Tudor Times’ Melita Thomas talking about their Person of the Month for May 2016, Catherine of Aragon. Here are a list of the resources available to learn more about this formidable and inspiring woman.
Biographies
Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII by Giles Tremlett
Katherine of Aragon: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII’s First Unfortunate Wife by Patrick Williams
Catherine of Aragon by Garrett Mattingly
Norah Lofts’ The King’s Pleasure
Katherine of Aragon The True Queen by Alison Weir
In the Footsteps of the Six Wives of Henry VIII: The Visitor’s Companion to the Palaces, Castles & Houses Associated with Henry VIII’s Iconic Queens by Sarah Morris, Natalie Grueninger
Article
Katharine of Aragon: In Fact & Fiction http://bit.ly/1ssN20K
Very Rough Transcript of Episode 47 on Katherine of Aragon
Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey, it’s Heather. And I want to remind you about our very special tours to the UK. In 2017, we’ll be doing tours focusing on the even song experience. The evensong service comes from Kramarz book of common prayer from the mid 16th century. It’s been dubbed the atheists favorite service because it requires so little and it gives so much it’s simply divine choral music sung in some of the most historic chapels, abbeys and cathedrals in England. We’ll be spending 10 days visiting places like Cambridge, Oxford bath, the Cotswolds, Winchester, and Windsor with walking tours, free time to explore and then gathering back each afternoon for the even song service. If you choose to attend, it will be 10 days of beautiful countryside, historic cities and villages. And so, so much music invite you to go to England cast.com/tours for full itinerary and pricing information. Again, England cast E N G L a N D C a S T England cast.com/tours.
Speaker 1: (01:08)
Thanks so much. And now to the show, hello and welcome to the Renaissance English history podcast. I’m your host, Heather Tesco. And I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are our place in the universe and our connection to our own humanity. This is another joint episode with Molina Thomas of Tudor times. This is the third joint episode we’ve done, and I’m looking forward to doing a great deal, more original content and podcasts with them. Just a quick note that the Renaissance English history podcast is a proud member of the Agoura podcast network. The Gora podcast of the month is how Jamaica conquered the world. A fantastic podcast on the history of Jamaica, check it out on iTunes or your podcast app of choice or@wwwdothowtomakeaconquertheworld.com. And as always, you can get show notes and more information about the Renaissance English history podcast@wwwdotenglandcast.com, where you can also sign up for my mailing list.
Speaker 1: (02:12)
Mailing list subscribers receive extra mini casts each month. This past month was on Henry Fitzroy, Henry the eighth illegitimate son with Bessie Blount, as well as book giveaways, news, and other cool stuff for this episode as well. You can get lots more information on Catherine of Aragon at www dot tutor, times.co.uk. So moving on from that, let me introduce Malita Thomas to you. Melita Thomas is a co founder and editor of Tudor times iLab site devoted to tutor and Stuart history in the period from 1485 to 1625, you can find it@tutortimes.co.uk Melita, who has always been fascinated by history ever since she saw the 1970 series Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson also contributes articles to BBC history, extra and Britain magazine. So Malita, can you tell me the sort of basic story of Catherine of Aragon life?
Speaker 2: (03:11)
Okay. Well, Catherine was as probably most people know the youngest child of Ferdinand and Oregon and queen Isabella of Castiel, the marriage of her parents had brought together the various kingdoms of Spain, which made them very influential throughout Europe. And therefore Catherine was quite a prize in the marriage market. Part of her parents’ strategy was to isolate France, whom they saw as the most dangerous, aggressive within Europe. Although of course, the French may have seen that the Spanish were rather aggressive, but part of the strategy involved marital alliances and Catherine was promised to off the Prince of Wales, the son of Henry, the seventh Henry the seventh had won the throne at the end of the Wars of the roses. And he was very keen to be recognized by such an important monarchy as Spain and therefore he was very keen for the Prince of Wales to marry Catherine.
Speaker 2: (04:05)
The arrangement was made in 1489 when Catherine was about for her prospective bride groom, about a year younger. She eventually came to England when she was age 15 and she and Martha were married in a very extravagant ceremony at st. Paul’s cathedral, unfortunately pulled off the diet within about six months. And Catherine initially thinking that she would go home to Spain was kept in England as her father in particular and Henry her father-in-law quarreled over what to do with her because Henry didn’t want to send her back because he would not only have had to send her dowery back with her, but he’d also have had to send her, her pension that she was due as a widowed princess of Wales. And as most people know, Henry wasn’t that keen on partying with his cash. So poor Catherine was isolated really, and a position got worse after her mother died in 1504.
Speaker 2: (05:01)
They solution that they found was for Henry’s youngest son, Henry Duke of York to marry Catherine. But since he was several years younger than her, he wasn’t actually old enough to be married. So for the next few years, up until 1509, Catherine was stuck in England, kept short of money, not allowed to go home, not allowed to get married and really in a bit of a limbo state, everything seemed to come up roses though in 1509 when Henry the seventh died and his son now Henry the eighth decided that he would marry Katherine immediately within weeks of his father’s death, Henry and Catherine were married and they were crown together in June, 1500 and nine. So Catherine was now queen of England, which obviously she had felt had been her destiny ever since her parents first be troved at offer and for five years or so Henry and Catherine, they were very together.
Speaker 2: (05:58)
He was completely devoted to her, very romantic in his ideas of marriage, Henry. He liked having a damsel in distress that he could joust in from Tav. And she would dance with him and generally behave like a null theory and romance. Really. They, they liked to dance and joust and party together, and she quickly became pregnant. But unfortunately her first baby, it was a, it was a stillbirth. And then her second child who was a son, Henry Duke of Cornwall died when he was about eight weeks old, which was obviously very upsetting, both personally and politically for them. But it wasn’t asked about childbearing for Henry and Catherine. He was actually very respectful of her intellectual capabilities and her ability to work with him as, as almost a partner in marriage. And when he went into France at the head of an army in 15, 13, Catherine was named as his Regent and she took complete control of the country and raised an army to fend off the invading Scott’s, which it resulted in a very, very big victory for England over Scotland at the battle of Flodden and generally performed in every respect as a queen should apart from not being able to have a child, a son who lived, they did have a living child, Mary, who was born in 1516, but there were no sons to follow.
Speaker 2: (07:27)
And overtime Henry began to worry about what would happen to England after his death. The thought of a daughter as an heir was unacceptable to him, but so one other nine years after Mary’s birth, it looked as though he would accept that he had a daughter for an air. And then in the mid 1520s, there was a perfect storm for Catherine’s mother marriage. She could no longer bear children lions with Spain, completely unraveled. When her nephew who was, who was King of Spain and emperor by then broke off the patrol that had been arranged for Catherine’s daughter, Mary with him. And at the same time, Charles won a major victory over France. So he no longer needed the English Alliance on a more personal level. Henry fell in love with another woman. So there was Catherine at the age of 40, no, the politically nor personally useful to her husband anymore, which obviously must have been very sad for her personally.
Speaker 2: (08:33)
And also politically, she had failed in her duty of creating a long lasting Alliance with her country. So Henry looked to have the marriage and old and in different political circumstances, he probably would have got his way. Pope’s very frequently did an old marriages for Kings because that was part of the real politic of life. But as I mentioned before, Katherine’s nephew, Charles was now dominant in Europe and he put pressure on the Pope to not an older marriage. So for a long period of time, six or seven years, there were endless arguments about whether the marriage legal. Was it valid? Was it not Catherine absolutely dug her heels in. She affirmed to the end of her life, swore it on, on the gospels that her first marriage to Arthur had been in name only. They’d never consummated it. And therefore her marriage to Henry was completely valid. And Henry of course, although he never said that she was lying, he took the opposite position that the marriage had been valid and therefore he and Catherine should never have married in the first place. And,
Speaker 1: (09:41)
And they had received a dispensation to be married. Right. So previous Pope had said it was okay. And it’s from that, it’s from the line in Leviticus about how a man shouldn’t take his brother’s widow just in case anybody. Hadn’t kind of heard that before. I just wanted to put that in, I suppose. Yeah.
Speaker 2: (09:59)
Well, the, the line in Leviticus says he shall not take his brother’s wife, but then there’s a later text in Deuteronomy that says he should marry his brother’s widow. So there was some theological controversy about the whole thing. But the question was whether the Pope had the authority to dispense in such circumstances, could the Pope actually change something that was specifically written in the Bible as opposed to some of the other church rules, which Pope’s could make or unmake. And that’s why Katherine’s position was it didn’t matter that there was a rule in the Bible about it because she’d never been his brother’s wife. Whereas Henry’s view was that the Pope didn’t have the power to do it. And the Pope obviously keen to hang on to his authority. Whereas the reformation was beginning to take hold was unlikely to agree that his predecessor had exceeded his powers.
Speaker 2: (10:58)
In fact, there were other arguments that Henry could have used, which Woolsey put forward and which number of Henry his biographers have set out that in fact, they had the wrong kind of dispensation because if Katherine hadn’t consummated the marriage, they should have had a dispensation against public honesty, which was a different kind of desperate sensation to say that even though people had thoughts, they were married, even though people had thought that Catherine and Arthur were married, it was okay for her to marry his brother because you know, it hadn’t been a true marriage. So there were other arguments that Henry could have used, but for some reason he absolutely dug his heels in and wanted his argument to be the one that was considered by the Pope, which looking back, you think, you know, it was, it was rather a foolish action because if they’d come up with a scheme, whereby Katherine’s face would have been saved, possibly the Pope might have been more inclined grant it.
Speaker 2: (11:53)
And Charles might have been willing to be bought off in some way, but for whatever reason, they pursued the argument. And Henry was very much encouraged by Ann Berlin who was now effectively queen in waiting. Catherine was banished from court roundabout 1531 forbidden from seeing her daughter sent to an increasingly depressing series of damp castles towards the fence. And really just abandoned to, you know, abandoned to die while Henry just got on with life because nobody was, nobody was in a position to change anything in England. The people who had spoken up for Catherine, like more and Fisher, uh, came to pretty unpleasant ends. And it was generally accepted of course, amongst Henry’s novels that he really did need a son. They might not have chose to Nana’s their ideal queen, but, you know, he did have a case and Katherine and she never gave in, she insisted she was queen and that her marriage was valid. She died in 1536, still claiming her rights as queen
Speaker 1: (13:01)
Wasn’t there, that story that she, she still worked on Henry’s shirts. Like, so the buttons are darned his shirts or whatever, even until almost the very end show, like showing that she was still his queen, no matter what he said. And like so much so that she would still like take care of him like that.
Speaker 2: (13:20)
She certainly carried on sewing, sewing for him. Well, up into the early 1530s, yes. Much to the disgust and horror of van Berlin, who was, who felt that really? Yes, this was a wifely duty that Henry’s so-called sister-in-law should not be performing. So Anne, who was perhaps of a rather violent temper, got very upset about this and, and yelled at Henry who apparently was very embarrassed about the whole thing. And subsequent to that, when Catherine sent him presence, he had them sent back to her. Yes. He liked to keep on happy. She was a, a lady with a very sharp tongue.
Speaker 1: (13:55)
Well, he liked to keep her happy until, until she also failed in her cleanly duty, I suppose. But that’s a different story. I think it’s interesting, this whole idea about Henry needing to have a male heir, because now we can look back on the tutor dynasty and see it as such a, a strong, a strong one. But for Henry the Wars of the roses wasn’t that far behind and his father had had a tenuous claim to the throne just through battle, I suppose, men and having the blood, but it wasn’t as strong as perhaps some other claimants could have been. But, um, it, it seemed like he was really worried that if that with only a female air on England could be thrown right back into civil war. And for us, that looks absurd because of course we saw queen Elizabeth and, and had, you know, the strength of, of the tutors, but for him, that was really real. But I think it’s interesting that for Catherine, her mother was a queen in her own. Right. Um, in Spain. And I wonder how that affected kind of her understanding of Henry needing to have this male heir, which was so important for him. And did she understand that? Or would she have thought, well, a woman can be queen just as well look at my mother.
Speaker 2: (15:10)
I think probably somewhere between those two points. I and Isabella of Castiel was undoubtedly one of the most successful monarchs in Europe, in the whole of the middle ages. She was an absolutely astonishing woman. She took the throne possibly in rather dubious circumstances herself when she was only 17. I think. So she was, she was a fighter from the start and she was the dominant party in the marriage with Ferdinand. So yes, when Catherine could have looked back and seen her mother’s triumph for the queen and thought, well, why is Henry making such a fuss about it? But we shouldn’t put a 21st century view of female equality into Katherine’s mind. She would have preferred to have a son in the same way that queen Isabella was devastated when she lost her own son and heir of foot for Catherine, the ideal outcome would have been for her, her little boy, the Duke of Cornwall to live and for her daughter, Mary, to become impressed, that would have been the perfect outcome.
Speaker 2: (16:08)
So she would have understood Henry’s need, although she may have thought it was exaggerated, but I also think there’s another aspect to Henry wanting a son over the whole course of Henry’s life. You can see, I know it sounds a bit unlikely, but I think there was a, I think there was a whole self esteem issue going on with Henry. There are a couple of points later in his life when it certainly appeared that perhaps he wasn’t as, what should we say? So it’s dominant in the bedroom as perhaps he might like people to have thought and ambulance famously suggested that he wasn’t always up to the job. And he had difficulties with an and of claims, which he blamed on her being very unattractive. So it might be that his, he felt a little bit concerned about, you know, his own performance in, in having children. Yes. Although, although, um, not having children was generally blamed on the wife. It was also believed that a woman didn’t conceive unless you’d had an orgasm. So, you know, it wasn’t necessarily all Catherine’s fault. He might’ve been thinking, I think that’s one of the reasons behind him being pleased to have had a son by his mistress Bessie Blount. It did indicate that actually he was a very loyal man and could have a son and therefore he could be then quite sure that it was all Catherine.
Speaker 1: (17:32)
Sorry, I got you a little bit sidetracked there. Yeah, me too. So with Catherine, she spent these years in limbo in England after Arthur died. How, how do you think that affected her? And I, I think it’s an sort of parallel with her time then, and then the last five years of her life when she was again by herself in sort of a limbo position. Um, I wonder if, if you can draw any, if you draw any parallels to that and how you think she might have used that early experience later in her life when she was separated from her daughter and her friends. And
Speaker 2: (18:13)
Yeah, that’s a really interesting parallel. I read recently that a philosopher whose name I can’t remember at the moment said that suffering ceases to be suffering when it has a cause. And I think that’s how Catherine dealt with the suffering that she did have in her life. I think she saw it as part of a greater good and therefore, although I don’t suppose for a moment that she would have liked to be martyred, she was the kind of personality who would have been willing to willing to die for a cause her years, as you know, the widowed princess of Wales, she never gave up hope that she would be married to Henry. She was absolutely certain in her own mind that to be queen of England was her destiny. And for her, after those unpleasant years, it didn’t actually all work out. She did marry Henry. Therefore it might be that she continued to hope during the early 1530s that the situation would resolve itself, that the Pope would rule in her favor. And you know, that God’s will, for her to be queen of England would triumph. She was clearly not somebody who ever gave up. She wouldn’t compromise. She just had a vision of, of herself as a rightful queen. And then after that of Mary’s rights as well. So she would have seen the suffering as, as leading towards a better future, perhaps.
Speaker 1: (19:40)
And is there any record of how she felt about Henry embracing some of these new ideas? And I I’ve done, uh, people who are listening to who’ve listened to the Renaissance English history podcast for awhile will remember me having done some episodes talking about Henry and his religion and how it, it wasn’t that he was necessarily Protestant. It was just that he wanted a version of Catholicism where he was the head and not the Pope, but at the same time he was being pretty heretical by saying that the Pope didn’t have this, this right to be in charge of the church in England. And I just wonder what Catherine would have thought about this and how this might have affected her. That, you know, there was a, it was essentially like a country that was being taken into, into this whole new world of places, a place she probably wouldn’t have wanted it to go spiritually. And if that was, if she had to keep fighting to prevent that, or if maybe if she just would have sort of given in, it might not have gone to the extreme that it had. And I just wonder if there are any kind of records of how she would have thought that, well, as
Speaker 2: (20:48)
You say, there were no real doctrinal changes during Catherine’s lifetime. And she didn’t see the disillusion of the monasteries, which would really have brought home the break with Rome to the Catholic population. It was not unusual for Kings and pokes to quarrel that’s certain, and they frequently done it before. And it doesn’t appear that Catherine had a particularly high opinion of the Pope as an individual, although she absolutely respected his spiritual authority. And also interestingly, she wasn’t necessarily a stickler for some of the minor rules of the church. For example, when she was in that period, we talked about of limbo after Arthur’s death. She wrote home that she was amazed that people thought that eating meat on a fasting day was practically the sign of a heretic, which suggested that she herself thought it was perfectly okay. She would no doubt have blamed and Belinda for any heretical notions that Henry might’ve got into his head.
Speaker 2: (21:45)
She does seem to have, you know, perhaps some self delusion here blamed other people for Henry’s misbehavior all along now, you know, we’ve all done that haven’t we, you blame, you blame the other person because you don’t want to blame the person whose responsibility. It really is. She probably would have thought that, you know, Henry would come to his senses, but of course she, she was not a fool to knew that the longer the Pope didn’t make a ruling, the harder it was going to get, there is some suggestion that at the end of her life, she did on one occasion say to, uh, use the Shap ways that she wondered whether she had done the right thing. But it was a moment tree, a momentary moment of weakness rather than her a settled idea.
Speaker 1: (22:32)
Yeah. So she did have a daughter, Mary. And what, what was her relationship like with Marriott? I know towards the end, she couldn’t see her, but what kind of relationship did they have?
Speaker 2: (22:43)
Well, they’d been very close when Mary was a child, Catherine herself was much closer to her parents than than many Royal children ever were. And she had the same close relationship with her daughter. It’s probable, or they’re not certain that she gave Mary her first lessons in Latin. And later when Mary was sent to Wales, when she was nine to act as princess of Wales, Catherine wrote to her and asked her to keep sending her her school exercises so that Catherine could see how she was progressing. She continued to write very warm and affectionate letters to Mary, even after they were parted. And she gave Mary plenty of advice on how to conduct herself. She warned her not to get involved in political discussions to not do anything that was against her conscience. But other than that, to a Bay, her father, to act as a good daughter, when Mary was ill after they’d been separated, probably through stress and fair, she was in her teens and at a difficult age, Catherine begged Henry to let Mary be nurse by her personally saying she put her in her own bed and care for her, with her own hands.
Speaker 2: (23:52)
But Henry rather unkindly refused to let her see her. There is a letter that purports to be Catherine’s last letter written on her death bed. That’s some discussion as to whether it’s genuine or not, but in it, she does ask Henry to care for their daughter and suggests that, you know, that was one of the last things on her mind was, was Mary’s health and happiness. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: (24:16)
I have a daughter, so it makes me want to cry. Like if somebody kept me away from Hannah, I’d be like, Oh, Nope, that’s not going to happen. But the times were different than
Speaker 2: (24:25)
Yes. And, and it’s difficult, isn’t it? Because if, if, if Catherine had given in, in the beginning, if she had accepted Henry’s desire for an annulment, he would have undoubtedly treated her respectfully, kindly.
Speaker 1: (24:40)
I mean like he did with Anna cleaves.
Speaker 2: (24:42)
Yes, exactly. And you know, he and Catherine had been married for 20 years and he, you know, he genuinely loved Catherine when they were younger and he even still fond of her when they, you know, when the divorce proceedings began, it wasn’t like he hated her. Obviously he came to resent her and hate her and feel she was standing in his way, but it wasn’t, you know, and he’d fall in love with another woman, but it wasn’t that it didn’t start off as personal animosity.
Speaker 1: (25:09)
So sad. Yeah. What, what about her relationships at, at court? So when she was younger, they enjoyed having parties and dancing was, did she ever become a part of a big part of life in the tutor court or because she was Spanish? Was it always, was she kind of outside it? What was, what was life like for her at court?
Speaker 2: (25:28)
Oh, no. She was definitely a part of part of the court. I mean, she loved Spain when she was, she was 15. I always find when they show her on television as having a broken accent, I mean, really, she lived in, she lived in, in, in England from the time she was 15. She did speak very good English. She went, she may have had an accent, but she spoken, wrote and conducted her life largely in English. So, yeah. So in the, in, in her younger days, there were constant parties and jail stings and masks and all the rest of it. She was a very successful Regent and Henry’s period in France, as we, as we discussed before. And she was surrounded by the wives and the daughters of England’s premier nobility that the Duke of Buckingham sisters, where her ladies in waiting the Earl of saris, a wife, the Duke of Norfolk later, you know, she, she, she was, uh, a central part of the court.
Speaker 2: (26:18)
She was also very important in Henry’s patronage of scholars and musicians, Henry and Catherine, both enjoyed music. They both patronized Erasmus and call it and other humanist writers. She, she, you know, they’re paid paid for them essentially. So, so she was part of an at the intellectual life. And then later at the field of the cloth of gold, they’re massive junket into France in 1520 Catherine presided over the English court with her counterparts queen Claude of France. So, no, she was very much an integral part up until probably the mid 1520s when I was there. As we mentioned before, the political situation went downhill and England moved more towards Alliance with France away from the Spanish Alliance.
Speaker 1: (27:10)
That took me to my next question, which was how he had obviously been so in love with her early on and trusted her. And did that change simply because she was getting older and unable to bear son, or did it also have to do with the changes in his foreign policy? So if you can talk just a little bit, I know you touched on it earlier, but if there’s anything more you want to add to that?
Speaker 2: (27:29)
Yes. I think Catherine was the embodiment of, of, uh, a policy that had been started by Henry the seventh and continued by Henry the eighth. Well, not just started by Henry the seventh, England and France had been at war on and off for a very long time. And we can look back and say, well, we know the a hundred years of war, a hundred years, war was over, but for Henry, it wasn’t over. He still fancied himself as King of France. And he, in his early days, or even in his later days, cause he continued to fight with France until the end of his reign. He wanted to be Henry the fifth and reconquer France. So the Alliance with Spain was important from that perspective. And it was also important because the King of Spain Katherine’s nephew, Charles was also Duke of burgundy and burgundy had been England’s most important trading partner since the middle ages in the cloth trade between the two countries was a major source of revenue.
Speaker 2: (28:26)
So Catherine, because the, because burgundy and Spain were now in personal union, she was a very important part of that, that, that policy of friendship with, with Spain and burgundy, but as Spain and Charles became too powerful, he became Holy Roman emperor as well. It didn’t, it wasn’t considered ideal for, for one Monarch to have so much power and the French and the English then looked to contain that contain that power. So in the 1520s, there was much more of a move towards first at a position of neutrality. And then towards Alliance with France to, to sort of contain Charles as power. Unfortunately for Henry at the very time he was looking at allying with France, France was heavily defeated by Charles at the battle of Pavia where the King of France was actually taken prisoner by Charles and Charles became master of Italy and master of the Pope. So it was very unfortunate for Henry that he was changing, changing political horses just at the time when, when his former ally was becoming very powerful. But for Catherine, you know, Charles now becoming the enemy, it certainly didn’t help her calls at all.
Speaker 1: (29:51)
More personally with her. Is there any record or how do you think that her struggle with fertility would have affected her? Like that was her main role in life was to bear sons and, um, the foreign policy part as well. But her main job was to, was to have a son and given that she didn’t seem to be able to do that. Um, which I know a lot of people now are saying was down to Henry as well, quite possibly. Um, but for whatever reason, she wasn’t able to do that. Like how, how do you think that would have affected her?
Speaker 2: (30:23)
Interesting, as you say at the time, everybody would have pretty much blamed Catherine, even though we might now say, well, hang on a minute, there were two of them here. They’re only actual recorded comment that I can think of on it was in the famous speech. She made it Blackfriars when her marriage was being tried in open court by the two Cardinals Woolsey and the Pope’s legate compared to Jo and she famously got up and knelt in front of Henry and said, you know, our marriage is valid, et cetera. And she said, although it has pleased God to take her children through no fault of mine. So she rejected the notion that it was her fault. It was God’s well, of course she must’ve been on a personal level, deeply, deeply unhappy to lose probably six out of seven children. And she didn’t miss Carrie early.
Speaker 2: (31:14)
She tended to she miscarried or had stillbirths at a late stage. So eight, eight months or the children being born and then dying. So it wasn’t even a case of, you know, at a few weeks she carried these babies almost full term. So it must have been emotionally. I mean, goodness knows what our hormones must’ve been like, you know, in a practical sense, because you look back and you think, well, you know, we just gloss over these things, but I’m sure any woman who’s had children will know, you know, how hormonal and difficult and, and things, the whole whole thing can be. So it would have been deeply, deeply depressing and distressing for her personally, Henry fair, to be fair to him for the first, the first losses, even that even the little boy he comforted Katherine, he was by her side. He never appeared to blame her on a personal level. It was almost perhaps his reluctance to blame her personally that led him to look into his Bible and realize in his own mind that God was punishing them for the sin of marrying.
Speaker 1: (32:16)
I often feel like I identify with her now later in life, having had a fertility struggle of my own and everything. And I just think, gosh, like the weight of the world must have been on her that he or she was unable to do her one job. And then like her whole church is blown apart in England. Of course she didn’t live to see all of that, but still too to think of what happened because she had some issues. So what, what sort of a good friends, what kind of relationships did she have with people towards the end of her life? Um, did she have any kind of support network at all? Once she was banished and, and who would have been with her,
Speaker 2: (32:56)
Certainly had a lot of support at court in the late 1520s. This is for a variety of reasons. Lots of, from a political point of view. The Alliance with burgundy that I’ve mentioned remained an important part of, of England’s need to, to export goods. So people were not that thrilled with quarreling with the emperor on a personal level, and Berlin was not popular. The very idea that that had a Royal daughter like Catherine would be thrown aside for, you know, somebody who was a Knight’s daughter. Wasn’t something that went down well with, with, with the nobility that they would have to curtsy to somebody who they thought was, was pretty low born. Uh, Catherine had been popular. Her ladies in waiting some of them, some of them supported on, but by and large, the, the older generation supportive Catherine amongst the Henry’s own family, her sister-in-law Mary, the French queen who was Duchess of Suffolk by then, she was very much on Catherine’s side.
Speaker 2: (33:57)
Although she died in 1533, the Duchess of Norfolk, where there, there were two duchesses, one, one was a dowager and one was the current Duchess. The current Duchess was a close friend of Catherine’s and apparently even smuggled letters into her, hidden in an orange, apparently, which is, which is quite a fun idea. But, um, whereas the, the dollar deduction was, uh, a form from supporter of an Berlin lady Salzburg, who was the governance of Mary, but it was also the King’s cousin and a noble woman in her own, right. She was, she was countless herself. She was a strong supporter. Henry’s other cousins, as in many cases of divorce, a lot of the, the family who’d known the Y for a long time, tended to side with her against the newcomer there, her, her closest supporter and friend, if you can, if you can say an ambassador as a friend was Charles, his ambassador used to shut PWIs, who seems to have had rather a, a soft spot for her personally. You know, I’m not stressing, he was in love with her, but he seems to have had a great deal of respect and admiration for her as a, as an individual. And he fought tirelessly to get Charles to support her with more than words, which he never did.
Speaker 1: (35:15)
So it’s good to, to think about, even though she was alone, she still had people supporting her and around her who loved her
Speaker 2: (35:21)
At the very end, her, her oldest friend, a lady called Maria [inaudible], who was lady, will it be to Brooke by then? She lied her way into the castle that Kim Bolton, where Catherine was dying to make sure that she wasn’t alone at the end. Yeah.
Speaker 1: (35:35)
Generally the storyline of Catherine is, you know, this wronged woman who suffered and all of that, what should we know about her that isn’t generally part of that storyline? Like what are the other sides of her?
Speaker 2: (35:48)
Uh, I think one of the areas that is less talked about was a point I mentioned earlier, her, her interest in humanism and the new learning, you know, people think of her as very high bound and old fashioned Catholic, you know, opposed to reform root and branch. But actually she was very well educated in her generation. One of the first women to really benefit from a humanist education, she learned to speak and write Latin. She, she studied history and politics and philosophy, which most women didn’t and none of Henry, the eights, other Queens were educated to the level that Catherine was. So she had an interest in scholarship and new ideas. She was, as I say, supervise the education of her daughter, she commissioned works from humanist, such as Vive. I’m not sure on that. You you’ll have to say that one in Spanish Han Louie Vive, who was a noted humanist to actually develop an educational program for Mary, her activities as region. She was also very interested in the Navy. She had, she attended with Henry a couple of inaugurations of ships that there was one, the Peter pomegranate, which was named for her, her badge of the pomegranate, the Katherine Pleasants, which was more of a pleasure, pleasure ship for her and her and Henry. And yeah. So as she wanted, she took an interest in shipbuilding during the Wars with France in 1513. So, so she was, she was interested in more than just religion.
Speaker 1: (37:17)
So where can people find, where can people go to find out more about Katherine?
Speaker 2: (37:22)
Well, if you’d like to read about her, there have been two really good biographies in the last few years, one by a chap called Giles Tremlett and one by Patrick Williams. And both of them have looked at it much more from the perspective of information that’s available in their Spanish archives. Previous to that, there was only one really good biography or even one at all, which dates from the 1930s, I think by Gerrard Mattingly, uh, again, in books, she’s also forms sections in the various books on the six wives, spy, Antonia, Fraser, or Alison where David Starkey, David loads, and I think are the main ones for fiction. She’s the heroine of probably my favorite fictional historical fiction book of all time, Nora lofts book, the King’s pleasure, but she is also today, may the fifth, the subject of Alison where’s, new novel Catherine of Aragon, the true queen.
Speaker 2: (38:26)
So that’ll be an interesting read if you’d like to see where she is buried Peterborough cathedral, there’s a monument to her, which was put in place in the late 19th century, actually paid for by all will ladies called Catherine in England who were asked to, to make a contribution or perhaps not all of them, but, um, uh, so you can, you can go and see her tomb at Peterborough cathedral. And every year they have a ceremony commemorating her life there. If you’re in foreign parts, then, uh, the Alhambra in Spain is clearly a marvelous place to visit. And it’s where Catherine spent the last years of her life before coming to England and Ludlow castle on the marches of Wales is also associated with her. So a few places around I can vouch for the Alhambra. So you might. Excellent. Well, thank you, Melinda. Thank you again to Melita Thomas for taking the time to tell us about Catherine of Aragon.
Speaker 2: (39:27)
For more information on Catherine, go to www.tutortimes.co.uk, or see the resources available on the England cast site@wwwdotenglandcast.com. And I will be back with you in about two more weeks, wrapping up the little unit I’ve been doing on the history of the Elizabethan theater. So for those of you who’ve been listening, we talked about the history of the theater. Then we did another episode introducing Shakespeare. And this third episode is going to talk about the other working playwrights and actors during the time of Shakespeare, because he wasn’t actually the only one writing plays in Elizabeth and London. So there were other ones that we should talk about as well. So we’re going to do that in about two more weeks. So I will talk with you soon. Bye. Bye.
Speaker 3: (40:17)
[inaudible].
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
