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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Catharine of Aragon Biography CATHARINE OF ARAGON (1485-1536). Queen of England, the first wife of Henry VIII, and fourth daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Castile and Aragon. She was born in December, 1485. She occupies a prominent place in English history, because the question of her matrimonial relations with Henry was a factor in the English Reformation. In pursuance of his foreign policy, Henry VII negotiated a matrimonial alliance between Catharine and his son Arthur, Prince of Wales. She went to England in 1501, and on November 14, a few days after the public betrothal, the marriage was celebrated. Never a wife, except in name, Catharine was left a widow by the death of Arthur on April 2, 1502. A few months later, a second marriage was projected for her by her father-in-law, with his second son, Henry, as yet only a boy of 12 years. The Pope's dispensation enabling such near relatives to marry was obtained in 1504, and the marriage took place in June, 1509, immediately after Henry's accession to the crown as Henry VIII. The marriage was, on the whole, fairly successful, though the pro-Spanish sympathies of Catharine brought some difficulties during the periods of French alliance. But the great failure of the marriage lay in the fact that Catharine bore Henry but one daughter and no son that survived. The succession of a queen regent was doubtful, and, granted that were secured, the question of marriage, either with a foreign prince or a subject nobleman, brought in a distinct possibility of a revival of the trouble of the Wars of the Roses. There are a number of indications that Henry was troubled by these thoughts long before the advent of Anne Boleyn (q.v.), but, at any rate, her appearance and the resultant passion it aroused in Henry brought them to the surface. From 1527 or perhaps earlier Henry worked to secure a decree of nullity as to his marriage with Catharine and a marriage with Anne that would bring him a son to secure the succession. He professed doubts as to the validity of his marriage, and in 1527 a collusive suit was secretly brought before Wolsey. Nothing came of this; but the question of divorce was openly raised. Pope Clement VII refused to declare the marriage void at Henry's request through the secretary, Knight, whom the King had sent to Rome for that purpose. He, however, granted a commission to Campeggio and Wolsey to inquire into the validity of the marriage; but before these prelates Queen Catharine refused to plead, and appealed to the Pope. The King craved judgment. The legates cited the Queen, and, declaring her contumacious when she did not appear, went on with the cause; but Cardinal Campegggio, anxious only to stay the proceedings when the King expected a decree, prorogued the court until a future day. The King consulted the universities of Europe, many of which declared the marriage invalid. The Pope now summoned the King to Rome, but Henry haughtily refused to appear either in person or by deputy, for he maintained that such obedience would be to sacrifice the prerogatives of his crown, and, setting the Pope at defiance, he married Anne Boleyn, Jan. 25, 1533. On the 23d of the following May Cranmer declared the first marriage void, and on March 23, 1534, Pope Clement pronounced it valid, thus bringing about the alienation of Henry VIII from the Roman see. Queen Catharine did not quit the kingdom, but was closely guarded at Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, afterward at Buckden, and then at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, until her death on Jan. 8, 1536. In the meantime, although absolutely friendless and harassed by ceaseless persecution, she displayed heroic courage and surprising mental powers, defeating every base design of the King and his agents to induce her to sign away the rights of herself and her daughter Mary. Catharine was educated under her mother's direction and was a fair Latin scholar. Her character was unimpeachable, and her disposition sweet and gentle. Consult: The Calendars of State Papers for the reign, edited by Brewer and Gairdner (1880-90), and the Spanish series, edited by Bergenroth and Gayango, vol. ii (1868); Brewer and Gairdner, Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII (London, 1862); Hall, Chronicle (London, 1809); Pocock, History of the Reformation (new ed., London, 1873); The Divorce, 1527-33 (2 vols., Oxford, 1870); Le Grand, History of the Divorce of Henry V111 and Catharine, with Burnet's answer (London, I690) ; Nicholas Harpsfield, Treatise on the Pretended Divorce, ed. by Pocock (London, 1878); Froude, The Divorce (New York, 1891) : Froude, History of England, vols. i-ii (New York, 1871); Cavendish, Life of Cardinal Wolsey (2d ed., London, 1827); Dixon, Two Queens (London, 1873-74); Lingard, History of England, vol. vi (Boston, 1853-55); and Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII, ed. by Gairdner (2 vols., London, 1884); Pollard, Henry VIII (London, 1905). An excellent bibliography of the divorce controversy is provided by Huth, Marriage of Near Kin (2d_ ed., London and New York, 1887). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 682-683. |