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Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit,

the podcasts in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs,

from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise,

relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft.

Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

Catherine Howard, like her cousin Anne Berlin before her, caught the eye and the heart of King Henry 8th. She rose at dizzying speed to become his fifth queen and one of the most talked-about

women in Tudor England. Yet in barely two years, her dazzling ascent ended in tragedy.

Accused of adultery and treason, Catherine Howard was executed before her 20th birthday.

I find that Catherine's story is often reduced to the lurid details of her downfall.

For centuries, she has been painted as either foolish and promiscuous

or as a powerless girl pushed around by others,

with very little attention paid to her own choices or inner life.

In a new two-part documentary for history hit,

I push back against those cliches.

Instead of seeing Catherine only as a reckless seductress or a tragic victim,

I wanted to uncover a fuller, more human figure behind the story,

...