The daughter of the royal couple who united Spain, turning it into a mighty European power, and the Queen of England - Catherine of Aragon was loved both in her small homeland and in Albion for modesty, honesty and kindness.
Genealogy
Catherine of Aragon came from the influential Spanish Trastamara dynasty. She received her name in honor of her maternal great-grandmother Catherine of Lancaster. The Infanta was a distant relative of John of Gaunt, from whose illegitimate son the Tudor dynasty descended. In fact, Catherine of Aragon was related to her husband.
Ekaterina was also the sister of Juan of Asturias, heir to the throne of Spain, but who died of a fever at the age of 19. The older sisters of the Infanta were Queen Isabella of Asturias of Portugal, Queen Consort of Portugal Maria of Aragon and Queen Juana I of Castile the Mad.
Catherine of Aragon: biography
Catherine of Aragon was born on December 16, 1485 and was the youngest daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. From childhood, the girl was prepared to become the Queen of England, since Ferdinand signed a contract with King Henry VII of England -the first ruler of the Tudor dynasty.
At the age of 15, Katerina married the sickly 11-year-old Prince Arthur of Wales, heir to the throne. Just six months later, he died without fulfilling his marital duty. Catherine of Aragon remained Princess Dowager with a modest allowance and an uncertain future.
At the age of 23, the Spanish Infanta married the enthroned Henry VIII. Catherine was 6 years older than her husband, but this did not prevent her from living in harmony with Henry for a long time. For the people, she became a beloved queen, won the respect of most of the courtiers and was a faithful companion and ally of her king and husband.
Of the six children born to the Queen, only one girl survived to adulthood. The daughter of Catherine of Aragon, Maria, will in the future become the first female monarch to officially ascend the throne. However, Henry VIII longed for a male heir, realizing that after the sixth birth his wife was unlikely to become pregnant again, the king began divorce proceedings.
Catherine did not recognize her divorce from Henry until the end of her days, remaining faithful to her husband, she admitted that she still loved him and wrote to the Pope asking him not to forget about her and Henry and pray for the sinful soul of the King of England. Catherine of Aragon died on January 7, 1536.
Life in Spain
As a child, Catherine often moved from place to place, because Queen Isabella did not want to part with her children, especially girls, and strictly followed their education. Allthe daughters of the Spanish royal couple were engaged from an early age to the heirs to the thrones and therefore prepared to rule the state.
Childhood and youth of Catherine of Aragon passed in the heyday of the humanities and the ideals of the Renaissance. The tutor of the Infante and Prince Juan was Alessandro Geraldini. Queen Isabella insisted that the education of her daughters be at the level of what the heir to the throne received, so the girls were extremely smart, educated, well-read and knew ancient languages, including Latin and ancient Greek. On the recommendation of the courtiers of the English King Henry VII, Catherine of Aragon began to learn French. The Infanta was trained in court manners, ballroom dancing, and sewing and embroidery. According to contemporaries, even as a queen, she darned her husband's shirts herself.
Catherine had an unusual appearance for a Spaniard: blond hair with a reddish tint, gray eyes and pale skin with a slight blush. Her image was captured by eminent artists of the Renaissance. Many of them were amazed by the unique appearance that Catherine of Aragon possessed. Photos of her portraits (see above) prove that the Infanta looked more like an Englishwoman than a Spanish one.
Engagement and marriage to the Prince of Wales - Arthur
As soon as Catherine was 15 years old, the contract that her father concluded with Henry VII, when the infanta was only three years old, came into force. The young bride went with a small retinue and half of her dowry to England, where she was metroyal family.
In 1501, Catherine married the 11-year-old heir to the English throne, Prince Arthur, but this marriage was not destined to last long. Immediately after the wedding, Catherine went to Wales with her husband, where Arthur ruled the entrusted territories, justifying the title of Prince of Wales.
Six months later, the newlyweds fell ill with prickly heat. Catherine soon recovered, but Prince Arthur died seven months after the wedding, leaving behind a young widow. The fate of Catherine of Aragon after the death of her husband was extremely uncertain, as the girl remained a pawn in the political game of her parents and the King of England.
Marriage to Henry VIII
In 1509, Henry VIII came to the throne, who almost immediately married Catherine. Information about the reasons for the marriage varies, some claim that Henry loved Catherine, others that the young king did not dare to oppose the decree of his dying father. Whatever the true reasons for the marriage, Catherine of Aragon and Henry 8 lived in peace and harmony for almost 20 years.
In the first years of their marriage, Queen Catherine of Aragon played the role of the Spanish ambassador entrusted to her by Ferdinand in 1507, but Henry insisted that Catherine's destiny was to have an heir. The queen's first pregnancy ended in premature birth, and the second gave birth to a he althy boy, Henry, Duke of Cornwall. The boy died two months later.
During the French-English War of 1513 Henryleft England for the Continent. He appointed Catherine of Aragon as regent, temporarily handing over to her the reins of government. During the King's absence, Catherine successfully put down a revolt of the Scottish lords by putting their leader to death.
Prerequisites for divorce
During the years of her married life with Henry VIII, Catherine was pregnant six times, but of all her children, only one daughter survived, named after Henry's sister Mary. After the sixth and again unsuccessful birth, the king despaired of getting an heir from Catherine and began to make plans for a divorce.
From 1525, the king became interested in Anne Boleyn, the youngest daughter of one of their court lords. From that moment, attempts began to dissolve the marriage on the basis that Catherine could no longer give birth to an heir to the king. This reason, however, was not legitimate and canonical according to the rules of the Catholic Church, to which England belonged at that time. Pope Clement VII refused Henry permission to divorce, and the king decided to inform Catherine of his plans.
Dissolution of marriage
In a conversation with the queen, Henry called their union sinful, since Catherine was the wife of his brother and asked her to annul the marriage and go to the monastery, to which Catherine reacted with an indignant refusal. The king was forced to start official ecclesiastical proceedings that dragged on for five years.
In 1534, Henry VIII put pressure on Parliament and declared himself head of the newAnglican Church, which allowed him to dissolve the marriage with Catherine of Aragon, depriving her of the title of queen, and their daughter Mary of the right to inherit the throne.
Life after divorce from the king
After the divorce, Catherine was sent away from the court with a small retinue. She was forbidden to communicate with her daughter, and all visits to her had to be approved by the king. Despite the divorce court decision, Catherine until the very last days considered herself the Queen of England and the only legal wife of Henry VIII. In addition to Catherine, Henry had five more wives, two of whom (Anne Boleyn and Kate Howard) were sentenced to death by the king.
Since 1535, Catherine of Aragon, officially called the Dowager Princess of Wales, lived in Cambridgeshire, enjoying the relative freedom and respect of a small retinue and servants. A year after moving to Cambridgeshire, Catherine died. Around the rather unexpected death of the former queen, there were persistent rumors of poisoning. Both the acting Queen Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII himself were suspected of the murder.
