Cats of the Tower of London: Sir Henry Wyatt and the Caterer Cat

In this our second post about cats and the Tower of London, we look at Sir Henry Wyatt and the “Caterer” cat.

Sir Henry Wyatt in later life (he was in his 20s when imprisoned)
Note the cat dragging a bird through the window

Born in 1460, Sir Henry Wyatt was a Yorkshireman and attended Eton with Henry Tudor. Unfortunately for Wyatt at the time of our story, it was not Henry Tudor on the throne but Richard III, and the later was distinctly twitchy about anyone who might support the Tudor line of accession.

Richard decided to limit any damage Wyatt might be tempted to do by imprisoning him in the Tower of London. Just to make sure he felt completely unwelcome, Wyatt was tortured, and kept in squalid conditions sleeping on straw on a stone floor and with his clothes in rags. Given very little food, he was also starving.

The Tower of London

“He [Wyatt] was imprisoned often, once in a cold and narrow Tower, where he had neither bed to oie on, nor clothes sufficient to warm him, nor meat for his mouth.”

But at this his most desperate hour an unlikely angel came to him. This angel had four-legs and a furry coat, and was actually a cat.

Earliest known surviving portrait of
Richard III

“A cat came into the dungeon with him, and, as it were, offered herself unto him. He was glad of her, laid her in his bosom to warm him, and by making much of her won her love. After that she would come at diverse time, and when she could get him one, bring him a pigeon.”

The pigeon was then duly cooked by a friendly jailor, providing much needed nourishment. Indeed, such was the cat’s provision for hm that she became nicknamed as “the caterer cat”.

In later years when Wyatt was free, and Henry Tudor on the throne, Wyatt was notorious for having a fondness for cats. Papers belonging to the Wyatt family, written in 1727, remark how:  “Sir Henry always made much of a cat, and was always to be found with a cat beside him.”