Catherine of Aragon

1485-1536. First wife of Henry VIII. Spanish and Catholic. Mother of Mary I.

Catherine of Aragon was born on 16 December 1485 as the youngest surviving child of the mighty Spanish royal couple Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile and Leon. Through marriages of her brothers and sisters into the house of Habsburg and to the Portuguese royal house, Catherine’s family became very influential in Europe. Next to these relations she was also related to the English royal house, because Catherine of Lancaster was her great-grandmother.

Catherine received a good education, including not only domestic skills but also languages, classics, literary studies and religion. Especially religion was highly important for her and she developed a strong Catholic faith.

On 14 November 1501 Catherine was married to the oldest son of Henry VII, Arthur, Prince of Wales, who was the heir to the throne, because of primogeniture. But Arthur died only a few months after the marriage, and Catherine was promised to marry his brother Henry. However, this marriage was delayed until Henry VII had died and therefore Catherine lived in poverty for several years.

On 11 June 1509 she married Henry VIII, who succeeded his father on the throne, and shortly after was crowned Queen of England and Ireland. In her marriage, Catherine gave birth to five children four of whom where stillborn or died in infancy. Only one daughter, Mary, born 18 February 1516, survived.

From the year 1526 onward, Henry VIII, desperate for a male heir, sought the annulment of the marriage with Catherine to marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. He claimed that the marriage was a sin and could not be legitimate, as Catherine had been married to his brother Arthur before.

Although Catherine struggled against the divorce and annulment by stating that the marriage with Arthur had not been consummated, and even though Pope Clement VII, who was in the hands of Catherine’s nephew the emperor Charles V, denied an annulment, Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn in 1533. His marriage to Catherine was annulled by an English canonical court.

Catherine was transferred to Kimbolton Castle, where she died on 7 January 1536 and was burried in Petersborough Cathedral.

Sources

• Cannon, John; Hargreaves, Anne. The Kings and Queens of Britain. Oxford: OUP, 2001.
• Starkey, David. Six Wives. The Queens of Henry VIII. London: Chatto and Windus, 2003.