I recently learned from the musical Six that when Katherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII, was 13, she had a sexual relationship with her very much adult music teacher. My first thought is that by 21st century standards, 13 year olds are children and this would be considered child molestation and a serious crime.

What about her contemporaries though? Would she have been considered unacceptably young, or would the issue just have been that they weren’t married? If 13 was considered too young (or for cases with prepubescent children,) were there consequences for adults who sexually abused them?