Joyce Culpeper

Jocasta ‘Joyce’ Culpeper, of Oxon Hoath, was born around 1480 and is known primarily as the mother of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Sir Richard Culpeper and Isabel Worsley, and had a brother, Thomas Culpeper, and a sister, Margaret Culpeper. Joyce married twice, first to Ralph Leigh, esquire, with whom she had five children, and after his death, to Lord Edmund Howard, fathering another six children, including Catherine Howard. Joyce Culpeper lived until about 1528.