As we said when we talked about King Henry VIII, he married six times. In turns we will have a look at the lives of these famous women and the consequences of marrying such a man.
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| Katherine of Aragon. (Michel Sittow) |
Katherine of Aragon (1485-1536) was the daughter of the Spanish monarchs King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. She was betrothed to the English heir, Prince Arthur, when she was three years old. The wedding took place in 1501, when she was sixteen but Arthur lived a short life as he contracted "sweating sickness"and died five months later.
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| Arthur around the time of his marriage (c.1501) |
After her husband's death she stayed in England and was betrothed to Henry, Arthur's younger brother but the wedding didn´t take place until 1509, after receiving a dispensation from the Pope and Katherine´s marriage to Arthur was annulled. She was crowned Queen of England alongside Henry in Westminster Abbey.
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| Westminster Abbey from Tothill Fields (John Barley) 1832 |
In January 1510 she gave birth to a daughter, but she was stillborn. A second child, Prince Henry, was born in 1511 but he died soon afterwards. She had 6 children during her marriage, three of them sons, but they all died except for one girl, born on 18 February 1516, who was called Mary after Henry´s younger sister, Mary Tudor.
As time passed and Katherine didn´t have a male heir, in 1527 Henry VIII decided to end his marriage to Catherine with the idea of getting married again. The argument he gave to the Catholic church was that Katherine had been married to his brother. The king didn´t get the support of Katherine since she argued that her marriage to Henry was legal and indisoluble as her previous marriage to Arthur had remained unconsummated.
Katherine´s nephew, Charles V, the holy Roman Emperor, supported his aunt's position and Pope Clement VII didn´t approve of Henry´s wishes.
As King Henry decided he didn´t need the Pope´s approval, that led to the separation of the Church of England from the Catholic Church and Parliament approved that the king would become the Head of the Church of England and not the Pope. Henry then asked Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, to annul his marriage to Catherine.
Katherine was isolated and sent far away from court and from her daughter. Katherine died in 1536. Her daughter, Mary Tudor, would become queen of England in 1553.
Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/catherine_of_aragon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Aragon
http://www.biography.com/people/catherine-of-aragon-38666#synopsis
Angelines.
Dear Angelines,
ResponderEliminarAs a matter of fact, it is an awful story. Henry VIII´ wickedness is without bounds.
However, I would like to bring up Katerine´s final letter to Henry VIII. It reads as follows:
"My most dear lord, king and husband,
The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles. For my part, I pardon you everything, and I wish to devoutly pray God that He will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.
Katharine the Quene."
This story is really heartbreakin... Dark times, poor Catherine and poor Mary Tudor.
I send you many kisses.
It´s really sad. Mother and daughter were separated and in the end Katherine died alone and she was probably killed with some kind of poison. One can´t imagine why she would forgive such a man after all the damaged caused. Anne Boleyn did the same just before she was beheaded. Were they afraid that their relatives and beloved people could be hurt or killed if they dared to say something incorrect?
ResponderEliminarVery dark times, dear Elena. Lovely to have you near here.
Big kiss for you!!