Dec. 16, 1485—
Catherine of Aragon, whose
marriage into the Tudor dynasty was intended to advance power relations between
two of Europe’s major royal houses but wound up putting them at odds and
widening the continent’s Catholic-Protestant fracture, was born in Alcala de
Henares, Spain, the last child of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella
of Castile.
Catherine’s pivotal role in the fate of Europe came about,
of course, because she was the first of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England—the
king whose desire to obtain a divorce set off England’s violent and protracted
split from Catholicism. For years, schoolchildren desperate to distinguish her fate
from that of her successors as Henry’s wives remembered that she was the first
in the following helpful mnemonic device:
“Divorced, beheaded,
died;
Divorced, beheaded, survived.”
I first became aware of
this wronged woman back in the summer of 1971, through the U.S. premiere of the
BBC mini-series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. As fine as the series (and
especially Keith Michell as Henry) was, it helped further the general visual representation
of Catherine as an aging, tired, pious spouse unable to compete with court minx
Anne Boleyn.
That picture needs some
adjustment. Particularly at the beginning of their marriage in 1509, Catherine
was regarded as having few rivals for beauty in England. At the time, 18-year-old
Henry not only had no problems with her, but was even eager to wed this attractive
widow of his older, sicklier brother, Prince Arthur. “She was 23, plump and
pretty, and had beautiful red-gold hair that hung below her hips,” according to
historian Alison Weir. “Henry spoke openly of the joy and felicity he had found
with Catherine.”
Many people have written
about Catherine over the years, in fiction and nonfiction alike. One of the
more fascinating accounts is Garrett Mattingly’s 1941 biography, Catherine of Aragon, which approaches her from his primary interest: diplomatic history.
Expertly using recently
discovered archives in Vienna and Brussels, Mattingly depicted a woman who
needed all her strength, intelligence and faith to keep her footing amid neglect
by her father, court intrigues waged by royals, envoys and clerics, and
settlement in a strange foreign land—all at the hands of males who, more often
than not, did not have her best interests in mind.
But one drawback of this
biography is its author’s male point of view. Mattingly simply couldn’t understand
why Catherine might quarrel with Henry over his infidelity. After all, royal
wenching was the norm in that time. Even Catherine’s father, Ferdinand, was
unfaithful.
It seems never to have
occurred to Mattingly that some women are sincerely bothered by husbands who
can’t control their wayward impulses—and don’t even try.
There is a further irony
in Catherine’s sad fate: though Henry came to fault her inability to produce a
male heir, neither could Anne Boleyn--and the one he was eventually able to have, crowned Edward VI, lasted on the throne only six years before dying himself.
For all his sexism,
Mattingly couldn’t help praising Catherine for her “core of iron self-reliance
[and] lonely stubbornness.” Like him and the current saucy interpreter of the
royals, Lucy Worsley, I, too, am a member of “Team Catherine.”
