Joyce Culpeper

Jocasta "Joyce" Culpeper, of Oxon Hoath ( – ) was the mother of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife and Queen consort of King Henry VIII. Family Joyce Culpeper, born about 1480, was the daughter of Sir Richard Culpeper (d. 4 October 1484) and his second wife, Isabel Worsley (born – 18 April 1527), the daughter of Otewell Worsley of Southwark, Surrey, by Rose Trevor. Joyce Culpeper had a brother, Thomas Culpeper (not to be confused with the Thomas Culpeper allegedly involved with her daughter Catherine Howard) (1484 – 7 October 1492), and a younger sister, Margaret. Joyce and Margaret were co-heirs to their brother, Thomas Culpeper, in 1492. It has been erroneously stated that Joyce Culpeper had another sister, Elizabeth, who married Joyce's eldest son, Sir John Leigh (1520–1564). However, only Joyce and Margaret are named as co-heirs to their brother, Thomas, in the inquisition post mortem taken after his death, and it seems clear that Margaret was Joyce Culpeper's only sister by her mother's marriage to Sir Richard Culpeper. Margaret married firstly, Richard Welbeck, esquire, by whom she had a son, John Welbeck. After Richard Welbeck's death, Margaret Culpeper married William Cotton, esquire. After the death of Sir Richard Culpeper, Joyce's mother, Isabel, married Sir John Leigh (d. 17 August 1523) of Stockwell (in Lambeth) and Levehurst, Surrey, the elder son of Ralph Leigh, esquire, and Elizabeth Langley, the daughter of Henry Langley, by whom she is said to have had a son, John Leigh, and a daughter, Joyce Leigh.