Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was
Queen of England
The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiw ...
as the
first wife of
King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their
annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously
Princess of Wales
Princess of Wales (Welsh language, Welsh: ''Tywysoges Cymru'') is a Courtesy titles in the United Kingdom, courtesy title used since the 14th century by the wife of the heir apparent to the English and later Monarchy of the United Kingdom, Briti ...
as the wife of Henry's elder brother,
Arthur, Prince of Wales.
The daughter of
Isabella I of Castile and
Ferdinand II of Aragon, Catherine was three years old when she was betrothed to Prince Arthur,
heir apparent
An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...
to the English throne. They married in 1501, but Arthur died five months later. Catherine spent years in limbo, and during this time, she held the position of ambassador of the
Aragonese crown to England in 1507, the first known female
ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...
in European history. She married Arthur's younger brother, the recently ascended Henry VIII, in 1509. For six months in 1513, she served as
regent
A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state ''pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy, ...
of England while Henry VIII was in France. During that time the English crushed and defeated a Scottish invasion at the
Battle of Flodden
The Battle of Flodden, Flodden Field, or occasionally Branxton, (Brainston Moor) was a battle fought on 9 September 1513 during the War of the League of Cambrai between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, resulting in an English ...
, an event in which Catherine played an important part with an emotional speech about English courage and patriotism.
By 1525, Henry VIII was infatuated with
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key f ...
and dissatisfied that his marriage to Catherine had produced no surviving sons, leaving their daughter
Mary as
heir presumptive at a time when there was no established precedent for a woman on the throne. He sought to have their marriage annulled, setting in motion a chain of events that led to England's schism with the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. When
Pope Clement VII refused to annul the marriage, Henry defied him by
assuming supremacy over religious matters. In 1533 their marriage was consequently declared invalid and Henry married Anne on the judgement of clergy in England, without reference to the pope. Catherine refused to accept Henry as supreme head of the Church in England and considered herself the king's rightful wife and queen, attracting much popular sympathy. Despite this, Henry acknowledged her only as dowager princess of Wales. After being banished from court by Henry, Catherine lived out the remainder of her life at
Kimbolton Castle, dying there in January 1536 of cancer. The English people held Catherine in high esteem, and her death set off tremendous mourning. Her daughter Mary would become the first undisputed English
queen regnant in 1553.
Catherine commissioned ''
The Education of a Christian Woman'' by
Juan Luis Vives, who dedicated the book, controversial at the time, to the Queen in 1523. Such was Catherine's impression on people that even her adversary
Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the kin ...
said of her, "If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of History." She successfully appealed for the lives of the rebels involved in the
Evil May Day, for the sake of their families, and also won widespread admiration by starting an extensive programme for the relief of the poor. Catherine was a patron of
Renaissance humanism, and a friend of the great scholars
Erasmus of Rotterdam and
Thomas More.
Early life
Catherine was born at the
Archbishop's Palace of Alcalá de Henares near Madrid, in the early hours of 16 December 1485. She was the youngest surviving child of King
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen
Isabella I of Castile. Catherine was quite short in stature with long red hair, wide blue eyes, a round face, and a fair complexion. She was descended, on her maternal side, from the
House of Lancaster, an English royal house; her great-grandmother
Catherine of Lancaster, after whom she was named, and her great-great-grandmother
Philippa of Lancaster were both daughters of
John of Gaunt and granddaughters of
Edward III of England. Consequently, she was third cousin of her father-in-law,
Henry VII of England, and fourth cousin of her mother-in-law
Elizabeth of York.
Catherine was educated by a tutor,
Alessandro Geraldini, who was a clerk in Holy Orders. She studied arithmetic, canon and civil law, classical literature, genealogy and heraldry, history, philosophy, religion, and theology. She had a strong religious upbringing and developed her Roman Catholic faith that would play a major role in later life. She learned to speak, read and write in Castilian Spanish and Latin, and spoke French and Greek.
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...
later said that Catherine "loved good literature which she had studied with success since childhood". She had been given lessons in domestic skills, such as cooking, embroidery, lace-making, needlepoint, sewing, spinning, and weaving and was also taught music, dancing, drawing, as well as being carefully educated in good manners and court etiquette.
At an early age, Catherine was considered a suitable wife for
Arthur, Prince of Wales,
heir apparent
An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...
to the English throne, due to the English ancestry she inherited from her mother. Theoretically, by means of her mother, Catherine had a stronger legitimate claim to the English throne than King Henry VII himself through the first two wives of
John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster:
Blanche of Lancaster and
Constance of Castile. In contrast, Henry VII was the descendant of Gaunt's third marriage to
Katherine Swynford, whose children were born out of wedlock and only legitimised after the death of Constance and the marriage of John to Katherine. The children of John and Katherine, while legitimised, were barred from inheriting the English throne, a stricture that was ignored in later generations. Because of Henry's descent through illegitimate children barred from succession to the English throne, the Tudor monarchy was not accepted by all European kingdoms. At the time, the
House of Trastámara was the most prestigious in Europe, due to the rule of the
Catholic Monarchs, so the alliance of Catherine and Arthur validated the House of Tudor in the eyes of European royalty and strengthened the Tudor claim to the English throne via Catherine of Aragon's ancestry. It would have given a male heir an indisputable claim to the throne. The two were
married by proxy on 19 May 1499 and corresponded in Latin until Arthur turned fifteen, when it was decided that they were old enough to begin their conjugal life.
Catherine was accompanied to England by the ambassadors
Diego Fernández de Córdoba y Mendoza, 3rd Count of Cabra,
Alonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, and
Antonio de Rojas Manrique, bishop of Mallorca.
She brought a group of her African attendants with her, including one identified as the trumpeter
John Blanke
John Blanke (also rendered Blancke or Blak) (fl. 1501–1511) was a musician of African descent in London in the early 16th century, who probably came to England as one of the African attendants of Catherine of Aragon in 1501. He is one of the e ...
. They are the first Africans recorded to have arrived in London at the time, and were considered luxury servants. They caused a great impression about the princess and the power of her family. Her Spanish retinue was supervised by her
duenna,
Elvira Manuel.
At first it was thought Catherine's ship would arrive at
Gravesend. A number of English gentlewomen were appointed to be ready to welcome her on arrival in October 1501. They were to escort Catherine in a flotilla of barges on the
Thames to the
Tower of London.
As wife and widow of Arthur
Then-15-year-old Catherine departed from
A Coruña
A Coruña (; es, La Coruña ; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. A Coruña is the most populated city in Galicia and the second most populated municipality in the autonomous community and ...
on 17 August 1501 and met Arthur on 4 November at
Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Little is known about their first impressions of each other, but Arthur did write to his parents-in-law that he would be "a true and loving husband" and told his parents that he was immensely happy to "behold the face of his lovely bride". The couple had corresponded in Latin, but found that they could not understand each other's spoken conversation, because they had learned different Latin pronunciations. Ten days later, on 14 November 1501, they were married at
Old St. Paul's Cathedral. A dowry of 200,000
ducats had been agreed, and half was paid shortly after the marriage.
Once married, Arthur was sent to
Ludlow Castle on the borders of Wales to preside over the
Council of Wales and the Marches
The Court of the Council in the Dominion and Principality of Wales, and the Marches of the same, commonly called the Council of Wales and the Marches () or the Council of the Marches, was a regional administrative body based in Ludlow Castle w ...
, as was his duty as Prince of Wales, and his bride accompanied him. A few months later, they both became ill, possibly with the
sweating sickness, which was sweeping the area. Arthur died on 2 April 1502; 16-year-old Catherine recovered to find herself a widow.
At this point, Henry VII faced the challenge of avoiding the obligation to return her 200,000-
ducat dowry, half of which he had not yet received, to her father, as required by her marriage contract should she return home. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth in February 1503, King Henry VII initially considered marrying Catherine himself, but the opposition of her father and potential questions over the legitimacy of the couple's issue ended the idea. To settle the matter, it was agreed that Catherine would marry Henry VII's second son, Henry, Duke of York, who was five years younger than she was. The death of Catherine's mother, however, meant that her "value" in the marriage market decreased. Castile was a much larger kingdom than Aragon, and it was inherited by Catherine's elder sister,
Joanna. Ostensibly, the marriage was delayed until Henry was old enough, but Ferdinand II procrastinated so much over payment of the remainder of Catherine's dowry that it became doubtful that the marriage would take place. She lived as a virtual prisoner at
Durham House in London. Some of the letters she wrote to her father complaining of her treatment have survived. In one of these letters she tells him that "I choose what I believe, and say nothing. For I am not as simple as I may seem." She had little money and struggled to cope, as she had to support her ladies-in-waiting as well as herself. In 1507 she served as the Spanish
ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...
to England, the first female ambassador in European history. While Henry VII and his counsellors expected her to be easily manipulated, Catherine went on to prove them wrong.
Marriage to Arthur's brother depended on the Pope granting a
dispensation because
canon law forbade a man to
marry his brother's widow (
Lev. 18:16). Catherine testified that her marriage to Arthur was never
consummated as, also according to canon law, a marriage was dissoluble unless consummated.
Queen of England
Wedding
Catherine's second wedding took place on 11 June 1509, seven years after Prince Arthur's death. She married
Henry VIII, who had only just acceded to the throne, in a private ceremony in the church of the Observant Friars outside
Greenwich Palace. She was 23 years of age.
Coronation
On Saturday 23 June 1509, the traditional eve-of-coronation procession to Westminster was greeted by a large and enthusiastic crowd. As was the custom, the couple spent the night before their
coronation at the
Tower of London. On Midsummer's Day, Sunday, 1509, Henry VIII and Catherine were
anointed and
crowned together by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a lavish ceremony at
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
. The coronation was followed by a banquet in
Westminster Hall
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...
. Many new
Knights of the Bath were created in honour of the coronation.
In that month that followed, many social occasions presented the new Queen to the English public. She made a fine impression and was well received by the people of
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
.
Influence
On 11 June 1513, Henry appointed Catherine Regent in England with the titles "Governor of the Realm and Captain General," while he went to France on a
military campaign.
When
Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville, was captured at
Thérouanne, Henry sent him to stay in Catherine's household. She wrote to Wolsey that she and her council would prefer the Duke to stay in the
Tower of London as the Scots were "so busy as they now be" and she added her prayers for "God to sende us as good lukke against the Scotts, as the King hath ther." The war with Scotland occupied her subjects, and she was "horrible busy with making standards, banners, and badges" at
Richmond Palace
Richmond Palace was a royal residence on the River Thames in England which stood in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Situated in what was then rural Surrey, it lay upstream and on the opposite bank from the Palace of Westminster, which ...
. The Scots invaded and on 3 September 1513, she ordered
Thomas Lovell to raise an army in the midland counties.
Catherine rode north in full armour to address the troops, despite being heavily pregnant at the time. Her fine speech was reported to the historian
Peter Martyr d'Anghiera in
Valladolid
Valladolid () is a municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. It has a population around 300,000 peo ...
within a fortnight. Although an Italian newsletter said she was north of London when news of the victory at
Battle of Flodden Field reached her, she was near
Buckingham. From
Woburn Abbey
Woburn Abbey (), occupying the east of the village of Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the family seat of the Duke of Bedford. Although it is still a family home to the current duke, it is open on specified days to visitors ...
she sent a letter to Henry along with a piece of the bloodied coat of King
James IV of Scotland, who died in the battle, for Henry to use as a banner at the siege of
Tournai
Tournai or Tournay ( ; ; nl, Doornik ; pcd, Tornai; wa, Tornè ; la, Tornacum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Tournai is part of Eu ...
.
Catherine's religious dedication increased as she became older, as did her interest in academics. She continued to broaden her knowledge and provide training for her daughter, Mary. Education among women became fashionable, partly because of Catherine's influence, and she donated large sums of money to several colleges. Henry, however, still considered a male heir essential. The
Tudor dynasty was new, and its legitimacy might still be tested.
A long civil war (1135–1154) had been fought the last time a woman (
Empress Matilda) had inherited the throne. The disasters of civil war were still fresh in living memory from the
Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought be ...
.
In 1520, Catherine's nephew, the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, paid a state visit to England, and she urged Henry to enter an alliance with Charles rather than with France. Immediately after his departure, she accompanied Henry to France on the celebrated visit to
Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to:
* Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407)
* Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450
* Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547
* Francis I, Duke of Saxe ...
, the
Field of the Cloth of Gold
The Field of the Cloth of Gold (french: Camp du Drap d'Or, ) was a summit meeting between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France from 7 to 24 June 1520. Held at Balinghem, between Ardres in France and Guînes in the Englis ...
. Within two years, war was declared against France and the Emperor was once again welcome in England, where plans were afoot to betroth him to Catherine's daughter Mary.
Pregnancies and children
The King's great matter
In 1525, Henry VIII became enamoured of
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key f ...
, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine; Anne was between ten and seventeen years younger than Henry, being born between 1501 and 1507. Henry began pursuing her; Catherine was no longer able to bear children by this time. Henry began to believe that his marriage was cursed and sought confirmation from the Bible, which he interpreted to say that if a man marries his brother's wife, the couple will be childless. Even if her marriage to Arthur had not been consummated (and Catherine would insist to her dying day that she had come to Henry's bed a virgin), Henry's interpretation of that biblical passage meant that their marriage had been wrong in the eyes of God. Whether the pope at the time of Henry and Catherine's marriage had the right to overrule Henry's claimed scriptural impediment would become a hot topic in Henry's campaign to wrest an annulment from the present Pope. It is possible that the idea of annulment had been suggested to Henry much earlier than this, and is highly probable that it was motivated by his desire for a son. Before Henry's father ascended the throne, England was beset by
civil warfare over rival claims to the English crown, and Henry may have wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession.
It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to secure an annulment. Catherine was defiant when it was suggested that she quietly retire to a nunnery, saying: "God never called me to a nunnery. I am the King's true and legitimate wife." He set his hopes upon an appeal to the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...
, acting independently of Cardinal
Thomas Wolsey
Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figu ...
, whom he told nothing of his plans.
William Knight William, Bill, or Billy Knight may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* William Frederick Knight (1933–2022), voice actor
* William Henry Knight (1823–1863), British painter
Politics
* William Knight (died 1622), Member of Parliament (MP) for ...
, the King's secretary, was sent to
Pope Clement VII to sue for an annulment, on the grounds that the dispensing
bull
A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species '' Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions,
incl ...
of
Pope Julius II was obtained by false pretenses.
As the pope was, at that time, the prisoner of Catherine's nephew
Emperor Charles V following the
Sack of Rome in May 1527, Knight had difficulty in obtaining access to him. In the end, Henry's envoy had to return without accomplishing much. Henry now had no choice but to put this great matter into the hands of Wolsey, who did all he could to secure a decision in Henry's favour.
Wolsey went so far as to convene an ecclesiastical court in England with a representative of the pope presiding, and Henry and Catherine herself in attendance. The pope had no intention of allowing a decision to be reached in England, and his legate was recalled. (How far the pope was influenced by Charles V is difficult to say, but it is clear Henry saw that the pope was unlikely to annul his marriage to the emperor's aunt.) The Pope forbade Henry to marry again before a decision was given in Rome. Wolsey had failed and was dismissed from public office in 1529. Wolsey then began a secret plot to have Anne Boleyn forced into exile and began communicating with the pope to that end. When this was discovered, Henry ordered Wolsey's arrest and, had he not been
terminally ill and died in 1530, he might have been executed for
treason.
A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her old rooms were given to Anne Boleyn. Catherine wrote in a letter to Charles V in 1531:
My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the King's wicked intention, the surprises which the King gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine.
When
Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died, the Boleyn family's chaplain,
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry ...
, was appointed to the vacant position.
When Henry decided to annul his marriage to Catherine,
John Fisher became her most trusted counsellor and one of her chief supporters. He appeared in the legates' court on her behalf, where he shocked people with the directness of his language, and by declaring that, like
John the Baptist
John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
, he was ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. Henry was so enraged by this that he wrote a long Latin address to the legates in answer to Fisher's speech. Fisher's copy of this still exists, with his manuscript annotations in the margin which show how little he feared Henry's anger. The removal of the cause to Rome ended Fisher's role in the matter, but Henry never forgave him. Other people who supported Catherine's case included
Thomas More; Henry's own sister
Mary Tudor, Queen of France;
María de Salinas; Holy Roman Emperor Charles V;
Pope Paul III; and Protestant Reformers
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Luther ...
and
William Tyndale.
Banishment and death
Upon returning to
Dover
Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
from a meeting with King
Francis I of France in
Calais
Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. The p ...
, Henry married Anne Boleyn in a secret ceremony. Some sources speculate that Anne was already pregnant at the time (and Henry did not want to risk a son being born illegitimate) but others testify that Anne (who had seen her sister
Mary Boleyn taken up as the king's mistress and summarily cast aside) refused to sleep with Henry until they were married. Henry defended the lawfulness of their union by pointing out that Catherine had previously been married. If she and Arthur had consummated their marriage, Henry by canon law had the right to remarry. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer, sitting in judgement at a special court convened at
Dunstable Priory
The Priory Church of St Peter with its monastery (Dunstable Priory) was founded in 1132 by Henry I for Augustinian Canons in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England. St Peter's today is only the nave of what remains of an originally much larger Augu ...
to rule on the validity of Henry's marriage to Catherine, declared the marriage unlawful, even though Catherine had testified that she and Arthur had never had physical relations. Five days later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer ruled that Henry and Anne's marriage was valid.
Until the end of her life, Catherine would refer to herself as Henry's only lawful wedded wife and England's only rightful queen, and her servants continued to address her as such. Henry refused her the right to any title but "
Dowager Princess of Wales" in recognition of her position as his brother's widow.
Catherine went to live at
The More Castle,
Hertfordshire, late in 1531. After that, she was successively moved to the
Royal Palace of Hatfield, Hertfordshire (May to September, 1532),
Elsyng Palace
Elsyng Palace (variously also Elsynge, Elsing, Elsings) was a Tudor palace on the site of what are now the grounds of Forty Hall in Enfield, north London. Its exact location was lost for many years until excavations were carried out in the 1960 ...
, Enfield (September 1532 to February 1533),
Ampthill Castle,
Bedfordshire (February to July, 1533) and
Buckden Towers
Buckden Towers, formerly known as Buckden Palace, is a medieval fortified house and bishop's palace in Buckden, Cambridgeshire, England.
History
The 15th-century buildings are the remains of the palace of the bishop of Lincoln. Although it is ...
,
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...
(July 1533 to May 1534). She was then finally transferred to
Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire where she confined herself to one room, which she left only to attend Mass, dressed only in the
hair shirt of the Order of St. Francis, and fasted continuously. While she was permitted to receive occasional visitors, she was forbidden to see her daughter Mary. They were also forbidden to communicate in writing, but sympathisers discreetly conveyed letters between the two. Henry offered both mother and daughter better quarters and permission to see each other if they would acknowledge Anne Boleyn as the new queen; both refused.
In late December 1535, sensing her death was near, Catherine made her
will, and wrote to her nephew, the Emperor Charles V, asking him to protect her daughter. It has been claimed that she then penned one final letter to Henry:
The authenticity of the letter itself has been questioned, but not Catherine's attitude in its wording, which has been reported with variations in different sources.
Catherine died at
Kimbolton Castle on 1536. The following day, news of her death reached the king. At the time there were rumours that she was poisoned, possibly by
Gregory di Casale
Gregory di Casale ( fl. 1530s) was a diplomat representing Henry VIII of England to the Papacy in the 1530s.
There was an unsubstantiated rumour that he was responsible for poisoning Katherine of Aragon;''Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry V ...
. According to the chronicler
Edward Hall, Anne Boleyn wore yellow for the mourning, which has been interpreted in various ways;
Polydore Vergil interpreted this to mean that Anne did not mourn. Chapuys reported that it was King Henry who decked himself in yellow, celebrating the news and making a great show of his and Anne's daughter, Elizabeth, to his courtiers. This was seen as distasteful and vulgar by many. Another theory is that the dressing in yellow was out of respect for Catherine as yellow was said to be the Spanish colour of mourning. Certainly, later in the day it is reported that Henry and Anne both individually and privately wept for her death. On the day of Catherine's funeral, Anne Boleyn
miscarried a male child. Rumours then circulated that Catherine had been poisoned by Anne or Henry, or both. The rumours were born after the apparent discovery during her embalming that there was a black growth on her heart that might have been caused by poisoning. Modern medical experts are in agreement that her heart's discolouration was due not to poisoning, but to
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...
, something which was not understood at the time.
Catherine was buried in
Peterborough Cathedral with the ceremony due to her position as a Dowager
Princess of Wales
Princess of Wales (Welsh language, Welsh: ''Tywysoges Cymru'') is a Courtesy titles in the United Kingdom, courtesy title used since the 14th century by the wife of the heir apparent to the English and later Monarchy of the United Kingdom, Briti ...
, and not a queen. Henry did not attend the funeral and forbade Mary to attend.
Faith
Catherine was a member of the
Third Order of Saint Francis and she was punctilious in her religious obligations in the Order, integrating without demur her necessary duties as queen with her personal piety. After the annulment, she was quoted "I would rather be a poor beggar's wife and be sure of heaven, than queen of all the world and stand in doubt thereof by reason of my own consent."
The outward celebration of saints and holy
relics formed no major part of her personal devotions,
[ which she rather expressed in the Mass, prayer, confession and ]penance
Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of repentance for sins committed, as well as an alternate name for the Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. It also plays a pa ...
. Privately, however, she was aware of what she identified as the shortcomings of the papacy and church officialdom. Her doubts about church improprieties certainly did not extend so far as to support the allegations of corruption made public by Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Luther ...
in Wittenberg in 1517, which were soon to have such far-reaching consequences in initiating the Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
.
In 1523 Alfonso de Villa Sancta, a learned friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the o ...
of the Observant (reform) branch of the Friars Minor and friend of the king's old advisor Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...
, dedicated to the queen his book ''De Liberio Arbitrio adversus Melanchthonem''. The book denounced Philip Melanchthon
Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran Protestant Reformers, reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellect ...
, a supporter of Luther. Acting as her confessor, he was able to nominate her for the title of " Defender of the Faith" for denying Luther's arguments.
Appearance
In her youth, Catherine was described as "the most beautiful creature in the world" and that there was "nothing lacking in her that the most beautiful girl should have". Thomas More and Lord Herbert would reflect later in her lifetime that in regard to her appearance "there were few women who could compete with the Queen atherinein her prime."
Legacy, memory and historiography
The controversial book '' The Education of a Christian Woman'' by Juan Luis Vives, which claimed women have the right to an education, was dedicated to and commissioned by her. Such was Catherine's impression on people, that even her enemy, Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the kin ...
, said of her "If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of History." She successfully appealed for the lives of the rebels involved in the Evil May Day for the sake of their families. Furthermore, Catherine won widespread admiration by starting an extensive programme for the relief of the poor. She was also a patron of Renaissance humanism, and a friend of the great scholars Erasmus of Rotterdam and Saint Thomas More. Some saw her as a martyr.
In the reign of her daughter Mary I of England, her marriage to Henry VIII was declared "good and valid". Her daughter Queen Mary also had several portraits commissioned of Catherine, and it would not by any means be the last time she was painted. After her death, numerous portraits were painted of her, particularly of her speech at the Legatine Trial, a moment accurately rendered in Shakespeare's play about Henry VIII.
Her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral can be seen and there is hardly ever a time when it is not decorated with flowers or pomegranates, her heraldic symbol. It bears the title ''Katharine Queen of England''.
In the 20th century, George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Q ...
's wife, Mary of Teck, had her grave upgraded and there are now banners there denoting Catherine as a Queen of England. Every year at Peterborough Cathedral there is a service in her memory. There are processions, prayers and various events in the Cathedral including processions to Catherine's grave in which candles, pomegranates, flowers and other offerings are placed on her grave. On the service commemorating the 470th anniversary of her death, the Spanish Ambassador to the United Kingdom attended. During the 2010 service a rendition of Catherine of Aragon's speech before the Legatine court was read by Jane Lapotaire. There is a statue of her in her birthplace of Alcalá de Henares, as a young woman holding a book and a rose.
Catherine has remained a popular biographical subject to the present day. The American historian Garrett Mattingly was the author of a popular biography ''Katherine of Aragon'' in 1942. In 1966, Catherine and her many supporters at court were the subjects of ''Catherine of Aragon and her Friends'', a biography by John E. Paul. In 1967, Mary M. Luke wrote the first book of her Tudor trilogy, ''Catherine the Queen'' which portrayed her and the tumultuous era of English history through which she lived.
In recent years, the historian Alison Weir covered her life extensively in her biography '' The Six Wives of Henry VIII'', first published in 1991. Antonia Fraser did the same in her own 1992 biography of the same title; as did the British historian David Starkey in his 2003 book ''Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII''. Giles Tremlett's biography, ''Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII'', came out in 2010, and Julia Fox's dual biography, ''Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile'', came out in 2011.
Places and statues
* In Alcalá de Henares, the place of Catherine's birth, a statue of Catherine as a young woman holding a rose and a book can be seen in the Archbishop's Palace.
* Peterborough is twinned
Twinning (making a twin of) may refer to:
* In biology and agriculture, producing two offspring (i.e., twins) at a time, or having a tendency to do so;
* Twin towns and sister cities, towns and cities involved in town twinning
* Twinning inst ...
with the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares, located in the wider Community of Madrid. Children from schools in the two places have learned about each other as part of the twinning venture, and artists have even come over from Alcalá de Henares to paint Catherine's tombstone.
* Many places in Ampthill are named after Catherine. Also in Ampthill there is a cross in Ampthill Great Park named "Queen Catherine's Cross" in her honour. It is on the site of the castle where she was sent during her divorce from the King.
* Kimbolton School's science and mathematics block is called the QKB, or Queen Katherine Building.
Spelling of her name
Her baptismal name was "Catalina", but "Katherine" was soon the accepted form in England after her marriage to Arthur. Catherine herself signed her name "Katherine", "Katherina", "Katharine" and sometimes "Katharina". In a letter to her, Arthur, her husband, addressed her as "Princess Katerine". Her daughter Queen Mary I called her "Quene Kateryn", in her will. Rarely were names, particularly first names, written in an exact manner during the sixteenth century and it is evident from Catherine's own letters that she endorsed different variations.
Loveknots built into his various palaces by her husband, Henry VIII, display the initials "H & K", as do other items belonging to Henry and Catherine, including gold goblets, a gold salt cellar, basins of gold, and candlesticks. Her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral is marked "Katharine Queen of England".
Ancestry
See also
* Cultural depictions of Catherine of Aragon
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* List of English royal consorts
Notes
References
Citations
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Further reading
* John E. Paul (1966) ''Catherine of Aragon and Her Friends.'' Fordham University Press
* Mattingly, Garrett (2005 942 ''Catherine of Aragon.'' Ams Pr Inc.
* J.O. Hand & M. Wolff, (1986) ''Early Netherlandish Painting'', National Gallery of Art, Washington (catalogue)
* Tremlett, Giles. (2010). ''Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII.'' Faber & Faber.
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* Williams, Patrick. (2012). ''Catherine of Aragon.'' Amberley.
* Gardner, Laurien. (2008). ''The Spanish Bride: A Novel of Catherine of Aragon (Tudor Women Series).''Berkley Trade.
* Prince, Alison. (2010). ''Catherine of Aragon (My Royal Story).'' Scholastic; 1 edition.
* Luke, Mary M. (1967). ''Catherine, The Queen, a biography of Catherine of Aragon, first wife to Henry VIII.'' Coward-McCann, Inc.
* Lofts, Norah. (2008). ''The King's Pleasure: A Novel of Katharine of Aragon.'' Touchstone.
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* , ''Miscellaneous State Papers'', vol. 1 (1778) pp. 1–20, instructions for her wedding to Arthur.
* Lindsey, Karen. (1995). ''Divorced Beheaded Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII''.
* Coates, Tim. (2001). ''Letters of Henry VIII 1526–29''. Tim Coates Books.
* Ashley, Mike. (2002). ''British Kings & Queens''.
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* Bernard, G.W. (2007). ''The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church''.
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External links
*
Catherine of Aragon
from the online ''Encyclopædia Britannica
The ( Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various ...
''.
Catherine of Aragon's divorce papers and other Tudor treasures online to mark the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession
tudorhistory.org
– An overview of her life, accompanied by a portrait gallery
– An in-depth look at her life and times
A geo-biography
of the Six Wives of Henry the VIII on Google Earth
letter from her to Pope Clement VII
Katharine of Aragon.com
– An Official Website For Her Cause
Project Continua: Biography of Catherine of Aragon
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