Henry Mannox

Henry Mannox (also spelled Mannock or Monoux) (by 1526 – 1564) of London, Haddenham, Cambridgeshire and Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire was an English Member of Parliament for Huntingtonshire.

Life

He was a Justice of the peace for Surrey in 1547, and a Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire in 1554–58/59.

Among his other offices, he was the escheator for Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1560–1, commisioner chantries for the same counties in 1548, surveyor, court augmentations, Huntingdonshire by 1552–4, and a member of the Exchequer from 1554 until his death.

The origins of Henry Mannox's family remain unknown. His eventual residence in Fenland hints at an East Anglian background, although he married a widow from London. If he were not the Henry Mannox who became a captain in Calais in 1544, he first appears in records in 1547 as a justice of the peace in Surrey, where he managed the manor of Vanne in Godalming through his wife's rights. By 1549, he had obtained property in Hemingford Grey, was assessed for the relief of that year there, but paid his dues in Billingsgate ward, London. His election to represent Huntingdonshire in the third Marian Parliament was likely due to his official role, although he had a good relationship with his fellow representative and neighbour, William Lawrence. Unlike Lawrence, Mannox left Parliament early without permission, leading to a charge against him in the King's Bench during Easter term 1555, with a writ issued to the sheriff, but no further action taken. This incident didn't harm his reputation, although he never returned to Parliament.

By 1559, Mannox had a second home in Haddenham in the Isle of Ely, possibly because his responsibilities extended to Cambridgeshire as well as Huntingdonshire, or due to family conflicts. When drafting his will on March 18, 1564, he disinherited his wife and son, citing her unnatural behavior and his son's inappropriate conduct. He left most of his estate to his daughter Margaret, to be received upon her marriage or reaching 20 years of age, with a contingency to his other daughter, Anne Chapman alias Mannock, the wife of John Chapman. He was succeeded as surveyor for Huntingdonshire on July 4, and his will was validated two months later by William Lawrence. Margaret Mannox or Mannock married Francis Cromwell alias Williams, and since Anne Chapman's small inheritance was unpaid before Lawrence's death, the court of arches ordered its payment by decree in 1575.

Marriage

Margaret Mundy was the daughter of a London Alderman, and had previously been married twice. Her second husband was Lord Edmund Howard, whom she married after her first husband died in 1532, therefore making her Katherine Howard's step-mother.

Lady Margaret Howard and her third husband, Henry Mannox, owned together 10 acres of land that eventually turned into the location of Russell House in Balham, Streatham.

Margaret Jennings, was a daughter of Markeaton Hall in Derbyshire. Before Katherine was sent to live with her step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, it is likely that she was raised in the household of her stepmother while her father carried out his duties in Calais. Previously, it has been suggested that after her mother's death, Katherine may have been sent to her maternal aunts; either with Margaret in Oxenhoath or Elizabeth Barham in Teston. However, lacking any evidence that she stayed with her aunts, it seems vastly more probable that she was brought up by her step-mothers, Dorothy and Margaret, as Edmund would likely have expected these women to assume the role of mothers to his young daughters. In the early modern period, following the death of a parent and the subsequent remarriage, children typically referred to their new step-parent as 'father' or 'mother' regardless of their personal feelings. For example, Henry VIII’s daughter, Elizabeth, referred to Katherine Parr as ‘your hithnis humble doughter’ in a letter from 1545.

Identity debate

It was Steinman who suggested that Margaret Mundy's third husband was the Henry Mannox who had been music master to Katherine Howard in her youth, and had been involved in sexual indiscretions with her which later contributed to her downfall. Since then this has been the subject of some debate.

Henry Mannox was the music teacher of Henry VIII's 5th wife, Katherine Howard, when she was young. They became romantically involved, but not going as far as having a sexual relationship. When she became Queen, unlike Joan Bulmer, Katherine Tylney, Francis Dereham and others from the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk's household, he did not receive an appointment in her household, nor seemed to seek one, but later became involved in the scandal of her downfall and gave evidence in the inquiry against her. His life was spared because of this and because there was no evidence that their relationship continued after her marriage.

Gareth Russell, in Young and Damned and Fair writes that his surname was spelled in a variety of ways: Mannox, Manox or Mannock. Alison Weir spells the name Manock or Manox.

Josephine Wilkinson, another biographer of Katherine Howard, writes in Katherine Howard: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII's Fifth Queen that:

Henry Mannock was a younger son of George Mannock of Gifford’s Hall, Stoke by Nayland in Suffolk, very close to the Duke of Norfolk’s estate at Tendring Hall. Far from being a menial brought into the duchess’s household to help out, Mannock was a Howard retainer. How he came to be engaged as Katherine’s music teacher is uncertain; that he was known to Norfolk was undoubtedly in his favour; that he was a cousin of Edward Waldegrave, who was already in the duchess’s employ, gave him further advantage. Mannock was well connected

When scandal struck in 1541, he was married. Katherine's uncle and Edmund's brother, Lord William Howard, called 'on him and his wife at their own door' shortly before Katherine's affair with Francis Dereham ended. Lord William would continue to threaten the couple until he departed for France in January 1541.

Henry Mannox or Mannock and a Mr. Barnes had been appointed Katherine Howard's music teachers in 1536, to teach her to play the virginals, and she began her music lessons with them that year. Henry Mannox and Katherine Howard were of an age, he was five years older than Katherine at the very most. It was in the execution of these duties that he fell in love with his pupil and would 'many times' fall into 'familiarity' with her; for, as he believed, 'she hath shown to be of like inclination towards him'. Katherine would employ a young maid called Dorothy Barwick to carry tokens to him on her behalf.

In Katherine Howards own words: 'First, at the flattering and fair persuasions of Mannock being but a young girl I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require.'

Their affair lasted until some lewd remarks of his reached back to Katherine through household gossip. 'All her life,' Gareth Russell writes, 'Katherine hated to be humiliated and reacted strongly when faced with disrespect or embarrassment.' A few days later the two could be seen walking around in the orchard at Norfolk House. Josephine Wilkinson writes, 'Katherine had a kindness of heart and a lack of malice that prevented her from remaining angry with anyone for very long'.

At some point Henry Mannox left the Duchess Dowager's service, for he later held a post in the household of Lord Bayment. 'Interestingly,' writes Conor Byrne, 'Manox may have later married Margaret Munday, widow of Katherine’s father Edmund. His wife, Katherine’s stepmother, had a negative or ‘unnatural’ opinion of him, perhaps because she blamed him'.

The scandal surrounding Katherine Howard broke in 1541, and one of the civil servants who were to be instrumental to her fate went to London to question Henry Mannox. The Henry Mannock who provided his testimony to Wriothesley and Cranmer was not the same man who had faced his fellow servants' ire over his the affair with Katherine. After departing from the Duchess's service, he got married and relocated to Streatham with his wife. Now more mature and experienced, Mannock no longer exhibited the bravado and arrogance that had been described.

His honesty impressed interrogators and later biographers alike when 'he confessed upon his damnation that he never knew Katherine carnally.' Interestingly, Henry Manox was neither convicted of misprision of treason nor for his sexual involvement with Katherine prior to her seduction by Dereham. Unlike Dereham, Manox avoided legal consequences and later relocated to Hemingford in Huntingdonshire, where he passed away in 1564, three decades after his ill-fated relationship with the former Queen of England.