Mehallow, Kelly.  Catherine of Aragon.  September 2005.  <the date you are viewing this, day month year.> <copy and paste the link to your paper and you're done.>

Written for Dr Geraldine Finn at the University of Findlay for Issues in Women's Studies: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, fall 2005.

Works Cited

Mattingly, Garrett. Catherine of Aragon. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1941.

Witte, John Jr. From Sacrament to Contract. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.

Catherine of Aragon 

            When you ask people what they know about England’s King Henry VIII, they commonly respond with his having six wives. For the question to be expanded on to naming just one of his six wives, they sometimes stumble and find that they cannot answer that. A second question asked as to what major religious event occurred with Henry on the throne, and people will probably start to make up answers. It is in my opinion that those two questions go hand in hand together. To name just one of Henry’s wives, I would come up with the name of Henry’s first wife, Catalina de Aragon. The Act of Supremacy would have been the major religious event while Henry was the reigning King. It was the signing of the Act of Supremacy that declared the King as the head of the English Church and thus starting the English Reformation. To understand how important this is in relation to Catalina, or Catherine, one must look at her importance to the Tudor Dynasty.

On December 16, 1485 in Alcala de Henares, Spain, the first wife to England’s Henry VIII was born. Catherine of Aragon was the daughter Spain’s Queen Isabella of Castille and King Ferdinand of Aragon (Mattingly 4). She was the youngest of their surviving children and the third great granddaughter of Edward III of England, and a fourth cousin of both Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York. Most of what is known about Catherine does not include that of her childhood. Documentation of her life starts at the tender age of three when her parents set out to make a political match for her. A common alliance was discovered in England’s Henry VII. A substantial dowry was offered to which Henry could not pass up, leaving Catherine to be betrothed to Henry’s oldest son, future King Prince Arthur of Wales.

During the span of three months at sea, Catherine arrived at Plymouth, England on October 2, 1501 to marry Prince Arthur (Mattingly 29). The marriage itself would not take place for another month on November 14 at Old St. Paul’s Cathedral in London where Catherine was escorted by Arthur’s younger brother, Prince Henry. After the wedding, the young couple moved to Ludlow Castle on the Walsh border, where Arthur would preside over the Council of Wales. A few months into their marriage, both Arthur and Catherine became sick to a disease sweeping the area. While Catherine nearly died herself, her young Prince was not so lucky. At the age of sixteen, Catherine was a widow.

The dowry that had accompanied Catherine in her marriage to Arthur was not something King Henry VII was willing to give up, even if it was only one half (Mattingly 61). In the effort to keep the dowry, Catherine was then betrothed to Arthur’s younger brother, the new future King, Henry the Prince of Wales. While at the time, Henry was too young to marry, Catherine waited in limbo. The time that ticked by had Henry VII losing interest in an alliance with Spain and therefore calling off the engagement of his son and Catherine. Prince Henry himself had other plans that revealed themselves after his father’s death in 1509, which had him and Catherine being married. A joint coronation ceremony took place on June 24, 1509, with Catherine being crowned Queen of England and Henry as King Henry VIII. For this marriage to even take place, Catherine had to confess that she and Arthur had never consummated their marriage. This dispensation to marry Henry was granted by Pope Julius II in 1504 (Witte 135).

Their childless union did not last long and in January of 1510, Catherine had her first child a stillborn daughter. Before long, Catherine found herself pregnant again, delivering a live baby boy on January 1, 1511. The child was christened on January 5^th as Prince Henry, Duke of Cornwall. Happiness was short lived with the baby dying just 52 days later. Five years would pass before Catherine would give birth, this time to a live healthy baby girl, named Mary, at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich on February 18, 1516. The last recorded pregnancy for Catherine was recorded to be in 1518, that to ended in a miscarriage. While happy with a live child, Henry was concerned over not siring an heir to the throne in an effort to continue the Tudor Dynasty.

Henry’s obsession had him looking at the texts of Leviticus, which says that if a man takes his brother’s wife, they shall be childless (Witte 134). To Henry a baby girl did not count as an heir to a throne, leaving him and Catherine childless. Henry began to suspect that Catherine was not truthful in her confession that she and his late brother had never consummated their marriage, and because of this, he was being punished. While keeping Catherine in the dark, Henry began to actively petition Pope Clement VII for an annulment in 1527.

For more than five years, the pope stalled on the issue. Allowing an annulment would have been admitting the Church was wrong. At the same time, the Holy Roman Emperor, who the pope was at the mercy of, was Charles V, Catherine’s nephew. Catherine’s first knowledge of her marriage falling apart came from Henry himself, when he went to her saying that they were living in sin and needed to separate (Mattingly 250). Little did Catherine know, that had been Henry actively petitioning the Pope for an annulment. When Catherine to find out what was going on she was furious and started her own petition of the courts and the pope himself. This was something that Henry had not anticipated. Catherine demanded that she be given legal counsel from England and outside of England (Witte 137). This was done in an effort on her part to protect her standing as well as that of her daughter Mary. All of this leads to a series of events that would forever change history.

The first occurred on July 16, 1529, with Pope Clement VII responding to Catherine’s appeal and thus ordering the case to the Roman courts. By October, the Pope would send a letter to Henry demanding he leave his mistress, and Catherine’s former lady in waiting, Anne Boleyn, and return to Catherine. Henry ignored the order. March of the following year, the Pope again wrote to Henry demanding that he suspend his plans to marry his mistress until the case with Catherine had reached an agreement. Two more years would pass before the Pope would angrily write to Henry threatening to excommunicate him if he continued on his current path (Witte 138).

Not one to be pushed around, when Anne Boleyn became pregnant in 1532, Henry secretly married her the following year. In March of that same year, Henry pushed through Parliament the Act of Restraint of Appeals to Rome, which gave the King jurisdiction and authority over causes of matrimony and divorces. Two months later Henry asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, to grant an annulment for his marriage to Catherine and then to ratify the marriage of Henry and Anne. In 1534, Henry sealed the fate of the country by Parliament confirming Archbishop Cranmer’s Act of Succession, declaring that Arthur and Catherine had martial relations, and because of that, Catherine’s marriage to Henry was against God. The last act to break the Catholic Church came from Henry, when he pushed through Parliament the Act of Supremacy, alienating England from the Roman Catholic Church, making the King the head of the Church of England (Witte 139). This would permanently split England from the Pope and Catholicism, and begin the new form of Christianity known as Anglicanism.

As for Catherine, she would be renounced her title of Queen to be known as Princess of Dowager of Wales (Mattingly 364). It should be noted that until her death, she continued to sign her letters as Catherine, the Queen. While Catherine would spend the next three years in unhealthy living conditions, an aid in her ailing health, she always considered herself as Queen and Henry as her husband. Catherine would spend her time praying for herself, Henry and Mary, who she so rarely saw. Catherine’s life ended on January 7, 1536, while at Kimbolton Castle (Mattingly 430). She was later buried at Peterborough Abbey with a state ceremony fitting that of a Princess and not that of a Queen. Henry would not attend her funeral, now would he allow their daughter too.      

In an attempt to dissolve their marriage peacefully, Henry had initially offered Catherine a way out of their marriage by spending the rest of her days in a nunnery. Had Catherine acted differently, and accepted this offer, the religious reformation that would rock England may have been delayed or halted all together. Catherine herself was a religious woman and a passionate Catholic, having taught her daughter the same values. As the mother of the future Queen Mary I,  Mary would later earn the nickname “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestants. One may draw the conclusion that this was Mary’s way of acting out against her father’s treatment of her mother and betrayal of the Catholic faith.

Despite being the first wife of King Henry VIII, Catherine would be married to him the longest, longer than the other five wives combined. As well as reigning as Queen Consort longer than any of the other wives while Henry was away. While one could blame Catherine for the Reformation and the substantial end of the Tudor Dynasty, it is not Catherine’s, or any of the other women’s faults. The blame should solely rest on the shoulders of Henry, for making their lives miserable, as well as bringing on a needless Reformation. Catherine should also be remembered for being a woman who stood up to her husband, the King, and fought for what was hers. Catherine is an important figure, not only in Tudor and English history, but in world history for her contributions.