Description:Despite Katherine’s romantic and submissive tone in many of her letters, one letter amongst the collection indicates that she was a very forthright woman. The letter suggests that Sir Richard had written to Katherine asking to know how much she was worth financially. Considering his references to her fortune in other letters, it is evident that a woman’s financial situation was amongst the most important considerations for a man choosing a marriage partner.
However, his letter appears to have offended Katherine, and undermined her romantic notions of their relationship. She writes ‘you say I have given you full satisfaction and yet the whole efect of your letter following showse the quight contrary’, before remarking ‘I now see what is the triew Lodeston which drawse most mense affections, which had I soner knowne of you, I should have eased a greate deale of trubble’. The confusion over Lady Katherine’s wealth appears to have caused disruption, forcing Sir Richard to intimate that Katherine or her friends misled him about her financial status. Katherine is evidently extremely offended by his assertions. She writes ‘indeede sir you have no maner of reason to accuse me nor anny frind of mine for making at the furst as you pretend A show of such great matter as you say now is falne to nothing, for I neaver spake A word (nor I hope no frind of mine)’.
In answer to his enquiry she tells him about her financial situation, indicating that the family had land worth £20,000 which was tied up in a lawsuit. Besides this land she states that she has other land worth £12,000 ‘and a thousand pound in preasent, besides all other chardges, I umbly thank my La: grandmother she sayde she wold give me as a token of hir love’. After stating this Katherine is extremely forthright, questioning Sir Richard’s own financial situation.
She writes ‘I know not how further to sattisfie you in that, but till it was fully finished I desired nothing from you, but now you have taught me to desire to know whot you intended to doe for me’. She goes on to comment ‘this is more I am suer then I sayde to you and not lese, this sir I confes is not equall with your worth but for your estate we know not what it is, and I think at the worst this is not to bee called nothing, for you shuld not have found me com to you like a beggar’.
Katherine’s letter is intriguing, particularly the confident way in which she reacts to Sir Richard’s inferences concerning her fortune, even questioning his own wealth. However, it is the criticism of Sir Richard’s which appears to have angered Katherine the most. She writes ‘thay shall do very well to insinuate themselves so much more in to your favour, as to chuse you a wife which is better, richer, younger and more worthy every way than my selfe’, before asserting ‘but thus much I will boldly say, thay nor no other, shall ever healpe you to any that wold have more fathfully affected you then I shud have dun, this is all sir I will trubble you with’.
The conclusion of Katherine’s letter is particularly amusing. Having been so forthright throughout, Katherine is still practical and is evidently aware of Sir Richard’s wealth and the advantages of marrying him. She writes‘my La: commanded me to wright that she doupted not, but if you had any mind to proseede further in this business,…she hops you will Assure part of your Land, although not all vppon yr children if you have any', suggesting ‘I may dye, and you mary agayne & have another breede & then the furst may have nothing indeed’.
The detail of this letter tells us a great deal about the dynamics of Katherine and Richard’s relationship and the practical concerns of marriage beneath the romantic façade. Katherine’s dominant and assertive tone encourages us to question the popular stereotypical notions of Early Modern relationships, particularly the submissive role of women in courtship at this time.