The Tudor Duchess Exiled For Her Protestant Faith? | Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk

Katherine Willoughby, better known as Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, was the perfect example of a Renaissance Tudor noblewoman. She was well-educated, opinionated, religious, and was entwined more than once in the tumultuous events of her era, often of her own choosing. This video follows her dramatic life from young ward to duchess, from duchess to exile, and from exile to devout Protestant...
For my images and footage, thanks to:
Pexels
Pixabay
Wikimedia Commons, especially:
Wehha
King of Hearts
Bernard Gagnon
Many of my images in this video were made with Midjourney, see if you can spot which ones!
I strive to always credit everyone whose images I use, and try as much as possible to use images freely in the public domain (purchased where not possible) - please let me know if I have missed you so I can give you due credit.

[@cmick69]

Katherine Willoughby is my 4th cousin 14x removed, and the 12th great-grandmother of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[@ktoi138]

Oh nice, great composer. Even though his musicals were kinda cringe he still was super talented

[@areiaaphrodite]

This was very interesting. I knew a bit about Catherine, but not quite this much. However, I'm not surprised to hear of her strong will and determination. Her mother was the same way and proved this by being one of the few people willing to defy Henry VIII by riding in secret to go visit her best friend, Katherine of Aragon, before her death at Kimbolton. ❤

[@hollyoconnor2745]

I've heard of her name before, but didn't know much about her. Fascinating history about this woman, especially during that time period.

[@altinaykor364]

such an interesting woman, although not with the kindest heart, but with a warrior soul💪 But also one of the clear examples of how much psychological and social pressure which Elizabeth I dealt with, by her courtiers and different factions, which all were radical and biased in their own special way

[@user-kf6lu4dn2r]

She managed to survive a tyrannical king who brutally murdered every woman around him that dared to show the slightest scrap of intelligence. She wasn't a warrior, she was a survivor. Whether that was lucky or not, well, that depends on perspective, I guess.

[@altinaykor364]

@@user-kf6lu4dn2r she had the soul of a warrior, because she was fierce in her Protestantism. she had passion and fire in her belief and would go far to stand up for it, like arguing with two queens. but of course there's also matter of her dark side which is her bias

[@leeannproctor2966]

I think charles brandon was a bully.

[@KCohere33]

I’m a fan of Katherine Willoughby. She sounds like a pistol! I also like how she was portrayed on the Tudors.

[@anweshabiswas4813]

Love your videos ❤❤❤

[@makenziekate1523]

Can you do Lady Jane Grey?

[@HistorysForgottenPeople]

I did a while ago! It's a 3 part series under the 'Tudor' playlist. 😊

[@MichelleBruce-lo4oc]

Hi, awesome live history video I enjoyed it. How are you and Mallard your cat doing? I'm doing well and so is my cat Benjamin. We have spring like weather in Ontario Canada. How is the weather where you are? Have a great day see you next video 😊

[@HistorysForgottenPeople]

Hi Michelle, glad to hear you and Benjamin are doing well! 😊 We're all doing well here, and the spring weather is slowly warming up - we've actually had to cut the lawn a few times and the flowers are starting to bloom.

[@lfgifu296]

I’ve always found it amusing that she was the daughter of one of Katherine of Aragon’s dearest friends and supporters🥲 ironic if you consider how she ended up lol :) Apart from her staunch Protestantism, idk much about her, so this ought to be interesting!! She certainly seems like a fascinating person :)

[@goeegoanna]

Fascinating, as always. Thank you. Kat here was quite the idealist. As a fellow idealist, I can say, at least in my experience, ideals are great, until they come into competition with the ideals of others. Is it not better to survive with a quiet ideal than be dead with a voiced one? For now, anyway. Ideals do seem to take time and patience and a rhetorical marathon of convincing other people to achieve....or in this case some years and a paranoid king, to profess it into existence and murder women for fear they be witches, brides of Satan etc.😈🧙‍♀🤴

[@HistorysForgottenPeople]

As a fellow opinionated person who is an idealist, I feel this so hard! 😂 You're right, often it does seem to take a long time for ideals to come into force when they are good, but I think a lot of that comes from humans being very set in their ways (me included!) We would probably all do very well in the world if we learned the difficult task of compromise and discussion without sacrificing our ideals.

[@goeegoanna]

@@HistorysForgottenPeople And for people to realise, I am almost invariably right

[@leeannproctor2966]

I never knew she was so religious.

[@mrm7098]

Catherine Howard was the fifth wife and not the fourth.

[@--enyo--]

1) Catherine of Aragon 2) Anne Boleyn 3) Anne of Cleves 4) Catherine Howard 5) Catherine Parr

[@makenziekate1523]

@@--enyo-- You forgot Jane Seymour

[@HistorysForgottenPeople]

Oh my goodness! Sorry, I've messed that up in my recording. Thank you for letting me know, I'll try and fix it.

[@lfgifu296]

@@--enyo-- Anne was already dead when Henry married Jane Seymour and their marriage had already been annulled.

[@Heothbremel]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@lfgifu296]

Well, the question won’t be a surprise lol, but what do you think of Thomas More?👀👀

[@DarthDread-oh2ne]

Hi friend.

[@lfgifu296]

@@DarthDread-oh2neHello!

[@HistorysForgottenPeople]

LOL I thought it was coming! 😂 Okay, here we go... This is such a tricky, tricky one, and I'm going to add at the beginning that my opinion _is regarding the context of the Tudor period_ . So, having said that, I have something of a positive opinion of More, but not completely. On the one hand, the thing I have always admired the most about him is - like Catherine of Aragon and others - his complete adherence to his faith, even in the face of death. I'm not Catholic, but being able to be so certain of your own faith in a higher power - with the MASSIVE caveat that it harms no one else - is admirable. It shows a strength of character I'm not sure I would have shown. He was also intelligent, and contributed to the culture of his day through writing - not necessarily accurately, of course! His work on Richard III, which nowadays we agree is more likely an attack on kings going mad with power (no irony intended, I'm sure) rather than Richard III himself, but it was so influential it was likely one of the main sources for Shakespeare's play, which itself became influential. More also wrote Utopia, a book which basically created the genre of Utopian and Dystopian fiction, and was a hugely interesting work on a sort of communalism in society. It was problematic as well (if I remember rightly, there is slavery in his fictional Utopia), but there were also concepts such as equal education for men and women, lack of private ownership, and the idea that crime is usually triggered by poverty. It predated ideas about socialism and communism by centuries, but has a lot of the core ideas that today we view as a mark of progress within a society (as I said above, not EVERYTHING). It also had ideas on issues we still argue about today, such as legal euthanasia. There's controversy over whether or not he tortured Protestants, but there's no contemporary evidence at all for it, and he denied it vehemently in his own time. Foxes' Book of Martyrs was the first place it appeared in print that More had tortured Protestant prisoners, and later historians just ran with it because, after all, the victors write the history books...literally, in this case! There were six burnings under his jurisdiction while he was in office, but this - again, in the context of the day - a normal amount. It's a quite rightly horrifying thing to us today to even contemplate, but at the time, it was genuinely believed that burning a so-called 'heretic' would save their soul, and dissuade others from joining them and sacrificing their souls as well. This is much like the arguments of Mary burning Protestants, or Elizabeth punishing royal cousins who didn't ask permission for marriage or killing Mary, Queen of Scots; it was a very brutal time that still relied on brute force over other methods, because it was genuinely believed it was the right thing to do for the majority. I highly doubt everyone in the Tudor period was a psychopath, and I feel that the majority of people would have felt sorry for this poor soul that was screaming in agony as they burned to death - it's the main reason some executioners would put gunpowder around the necks of some of them, to speed it up - but that despite this, they still believed they were doing the right thing, because no one suggested otherwise_ . What is often forgotten is that both sides were willing to do this to the other. So in that context (and wall of text), basically I don't think More was exceptionally cruel for his time, but simply that he was the same as any other in his position. Overall, I don't think Thomas More was an inherently bad person, and I do think he had a lot more good than bad about him. However, he wasn't perfect, and if he was alive today, I would probably not be friends with him purely on the basis that we would probably fall out a lot over his vehement religious views! 😂

[@lfgifu296]

@@HistorysForgottenPeople I agree with you (and I definitely like him more than Cromwell lol)! No one is strictly good or bad, but ultimately I think More leaned on the good side (except as an historian👹). I’d never heard the theory that his Richard III wasn’t supposed to be that accurate! I’ve always thought it was quintessential Tudor Propaganda hehe. His strength of faith really is admirable, as you say. The words he supposedly uttered before the axe fell are contested, but the more popular ones, however doubtful they might be when it comes to accuracy, sum him up pretty well imo “I am the king’s servant, but God’s first”. He was also very intelligent and cult, which is why he is seated next to Da Vinci in my “6 figures historical dinner”. I’d love to hear their exchanges of thoughts!

[@patmccoy8758]

Did you know that Katherine Willoughby is also the ancestor of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber?

[@HistorysForgottenPeople]

I did! I love Who Do You Think You Are?, I remember that episode. ☺

[@patmccoy8758]

@@HistorysForgottenPeople During my own research, I found one of her other descendants married a Spencer-Churchill!

[@leeannproctor2966]

Is she princess Diana's ancestor?

[@patmccoy8758]

@@leeannproctor2966 I need to take a look at her family tree.

[@antoniaswift3995]

Women were never forbidden to read the Bible.

[@--enyo--]

It was never forbidden, but in the same way previously bibles were generally written in Latin rather than the local vernacular in part to stop ‘common’ people reading and interpreting for themselves it was thought women should receive the Lord’s word through the filter of clergy and men.

[@HistorysForgottenPeople]

Exactly as @-enyo- says, they were not strictly 'forbidden' (after all, nuns had to read the bible), but it was made extremely difficult by being published in Latin. Add to this a population who had a very limited literacy level, and the idea that those who worked through hard labour had no need to 'learn' the bible, only to do as they were told to do by the local priest. This was the main reason priests who preached against the standard message were often given a punishment of execution, as they were seen as the literal mouthpieces for the interpretation of the bible. Women were, in most cases, at the very bottom of the heap. Noblewomen could be allowed to read the bible, possibly, but more likely they would be allowed to read books with selected sections, prayers or biblical stories - a curated selection, if you will. The idea they could read the bible in its entirety would have been, before the later middle ages, seen as a dangerous idea as they might try to interpret the bible in their own way and get the 'wrong' message, i.e., realise life was very unfair for large sections of the population. Women who were very clever and known for being shrewd in politics and rising as high as possible in their time (such as Margaret Beaufort, for example) were very devout, but equally they would have the bible read TO them, rather than reading it by themselves.

[@mariahammarstrom7934]

Do learn to pronounce "year" properly, it´s not "yur".