Did you know that Catherine Howard, the fifth of Henry VIII's Six Wives, was beheaded on 13 February 1542, at the Tower of London?
Catherine (who may never have lived to see her twentieth birthday) married Henry when she was in her mid-to-late teens and he was just past 49. When the news broke that not only was Catherine not a virgin on their wedding night, she may well have taken up again with one of her old boyfriends after saying the vows, Henry had her confined, eventually, to the Tower of London. In a curious and rather bizarre twist to the story, shortly before her execution, Catherine asked for - and received - an executioner's block in her cell, so that she could practice laying her head gracefully upon it and not make a spectacle of herself.
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