| Notes |
- There is some confusion as to Catherine's parentage.
Although in some older publications, such as Collins, she is stated to have been the daughter of Sir Richard de Moleyns by Eleanor Beaumont, she was more probably, in view of chronology and her memorial brass, the daughter of their son Sir William de Moleyns (who died 8 June 1425) by his wife Margery.
Sir William and Margery married before Michaelmas 1405, according to Cokayne (Complete Peerage, volume IX, page 41), citing the account of the steward of the household of William de Moleyns, son and heir of Sir Richard de Moleyns, Michaelmas 1401 to Michaelmas 1402 [sic], Exch., K.R., Accts., 512/7. It is unclear if "1405" is correct given the citation; the History of Parliament, citing Cokayne, gives the marriage as having occurred before Michaelmas 1401. To have been a daughter of Sir William and Margery, Catherine would need to have been born between about 1401 and 1425 (the year of Sir William's death). Since Catherine's husband, John Howard (later created Duke of Norfolk), was probably born about 1425, this chronology is plausible, since we might expect Catherine not to have been much older than her husband. From the heraldic brass, it is thought that Margery may have been a Whalesborough of Cornwall, although the History of Parliament simply infers, from her having had a reversionary interest in certain Cornish estates, that she may have been related to John Treverbyn.
Sir William's and Margery's son and heir, William, baptised 8 December 1405, married Anne Whalesborough on 1 May 1423 at Ewelme (Complete Peerage, volume 9, page 42). Presumably those who think that William's mother, Margery, may have been a Whalesborough are suggesting that William married a cousin of some degree. It seems possible, in view of chronology, that Catherine could have been the daughter of William and Anne if she were born not long after their marriage, in which case Catherine's mother would indeed have been a Whalesborough, but not Margery. She may then have been a sister of Eleanor, the wife of Sir Robert Hungerford who was summoned to Parliament as Lord Moleyns. Robert's being summoned as Lord Moleyns in January 1444/45 might suggest that his wife had no surviving siblings, although she is described as a co-heir of her father in Complete Peerage, and the rules of peerage inheritance were not consistent (as the lack of summons for earlier generations of the Moleyns family shows).
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