Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) was Henry VIII's first wife and Queen of England for twenty-four years. Daughter of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, learned, devout and courageous, she is remembered above all for the tenacity with which she resisted the annulment of her marriage, the "Great Matter" that led England to break with the Church of Rome.
An infanta of Spain
Born on 16 December 1485 at Alcalá de Henares, she was the youngest daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the monarchs who completed the Reconquista and financed Columbus's voyage. She received an excellent education for a woman of her time: Latin, law, theology and music. As a child she was betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales and heir of Henry VII, to seal the alliance between England and Spain. The wedding took place in St Paul's Cathedral in London in November 1501, but barely five months later Arthur died, aged fifteen.
Queen of England
After years of uncertainty and financial hardship, in June 1509 Catherine married Arthur's brother, the young King Henry VIII, thanks to a papal dispensation overcoming the ban on marrying a brother's widow; Catherine always maintained that her first marriage had not been consummated. For many years the couple were happy. Catherine was a popular and capable queen: in 1513, while the king fought in France, she governed as regent and organised the defence of the realm against the Scottish invasion, which ended in the English victory at Flodden, where King James IV of Scotland was killed. She protected humanists such as the Spaniard Juan Luis Vives and Erasmus of Rotterdam.
But the queen had at least six pregnancies and only one daughter survived, Mary, born in 1516. As the years passed Henry became convinced that the lack of a son was divine punishment for marrying his brother's widow, as a passage in Leviticus seemed to suggest, and he fell in love with Anne Boleyn.
The "Great Matter"
In 1527 the king asked the Pope to annul the marriage. Catherine refused to step aside or enter a convent: for her the marriage was valid and her daughter Mary the legitimate heir. In 1529, before the court convened at Blackfriars by the papal legates, she knelt before the king and gave a famous speech defending her dignity as wife and queen, then left the hall, refusing to recognise the court's jurisdiction. Pope Clement VII, under the influence of Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew, did not grant the annulment. In the end Henry broke with Rome: in May 1533 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared the marriage void, and the king married Anne Boleyn (see Henry VIII).
The last years
Separated from her daughter, stripped of the title of queen and reduced to "Princess Dowager of Wales", Catherine was confined to a series of ever more modest residences. She never stopped signing herself "Katherine the Queen". She died on 7 January 1536 at Kimbolton Castle and was buried in Peterborough Cathedral, where her tomb still draws visitors, who leave pomegranates, her emblem, and flowers. A few months later Anne Boleyn too was executed. In 1553 Catherine's daughter came to the throne as Mary I, the first queen to rule England in her own right, and tried to restore Catholicism.
Legacy
Catherine of Aragon is remembered today as a figure of great dignity and consistency. Her story, told in novels, films and television series, is also that of a foreign woman who defended her rights in a world dominated by men and reasons of state. See also Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour, Thomas Wolsey and the history of the Church of England.