classroom and her finishing school where she would learn by example to behave like the great ladies of her family. Like the generation before her, Catherine was taught that good manners were essential to ‘all those that would thrive in prosperity’.25 Etiquette was drilled into her at a young age and into hundreds of other girls just like her. One of her cousins was praised for being ‘stately and upright at all times of her age’ and never ‘diminishing the greatness of birth and marriage by omission of any ceremony’.26 There were rhymes to help her remember the rules of placement, books aimed at children and adolescents that stressed how rude it was to point or to be too demonstrative in conversation – ‘Point not thy tale with thy fingers, use not such toys.’ There were rules that would hardly be out of place in a modern guide, such as enjoinders to keep one’s hands ‘washèd clean / That no filth in thy nails be seen’, not to talk with your mouth full, to keep cats and dogs away from the dinner table, and to only use one’s best dinner service for distinguished guests; but there were also instructions on where to put cutlery, how to cut bread (it was never to be torn with the hands), and a culture that almost elevated propriety into a religious duty.27 One children’s textbook on the proper way of doing things began with:
Little children, draw ye near
And learn the courtesy written here;
For clerks that well the Seven Arts know,
Say Courtesy came to earth below,
When Gabriel hailed Our Lady by name,
And Elizabeth to Mary came.
All virtues are closed in courtesy,
And vices all in villainy.28
They were lessons that Catherine swallowed whole. For the rest of her life, she remained devoted to the niceties. Few things seemed to cause her greater stress or anguish than the fear that she might make a mistake in public. She seldom did. Compliments on her polite gracefulness followed her into the grave.
This decorum subjugated and elevated Catherine, for while it kept her firmly kowtowing at the feet of her guardian, it also affirmed her superior position to those around her. Since the Victorian era, when the cult of domesticity was at its height, many writers have bewailed Catherine’s childhood as one of gilded neglect in which the poor young girl was cast adrift by a ‘proud and heartless relative’ to live amongst a group of servants who delighted in corrupting her.29 However, on looking closely at all the available evidence that has survived from Catherine’s life at Chesworth House, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that throughout her time there she was treated differently to the other young people. In almost every instance, it was Catherine who remained in control of her roommates, Catherine who confidently issued orders and had access to all the chambers and keys of the mansion. If she or her brother Henry entered a room, the servants were supposed to back away discreetly. This did not mean that they flung themselves against the wall, more that they gave them space, and they were expected to continue paying them attention for as long as they were speaking.30 Catherine was initially one of only two people under the roof who was the grandchild of a duke, and the deference she was shown throughout her childhood, even by those she counted as close friends, nurtured her confidence and habit of command.
When the household ate, Catherine and her brother were on display, both before the rest of the household and under the watchful eye of the dowager or, if she had gone to court, her steward. At meals, often taken in the Great Hall, if the dowager was present and showed Catherine a sign of affection, such as allowing her to take a drink from the same cup, Catherine knew to reach out with both hands as she took it, then to pass it back to the servant who had brought it over to her. Even if there were no guests and the duchess chose to dine more privately, her establishment sat in order of precedence. Before Catherine and her family arrived in the hall, the tables were wiped down, then three layers of fresh linen were spread, with care taken to ensure each hung evenly. Eight loaves of the best bread to come out of the bakery that day were put at the top table, while servants with napkins slung from their necks to their arms covered the dowager’s cutlery with a cloth until she was ready to use it. If a servant was in doubt about the way to fold the linen or wrap the bread before consumption, there were etiquette manuals for that, as well. Basins with hot and cold water for washing one’s hands were brought out and last-minute checks conducted to make sure the salt was ‘fine, white, fair, and dry’ as required.31 The dowager’s carvers would sharpen their knives before the meal, politely holding them with no more than two fingers and a thumb when it came time to carve the meat. It was a time that regarded carving as an art, with textbooks produced specifically to discuss the correct way to slice and serve.32
One place where etiquette did relax was the maidens’ chamber, the room where Catherine slept, in essence a form of dormitory, such as might be found in a traditional boarding school. Certainly, the maidens’ chamber engendered similar feelings of camaraderie and corresponding lack of privacy. Bedrooms were a rare luxury in Tudor households; sharing beds was common and sleeping in group accommodation even more so. (The dowager’s dependants were lucky to have beds; many lesser households handed out straw mattresses and glorified sleeping bags.) In the maidens’ chamber, Catherine bunked down with other young women in her grandmother’s care and service. She befriended the forceful and brash Joan Acworth, who had a string of beaux and the confidence of a girl who expected life to treat her well; there was also Alice Wilkes, who seems to have enjoyed agreeing with the prejudices of whoever she was gossiping with at the time, as well as girls related to the dowager’s natal family, such as young Katherine Tilney. With these comrades, Catherine wiled away an unremarkable early adolescence. Some of her friends, like Joan, were a few years older, others were the same age or a little younger.33
For almost half a century, our views on medieval and early modern childhood have been influenced by the work of the late French historian Philippe Ariès, whose book Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life argued that childhood was a relatively modern concept, alien to the Middle Ages or the sixteenth century with their detached style of parenting that sought to accelerate an infant’s path to adulthood.34 This theory has been comprehensively debunked in recent years, and ample evidence survives, both in the relevant documents and from excavated toys belonging to medieval children, to prove that they were recognised as a separate category. Games and dolls existed for children; there were debates on the different stages of infancy; the Virgin Mary and Saint Nicholas were popular heavenly protectors of the young. By the standards of many people at the time, Catherine enjoyed a youth that could be described in positive terms – if not as idyllic, then certainly as privileged, affectionate, and happy. She was sincerely liked by many of the people at Chesworth, who appreciated the loyalty she showed towards her family’s servants, the effort she exerted to help them, her high spirits, her generosity, and her sense of mischief and fun. Life could of course be cut short in infancy, and youth could be butchered by an arranged marriage, but in Catherine’s case there is no reason to believe that she endured an unhappy or neglected childhood or adolescence.
Festivals, usually religious ones, shaped the calendar. The feast of St George, England’s national saint, and May Day, the start of summer, brought a flurry of celebrations. The twelve days of Christmas, from Christmas Day to the Feast of the Epiphany, were an especially busy time. The Christmas log, usually ash emitting a festive green flame, burned in the great fireplace,35 and carols, their melodies faintly reminiscent of a dance,
