Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon and Castile
Queen consort of England Infanta of Castile and Aragon
18th-century copy of a portrait of Catherine of Aragon. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Queen consort of England
Reign	June 11, 1509 – May 23, 1533
Coronation	June 24, 1509
Predecessor	Elizabeth of York
Successor	Anne Boleyn
Princess consort of Wales
Reign	November 14, 1501 – April 2, 1502
Predecessor	Anne Neville
Successor	Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach
Born	December 15, 1485 Archbishop's Palace, Alcalá de Henares, Kingdom of Castile
Died	January 7, 1536 (aged 50) Kimbolton Castle, Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire, England
Burial	Peterborough Cathedral
Spouse	Arthur Tudor (1501–1502) Henry VIII of England (1509–1533)
Issue	Henry, Duke of Cornwall (1511) Henry, Duke of Cornwall (1514) Mary I of England (1516–1558)
House	House of Trastámara (by birth) House of Tudor (by marriage)
Father	Ferdinand II of Aragon
Mother	Isabella I of Castile
Signature

Catherine of Aragon and Castile, or Catherine of Trastámara and Trastámara (Alcalá de Henares, December 16, 1485 – Kimbolton Castle, January 7, 1536) was Queen consort of England from 1509 until 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII and mother of Mary I of England; previously she was Princess consort of Wales through her marriage to the heir to the throne Arthur Tudor, firstborn son of Henry VII and elder brother of her second husband.

Daughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, Catherine was three years old when she was betrothed to Prince Arthur, heir to the English throne. The marriage took place in 1501; however, Arthur died five months later. In 1507, she acted as ambassador for the Spanish Court in England, becoming the first female ambassador in European history. In 1509 she married Henry VIII, Arthur's younger brother, who had recently succeeded to the throne. For six months in 1513, she served as regent of England while Henry VIII was in France, and it was during this regency that the English were victorious at the Battle of Flodden Field against the Scots, an event in which Catherine played an important role.

By 1525, in love with his mistress Anne Boleyn and dissatisfied with his marriage to Catherine, which had produced no surviving male child, Henry VIII left his daughter, the future Mary I of England, as heir presumptive at a time when there was no established precedent for a woman to succeed to the throne. Henry sought a way to annul his marriage and set in motion a chain of events that led to England's break with the Catholic Church. When Clement VII refused to declare the marriage null, Henry defied him by assuming supremacy over religious matters. In 1533 the marriage was declared invalid and Henry married Anne Boleyn on the judgment of the clergy in England and without reference to the Pope.

Catherine refused to officially recognize Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England and continued to consider herself both the King's lawful wife and the true queen, attracting much popular sympathy. Despite this, Henry recognized her only as Princess Dowager. After being banished from the Court, she spent the rest of her life at Kimbolton Castle, where she died on January 7, 1536. Catherine's English subjects held her in high esteem, and her death triggered a long period of intense mourning among the English people.

The controversial book De institutione feminae christianae by Juan Luis Vives, which asserted that women have the right to an education, was commissioned by her and dedicated to her. Such was the impression Catherine made on people that even her enemy Thomas Cromwell said of her: "If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of history." The Queen won a triumph with her successful appeal for the lives of the rebels involved in Evil May Day, whom she defended for the sake of their families. Catherine also won widespread admiration for launching an extensive program for the relief of the poor. The Queen was a patron of Renaissance humanism and a friend of the great scholars Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More.

Infanta of Aragon and Castile

Portrait by Juan de Flandes of Catherine at the age of eleven. It shows a strong resemblance to her sister, Queen Joanna of Castile.

Born in the Archbishop's Palace of Alcalá de Henares on December 16, 1485, she was the youngest of the daughters of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. She descended, through the maternal line, from the English Royal House; her great-grandmother Catherine of Lancaster, after whom she was named, and her great-great-grandmother Philippa of Lancaster were daughters of John of Gaunt and granddaughters of Edward III of England. For this reason, she was a fourth cousin of Henry VII and of his wife Elizabeth of York, parents of Henry VIII.

Catherine received the education then given to a future queen: she was educated by Alessandro Geraldini, a member of Holy Orders. She studied canon and civil law, arithmetic, classical literature, genealogy and heraldry, history, philosophy, religion and theology. She had a very religious upbringing and developed a faith that would play a great role in her mature years. She learned to speak, read and write in Castilian and Latin, in addition to speaking French and Greek. She was also instructed in domestic skills such as cooking, dancing, drawing, embroidery, good manners, lacemaking, music, sewing, spinning and weaving. Later the great scholar Erasmus said that Catherine "loved good literature and had studied it with profit since childhood." Catherine therefore became exceptionally learned for the time, even as Queen. According to English chronicles of the time, Catherine possessed intellectual qualities with which few queens could compete.

At the age of six she witnessed the capture of Granada (1492). She stayed there to live with her parents, and later settled in nearby Santa Fe. Her parents were weaving a network of marriage alliances against France: John and Joanna with the Habsburgs; Isabella and Maria of Aragon with Portugal.

From a very early age, Catherine was considered a suitable wife for Arthur, Prince of Wales, first in line of succession to the English throne, thanks to the English ancestry she had inherited from her mother. Through her mother, Catherine enjoyed a stronger legitimate claim to the English throne than that of Henry VII, by way of the first two wives of John of Gaunt, first Duke of Lancaster: Blanche of Lancaster and Constance of Castile. By contrast, Henry VII was the descendant of the union between John of Gaunt and Catherine de Roet-Swynford, whose children were born out of wedlock and were legitimized only after the death of Constance and John's subsequent marriage to Catherine. Despite being legitimized, the children of John and Catherine were barred from inheriting the English throne, a restriction that was ignored in following generations. Because of Henry VII's descent from those illegitimate children barred from succeeding to the English throne, the Tudor monarchy was not officially recognized by all the European kingdoms. During that period the House of Trastámara was the most prestigious in Europe thanks to the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, and therefore the alliance of Catherine and Arthur validated the House of Tudor in the eyes of European royalty and strengthened the Tudor claim to the English throne thanks to the prestigious lineage of Catherine of Aragon. It would also have helped her to have a male heir, which, however, she did not. The marriage between Catherine and Arthur was celebrated by proxy on May 19, 1499. The spouses wrote to each other in Latin until Arthur turned fifteen, when it was decided that they were old enough to consummate the marriage. When Catherine of Aragon traveled to London, she brought with her a group of people of African origin, one of them Catalina de Cardones, born in Motril, Granada, and, possibly, the trumpeter John Blanke, one of the first African musicians with a documented arrival in London during that period. They made a great impression in favor of the Princess and as to the power of her family.

Princess of Wales

Arthur around the time of his marriage, c. 1501

Portrait of a Princess, possibly Catherine of Aragon, c. 1502, by Michael Sittow, early 16th century, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The policy of the Catholic Monarchs was to isolate France. In keeping with that policy, Catherine was betrothed on March 26, 1489, to Prince Arthur of Wales, firstborn son of Henry VII of England, in the Treaty of Medina del Campo. Catherine suffered greatly on leaving the Alhambra, since she had spent her childhood and adolescence in the red castle. When the Infanta was fifteen, on August 17, 1501, her ship set sail from La Coruña for England, but in the Bay of Biscay it lost its masts, so it had to anchor in the port of Laredo to begin the voyage again on September 27 of the same year.

After a month at sea Catherine arrived at the port of Plymouth, where she was received by the Bishop of Bath, representing Prince Arthur. The two met on November 4 at Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Little is known about their first impressions of each other, but Arthur wrote a letter to his parents-in-law stating that he would be "a loving and true husband" and told his parents that he was immensely happy to "behold the pleasant face of his bride." Both discovered that they could not understand each other, since they had learned different pronunciations of Latin. Ten days later, on November 14, 1501, Catherine and the young Prince of Wales, a stranger to her, were married in St Paul's Cathedral in London. She made a great impression on her father-in-law, the King. A dowry of 200,000 crowns had been agreed, and half was paid shortly after the wedding.

Once married, Arthur was sent, as Prince of Wales, to Ludlow Castle in Shropshire to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches, and he was accompanied by the now Princess of Wales. The couple settled at Castle Lodge, Ludlow. A few months later, both fell ill, possibly with the English sweat that was ravaging the area. On April 2, 1502, the young prince died and left Catherine a widow and, as she and others around her claimed, still a virgin, the marriage with the young prince never having been consummated. This point would become the center of great controversy years later.

At this point, Henry VII of England had to face the challenge of avoiding the obligation to return the dowry to Catherine's father, even though he had received only half of it. He initially proposed himself as husband to his daughter-in-law, and in the end it was agreed that the Princess would marry Henry, Duke of York, second son of Henry VII and five years younger than she. However, the death of Catherine's mother caused her "value" on the marriage market to decline. Castile was a much larger kingdom than Aragon, and it was inherited by Catherine's elder sister, Joanna, who suffered from mental instability. Ostensibly, the marriage was delayed until Henry came of age, but Henry VII put off payment of the rest of the dowry for so long that it seemed unlikely the marriage would take place. Meanwhile, the Princess lived virtually as a prisoner at Durham House in London. Some of the letters in which Catherine complains to her father of her treatment at the hands of Henry VII have survived. In one of these letters she tells him "I choose what I believe, and say nothing. For I am not as simple as I seem." She lacked money and struggled to get by, since she had to support her ladies-in-waiting as well as herself. In 1507 she served as Spanish ambassador in England, being the first female ambassador in European history. Although Henry VII and his advisers expected that Catherine would be easy to manipulate, she showed them they were mistaken.

The marriage to Arthur's brother depended on the granting of a papal dispensation, because canon law forbade a man to marry his brother's widow. Catherine testified that her marriage to Arthur had not been consummated owing to the Prince's youth and sickly nature, a fact that was certified by Pope Julius II. It is also true that canon law considered only a consummated marriage as valid.

Queen of England (1509–1533)

16th-century woodcut of the coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, both displaying their heraldic emblems, the Tudor rose and the Pomegranate

Wedding

In 1509 Henry VII died and his son Henry VIII assumed the throne, showing his desire to possess the Princess as soon as possible. For that reason, their wedding was celebrated two months later, on June 11, 1509, seven years after Arthur's death. The couple married in a private ceremony in the Church at Greenwich, when Catherine was 23 while the King was only a few days short of turning 18.

Coronation

On Saturday, June 23, the traditional procession to Westminster, usually held on the day before the coronation of English monarchs, was received by a great, enthusiastic crowd. According to custom, the newlyweds spent the night before their coronation in the Tower of London. On Sunday, June 24, 1509, which was also Midsummer Day, Henry VIII and Catherine were anointed and crowned together by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a lavish ceremony held in Westminster Abbey. A banquet was then served in Westminster Hall. Many new Knights of the Order of the Bath were also created in honor of the coronation. During the following month, the Queen presented herself to the English public on many social occasions. She made an excellent impression and was very well received by the English people.

Pregnancies and children

On January 31, 1510, Catherine prematurely gave birth to a stillborn daughter. A son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, was born on New Year's Day 1511 and died suddenly 53 days later, on February 22, 1511. The cause of death was not documented. In 1513, Catherine became pregnant again, but this son too was stillborn or died shortly after birth, when Henry had returned from France. In December 1514 she had another son, Prince Henry, who died shortly afterward. On February 18, 1516, Catherine gave birth to a healthy daughter. She was named Mary and was baptized three days later in a great ceremony in the church of the Observant Franciscan Friars. In 1518, Catherine became pregnant for the last time. On November 10 a daughter was born, but the baby was weak and died within a few hours. In all, Catherine had six documented pregnancies.

File:Catharineofaragonengland.jpg

Catherine watching Henry joust in honor of the birth of a son. Henry's horse is decked out with Catherine's initial in English, "K."

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
Female infant	January 31, 1510	Stillborn
Henry, Duke of Cornwall	January 1, 1511	February 23, 1511	Lived 53 days
Henry, Duke of Cornwall	October 1513		Stillborn or lived a few hours
Henry, Duke of Cornwall	December 1514		Lived a few hours
Mary I, Queen of England	February 18, 1516	November 17, 1558	Only surviving child
Female infant	November 10, 1518	November 17, 1518	Lived 7 days

Influence

Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger c. 1540

On June 11, 1513, Henry appointed Catherine as regent or governor of England while he traveled to France for the Battle of Guinegate. When Louis I d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville was captured at Thérouanne, Henry sent him to live at Catherine's court. She wrote a letter to Wolsey, telling him that both she and her council would prefer that the Duke be lodged in the Tower of London, since the Scots were "as busy as they are now." She also added her prayers that "God may send us as good luck against the Scots as the King has there." The war with Scotland kept her subjects busy, and she was "horribly busy with making standards, banners and badges" at Richmond Palace. The Scots invaded, and on September 3 Catherine ordered Thomas Lovell to raise an army from the counties of central England. Catherine, despite being pregnant, rode north in full armor to address the troops (she gave birth to a stillborn son around October). Her impressive speech was reported by the historian Peter Martyr d'Anghiera in Valladolid a fortnight later. Although an Italian newsletter claimed that Catherine was a hundred miles north of London when the news of the victory at the Battle of Flodden Field reached her, she was in fact near Buckingham. From Woburn Abbey she sent Henry a letter together with a piece of the bloodied coat of James IV of Scotland, killed in battle, for the King to use as a banner at the siege of Tournai.

As Catherine grew older, her religious devotion increased, as did her interest in academic matters. She continued to broaden her knowledge in addition to attending to the training and instruction of her daughter. The education of women came into fashion due, in part, to Catherine's influence. She also donated considerable sums of money to several universities. However, Henry still considered a male heir indispensable. The Tudor Dynasty was new and its legitimacy could still be challenged. The last time a woman (the Empress Matilda) had inherited the throne, a long civil war (1135–54) had broken out, whose disasters were still fresh in the collective memory because of the Wars of the Roses.

In 1520 the Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew, made a state visit to England, and she urged Henry to ally with Charles rather than with France. Immediately after the Emperor's departure, Catherine accompanied Henry to France to visit Francis I and enjoy the celebrated Field of the Cloth of Gold. Two years later, war was declared against France and Charles V was received once more in England, where plans began to betroth him to the young Mary.

The King's "great matter"

Catherine pleading at the trial brought against her by Henry. Painting by Henry Nelson O'Neil.

In 1525, Henry VIII fell in love with Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine who was nine years younger than he, and began to court her; by this time Catherine could no longer conceive children (she was 40). Henry began to believe that his marriage was cursed and sought confirmation in the Bible, which he interpreted as stating that if a man marries his brother's widow, the marriage will be childless. Even if the marriage to Arthur had not been consummated (and Catherine would insist until her death that she was a virgin when she came to Henry's marriage bed), Henry's interpretation of the biblical text meant that the marriage had been indecent in the eyes of God. The question of whether the Pope who presided over the marriage of Henry and Catherine had had the right to rule against the biblical impediment indicated by Henry would become the burning issue of a campaign in which the King would try to wrest a declaration of nullity from the reigning Pope. It is possible that the idea of a declaration of nullity had been suggested to Henry much earlier, and it is very likely that it was motivated by his desire to have a son. Before Henry's father succeeded to the throne, England had been besieged by armed conflict because of rival claims to the English Crown, and perhaps Henry wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession.

My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans invented daily to further the King's wicked intention, the surprises the King gives me, with certain persons of his council, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine.

Soon, the sole absorbing object of Henry's desire became securing a declaration of nullity. Catherine was defiant when it was suggested that she retire discreetly to a convent, saying "God never called me to a convent. I am the true and legitimate wife of the King." Henry placed his hopes in an appeal to the Holy See, acting independently of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and telling him nothing of his plans. William Knight, the King's secretary, was sent to Pope Clement VII to sue for a declaration of nullity on the grounds that the bull of Pope Julius II had been obtained under false pretenses.

However, at that time the Pope was the prisoner of Catherine's nephew, Charles V, following the sack of Rome in May 1527, and Knight therefore found it difficult to gain access to see him. In the end, Henry's envoy had to return to England without having achieved much. Henry now had no choice but to entrust this great matter to Thomas Wolsey, who did everything possible to secure a decision in Henry's favor.

Lady Mary, daughter of Catherine and Henry, at the age of 28

Wolsey even went so far as to convene an ecclesiastical court in England, attended by Catherine and Henry, over which a representative of the Pope presided. It was here, on June 21, 1529, that Catherine delivered her celebrated speech; she rose and, slowly, with all eyes fixed on her, went around the tight row of bishops, climbed to the other side of the dais and knelt at her husband's feet:

Sir, I beseech you for all the love that there has been between us, that you do me justice and right, that you have some pity and compassion on me, for I am a poor woman, a foreigner, born outside your dominions. I have here no sure friend and much less impartial counsel. I turn to you as head of Justice in this Realm.

I take God and all the world as witness that I have been to you a true, humble and obedient wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure… always satisfied and content with all the things that pleased or amused you, whether they were many or few… I have loved all those whom you have loved, solely for your sake, whether I had cause or not, and whether they were my friends or my enemies. These twenty years or more I have been your true wife, and by me you have had several children, although it has pleased God to call them from this world. And when you had me at first, I take God as my witness that I was a true maid, untouched by man. I appeal to your conscience whether this is true or not [...] It astonishes me to hear what new inventions are devised against me, who never sought anything but honor, and it compels me to oppose the order and judgment of this new court, in which you do me so much harm.

And I humbly beseech you, in the name of charity and for the love of God, who is the supreme judge, to spare me from appearing before this court until my friends in Spain have advised me which path it befits me to follow. But if you will not grant me so small a favor, let your will be done, for I commend my cause to God.

And with a deep curtsy to the King, and without so much as a glance at the two legates or the assembled bishops, she walked slowly toward the door of the Great Hall. A spectator heard Catherine's gentleman, Griffith, say to her timidly: "Madame, you are called again," and indeed the court's third formal summons was being pronounced from the benches. "It does not matter," she replied, "to me, this court is not impartial. I shall not remain here." However, Clement VII had no intention of allowing a decision to be reached in England, and his papal envoy was withdrawn. (It is difficult to know to what extent the Pope was influenced by Charles V, but it was clear to Henry that the Pope was unlikely to declare null his marriage to the Emperor's aunt.) The Pope forbade Henry to remarry before a decision had been reached in Rome. Wolsey had failed and was dismissed from public office in 1529. Wolsey then began to hatch a secret plot to force Anne Boleyn into exile, and began to communicate with the Pope to that end. When the conspiracy was discovered, Henry ordered Wolsey's arrest, and had he not been terminally ill, dying indeed in 1530, he might have been executed for treason. A year later, Catherine was banished from the Court, and her former apartments were granted to Anne Boleyn. When the Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died, Thomas Cranmer, chaplain to the Boleyn family, was appointed as successor to the vacant post.

Finally, on January 25, 1533, Henry married Anne Boleyn, already pregnant with the future queen Elizabeth I. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declared the King's marriage to Catherine null (May 23, 1533). Henry VIII withdrew from obedience to the Catholic Church of Rome in 1534 and had himself recognized as supreme head of the new Church of England.

When Henry decided to seek a declaration of nullity of his marriage to Catherine, John Fisher became the Queen's most loyal adviser and one of her principal supporters. John attended the papal envoy's court on her behalf, and shocked those present with the frankness of his language and with the declaration that, like John the Baptist, he was ready to die to defend the indissolubility of marriage. This so enraged Henry that he drafted a long speech in Latin addressed to the legates in reply to Fisher's speech. Fisher's copy still exists, with the margin full of his handwritten annotations, showing how little he feared Henry's wrath. Fisher's work ended when the case was removed to Rome, but Henry never forgave him. Among the other people who supported Catherine's cause were Thomas More, Mary Tudor, Queen of France, the King's own sister (although as a member of the Tudor family and of royal blood, she was exempt from any punishment and execution), Maria de Salinas, the Emperor Charles V, Paul III and the Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and William Tyndale.

Banishment and death

Statue of Catherine of Aragon in her native city, Alcalá de Henares

On returning to Dover from a meeting with Francis I of France in Calais, Henry married Anne Boleyn in a secret ceremony. Some sources speculate that Anne was already pregnant and Henry did not want to risk the child being born illegitimate, but others testify that Anne, observing that her sister Mary Boleyn had been the King's mistress and that he had then cast her aside, refused to sleep with Henry until they were married. Henry defended the legality of the union by pointing out that Catherine had been married before. If the marriage between her and Arthur had been consummated, canon law indicated that Henry was within his rights to remarry. On May 23, 1533, Thomas Cranmer acted as judge in a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of Henry's marriage to Catherine. Cranmer declared the marriage unlawful, despite Catherine's testimony that she and Arthur had never had sexual relations. Cranmer then ruled Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn valid five days later, on May 28, 1533.

Until her death, Catherine would continue to refer to herself as Henry's lawful wife and the only true Queen of England, and her servants continued to use that title when addressing her. Henry denied her the right to any title except that of "Princess Dowager of Wales," in recognition of her status as his brother's widow.

Catherine settled at the More Castle in the winter of 1531/32. In 1535 she was moved to Kimbolton Castle. There she confined herself to a single room (which she left only to attend Mass), wore nothing but the hair shirt of the Order of Saint Francis, and fasted continually. She was allowed occasional visits, but was forbidden to see her daughter Mary. They were also forbidden to communicate in writing, but their supporters discreetly carried letters from one to the other. Henry offered them better lodgings and permission to see each other if they recognized Anne Boleyn as the new queen. Both refused.

At the end of October 1535, sensing that the end was approaching, Catherine made her will and wrote to her nephew, Charles V, asking him to protect her daughter. In December, Maria de Salinas, a friend of Catherine's who had traveled with her to England when she married, learned that Catherine was very ill and set out to see her. Maria arrived at Kimbolton and practically burst into the castle, inventing the excuse that the letter granting permission for her entry was on its way and begging the guards not to turn a woman out on a cold winter night. Salinas found that Catherine was very ill. She had just turned fifty. She could barely sit up in bed, much less stand. She had been unable to eat or keep food down for several days, and a stomach pain had prevented her from sleeping more than two hours in total during the previous six nights. Maria de Salinas's visits and affection lifted her spirits and made her health improve. Catherine began to eat and keep food down. Her health continued to improve over the following days. On January 6 she sat up in bed, did her hair and dressed her head. However, Catherine was worried that she would not last until daylight and waited until dawn for her confessor, Jorge de Athequa, to give her communion. Catherine then devoted herself to prayer, murmuring prayers until she finally died shortly before two in the afternoon, on January 7, 1536. The next day, news of her death reached the King. At that time rumors circulated that she had been poisoned, possibly by Gregory di Casale. According to the chronicler Edward Hall, Anne Boleyn wore yellow for the mourning. This was interpreted in various ways; Polydore Vergil interpreted it as meaning that Anne was not in mourning. Chapuys documented that it was in fact Henry who dressed in yellow, celebrating the news and proudly showing his daughter by Anne, Elizabeth, to the courtiers. Many saw this as distasteful and vulgar. It was later said that both Henry and Anne wept for her death in private.

Tomb of Catherine of Aragon inside the cathedral, with the legend "Katharine Queen of England".

On the day of Catherine's funeral, Anne Boleyn suffered a miscarriage of a male child. Rumors then began to appear that Catherine had been poisoned by Henry or Anne, or even by both, since Anne had threatened to murder Catherine and Mary on several occasions. The rumors arose after the alleged discovery of a black growth on the heart during the embalming of the body, possibly caused by the poisoning. The embalmer charged with preparing Catherine's corpse "found all the internal organs sound and normal, with the exception of the heart, which was very black and hideous to see." The embalmer, in reality a chandler whose specialty was wax, cut the heart in half and, although he washed it several times, it stubbornly remained black. Medical experts agree that the coloration of the heart was not due to poisoning, but probably to cancer, a disease that was unknown at that time.

Catherine was buried in Peterborough Cathedral with the ceremony due to a Dowager Princess of Wales, not that befitting a Queen. Henry did not attend the funeral and also forbade Mary to attend. Every January 29, the anniversary of her burial, commemorative events take place in the cathedral.

Portrait

Michael Sittow, Mary Magdalene, probably using Catherine as a model

Catherine was, according to Castilian chroniclers, the one who most resembled her mother physically: in her youth she possibly had a beautifully proportioned head with a sturdy and agile body, a light and upright step, small feet and hands, gray eyes, she was short in stature with reddish-blond hair, in addition to having a round face and a pale complexion. Henry VII says the following on meeting her: "Much have we admired her beauty, as well as her agreeable and dignified manners". On her entry into London in 1501 it was said of her that there was "nothing in her that the fairest maiden should lack". During her first year as Queen, she was described by her confessor Fray Diego Fernández as "the most beautiful creature in the world", and by others as "delicate and graceful, with pretty eyes". Later, Thomas More and Lord Herbert would reflect on her appearance: "There were few women who could compete with the queen [Catherine] when she was in her prime". Likewise, both Hall's Chronicle and the pamphlet "The Receyte of the Lady Kateryne" describe her hair as "of great length, light auburn, beautiful and pleasant to behold". On the other hand, as the years went by, observers ceased to be so enthusiastic about her beauty, sometimes even the reverse. Gerard de Pleine, a Flemish diplomat who met her in 1514, writes: "She is of a cheerful and graceful disposition; quite the opposite of the queen her sister in coloring and shape". In 1515, when she was 29, Nicolo Sagudino, secretary to the Venetian ambassador Giustiniani, says of her that she is "rather ugly than otherwise". Sebastiano Giustiniani himself, who met her in 1519, says the following: "The queen is the sister of the mother of the King of Spain, now called the King of the Romans. She is thirty-five years old (in reality, she had not yet turned thirty-four) and is not pretty, although she has a very beautiful complexion. She is religious and as virtuous as words can express. I have seen her, but seldom". In the context of his visit to France on the occasion of the celebration of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in the spring of 1520, King Francis I informs the Venetian embassy that Queen Catherine is "old and deformed". Around 1530, an Italian naval Commander named Mario Savorgnano describes Catherine in the following terms: "She is not a tall woman, rather short, rather stout; if not handsome, certainly not ugly. But she always has a smile on her countenance". The last contemporary description of this queen dates from when she was banished to the More Castle in the winter of 1531–32, where she was visited by the Venetian ambassador Lodovico Falier, who says of her: "She is of low stature, somewhat stout, with a modest countenance; she is virtuous, just, full of goodness and religiosity; more beloved by the islanders than any other queen who has ever reigned".

Spelling of her name

She was baptized with the name "Catalina," but "Catherine" became the accepted version in England after her first marriage to Prince Arthur. She herself signed her name as "Katherine," "Katherina," "Katharine" and sometimes "Katharina." Arthur wrote her a letter in which he addressed her as "Princess Katerine." Her daughter Mary named her as "Queen Kateryn" in her will. In the 16th century it was rare for names, and above all given names, to be spelled in an exact way, and from Catherine's letters it is evident that she endorsed different variations. Love knots that Henry VIII carved in several of his palaces show the initials "H & K," as do other possessions of Henry and Catherine, such as gold chalices, a gilded salt cellar, gold bowls and candlesticks. Her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral bears the legend "Katharine Queen of England."

Ancestors

Ancestors of Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England

Generation	Ancestors
I	1. Catherine of Aragon
II	2. Ferdinand II of Aragon 3. Isabella I of Castile
III	4. John II of Aragon 5. Juana Enríquez 6. John II of Castile 7. Isabella of Portugal
IV	8. Ferdinand I of Aragon 9. Eleanor of Alburquerque 10. Fadrique Enríquez 11. Marina Fernández de Córdoba 12. Henry III of Castile 13. Catherine of Lancaster 14. John of Portugal 15. Isabella of Barcelos
V	16. John I of Castile 17. Eleanor of Aragon 18. Sancho of Castile 19. Beatrice of Portugal 20. Alfonso Enríquez 21. Juana de Mendoza 22. Diego Fernández de Córdoba 23. Inés de Ayala 24. John I of Castile 25. Eleanor of Aragon 26. John of Gaunt 27. Constance of Castile 28. John I of Portugal 29. Philippa of Lancaster 30. Afonso I of Braganza 31. Beatriz Pereira de Alvim

In fiction

Film and television

Year	Film	Director	Actress
1911	Henry VIII	William Barker, Herbert Beerbohm Tree	Violet Vanbrugh
1937	The Pearls of the Crown	Sacha Guitry	Rosine Deréan
1951	Catherine of England	Arturo Ruiz del Castillo	Maruchi Fresno
1969	Anne of the Thousand Days	Charles Jarrott	Irene Papas
1970	The Six Wives of Henry VIII (TV)	Waris Hussein	Annette Crosbie
1972	Henry VIII and His Six Wives	Waris Hussein	Frances Cuca
1991	Henry VIII (TV)	Pierre Jourdan	Michèle Command
2003	Henry VIII (TV Movie)	Pete Travis	Assumpta Serna
2001	Juana la Loca	Vicente Aranda	Nerea García
2007	The Tudors (TV)	Michael Hirst	Maria Doyle Kennedy
2008	The Other Boleyn Girl	Justin Chadwick	Ana Torrent
2014	Isabel (TV series)	Jordi Frades	Natalia Rodríguez Arroyo
2015	Wolf Hall	Peter Kosminsky	Joanne Whalley
2015	Carlos, Rey Emperador	Oriol Ferrer	Mélida Molina
2016	Six Wives with Lucy Worsley	Lucy Worsley	Paola Bontempi
2019	The Spanish Princess	Birgitte Staemose, Daina Reid	Charlotte Hope
2017	six : the musical	Toby Marlow, Lucy Moss	Meghan Gilbert,Cordero Renée, Jarneia Richard- Noel, Adriana Hicks

Bibliography

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• Chapuys, Eustace (Imperial Ambassador) (1533). Calendar of State Papers, Spanish IV.
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• Ellis, Henry, ed. (1846). Original Letters Illustrative of English History. Vol. Vol. 1. 3rd Series. Richard Bentley. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Farquhar, Michael (2001). A Treasury of Royal Scandals: The Shocking True Stories History's Wickedest, Weirdest, Most Wanton Kings, Queens, Tsars, Popes, and Emperors. Penguin. ISBN 978-0140280241.
• Fernández Álvarez, Manuel (2003). Isabel la Católica (in español). Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A. ISBN 84-670-1260-9.
• Fraser, Antonia (1992). The Wives of Henry VIII. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-73001-X.
• Gairdner, James (2005). Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII. Vol. Vol. 10 (1536). Burlington, Ontario: TannerRitchie Pub. In collaboration with the Library and Information Services of the University of St. Andrews. ISBN 9781435650251. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
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• Lehman, H. Eugene (2011). Lives of England's Reigning and Consort Queens. Author House Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4634-3057-3.
• Lofts, Norah (1979). Anne Boleyn. ISBN 0-698-11005-6.
• Low, Sir Sidney James Mark; Sanders, Frederick (1910). The dictionary of English history. OCLC 251345185.
• Maclagan, Michael (1999). Line of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe. Little, Brown & Co.
• Mattingly, Garrett (1998). Catalina de Aragón. Ayer y hoy de la historia (in español). Ediciones Palabra. ISBN 8482392778.
• Morris, T. A (1998). Europe and England in the Sixteenth Century. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-15041-5.
• Rees, Fran (2006). William Tyndale: Bible Translator And Martyr. Compass Point Books. ISBN 978-0-7565-1599-7.
• Rex, Richard (2003). The Theology of John Fisher. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54115-2.
• Rymer, Thomas (1741). Foedera, conventiones, literae,… (in Latina). Hagae Comitis, Apud Joannem Neulme. OCLC 19374246.
• Scarisbrick, J. J (1997). Yale English Monarchs - Henry VIII. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07158-0.
• Starkey, David (2003). Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII. ISBN 0-06-000550-5.
• Tremlett, Giles (2010). Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0571235117.
• Warnicke, Retha (1991). The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-40677-3.
• Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3683-4.
• Wilkinson, Josephine (2009). Mary Boleyn: the True Story of Henry VIII's Favourite Mistress. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 0-300-07158-2.
• Williams, Neville (1971). Henry VIII and His Court. Macmillan Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-02-629100-2.

Internet links

• "Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536)". BBC. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
• "Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England". King's College, Pennsylvania. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
• "Catherine of Aragon Biography". Biography Channel. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
• "John Blanke-A Trumpeter in the court of King Henry VIII". Blackpresence. March 12, 2009. Retrieved March 17, 2011.