Catherine of Aragon

Queen consort of England (r. 1509-1533)

• Born: December 16, 1485
• Birthplace: Alcalá de Henares, Spain
• Died: January 7, 1536
• Place of death: Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, England

Twice married to English princes, Spanish-born Catherine, the first wife of Henry VIII, refused to accept a royal divorce, which led to Henry’s expulsion of the Roman Catholic Church and the establishment of the Protestant Church in England.

Early Life

Born Catalina (Catherine), an infanta of Spain, to Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon, Catherine of Aragon was the fifth surviving child and youngest daughter, named for her maternal English great-grandmother, Catherine of Lancaster. The young Catherine was twice descended from English kings: maternally from Edward III and paternally from Henry II.

For the first fifteen years of her life, she remained under the tutelage of her mother, Queen Isabella, who considered her own education so deficient that she had Catherine tutored by scholars Peter Martyr and Antonio and Alessandro Geraldini. Catherine was instructed in the Bible, Latin histories, and Roman and Christian writers. She spoke fluent classical Latin, in addition to Spanish; studied heraldry, genealogy, and civil and canon law; and gained proficiency in music, dancing, drawing, and the domestic arts of spinning, weaving, and embroidery.

Contemporary accounts describe the young Catherine as having naturally pink checks, white skin, a fair complexion, and fairly thick hair with a reddish-gold tint. Catherine’s features were neat and regular in an oval face. Lacking in height and usually described as short, tiny, and plump, with a low voice, Catherine appeared to be a young infanta who would be a healthy producer of children.

The unification of Spain led Ferdinand and Isabella to use their children as marital pawns on the chessboard of European diplomacy. Their first- and third-born daughters wed Portuguese kings. The second daughter and the only son wed Austrian Habsburgs. Marriage negotiations between Madrid and London for Catherine to wed Prince Arthur of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII , were opened in 1487 and formalized by the Treaty of Medina del Campo in 1489. A dowry settlement committing Spain to a payment of 200,000 crowns, plus plate and jewels valued at 35,000 crowns, formalized the Spanish-English alliance. Catherine (by proxy) and Arthur were first engaged in 1497 and then married in 1499.

Catherine’s London arrival on November 12, 1501, and her official marriage to Prince Arthur two days later were greatly acclaimed by the English people. The usually parsimonious Henry VII gave Catherine and Arthur a lavish wedding at St. Paul’s Cathedral. For Henry VII, the Spanish marriage publicly legitimatized the Tudor Dynasty in England; contributed to the encirclement of England’s enemy, France; and provided King Henry with a substantial dowry to use for his own political purposes.

Unfortunately, at Ludlow Castle in the Marches of Wales, the physically frail Arthur succumbed to illness on April 2, 1502. The cause of death remains unknown, but speculation has centered on tuberculosis or an undetermined plague. Catherine herself was too ill to attend her husband’s funeral and burial at Worcester Cathedral. In widowhood, the young Catherine, now princess dowager of Wales, confessed to the bishop of Salisbury, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, that her marriage had never been consummated. The couple had shared the marital bed only seven times.

Life’s Work

During her years of her widowhood, 1502 to 1509, Catherine found herself a political pawn used by both her father and her father-in-law. Catherine was first pledged in marriage to and then repudiated by both her widower father-in-law, Henry VII, and Henry VII’s second son, Prince Henry. At issue was whether or not Catherine was still a virgin. If Catherine’s marriage to Arthur had been consummated, an impediment of affinity prevented her from marrying another member of Prince Arthur’s family. In 1506, Pope Julius II granted a dispensation and waived the issue of affinity, even if the marriage had been consummated.

Catherine’s status remained unclear, however, because 100,000 crowns of her dowry remained unpaid by her father, who continuously pleaded poverty, and because her father-in-law repeatedly reevaluated Catherine’s value as a future English royal bride in comparison with royal princesses in France and Austria. Increasing poverty forced Catherine to live more frugally at Durham House, where she supported her household from her partial dowry and the sale of her plate and jewelry and suffered from frequent fevers.

Catherine’s ambiguous status ended within two months of Henry VII’s life when she wed her former brother-in-law, now Henry VIII , on June 11, 1509. Later, witnesses claimed that Henry VIII boasted his wife was a virgin. Henry VIII’s change of attitude toward Catherine was probably caused by his desire to retain her dowry and to keep Spain allied against France, as well as his need for an adult wife to found a dynasty. The possibility that Henry VIII actually loved Catherine should also not be discounted.

As queen, Catherine encouraged the arts, established her own library open to scholars, and befriended English writers. Queen Catherine contributed money to lectureships, supported poor scholars, and endowed the colleges of Ipswich and Oxford. She actively corresponded with leading Humanists Thomas More , Desiderius Erasmus, and Juan Vives. Catherine’s greatest contribution to learning was as a pioneer of women’s education. Catherine sponsored the publication of five handbooks on Humanist instruction for women, including Vives’s De institutione feminae Christianae (1523; The Instruction of a Christian Woman , 1557).

Henry VIII appointed Catherine regent of England during his absences fighting the French on their territory. This action certainly demonstrates his appreciation and trust of Catherine’s intelligence and diplomatic ability. While Henry was in France, Catherine gave the military orders, launching an English army that defeated the invading Scots and killed their king, James IV (Henry’s brother-in-law), at Flodden Field in 1513. Yet Catherine’s promotion of a Spanish alliance and her continued involvement in policy making led her into conflict with Henry’s lord chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey . Catherine would later blame Wolsey for Henry’s desertion of her and his demands for a divorce.

The more important issue facing Catherine was her failure to produce a living male heir. The number of pregnancies and miscarriages suffered by Catherine has been the subject of much debate. Sir John Dewhurst, who has provided the best analysis of the existing period documents, concluded that there could have been only six pregnancies between the years 1509 and 1525: four stillbirths; a son, Henry, born January 1, 1511, who died seven weeks later; and their only surviving child, Mary I, born February 18, 1516.

Exactly what caused Henry to announce his intention to divorce Catherine remains a topic of considerable debate. It seems that Henry’s attitude toward Catherine changed abruptly after 1525, when the intended betrothal of their daughter Mary to Catherine’s nephew, Charles V , king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, was broken by Charles so that he could marry an older Portuguese cousin. The termination of this marriage plan ended Henry’s dreams of an Anglo-Spanish alliance dominating Europe. It is also true that Henry was involved with Anne Boleyn by 1526.

Henry’s May, 1527, decision to challenge the validity of his marriage to Catherine is known as the King’s Great Matter. Using the biblical passages Leviticus 20:21 and Deuteronomy 25:5-7, Henry claimed that a man marrying his brother’s wife did so against God’s will. Henry further argued that the papal dispensations granted by Julius II to remove the issue of affinity and allow the marriage were invalid.

Henry’s actions divided the Roman church in England. He failed to anticipate Catherine’s refusal to go quietly and Charles V’s seizure of Rome and imprisonment of Pope Clement VII . On March 6, 1529, Catherine appealed to Rome, asking the pope to take her case. Her only appearance before the Blackfriars Court on May 31, 1529, witnessed a queen defending the legality of her marriage and intent on saving it.

Both Clement VII and his English representative, Cardinal Campeggio, delayed clerical action, hoping for reconciliation. After 1530, Catherine’s health began to decline. Henry last saw Catherine at Windsor on July 11, 1531, whereupon she was removed to increasingly remote locations and finally to Kimbolton. Pressure from the Boleyn supporters, Henry’s increasing desire for a legitimate male heir, and clerical resistance to an annulment forced the king to begin the process of disestablishing the English Roman church.

Attempts to encourage Catherine to lead a rebellion against her increasingly unpopular husband and the Boleyn party were rebuffed by the queen. Wars in northern Italy, Germany, and France prevented military intervention in support of Catherine by Charles V and the pope. Finally, almost five years after Catherine’s initial appeal to Rome, on March 24, 1534, the pope declared the marriage valid in the eyes of God and the Church. By that time, however, Henry had taken matters into his own hands. The English Roman church was disestablished (1532), Parliament annulled Henry’s marriage to Catherine (1533) so that he could legalize his marriage to an already pregnant Anne Boleyn, and the king was enthroned as the head of the English church (1534).

Increasing ill health led to Catherine’s death on January 7, 1536. Henry celebrated with a ball at Greenwich. Although rumors circulated of Catherine’s having been poisoned, she probably died from either cancer or a coronary thrombosis. In violation of Catherine’s instructions, she was buried at Peterborough Cathedral with the honors of princess dowager.

Significance

First as an infanta of Spain, then as princess of Wales, and lastly as queen of England, Catherine of Aragon was sacrificed to diplomacy and statecraft by her parents, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; her father-in-law, Henry VII; and her husband, Henry VIII. In all her titled positions, Catherine represented the emerging Renaissance woman who was educated, spoke several languages, and was lauded by contemporary scholars for her support of Humanism and culture.

Although contemporary and later historians have praised Catherine’s virtue, trust, and high-mindedness, they have faulted her for her inability to use her popularity with the English people, the nobles, and the Church to maintain Catholicism in England or to lead an army into battle against Henry VIII in order to make their daughter, Mary I, queen of England. Catherine’s obedience to her husband, her willingness to accede to all Henry’s royal commands during the King’s Great Matter, and her absolute faith and devotion to the institutions of marriage and the Church enabled her to defend her marriage and keep her daughter in the Roman faith and in the line of succession, but those characteristics ultimately contributed to England’s Protestant Reformation.

Bibliography

Albert, Marvin. The Divorce. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965. A detailed study of the events leading to the divorce of Catherine of Aragon by Henry VIII. The reader becomes a participant in one of history’s most celebrated divorce trials.

Dewhurst, John. “The Alleged Miscarriages of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.” Medical History 28 (1984): 49-56. The best medical analysis of historical documents to determine the number and outcomes of Catherine’s pregnancies.

Dowling, Maria. “A Woman’s Place? Learning and the Wives of Henry VIII.” History Today 41 (June, 1991): 38-42. Dowling reintroduces the reader to the wives of Henry VIII as promoters of education, religion, and scholarship.

Fraser, Antonia. The Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Fraser’s careful analysis and reevaluation of archival and published works produce a thoughtful reinterpretation of Catherine’s role in shaping England’s entrance into the modern age.

Kipling, Gordon. The Receyt of the Ladie Katheryne. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1990. A scholarly analysis of sixteenth century documents describing Catherine of Aragon’s arrival in England, her entry into London, her marriage to Prince Arthur, and her subsequent widowhood.

Levin, Carole, Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves, eds. “High and Mighty Queens” of Early Modern England: Realities and Representations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Anthology of essays on queens in the English Renaissance includes three articles on Catherine, discussing her education, the contemporary representation of her Englishness, and her later representation in the Victorian period. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Mattingly, Garrett. Catherine of Aragon. Boston: Little, Brown, 1941. Reprint. New York: Vintage Books, 1960. Mattingly’s access to extensive archival material provides a detailed analysis of Catherine’s character; the dynasties of Spain, England, Scotland, and France; and the politics of the Papacy in the turbulent sixteenth century. Still the definitive biography of Catherine.

Roll, Winifred. The Pomegranate and the Rose: The Story of Katherine of Aragon. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970. A highly readable study of a young woman whose fate was determined by the statecraft of Spanish and English kings and the Roman Church.

Scarisbrick, J. J. Henry VIII. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. British historian Scarisbrick’s extensive access to French, German, Latin, Spanish, and English primary sources and his careful analysis of Henry’s character and relationship with his wives, ministers, and church officials reveals a king whose achievement fell below his potential greatness.

Witte, John, Jr. From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997. Survey of Christian theory and practice of marriage through history. Section 4 discusses Catherine of Aragon and the Anglican tradition. Includes bibliographic references and indexes.