteen since Richard himself was only born in 1452, and it is perhaps unlikely that she would have been born after Richard’s marriage in about 1473. She was thus probably between ten and eighteen years of age. The marriage covenant mentioned was dated 29th February. In it, in addition to agreeing to marry Katherine before 29 September 1484 (Michaelmas), the Earl agreed to make her a jointure in lands of £200 per annum. The King agreed to bear the whole cost of the marriage and settled lands and lordships on them and the heirs male of their two bodies. Three days after the marriage agreement had been entered into, on 3rd March, the King fulfilled the second part of his engagement, granting an annuity he had promised. They were married between then and May 1484, since a grant of the proceeds of various manors in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset was then made to ‘William Erle of Huntingdon and Kateryn his wif’.  Nearly a year later the King made a further grant to the Earl and Katherine his wife of an annuity of £152 10.

Very little further is known about Katherine. She may have had children, but if so they did not survive, since the Earl’s heir was Elizabeth, his daughter by his first wife, Mary Woodville. Nor is it known when she died, but it seems very likely that she did not survive the Earl (although he certainly did not marry again), and she may have been dead by 25th November 1487, the date of the coronation of Elizabeth of York. Among the lists of nobility present at that ceremony is a list of earls (including the Earl of Huntingdon) all described as ‘widowers’. If this is correct then Katherine was probably dead by this date, under the age of twenty. Another clue to the date of her death may be given by the fact that on 17th May 1488 Henry VII confirmed Herbert’s charter as Earl of Huntingdon. This may have reflected a desire to confirm his position after the death of his wife, or of course merely a desire to consolidate his position in the Tudor world. We do know that Katherine was buried in the church of St James, Garlickhythe, in the City of London, although we do not know when. This church was perhaps near the Herbert townhouse, Worcester House, in the same parish.

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