Catherine of Aragon (Alcalá de Henares,
16 December 1485 –
7 January 1536),
Castilian Infanta Catalina de Aragón y Castilla, also known popularly after her time as
Catherine of Aragon, was the
first wife and
Queen Consort of
Henry VIII of England.
Henry tried to have their twenty-four year marriage
annulled in part because all their male heirs died in childhood, with only one of their six children,
Princess Mary (later Queen Mary I) surviving as
heiress presumptive, at a time when there was no established precedent for a woman on the throne. The Pope refused to allow the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine, which set off a chain reaction that led to Henry's break with the
Roman Catholic Church and his subsequent marriage to
Anne Boleyn in the hope of fathering a male heir to continue the
Tudor dynasty.
Early life
Catherine was born at Laredo Palace in
Alcalá de Henares (30 km from
Madrid) in 1485, Catherine was the youngest surviving child of
Ferdinand II of Aragon and
Isabella I of Castile. She descended from
Catherine of Lancaster, through her mother, her namesake and source of her auburn hair. Catherine of Lancaster was a daughter of
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and granddaughter of
King Edward III of England.
When her bridegroom,
Prince Arthur, turned fifteen, Catherine,
George de Athequa, and the rest of her retinue set off for England. Catherine finally reached land in the autumn, and on
November 4,
1501, the couple met at last at
Dogsmersfield Palace in
Hampshire. Little is known about their first impressions of each other, but Arthur did write to his father- and mother-in-law that he'd be 'a true and loving husband' and he later told his parents that he was immensely happy to behold the face of his lovely bride. Ten days later, on
14 November 1501, they were married at
St. Paul's Cathedral.
Princess of Wales
As
Prince of Wales, Arthur was sent to
Ludlow Castle on the borders of
Wales, to preside over the
Council of Wales, and Catherine accompanied him. A few months later, they both became ill, possibly with the
sweating sickness which was sweeping the area. Catherine herself nearly died; she recovered to find herself a
widow.
There is much controversy over whether Catherine's marriage was consummated with Arthur Tudor. For more on this matter see,
Arthur, Prince of Wales "The Question of Consummation".
Catherine of Aragon was said to have made the road 'Aragon Road' in the village of Great Leighs, Chelmsford, and was said to have lived in the Windsor house on that road.
Queen consort of England
The marriage didn't take place until after Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1509, the marriage on
June 11, followed by the coronation on
June 24,
1509. Both as Princess of Wales and as Queen consort, Catherine was extremely popular with the people. She governed the nation as
Regent while Henry invaded France in
1513.
Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon after his father's death(despite squabbles with her father over the payment of her dowry), although not faithful, for 18 years, until he became seriously worried about getting a male heir to his throne as she approached
menopause. Her first child, a daughter, was
stillborn in 1510.
Prince Henry, Duke of Cornwall was born in 1511, but died after 52 days. Catherine then had another stillbirth to a girl, followed by another short-lived son. On
February 18,
1516 at the
Palace of Placentia in
Greenwich, London, she gave birth to a daughter named Mary (later Queen
Mary I of England, nicknamed
Bloody Mary). Her final pregnancy ended with a stillborn girl in November 1518. A male
heir was essential to Henry. The
Tudor dynasty was new, and its legitimacy might still be tested. The last time a female had inherited the English throne,
Henry I of England's daughter
Empress Matilda had had to fight
a long civil war against those barons who denied a woman could reign in England. The disasters of civil war were still fresh in living memory from the
Wars of the Roses (
1455 –
1485).
In 1520, Catherine's nephew
Charles V paid a state visit to England, and the Queen urged the policy of gaining his alliance rather than that of
France. Immediately after his departure,
May 31,
1520, she accompanied the king to France on the celebrated visit to
Francis I, remembered (from the splendors of the occasion) as the
Field of the Cloth of Gold. Within two years, however, war was declared against France and the Emperor once again made welcome in England, where plans were afoot to betroth him to Henry and Catherine's daughter Princess Mary.
At this point Catherine wasn't in physical condition to undergo further
pregnancies. Because of the lack of heirs, Henry began to believe that his marriage was cursed and sought confirmation from two verses of the biblical Book of
Leviticus, which said that, if a man marries his brother's wife, the couple will be childless. He chose to believe that Catherine had lied when she said her marriage to Arthur hadn't been consummated, therefore making their marriage wrong in the eyes of God. He therefore asked
Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage in
1527.
The Pope stalled on the issue for seven years without making a final judgment, partially because allowing an annulment would be admitting that the Church had been in error for allowing a special dispensation for marriage in the first place, and partially because he was a virtual prisoner of Catherine's nephew Charles V, who had conquered
Rome. Henry separated from Catherine in July 1531; in January 1533, he married one of Catherine's former
ladies-in-waiting,
Anne Boleyn, sister of his former mistress
Lady Mary Boleyn. Henry finally had
Thomas Cranmer, whom Henry had appointed as
Archbishop of Canterbury in expectation of Cranmer's support, annul the marriage on
May 23, 1533. Five days later Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be valid. To forestall an appeal to
Rome, which Catherine would have almost certainly won, Henry had Parliament pass the
Act of Supremacy, repudiating Papal jurisdiction in England, making the king the head of the English church, and beginning the
English Reformation.
"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's enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine."Catharine of Aragon to Charles V, November 1531
Later years
Till the end of her life Catherine of Aragon would refer to herself as Henry's only lawfully wedded wife and England's only rightful queen consort; her faithful servants continued to address her by that title. In 1535 she was transferred to the decaying
Kimbolton Castle in the wilds of Huntington. Confining herself to one room, leaving it only to attend mass, Catherine prepared to meet her end. While she was permitted to receive occasional visitors she was forbidden to ever see her daughter Mary. She was also forbidden to communicate with her, but discreet sympathizers ferried secret letters between mother and daughter. Henry offered them both better quarters and the company of one another if only they'd acknowledge Anne Boleyn as his new queen. Neither did.
In late December 1535, sensing death was near, Catherine made out her will, wrote to her nephew the Emperor
Charles V asking him to protect her daughter, and penned one final letter to Henry, "my most dear lord and husband":
My most dear lord, king and husband,
The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you've cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles. For my part, I pardon you everything, and I wish to devoutly pray God that He will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I've heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which isn't much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.
Katharine the Queen.
Catherine died at
Kimbolton Castle, on
January 7,
1536 and was buried in
Peterborough Cathedral with the ceremony due to a
Princess Dowager of Wales, not a queen. Catherine's embalmer confessed to her doctor that Catherine's heart had been black through and through, which led many of her supporters to spread the rumour that Anne Boleyn had poisoned her. Henry didn't attend the funeral, nor did he allow Princess Mary to do so. Catherine was the only one of Henry's wives who lived to see her 50th birthday.
Visitors to Peterborough Cathedral can still visit Catherine's tomb, which is frequently decorated with flowers and bears the title 'Katharine the Queen.' Peterborough is twinned with the Castilian city of Alcalá de Henares, her birthplace.
Lineage
Catherine was the youngest child of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Her older siblings were
Isabella, Princess of Asturias Queen of Portugal. ;
John, Prince of Asturias;
Joan I of Spain; and
Maria of Castile and Aragon,
Queen of Portugal. She was an aunt, among others, of
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor,
John III of Portugal and their wives,
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and
Henry I of Portugal.
Catherine was a granddaughter of both
John II of Castile and
John II of Aragon. She was descended from the English royal house through her great-grandmother
Katherine of Lancaster and her great-great-grandmother
Philippa of Lancaster, both daughters of
John of Gaunt. She was thus a third cousin of her father-in-law and mother-in-law,
Henry VII and his wife
Elizabeth of York.
Historiography
Catherine has long had her admirers for the bravery and courage she displayed in contesting her divorce and fighting for her daughter's rights. She became a symbolic representation of the wronged woman.
However, she's also had her detractors. In 1860, the German historian
G. A. Bergenroth said he believed that the universal praise of Catherine of Aragon needed "to be less." David Starkey is another modern historian who criticized Catherine in his book
Six Wives but he insisted he'd meant no disrespect, and argued that her tactics in political intrigue were a tribute to Catherine's intelligence.
At the same time, Catherine's life and struggles have been portrayed in an impartial or more positive light by many historians. The American historian
Garrett Mattingly was the author of a popular biography
Catherine of Aragon in 1942. In 1967, Mary M. Luke wrote the first book of her Tudor trilogy,
Catherine the Queen which portrayed Catherine and the controversial era of English history she lived through from an impartial viewpoint. In recent years, the historian
Alison Weir took a more sympathetic line with Catherine in her biography
The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
Antonia Fraser also covered Catherine extensively in her own 1992 biography of the same title.
Modern historians are of the general opinion that neither Catherine nor Anne Boleyn were at fault for the roles they played during that turbulent time in English history. Both simply reacted to the circumstances in which they found themselves. The American feminist
Karen Lindsey believes that the true culprit for Catherine's misery in her final years was her husband, Henry.
Spelling of her name
While the most common spelling of her name is "Catherine of Aragon", it can be argued the correct spelling is
Katherine - the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that her name should be spelt this way in a professional publication. In most official documents, her name is spelled with a K
and Catherine herself signed her name "Katharine" and "Katherina". Loveknots built into his various palaces by her husband, Henry VIII, display the initials "H & K". Her tomb in
Peterborough Cathedral is marked "Katharine the Queen". The Spanish spelling is "Catalina".
Legacy in fiction, film and television
It wasn't until 1969, in Hal B. Wallis's acclaimed movie Anne of the Thousand Days that Catherine appeared again. This time she was played by the Greek actress Irene Papas.
In a 90-minute television drama produced by the BBC, British actress Annette Crosbie played the most historically-accurate version of Catherine in a piece simply entitled Catherine of Aragon as part one in the channel's series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. The drama began on the night Catherine arrived in England and followed through until her early marriage to Henry VIII. It re-commenced almost a decade later, with Henry's manoeuvres to get an annulment in order to marry Anne Boleyn. The play, which co-starred the Australian actor Keith Michell as Henry VIII, Dame Dorothy Tutin as Anne Boleyn and Patrick Troughton as the Duke of Norfolk, then chronicled Catherine's life until her death in January 1536.
In 1979 Claire Bloom played Catherine in another adaptation of Shakespeare's play.
In the 1973 film Henry VIII and his Six Wives, Frances Cuka played Catherine and Keith Michell reprised his role as Henry VIII. A scene was incorporated between Frances Cuka and Charlotte Rampling (playing Anne Boleyn) to show their quiet, glacial enmity.
It wasn't until 2001 that Catherine again appeared on the screen. This time it was in Dr. David Starkey's documentary series on Henry's queens. She was portrayed by Annabelle Dowler, with Julia Marsen as Anne Boleyn.
In 2003 Catherine appeared twice on British television. In January, Spanish actress Yolanda Vasquez made a brief appearance as the character in The Other Boleyn Girl, opposite Jared Harris as Henry VIII and Natascha McElhone as Mary Boleyn. In October, the ITV 2-part television drama, Henry VIII starred Ray Winstone in the title role and Assumpta Serna as Queen Catherine. Part 1 chronicled the king's life from the birth of his bastard son, Henry Fitzroy until the execution of Anne Boleyn (played by Helena Bonham Carter) in 1536. David Suchet co-starred as Cardinal Wolsey.
Maria Doyle Kennedy portrays the role in the 2007 Showtime television series The Tudors opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry and Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn.
The 2007 film adaptation of the novel The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory stars Ana Torrent as Catherine, with Eric Bana as Henry, Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn and Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn.
There have also been several fictionalized versions of Catherine's story, including Catharine of Aragon, by historical romance author Jean Plaidy, and The Constant Princess, by Philippa Gregory.
Also, for younger readers, Catherine's story is told in Patience, Princess Catherine by Carolyn Meyer.
Although Catherine is often portrayed in film and on stage as having possessed the stereotypical Spanish traits of dark hair and an olive complexion, Catherine was in fact a grey or blue eyed, fair-skinned woman with reddish-blonde hair, not too unusual for northern Spaniards such as those from her father's land of Aragon. Furthermore, Catherine herself was part English, through her English great-grandmother, Catherine of Lancaster.
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