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Catherine of Aragon: Henry's greatest queen
Catherine of Aragon’s reputation may be defined by the acrimonious breakdown of her marriage. But, during her 24 years as Henry VIII’s wife and queen, she proved herself a resolute war leader, a formidable intellect and the darling of the English people. It’s high time, then, argues John Edwards, that we looked beyond that famous annulment and celebrated Catherine’s achievements
In June 1513, Catherine of Aragon went on to a war footing. Henry VIII, her husband of four years, had led a huge army across the Channel to attack the French king Louis XII. Henry appointed Catherine as “regent and governess of England, Wales and Ireland, during our absence… to issue warrants under her sign manual… for payment of such sums as she may require from our treasury”. Henry also gave his wife powers to raise and equip troops for the defence of the realm – powers she quickly needed to deploy. No sooner had Henry left for France than James IV of Scotland, husband of Catherine’s sister-in-law Margaret Tudor, was attempting to take advantage of the English king’s absence by crossing the border into England at the head of a powerful army. As the Scots surged south, all eyes turned to Catherine. How would she react? Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen? Catherine, who was born near Madrid in 1485, had often travelled with her parents – King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile – during their war against the last Muslim ruler of Spain, known to the Spaniards as Boabdil. Now, two decades later and a queen in her own right, Catherine imitated her pugnacious mother in backing and organising the English defences. While the Earl of Surrey commanded the army in the north, Catherine ordered another force to be sent into the Midlands as a reserve, and then started mobilising a third contingent north of London, in case things went badly. Watching The Spanish Princess? Find out more about the real history that inspired the drama: The real history behind The Spanish Princess Your guide to the battle of Flodden 1513 Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen? Catherine’s involvement in the defence of England has largely been written out of history, often restricted to a tongue-in-cheek remark she made to Henry’s minister Thomas Wolsey that she was confining herself to “making standards, banners and badges”. But in fact, while her husband was engaged in largely ineffective manoeuvres in north-eastern France, Catherine gave executive orders. Henry’s Spanish wife was now acting as a patriot for her adopted country, using hostile language against both the French and the Scots. She regarded her husband’s expedition to France as a crusade, since Louis XII had rebelled against Pope Julius II. As for the Scots, she boasted in 1512 that the English “would conquer and annihilate the kingdom of Scotland, according to the fashion in which the Catholic king [her father, Ferdinand] treated the king of Navarre [who had been defeated and conquered, also in 1512]”. Who were Henry VIII’s six wives? Your guide to the Tudor king's queen consorts It was no idle boast. Surrey’s northern army inflicted a military, political and social disaster on the Scots at Flodden in Northumberland on 9 September 1513. By the time that famous battle had reached its bloody conclusion, King James IV, a number of his bishops, and much of the Scottish nobility, lay dead on the field. Catherine clearly revelled in the English victory – so much so that she proposed sending King James’s embalmed and waxed corpse to Henry in France as grisly evidence of her triumph. And she would have done so, but “our Englishmen’s hearts would not suffer it”. Instead, she had to content herself with telling her husband that: “This battle hath been to your grace and all your realm the greatest honour that could be, and more than ye should win all the crown of France.” Grit, initiative, skill Looking back from a distance of 500 years, the battle of Flodden can be regarded as a high point in Catherine’s life. Here was a queen who, almost from the day she arrived in England, had been a favourite of the English people. Here was a woman whose keen intellect had impressed some of the sharpest minds in 16th-century Europe. And now to these accomplishments could be added a display of grit, initiative and no little skill in the midst of a national emergency. But as well as being a moment of triumph, the autumn of 1513 was also a high point for Catherine’s marriage. Though she couldn’t have known it at the time, it marked the start of a long decline – one that, by 1533, had led to acrimony, the annulment of her marriage and a long exile into the margins of history. So where did it all go wrong for Henry’s first, and arguably greatest, queen? Catherine may have been the daughter of two Spanish monarchs but her future as an English royal was mapped out for her at the tenderest of ages, shaped by a treaty negotiated by her parents and her future father-in-law, King Henry VII. By the time she celebrated her fifth birthday, Catherine was already betrothed to an English prince. But that prince wasn’t Henry; it was his older brother, Prince Arthur Tudor, first in line to the English throne. Twelve years later, on 14 November 1501, Catherine and Arthur were married in St Paul’s Cathedral, escorted out of the church by the 10-year-old Henry on a kind of cat-walk that ran the length of the nave. Soon after, the newlyweds were dispatched to Ludlow Castle, where they were to oversee the government of the Welsh Marches and the principality of Wales itself. That plan would never come to fruition – for, on 2 April 1502, tragedy struck. Arthur, English king in waiting, died of an unspecified infection and was carted to Worcester Cathedral for burial. As was customary for royal widows, Catherine didn’t attend her husband’s funeral, but was taken on a royal litter back to London. There she would live in increasing discomfort and relative poverty for the rest of Henry VII’s reign, as he and her father fought over her fate. Did Henry VIII acknowledge any of his illegitimate children? From heir to spare Catherine’s parents had initially sent her to England as part of a marriage strategy that aimed to consolidate Spanish power and contain France. With Arthur dead, it was not at all clear that Catherine would even remain in England, let alone marry an English king. Overnight, she had been downgraded from next English queen to ‘spare’ Spanish princess, her political and monetary value greatly diminished. The English now began to refer to Catherine by a name that would stick for centuries – ‘Catherine of Aragon’, a minor princess from a peripheral part of the Iberian peninsula. But then, on 21 April 1509, everything changed. The English king, Henry VII, breathed his last; his son and heir suddenly needed a wife – and fast. Within days of his accession to the throne, Henry VIII personally started negotiations with Spain again. On 11 June that year at Greenwich Palace, Henry and Catherine were married. 8 places associated with Henry VIII’s wives No attempt was made to imitate Catherine’s spectacular marriage to Arthur, but a procession from the City of London to Westminster on the day before the royal couple’s coronation demonstrated a fact that remained true for the rest of Catherine’s life: the public loved her, and they displayed their affection vociferously as she passed before them on her way to Westminster. Catherine was not just a popular queen, but an accomplished one. As a child, she had been given the best education that money could buy, being tutored in feminine domestic arts, such as sewing, music and dancing, and religious instruction. She also immersed herself in the developing scholarship of the Renaissance, and mastered written and spoken Latin as well as modern languages. As a result, once in England, she was able to hold her own with some of the top humanists of the day, among them the Dutchman Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. View oEmbed on the source website The marriage turns sour For much of their 24 years together, Henry and Catherine’s marriage seems to have been loving and happy. The Spanish queen humoured her husband in all his chivalric games, and at least pretended to be surprised by the charades in which he and his ‘noble’ friends sometimes engaged, including the occasion in which they invaded her chamber dressed as Robin Hood and his ‘Merry Men’. Yet there were always shadows over the relationship, and by far the darkest was the one cast by the couple’s failure to produce a male heir. Catherine was pregnant at least six times between 1509 and 1518, but only one child, the future Mary I, survived infancy. To Henry, who craved a son to inherit his crown and defend the nation’s interests in the face of foreign aggression, this was quite simply the wrong result. If Catherine couldn’t provide him with an heir, he would find someone who could. The English king had successive mistresses, one of whom, Elizabeth Blount, produced a longed-for boy in June 1519, unsubtly named Henry Fitzroy. From that moment on, Catherine and her now three-year-old daughter would find themselves increasingly marginalised. But not even the birth of a son could satisfy Henry. He sought a legitimate male heir and – mindful of the Bible’s warning that “If a man takes his brother’s wife it is impurity; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness, they shall be childless” (Leviticus) – began to worry that God had cursed him because he had married Prince Arthur’s wife. By the end of 1527, another factor was fuelling Henry’s dissatisfaction with Catherine: his infatuation with her lady-in-waiting Anne Boleyn. Maybe Anne could be the wife to provide him with the son he desired. With this tantalising prospect in mind, Henry took the explosive decision to ask his chief minister, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, to obtain an annulment of his marriage from the pope. The people of England loved Catherine from the moment she married Arthur in 1501 until her death and beyond Wolsey tried to settle the case in England, but Catherine, to the surprise of some, put up an obstinate fight. She vociferously denied the accusations that she had had sexual relations with Prince Arthur during their short marriage – an assumption around which much of Henry’s case was built. As a result of her efforts, and those of her nephew Emperor Charles V, in the autumn of 1528 Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio was sent to London to hear the case with Wolsey. Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? Arthur, Catherine and Henry: a story of early Tudor triumph and tragedy The lost heirs of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on Catherine of Aragon’s failed pregnancies Playing a blinder On 21 June 1529, in court at Blackfriars, Catherine knelt dramatically before her husband, begging him to stop proceedings. When he refused to do so, she announced that she would appeal from the two cardinals to Pope Clement VII in Rome: “I most humbly require you, in the way of charity and for the love of God – who is the just judge – to spare me the extremity of this new [legatine] court, until I may be advised what way and order my friends in Spain [above all her nephew Charles V] will advise me to take. And if ye will not extend to me so much impartial favour, your pleasure then be fulfilled, and to God I commit my cause.” With the eyes of the world once again upon her, Catherine played a blinder. But it wasn’t enough. As Clement procrastinated, Henry began moves in parliament to separate his kingdom from Roman jurisdiction. In 1532, he appointed a new archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who, on 23 May 1533, annulled Henry and Catherine’s marriage. By then, Catherine’s fate as queen was already sealed: Henry had married Anne in secret in November 1532. Until her death in 1536, Catherine shuttled between remote country houses. Meanwhile Anne Boleyn gave birth to a daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I, pushing Mary further down the royal pecking order and resulting in her being downgraded from princess to lady. Catherine was also destined for a downgrade – especially in the eyes of historians. While Anne Boleyn and her daughter, Elizabeth, have for 500 years been hailed as icons of England’s national story, Catherine has largely been written out of history. But there are many reasons for suggesting that this a fate of which she was thoroughly undeserving. In 1529, Catherine’s mere appearance on the streets of London – making her way to the legatine court in Blackfriars – had elicited loud applause from a crowd of onlookers. That admiration continued until her dying day, and beyond. As soon as Catherine was dead, much of Europe hailed her as a hero of the Catholic faith. Even in England itself, affectionate memories of Henry’s first queen are preserved: in the Midlands where she spent her last years, and particularly in her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral, now restored after destruction by Oliver Cromwell’s troops. How should we remember Catherine today? There is no need to adopt a staunchly Catholic or Protestant, English or European standpoint to recognise her many qualities. She was a resolute war leader, formidable intellect and a darling of the people. What’s more, after 24 years of marriage to Henry VIII, she died in her own bed. Given the fate that awaited her successors, that in itself was no mean achievement. Timeline: Catherine of Aragon’s rise and fall 16 December 1485: Catherine is born to King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile 14 March 1489: Catherine is betrothed by treaty to Prince Arthur of Wales 14 November 1501: Catherine marries Arthur in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Arthur dies in Ludlow Castle, Shropshire on 2 April 1502 11 June 1509: A little less than two months after Henry VII’s death, Catherine marries King Henry VIII at Greenwich Palace 1 January 1511: Henry and Catherine’s son, Henry, is born, but dies within nine weeks 9 September 1513: James IV of Scotland is defeated, and dies, on Flodden Field, while Catherine is “regent and governess” for Henry 18 February 1516: The future Queen Mary I is born to Catherine and Henry 1527: Henry is first attracted to Anne Boleyn 21 June 1529: Catherine publicly appeals to Pope Clement VII against Henry’s plan to divorce her June–July 1531: Henry first separates permanently from Catherine and then forbids her to see Mary 1532–1534: Henry VIII’s church breaks away from Rome. The marriage is annulled in 1533 John Edwards is senior research fellow in Spanish at the University of Oxford. His books include Ferdinand and Isabella (Longman, 2005) and Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen (Yale, 2011) You’ll find a wealth of content on Catherine of Aragon at historyextra.com/catherineofaragon This article was first published in the June 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine
Catalina: the real history of The Spanish Princess favourite
Returning to our screens for Part II in October 2020, drama The Spanish Princess aims not just to reclaim the story of Catherine of Aragon, but also another woman who has been lost to history: Catalina, a lady of the bedchamber to the young queen. We found out more about the woman who inspired Lina and how, for actor Stephanie Levi-John, portraying her is a source of great pride…
The Spanish Princess tells the story of Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Spanish royalty who journeyed to England to marry Prince Arthur Tudor before becoming Henry VIII’s first wife, repositioning the queen in a history in which she is so often reduced to a single word in a rhyme. But as well as placing a fresh spotlight on the royal, the show also brings another forgotten woman of history into focus. Known as Lina in the drama, the character played by Stephanie Levi-John is based on a woman who appears in the records only as ‘Catalina’, a slave and royal bedmaker. An Iberian Moor, Catalina (sometimes also ‘Cattelena’) is known to have arrived in England in 1501 with her royal mistress Catherine of Aragon, whom she served for 26 years as the lady of the bedchamber. Since some slaves in royal service were known to assume the same name as their mistress, this may be how Catalina came by her name – Catherine’s name was anglicised from ‘Catalina’ upon her arrival in England. The ‘de Cardones/Cardenas’ element that sometimes appears as a surname, including that of Lina in the drama, may well come from Catalina being conflated with Katherine Cardenas, a chief lady-in-waiting in Catherine of Aragon’s household, writes Lauren Johnson. Watching The Spanish Princess? Find out more about the real history that inspired the drama: The real history behind The Spanish Princess Your guide to the battle of Flodden 1513 Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? Catherine, the daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, was sent to England as part of a marriage strategy that aimed to consolidate Spanish power and contain France, and in the show, Lina attends to the needs of ‘la infanta’, ensuring that she is treated in a manner befitting Spanish royalty and custom, however ‘foreign’ some behaviours might seem to English courtiers. The travelling party from northern Spain included Jews and Muslims, and was certainly noted for its difference at the time. Dr Onyeka Nubia has written how Catalina “was almost certainly one of the number of African people referred to by Sir Thomas More rather mockingly” when he saw Catherine's train enter London in 1501; More described in one letter “hunchbacked, undersized and barefoot Pygmies from Ethiopia”. Part of Catalina’s duties would have been to wait on Catherine’s bedchambers and attend to tasks of an intimate nature. Some sources suggest that Catalina could have even known the truth of whether Catherine and Arthur consummated their union, a question that proved pivotal in Henry VIII’s later attempts to annul his first marriage. Indeed, Giles Tremlett writes that during the trials, attempts were made to locate Catalina as a witness. In the drama, Lina and soldier Oviedo (Aaron Cobham) marry at the end of Part I, and in reality, Catalina did marry a “hace ballestas”, a crossbow-maker also of Moorish origin, and they had two daughters. Catalina eventually returned to her hometown of Motril in Granada and after 1531, when her husband died, there is no further record of her life. There’s a true love story there, says co-creator of The Spanish Princess, Emma Frost. “We only have tiny nuggets from history about this, but we have every reason to believe that Lina and Oviedo had a very successful, long and happy marriage. They're the counterpoint to the toxicity that happens eventually with Catherine and Henry.” Reappropriating history? After Part I of The Spanish Princess arrived on screens in May 2019, the drama received backlash from some quarters – attracting comments that Frost calls “lazy and offensive”. “They tried to suggest that we had invented these characters and that there were no black people in England until three and a half minutes ago,” she says. Elsewhere, the decision to foreground characters of colour in the drama, alongside emphasis on Catherine’s achievements and agency, saw the show called “a glossy type of revisionism”. Frost says that these comments are partly why inclusion is so important. “It’s the reason why we write those stories, because the only way you overturn those attitudes is actually by trying to reappropriate history. “This has always been a show that has done that for women; we wanted to say that history wasn't just about men, and white men – it was also about women. And when you have a show in which you are trying to reappropriate history for people who didn't have a voice, you can't just do that for women. You have to ask: who else has been excluded?” For anyone who might still cry anachronism, there is plenty of evidence that Catalina was by no means alone as a person of colour in Tudor Britain, and it was a period of significant immigration and settlement. “Africans weren’t just found in England’s provinces,” writes Dr Nubia for BBC History Magazine. “In fact, some rubbed shoulders with the country’s most powerful figures – in the Tudor court.” The missing Tudors: black people in 16th-century England Miranda Kaufmann has written for BBC History Magazine on some other Africans who called England home in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one man called John Blanke, the “blacke trumpeter”, who was employed by Henry VII and Henry VIII from 1506–12. When Blanke married in January 1512, says Kaufmann, Henry VIII showed his esteem for his “black trumpet” by giving him a generous wedding present: a gown of violet cloth, a bonnet and a hat. Listen | Miranda Kaufmann tells the little-known stories of several Africans who resided in 16th-century England Fellow Spanish Princess co-creator Matthew Graham spoke of his excitement at “finding out how many people of colour there were in the Scottish court”. After reading that African musicians drummed the Scottish soldiers into battle, “we wanted to include that detail,” he explains, particularly in the drama’s portrayal of the 1513 battle of Flodden. “That's why we created the character of Negasi, who is a courtier, not a servant. I mean, they're all servants, of course, to the royal family. But he’s a courtier in the Scottish court, a musician. His compatriots are banging drums and blowing pipes as the Scots march into battle, which is apparently what happened. “Those details are fantastic for us”, Graham says. “Before this I would never have imagined that African drummers drummed early 16th-century Scottish warriors into battle.” The prevailing concern at this time, say Frost and Graham– and perhaps one that took precedence over colour – was foreignness. “It was foreign people from other countries who attracted suspicion,” says Graham. “People were suspicious, but they were suspicious if you came from France, or if you came from Wales.” This rising prejudice and tension will make an appearance in Part II of the drama, in the form of the Evil May Day Riots of 1517. “This was an event when some people of London turned on outsiders,” says Frost. “It wasn't specific to the colour of anyone's skin or their race, but towards anybody that Londoners perceived as being not from London that was taking their trade or their jobs.” “Of course, that feeling evolved into something even more racially toxic over time,” adds Graham. “But that wasn’t really at the heart of it at that point.” A part of the story Even with the unequivocal fact of the presence of people of colour in British history – people who have been historically overlooked or so often in the margins – representation isn’t without challenges. It is an inevitable hurdle that there is less in the historical record to work with for both the writers and the actor who plays Lina, Stephanie Levi-John. “There is definitely a lot more written about Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII,” says Levi-John. “But it was it was a nice challenge to have.” “Matthew and Emma have written some incredible scripts that give me a lot to play with,” she says. “I took things that they said from the script and then tried to back that up with historical evidence. For example, [in the show] Lina’s parents were Moriscos. They converted to Christianity to stop themselves from being persecuted." “I did my research and really tried to solidify what that would mean for Lina. That’s her heritage, she comes from the Moors, from a culture rich with so many beautiful aspects that she has to kind of stifle in order to fit into [English] society.” Knowledge of these historical aspects helped Levi-John “flesh out and create a multifaceted character who has thoughts, feelings, strong beliefs and has an objective within the show, and a journey”. Levi-John also describes the “overwhelming and beautiful” feeling that “little girls everywhere, especially little black girls or mixed-race girls, can see themselves within history. That's something that I hold very dear to my heart. The sense of pride that I feel to play such an incredible woman within this period of time is truly a blessing.” Just before Levi-John was cast in The Spanish Princess, she says, “a friend of mine, who’s not an actor, said how she couldn’t wait for me to do a historical piece. And I just thought ‘I don’t think so’, because I'd never seen it, it was never something that had been discussed. You kind of just assume that black people or people of colour were not a part of this society.” The character of Lina, and the historical basis for her, “really opened my eyes” says Levi-John. “Lina is not subservient, she’s someone who's very much her own person, who has her own thoughts, her feelings, who has her own story within this – and a definitive story as well. She is a rock to Catherine, and to see that sisterhood and the humanity, I think is extremely important.” And as for Lina’s emergence from Part I as a firm fan favourite? “I'm really happy that she's been well-received,” says Levi-John. “And I hope that it urges people to read more about people of colour within history, especially within historical periods that we wouldn’t necessarily consider ourselves being a part of.” The Spanish Princess Part II premieres on Starz on Sunday 11 October 2020. Find out more about the real history of Catherine of Aragon’s life that inspired the drama. Stephanie Levi-John, Emma Frost and Matthew Graham were talking to Elinor Evans, deputy digital editor of HistoryExtra.
Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen?
When Henry VIII was attempting to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, the question of whether she had enjoyed a sexual relationship with his brother, Arthur, became of vital importance. Here, Giles Tremlett looks at the Spanish perspective...
Rarely has an English queen consort’s virginity been of quite such public importance. Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was famously pious and virtuous. But was she a virgin when, shortly after he came to the throne in 1509, they married? The answer to the question matters because, almost two decades later and as he sought a way to divorce her, it mattered to Henry. Catherine of Aragon: Henry's greatest queen A 15-year-old Catherine had originally travelled to England from her native Spain in order to wed Henry’s older brother, Arthur. They married in splendid pomp at St Paul’s in November 1501. Just 20 weeks later Arthur, also aged 15, died. Catherine’s parents Ferdinand and Isabel did not want to lose the English match so they arranged a second marriage to Henry VII’s other son, the future Henry VIII. The pope’s permission was sought, and obtained, to allow Henry to marry his brother’s wife when he came of marriageable age. The couple had to wait for his father to die, however, before they could wed. Watching The Spanish Princess? Find out more about the real history that inspired the drama: The real history behind The Spanish Princess Your guide to the battle of Flodden 1513 Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? It was only after 18 years with his Spanish wife that Henry began fretting about whether Pope Julius II had overstepped his powers in authorising their marriage. His conscience, he said, was troubled. Had they been living in sin all that time? And was God punishing them for it by not providing a male heir to the crown? When Henry asked Cardinal Wolsey to come up with an answer to the first of these questions in 1527, he was convinced the answer would be ‘yes’. That would free him to marry Anne Boleyn. He could both obtain the woman who fired his passion and, from her young womb, a male heir. He could also dispose of Catherine in a manner that was sanctioned by the church. Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? Still married But Catherine soon threw Henry’s argument into disarray. She and Arthur, she claimed, had never had full sex. They had slept together only seven times and the results had been disappointing. Catherine had “remained as intact and uncorrupted as the day she left her mother’s womb”. The sexual impediments to their marriage that could only be overcome by a papal dispensation had never existed. Henry’s argument, Catherine was saying, was irrelevant. They had been properly married – and still were. It was the first of many successful delaying tactics used by Catherine, often with the help of her nephew, the powerful Holy Roman Emperor Charles V – whose dominions included Spain’s growing empire and the Netherlands. The lost heirs of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on Katherine of Aragon’s failed pregnancies It took a further two years before a remarkable ‘divorce’ trial finally started at Blackfriars monastery in London. Pope Clement VII sent Lorenzo Campeggio, a gout-ridden Italian cardinal, to join Wolsey as a judge. Arthur’s old retainers were asked to cast their minds back nearly three decades. Had the young couple had sex? Witnesses were convinced they had. One said Arthur had staggered out of their wedding bed the following morning demanding ale to quench his thirst. “I have this Night been in the midst of Spain, which is a hot region, and that journey maketh me so dry,” he reportedly said. “And if thou hadst been under that hot climate, thou wouldst have been drier than I.” But these were English witnesses in an English court being watched by their king. What did Spaniards have to say? The testimonies of Catherine's own retainers have largely been ignored. But some of their evidence is readily available, as I discovered while researching my new biography, Catherine of Aragon. It sits in the transcript of a hearing at Zaragoza cathedral overseen by the abbot of Veruela, Miguel Jiménez de Embum. The manuscript, conserved in Madrid's Real Academia de la Historia, tells a very different story. In the Spaniards’ version of events Arthur becomes a sickly young man incapable of fulfilling his marital, sexual and dynastic obligations in the wedding-night bed. “Prince Arthur got up very early, which surprised everyone a lot,” said a former boy in Catherine’s service, Juan de Gamarra. “Francisca de Cáceres, who was in charge of dressing and undressing the queen and whom she liked and confided in a lot, was looking sad and telling the other ladies that nothing had passed between Prince Arthur and his wife, which surprised everyone and made them laugh at him.” Catherine had been desolate. “I fear he will never be able to have [sexual] relations with me,” she said. Elizabeth I’s love life: was she really a ‘Virgin Queen’? The divorce was a Europe-wide problem that threatened to spark war between Henry and Charles. The latter leaned heavily on the pope. He simply could not believe Henry would do “a thing so monstrous of itself and wholly without precedent in ancient or modern history.” Orders were sent out to track down those who had travelled to England with Catherine for her first wedding. Even her Moorish slave girl Catalina, who had returned to Spain to marry a bow-maker, was to be found. Bragging rights A questionnaire was drawn up. It ranged from the biologically precise to the absurd. Was there blood on the marital sheets? Did Henry ever brag that it was he, not his brother, who took Catherine’s virginity? Did Arthur look impotent? Had a group of doctors declared, after Catherine fell ill, that “the cause of her sickness was that she was still a virgin”? And did they also say this could be cured if she married “a man who had skills with women”? Answers were to be sent on to Rome where, in another victory for Catherine, the case had been moved before the Blackfriars court could reach a verdict. Her nephew’s ambassadors in Rome became devoted agents for a woman who some saw as a living saint. One of them, Dr Ortiz, even wrote to Charles’s wife, Isabella, urging her to collect Catherine’s letters as the future relics of a holy martyr. Catherine won and lost her case. She won because Rome declared her marriage safe. She lost because Henry had chosen Thomas Cranmer as the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533, knowing he would immediately grant a divorce. Arthur, Catherine and Henry: a story of early Tudor triumph and tragedy Catherine refused to accept Cranmer’s decision. She was queen and Anne Boleyn, who had now married Henry, remained “the scandal of Christendom”. Only Catherine’s death from natural causes at Kimbolton in January 1536 finally relieved the tension between England and Spain. Spaniards soon joined England’s own Roman Catholics in depicting her as a victim of a callous, lust-driven Henry. In 1588, the year Spain sent its ‘invincible’ armada into English waters, the Jesuit Pedro de Rivadeneyra produced a history of the Anglican schism that set the tone for future Spanish images of Henry VIII. “A powerful king who wants to have all that he fancies, and executes whoever he wants… spilling the blood of holy men and profaning and sacking God’s temples… changing the headship of the church and turning himself into its monstrous head, perverting the laws of God and man.” Yet Catherine was “no less saintly, no less great and no less virtuous” than her formidable mother Isabel, Queen of Castile. In her final days Catherine retreated to her chamber and refused to see anyone who would not address her as queen. Charles’s ambassador Eustace Chapuys was one of her last visitors. He later wrote that she was “the most virtuous woman I have ever known and the highest hearted, but too quick to trust that others were like herself, and too slow to do a little ill that much good might come of it”. Catherine had rebuffed Chapuys’ attempts to get her backing for an English rebellion on her behalf. She did not want war. “I would rather die than be the cause of it,” she said. Her twin aims had been to draw Spain and England together and provide an heir to the throne. At her death, it looked as though she had failed at both. Even Catherine could not have imagined that her daughter, Mary, would go on to become England’s queen – or that Mary would give England another Spanish royal consort, Charles’s son Philip. Giles Tremlett is the author of Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen (Faber and Faber, 2010). This article was first published in the Christmas 2010 edition of BBC History Magazine
The real history behind The Spanish Princess
How historically accurate is The Spanish Princess? The drama tells the story of Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish royal who married both the teenage Tudor heir Prince Arthur and his younger brother Henry. Read more about the real history behind the young princess’s arrival in England, her relationship with the princes, and her journey to becoming the first wife of Henry VIII…
Is The Spanish Princess a true story? The Spanish Princess dramatises the true story of the Spanish Catholic royal Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), who married into the Tudor dynasty at the beginning of the 16th century, setting in motion a chain of events that would redefine the history of the western world. Though the drama in The Spanish Princess is heavily fictionalised and includes supposition on events that remain matters of historical debate, there's plenty of real history that informs the plot. The drama, available to watch on Starz, is based on two fiction novels by bestselling historical writer Philippa Gregory – The Constant Princess and The King’s Curse – and sets out to challenge the popular perception of her as “an unwanted and burdensome wife”, say showrunners Emma Frost and Matthew Graham. It follows two previous adaptations of Gregory’s work: The White Queen set during the Wars of the Roses following Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage to Edward IV; and The White Princess, about the young Tudor king Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, a union that attempted to reunite the York and Lancaster houses after years of bitter dynastic conflict. So, what's the real history of the events behind the drama? Did Catherine and Prince Arthur really consummate their marriage? How did Catherine come to marry Henry VIII? What happened to Catherine's children? And was Catherine and Henry's marriage a happy one? Read on for the real history behind The Spanish Princess parts 1 and 2 (warning, there may be spoilers ahead). The wedding and marriage of Catherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur Catherine of Aragon was born in the Archbishop’s Palace of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, on 15 or 16 December 1485, just four months after a Welshman by the name of Henry Tudor seized the English crown. The betrothal of Catherine, the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, and Arthur, the Prince of Wales and son of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, signalled a pivotal alliance between the kingdoms. The 1489 Anglo-Spanish treaty of Medina del Campo had first set out the plans for Arthur to marry the youngest child of the powerful Catholic monarchs, and the union between the children signalled Henry VII’s ambitions for the Tudor dynasty. Read more | Arthur, Catherine and Henry: a story of early Tudor triumph and tragedy England’s king had elaborate plans to welcome the young princess to England, filled with pomp, ceremony and theatrical entertainment. However, her arrival was delayed by poor weather, the dangerous crossing taking longer than expected. She landed at Plymouth in October 1501, her journey to London becoming a rapid progress. Her retinue included Iberian Moor Catalina (played in the drama by Stephanie Levi-John). Catalina served her mistress for 26 years as the lady of the bedchamber and was married to a “Hace ballestas”, a crossbowman also of Moorish origin (in the show, Oviedo). Read more | Catalina: the real history of The Spanish Princess favourite <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/05/Nadia-Parkes-Rosa-Stephanie-Levi-John-Lina-The-Spanish-Princess-101-07749d9-e1556892964218.jpg" width="1025" height="683" alt="Nadia Parkes as Rosa and Stephanie Levi-John as Lina, two ladies-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. (Image credit: Starz)" title="Nadia Parkes as Rosa and Stephanie Levi-John as Lina, two ladies-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. (Image credit: Starz)" /> On 14 November 1501, the teenagers were married in a sumptuous ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in London; Catherine and Arthur were both 15 years old (Arthur's younger brother Henry was 10 years old). As well as sealing the alliance, the wedding was an exercise in Tudor propaganda, writes historian Sean Cunningham. “The interior of St Paul’s had been redesigned. A raised walkway drew the attention of all people crammed into the space as the royal couple, dressed in white satin, took centre stage in a full-blown royal performance.” Following the wedding the young couple moved to Ludlow Castle, Shropshire, where Arthur’s role as head of the Council of Wales and the Marches was considered to be good preparation for his future reign. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/05/Stephanie-Levi-John-Lina-Charlotte-Hope-Princess-Catherine-Nadia-Parkes-Rosa-The-Spanish-Princess-118624d-e1556893986410.jpg" width="1024" height="683" alt="Stephanie Levi-John (Lina), Charlotte Hope (Princess Catherine), Nadia Parkes (Rosa) in The Spanish Princess. (Image credit: Starz)" title="Stephanie Levi-John (Lina), Charlotte Hope (Princess Catherine), Nadia Parkes (Rosa) in The Spanish Princess. (Image credit: Starz)" /> Did Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon consummate their marriage? The intimate issue of Arthur and Catherine’s marriage consummation has been hotly debated for centuries, due to its later significance to Catherine’s marriage to Arthur’s younger brother, Henry VIII. In 1527, Henry VIII tried to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon on the grounds that it had been “against God’s will” to marry his brother’s widow. However, if the previous marriage had been unconsummated it was not a legal union, and as Henry battled for an annulment Catherine adamantly claimed that she had still been a virgin at Arthur’s death. The truth of her assertion is still under scrutiny. “The bawdy evidence of how Arthur greeted his friends on the morning after his wedding sounds like the well-rehearsed tale of a teenager trying to impress,” says Cunningham. “The prince emerged from his chamber and called servant Anthony Willoughby over with the words: ‘Willoughby, bring me a cup of ale, for I have been this night in the midst of Spain.’ Then to all of the others present: ‘Masters, it is good pastime to have a wife.’” Other lords such as Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, recalled having seen Catherine awaiting Arthur under the bedclothes during the previous evening’s bedding ceremony, later noting Arthur’s “good and sanguine” complexion the next day. Willoughby, too, believed Arthur and Catherine had lain together as man and wife at Ludlow, until Arthur became fatally ill at Easter 1502. Sir William Thomas, a groom of the prince’s privy chamber, revealed how he had many times escorted Arthur to Catherine’s room and collected him again in the morning. Yet when defending her virginity at the time of her marriage to Henry, Catherine and many of her supporters insisted that the two young royals had only shared a bed for seven nights, while others stated that the small and physically weak Arthur had been too sickly to consummate the union. "Catherine had 'remained as intact and uncorrupted as the day she left her mother’s womb,'" writes Giles Tremlett of Catherine's argument. "The sexual impediments to their marriage that could only be overcome by a papal dispensation had never existed. Henry’s argument, Catherine was saying, was irrelevant. They had been properly married – and still were." Cunningham concludes: “While other evidence suggests the frequency of their contact, only Catherine and Arthur would have known what went on behind the bedroom door.” Read more on the question of whether Catherine of Aragon was a virgin when she married Henry VIII How did Prince Arthur die? The cause of Arthur’s premature death on 2 April 1502, at the age of 15, is unknown, though it is most commonly attributed to a regional outbreak of sweating sickness. Others have suggested tuberculosis. Sweating sickness symptoms included cold shivers, headaches, pain in the arms, legs, shoulders and neck, and fatigue or exhaustion. Far from being a disease that raged through the lower classes, many well-known figures in the Tudor court contracted the illness, including Anne Boleyn and her brother and father, George and Thomas. Catherine also fell ill, supporting the theory of sweating sickness, though she recovered. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/05/GettyImages-2636685-5297534-e1723026910951.jpg" width="619" height="413" alt="A portrait of three of the children of Henry VII: Prince Henry; Arthur Prince of Wales and Princess Margaret. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" title="A portrait of three of the children of Henry VII: Prince Henry; Arthur Prince of Wales and Princess Margaret. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" /> Arthur’s death came suddenly and left Catherine a young widow after less than five months of marriage. Henry became the new heir to the throne at the age of 10. Following the death of her elder son, Elizabeth of York was expected to provide another ‘spare’ male Tudor heir. Elizabeth fell pregnant but, following the premature birth of a baby girl at the Tower of London, the 37-year-old queen died in February 1503. “Henry was aged 11: old enough to be fully aware of events, young enough to truly feel the loss of a mother,” writes Philippa Brewell of Henry’s relationship with his mother. “The impact of losing his mother, with whom he had built such a strong bond during the many hours spent with her at Eltham Palace, is worth consideration when thinking about Henry’s subsequent relationships with women, wives in particular.” Want to know even more about the real events from history that inspired your favourite dramas? Read more from the experts at our curated TV and film page Why did Henry VIII marry Catherine of Aragon? Following Elizabeth’s death, in an effort to keep Catherine’s dowry the ageing King Henry VII began negotiations to marry Catherine himself, though his plans were blocked by Catherine’s mother, Isabella of Castile. Upon the death of Henry VII in April 1509, 17-year-old Henry acceded to the throne. Prince Arthur's death was to become even more significant when Henry VIII made the decision to marry his brother’s widow, a choice for which the couple had to receive special dispensation from the pope. Yet it was not a choice born purely of obligation, writes historian Alison Weir. “While the truth about her marriage to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, would remain a mystery for centuries, there was never any doubt that Catherine of Aragon’s second marriage to his brother, Henry VIII, was ardently consummated on their wedding night in June 1509. “To the 18-year-old, idealistic king, she was a great prize, this princess from mighty Spain, who brought him a rich dowry and international prestige to the fledgling Tudor dynasty,” says Weir. “He adored her: she was, we are told, ‘the most beautiful creature in the world’. She was 23, plump and pretty, and had beautiful red-gold hair that hung below her hips. Henry spoke openly of the joy and felicity he had found with Catherine.” What happened to Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII's children? Their union was not to continue happily, if it had ever begun so. Catherine was pregnant at least six times between 1509 and 1518, and while she bore him a daughter, the future Mary I (b1516), their relationship was plagued by multiple miscarriages and stillbirths. Alison Weir writes how these tragedies left Katherine suffering a strong sense of failure because “she had desired to gladden the King and the people with a prince”. When she gave birth to a boy, christened Henry, on New Year's Day 1511, bonfires were lit in London and the news was met with "very great pomp and rejoicing”. Yet the child died just seven weeks later. Henry, writes Weir “like a wise prince, took this dolorous chance wondrous wisely and, the more to comfort the Queen, he made no great mourning outwardly. But the Queen, like a natural woman, made much lamentation”. Prince Henry was buried in a lavish funeral in Westminster Abbey. Read more | Alternate history: what if Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s first son had lived? Was the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon a happy one? Despite these personal tragedies, Catherine was an able and supportive consort to Henry and popular with her subjects, and it’s known that the couple rode and hunted together. The Spanish queen humoured her husband in all his chivalric games, writes John Edwards, and "at least pretended to be surprised by the charades in which he and his ‘noble’ friends sometimes engaged, including the occasion in which they invaded her chamber dressed as Robin Hood and his ‘Merry Men’". Did Catherine of Aragon fight at Flodden? Catherine of Aragon also ruled as regent when Henry was fighting in France, and her army defeated the forces of King James IV of Scotland, husband of Catherine’s sister-in-law Margaret Tudor, at the battle of Flodden in 1513. James had attempted to take advantage of the English king’s absence by crossing the border into England at the head of a powerful army. Read more | Who was Margaret 'Meg' Tudor? Read more about Henry VIII's sister who married the king of Scotland Catherine’s involvement in the victory has largely been written out of history, says Edwards, often restricted to a tongue-in-cheek remark she made to Henry’s minister Thomas Wolsey that she was confining herself to “making standards, banners and badges”. But in fact, while her husband was engaged in largely ineffective manoeuvres in north-eastern France, Catherine gave executive orders. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2017/02/flodden-2-ff306bb-e1723027127433.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Illustration shows James IV ceding his crown following defeat at the battle of Flodden. (Picture by Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo)" title="Illustration shows James IV ceding his crown following defeat at the battle of Flodden. (Picture by Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo)" /> Catherine clearly revelled in the English win – so much so that she proposed sending King James’s embalmed and waxed corpse to Henry in France as grisly evidence of her triumph. Yet instead she told her husband that: “This battle hath been to your grace and all your realm the greatest honour that could be, and more than ye should win all the crown of France.” Edwards writes that the victory at Flodden can be regarded as a high point in Catherine’s life. "Here was a queen who, almost from the day she arrived in England, had been a favourite of the English people. Here was a woman whose keen intellect had impressed some of the sharpest minds in 16th-century Europe. And now to these accomplishments could be added a display of grit, initiative and no little skill in the midst of a national emergency." Though Catherine did play a significant role in many diplomatic alliances of the Tudor age, she did not make the journey to France with Henry's younger sister, Princess Mary Tudor, for her marriage to King Louis XII, as depicted in the drama. However, as alluded to in the show, in Mary's retinue was Mary Boleyn, daughter of courtier Thomas and sister to Anne – both Boleyn daughters would later catch the eye of the king. Read more | Becoming Elizabeth | The real history behind the new Tudor drama The Field of the Cloth of Gold: Did Henry VIII and Francis I wrestle? The Field of the Cloth of Gold was a magnificent gathering – 18 days of revelry near Calais in June 1520, in which Henry VIII of England met with Francis I of France. It was a direct result of the Treaty of London, organised by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a pact of non-aggression between the major powers of Europe, including England, France and the Holy Roman Empire. Among the terms was the commitment that Henry and Francis would meet to affirm their friendship. The revels marked a major milestone in the alliance between the two rulers, though the atmosphere was tense right up until the actual meeting. "The gold coats worn by the English party were briefly mistaken for armour", reveals BBC History Revealed, "and all was paused until the French were reassured that Francis was in no danger. Then the kings doffed their caps and embraced each other as if old friends." Henry really did challenge the French king to a wrestling match, though seemingly not due to an insult, as in the drama. “Wrestling was the preferred entertainment when the weather turned sour. Completely unexpectedly, and after a few drinks, Henry challenged Francis to a wrestling match, but was easily defeated. He did, however, best the French king at archery.” What happened during the Evil May Day riots? In Part II, while Henry and Catherine attend the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Lina and Oviedo are caught in the midst of rising prejudice and tension towards foreigners in England, in the form of the Evil May Day Riots of 1517. This was a real event that rocked London in the 16th century. Sources disagree about what precisely sparked the riot, says Dr Joanne Paul, writing for HistoryExtra. "Witness and investigator Thomas More suggested that it was two lowly young apprentices who were looking to make trouble. The Tudor chronicler Edward Hall put the blame on the foreigners themselves; they had boasted of their favour with the king and “disdained, mocked and oppressed the Englishmen”, from whom they had taken jobs." In reality, Catherine and Henry were not returning from France at this time and did not get caught up in the riots; the royal family was 10 miles from the heart of London, at their palace in Richmond. But it is true that Catherine intervened to gain a pardon for 400 or so of the agitators. Though the head of one rioter, John Lincoln, was displayed as a reminder and a warning against further uprising. Elsewhere in the series, as the actions against dissenters intensify, Lady Margaret 'Maggie' Pole discovers another side to her court ally, Thomas More. It is true that history has left us two versions of Thomas More, as Paul writes, "the flawless Catholic saint, and the cruel ogre, hellbent on burning Protestants". "These two ‘Mores’ were the product of the divide between Protestants and Catholics," explains Paul, "and emerged out of the decades that followed More’s death in 1535. As More’s extended family produced hagiographic biographies to convince the pope to make him a saint, Elizabethan chroniclers like Edward Hall and John Foxe painted More as a fool and fanatic. To borrow the words of 19th-century socialist Karl Kautsky: 'To most of the biographies of More, a certain fragrance of incense clings.' It can be difficult to see through the fog." How did Catherine and Henry VIII's marriage end? As their struggles to conceive a healthy male heir continued, Henry VIII turned to many mistresses, including Elizabeth 'Bessie' Blount (during Catherine's first pregnancy he was also embroiled with Anne Hastings, sister of the Duke of Buckingham and a newly married member of Catherine’s household). Read more | Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? Henry’s close friend William Compton appears to have acted as a go-between, although Anne later went on to have an affair with Compton himself. Henry sent her away from court in retaliation). Henry's affairs produced a number of illegitimate offspring (though a son Henry Fitzroy, born to mistress Blount, was the only child to be acknowledged). Catherine was increasingly marginalised and eventually cast aside by 1527, in favour of her lady-in-waiting Anne Boleyn. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/05/GettyImages-173275768-98d5278-e1723027185834.jpg" width="618" height="413" alt="A 19th-century depiction of Catherine's trial, in which she insisted she was the rightful queen as Henry VIII fought for an annulment. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)" title="A 19th-century depiction of Catherine's trial, in which she insisted she was the rightful queen as Henry VIII fought for an annulment. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)" /> As Henry sought an annulment to his marriage, Catherine was subjected to a protracted process of humiliation and heartbreak while she fought to prove her fidelity to Henry and insist that she was the rightful queen. Edwards explains how Catherine "vociferously denied the accusations that she had had sexual relations with Prince Arthur during their short marriage – an assumption around which much of Henry’s case was built". When Pope Clement VII refused to grant the annulment that he so desired, Henry’s infatuation with Anne sparked a break with papal obedience, a key catalyst for the English Reformation. Read more | Did Henry VIII acknowledge any of his illegitimate children? Henry officially married Anne Boleyn in January 1533, although they had probably already married secretly at Dover in November 1532. Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon wasn’t annulled by the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, until May 1533. How did Catherine of Aragon die? Henry and Catherine were married for nearly 24 years, and she is today often known only in the children’s rhyme about Henry’s wives as ‘divorced’. Yet Catherine of Aragon also ‘survived’ for three years after the annulment of her marriage. However, she was banished from the king’s court and cruelly denied contact with her young daughter, Mary, even during her final illness (Henry did grant a visit from Catherine’s friend Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador to the Tudor court). She died at the age of 50, of suspected heart cancer, on 7 January 1536 at Kimbolton Castle – just four months before Henry’s second wife met her horrifying and bloody end. Catherine, in a grave marked 'Dowager Princess of Wales', was buried at Peterborough Abbey, now Peterborough Cathedral. View oEmbed on the source website