Katharine of Aragon was the very first wife of Henry VIII, and the rightful Queen of England.
Katharine was born a Spanish princess. Her father was Ferdinand of Aragon and her mother the great Isabella of Castille. Her mother especially was intelligent and very pious, and she raised her daughters as well as her son to be well educated and devoutly Catholic.
At 6 months of age, Katharine was promised in marriage to Arthur Tudor, son of Henry VII of England. At 16, she made the trip to England and she and Arthur were married.,, but Arthur was a sickly boy and shortly after the two of them went to Ludlow Castle, the government seat of the Prince of Wales, Arthur was dead. The marriage between Katharine and Arthur had never been consummated, so Katharine was then promised to Arthur's younger brother Henry, who was only 12 years old. She was 17.
When Henry was 18 and Katharine 24, Henry VII died and Henry VIII became king. He immediately married Katharine, and for a number of years theirs was a loving, happy life. Katharine and Henry had true affection for one another. She was a good, obedient and gentle queen, and was loved by her people for her generosity, kindness, and also for the excellent example she set in her unswerving devotion to her Catholic faith.
Katharine had many miscarriages, two stillbirths (one a son), and bore a son who was christened Prince but only lived for 52 days....she also bore one child who survived, a daughter, Mary.
Eventually, Henry began to realize that Katharine was no longer capable of bearing children. And with no legitimate son as rightful heir, he began to worry. And one other thing had happened,,,Henry had fallen head over heels in love with Anne Boleyn. Anne was young and spirited, and assured Henry that, if made queen, she would give him the prince that England so desperately needed.
Henry used a passage of Leviticus from the bible as proof that his marriage to his brother's wife was not viewed favorably by God and therefore was cursed with no sons. He claimed his conscience could not allow him to continue in the marriage and requested what in modern terms would be an annulment.
Katharine refused to step down. She believed in her heart that she was divinely ordained as Queen of England. She also knew that if she DID bow out gracefully and enter a nunnery, as Henry wished her to do, it would bastardize their daughter Mary, and strip her right to succession. Also, most importantly, she felt that to betray her conscience and do what she knew to be wrong, she would lose her immortal soul. Henry attended Anne Boleyn in every way, and humiliated Katharine in front of everyone. But Katharine held firm and bore her pain with grace and dignity.
Finally one day, Katharine awoke to find that the entire Court was moving to another Castle and she was ordered to stay behind. It was the last time she ever saw Henry. She was moved to numerous different locations, each one worse than the other, and given only a few servants to help her. She was isolated, separated from her daughter and the public, but continued to refuse to admit that she had never rightfully been Queen. Henry stripped her of everything, promising that if she would only aquiesce, he would re-unite her with Mary, and provide for her for all her life. She flatly refused.
Katharine died in 1536. Her last letter to Henry, dictated on her death bed, was a testament to the grace of this wonderful woman.,,,
"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.
