Katherine of Aragon - A Biography

A Biography of Queen Katherine of Aragon & personal commentary written by <a href="/account/DarkLadyWitch11" target="_self" title="DarkLadyWitch11">DarkLadyWitch11</a> ( wiki member)

Full Biography : Queen Katherine was unlike many conventional and wrong Hollywood portrayals where they portray a stereotypical image (Even David Starkey does in his books which are bias, Alison Weir favors her but it is still bias, Antonia Fraser is perhaps the most fair of all the three, David has portrayed her as plain, bad teeth always talking in a heavy Spanish accent and over zealous staunchly Catholic woman). Katherine was only 6 years older than Henry, not much of an age difference as many make it out to be as many kings and queens had an even greater difference then her and Henry although it is rarely mentioned by those who most "know" or are more "post modernist" and "mind thinking" and gray thinkers" and "intelligent" and "idealized". She was a child of privilege, an Infanta of Spain, the daughter of 'Los Reyes Catolicos' Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Katherine was well educated, and she was taught to keep her feelings to herself and remain gracious.She was a skillful diplomat and Henry had such confidence in her abilities that he appointed her his Regent in England when he led his army to fight the French. When she was Regent she won the battle against the Scots. With her determination and leadership, a leadership that most people were astounded to see, she rode halfway with the army, along with her brilliant English law-men and counsellors she prepared the border and laid out the maps, and even spared more destruction after the battle as she believed it was for the best instead of taking Scotland, people saw that she was not only merciful but also a quick and intelligent, hard-calculating enemy who could double play you to humiliate you, whether it was the battlefield, or in public. She proved to be a formidable enemy, very nervous, very respectful but very vengeful and willing to do everything to humiliate and win and protect that which she held dear, her power, her hardship for her Country she loved to much and in the end her daughter, the battle which made her increasingly popular through out the country, and displayed her abilities as Regent and military skills as those of her counselors and her diplomatic skills as well as her skills in war demonstrating to many she was her mother's daughter and the owner of her destiny from that moment on, even though short like the ones who followed after her. She knew that in the manner of men in those times, especially kings, Henry would have his dalliances, but always presumed that he would be loyal. Some assume that an intelligent and calculating woman like Katherine was cold and that Henry, a spoiled man such as him, would never last and would easily be manipulated. Katherine would then assume that no matter what he would return to her as long as she kept her upper hand, that she kept him controlled with utmost discretion, with decency, and with intelligence that he would not notice and as long as he would get a son from her; however the next years even though Henry was at her feet politically and sometimes for advice, it all changed tide when she "failed" to give him a son who could survive, the infant son she bore to him in 1511 only lasted 56 days and all other boys born after him were either stillborn, died soon after or miscarried. Only a daughter survived who Henry saw no use for and would later came to repudiate in ways he did not realise. Although people of the old ideas called her a staunch mother who favored men, the way she fought for her daughter to be the sole heir when Henry would set her aside for the heirs of himself and Anne, she did not fight for her daughter to be married like before, but her to be named the only heir even if a woman, and be crowned Queen alone and whole sovereign as her father would later be, that is Henry VIII Katherine's husband, she would have liked for her daughter to be like her mother, a strong and hard woman and wise, but out of all her aspirations and wishes she in the end did get one, to have her daughter, even if she was not there to see it, crowned Queen, sovereign of all England, for a time until she married Phillip II of Spain. Katherine kept her private feelings about his philandering to herself, so as not to spoil her image and remain herself in talking back to him back in discreet ways and ways that she herself knew she would always be favored and become the favorite amongst the people. She always managed to show Henry a smiling welcome, to seem as the fairest and smartest, so she could remain as the popular image of a righteous Queen who was humble and loyal like her motto stated. Long after the romance had passed, Henry retained a respect and affection for Katherine even as he sought sexual satisfaction among her waiting women and returned daily to the Queen's apartments for relaxation, intelligent companionship, and sympathy, even though as that respect remained later it became almost hatred for her not making herself bend to his will and acknowledging her marriage to him as wrong and to the day of her death she always signed 'the queen' and never wavered in favor of Henry, always strong that she was the only right one, a quality Henry did not like since then for a wife, proof of this is that after Anne Boleyn, tired of having one wife who could not provide a son and humiliated him to make him seem like a tyrant and she as a righteous wife and more capable then him at a battle field, intelligent and ruthless when she would defy him, shattering his authority by having all the people support her.Nevertheless some claim Henry always had a respect even though little in the end, for his first wife. Henry first knew Katherine of Aragon as Catalina de Aragon, his brother's wife. Until Anne Boleyn, Henry always publicly showed his Queen the affectionate respect due a royal consort. He continued as long as possible with the charade that it was only for his conscience that he wished to divorce Katharine both to placate the Pope and avoid trouble with Katharine's nephew, the powerful Emperor Charles V. Her education, strong and very cold demeanor, wisdom, and diplomatic abilities made Henry respect her even at times while he sought the divorce and the respect grew less, but it was still always there. He knew her as a formidable, strong and unbending opponent, and the fact that she was the aunt of the most powerful ruler in Europe, the Emperor Charles V the son of her sister Juana, made him quake at making her an enemy , underestimating her love and loyalty to him which prevented her from ever doing him harm. Unlike most of the women who followed her as Queen of England (Anne of Cleves, the daughter of a minor German prince was the other foreign wife ), Katherine was not born an English subject to men or to be submissive like the wives that followed, three of them after her and Anne Boleyn, but was the well-educated royal daughter of powerful rulers on the European stage, so she had an identity and self confidence of her own that was not based on her marriage to the king. Henry was somewhat in awe of her. Some might think that Katherine was a joyless woman and a solely pious person who read narrow Catholic dogma and prayed all the time; while actually according to her steady diet of religious and ecclesiastical related books as well as reformation books within the catholic church and outrageous ideas written even by the church, new literature and new ideas part of the renaissance as her related books, some new historians who maintain a clearer wave of view that are less bias and more gray area like Fraser and others like her, seem to state that according to many details and accounts of enemies and those who knew her closely, she was known to be jovial and outgoing.She in fact also liked to read Erasmus and was very much influenced by reformers such as he and other humanists within the Catholic Church, as well as by others who followed the Catholic ideology but not too rigorously and chose to change the dogma and liberate the church, as Antonia Fraser mentions in her books. Katherine remained loving in appearance to her husband in public and to Henry when she would be in front of him to show him who loved him best. Most, however, while acknowledging that early in her marriage Katherine tended the interests of Spain in the English court, agree that all she sought to gain was the love and loyalty of her husband, and her daughter's right to the succession. Her final letter to him attests for the last time her undying love and that "...mine eyes desire you above all things." Katherine's love for her adopted country was true and reciprocated by her subjects, many of whom came out to line the route of her funeral procession from Kimbolton to Peterborough in bitter cold and pay their respects to their deceased Queen as her cortege passed. Beloved by her subjects, Katherine never lost their sympathy. Instead of suffering a harsh and fast death like two of Henry's wives, she suffered a slow and painful death that was both psychological as well as spiritual and physical, lasting months, perhaps even years instead of being murdered by a traitor's death that could have saved her only two seconds of pain, it is for the reader to decide which was worse in the end. And though in reduced living conditions, she refused any attendants who had taken an oath of loyalty to Anne, some suggest because of fear that some of them would turn loyalty towards Henry and those who wanted her death or any harm that could come to her and with the help of her loyal servant, Francisco Felipez, Katherine found a way to communicate with the Emperor's Spanish Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys towards any news of the outside world or that of her daughter's condition. She always signed herself as "the quene" which means the queen in middle English at the time, her death was sad, painful and sorrowful for many, including her daughter who was not even allowed to go to her funeral. Katherine has a legacy that even as she was a woman, she rode with the troops to Flodden and showed that while she had the heart and body of a woman biologically, as Elizabeth once rode with her troops in a similar manner, she had the heart of a King. She was always unbending, she knew the rules of the game and she knew what she had to do to survive.