Catherine of Aragon

A Spanish Princess,
  a Loyal Wife and Queen of England.

On 16 December, 1485, Catherine of Aragon was born at Laredo Palace, in Alcalá de Henares near to Madrid.  The youngest child of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, her full title as a princess was Infanta Catalina de Aragón y Castilla. 

The personal symbol of Catherine was a crowned pomegranate.  She is sometimes referred to as The Pomegranate Queen.

As a young child, she was betrothed to Arthur Tudor, (below).  He was the son of the English King Henry VII.

In 1501, they were married in St. Paul's Cathedral. 

In April 1502, just months after their wedding, the young couple fell seriously ill.  Arthur died and Catherine almost died. The portrait below was painted by Michael Sittow in 1502 and it shows Catherine as a young widow.

It was then decided that she should marry Arthur's younger brother, Henry.  The wedding took place many years later in 1509 when Henry had become king - King Henry VIII, (below.)  Catherine was five years older than him.

Catherine gave birth to many children but they all died except for one daughter.  In 1510 a daughter was stillborn.  In 1511 a boy named Henry was born but he died 52 days later.  In 1513, another boy was born but he died after a few hours.  In 1514, a girl was stillborn. 

Then, on 18 February, 1516, a daughter was born and she survived!  She was named Mary and later she would become Queen Mary I of England. (Below.) This means that the future Mary I of England was half Spanish.

In 1518, another daughter was stillborn.  This was Catherine's final pregnancy.

Henry VIII was desperate for a son to be born.  He separated from Catherine in 1531 because it seemed that she was unlikely to have any more children.  He married one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn, in 1533.  It is well-known that the marriage to Anne did not last and that Henry married four times more!

Catherine did not wish to lose her husband and she always considered herself to be Henry's wife - even after he had re-married.  In 1535, she was sent away from Henry's court to live in Kimbolton Castle.  She was forbidden to see her daughter Mary as punishment for not agreeing to divorce Henry.

In her castle, she had just a few servants and she lived in just one room, leaving it only to attend prayers in the chapel.  It is believed that the poor living conditions and her sadness damaged her health.

She died in Kimbolton Castle on 7 January 1536, at the age of fifty years.  Her tomb can be seen in Peterborough Cathedral, (below.)

  The castle where she lived during her final years no longer exists, but a boarding school now stands on the site and in the grounds of the original castle.

When Catherine died, she was still heart-broken over Henry's decision to leave her and on the very day of her death, she wrote the following letter to Henry -

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.