Joyce Culpeper

Jocasta "Joyce" Culpeper, of Oxon Hoath (c. 1480 – c. 1528) was the mother of Katherine Howard, the fifth wife and Queen consort of King Henry VIII.

Joyce Culpeper, born before 1480, was the daughter of Sir Richard Culpeper (d. 4 October 1484) and his second wife, Lady Isabel Worsley (born c. 1450 – 18 April 1527), the daughter of Otewell Worsley of Southwark, Surrey, by Rose Trevor.

Also called Jocasta.

Joyce Culpeper had a brother, Thomas Culpeper (not to be confused with the Thomas Culpeper allegedly involved with her daughter Katherine Howard) (1484 – 7 October 1492), and a younger sister, Margaret. Joyce and Margaret were co-heiresses 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-heiresses 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.

Before 1492 Joyce Culpeper married Ralph Leigh (d. 6 November 1509), esquire, the younger brother of her stepfather, Sir John Leigh (d. 17 August 1523). Ralph Leigh was Treasurer of the Inner Temple in 1505-6, at which time he shared a chamber with his elder brother, Sir John Leigh. At the time of her first marriage, Joyce was twelve years old. By Ralph Leigh, Joyce Culpeper had two sons and three daughters:

Ralph Leigh died 6 November 1509, and Joyce Culpeper married Lord Edmund Howard, and by him had three sons and three daughters:

Joyce Culpeper was living in 1527. She is thought to have died about 1528.