Agnes Tilney, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk is a truly fascinating but often overlooked figure, a woman who for a time was one of the most powerful women in England, but by her dotage was overseeing a household which has been described as something akin to a noble whorehouse, the place in which her step-granddaughter, Katheryn Howard, may very well have lost her virginity. So, who was Agnes what were her early days like, what role did she play at court and what became of her once her name was tarnished in the wake of Katheryn Howard’s execution?
