A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Catharine of Arragon
CATHARINE OF ARRAGON,
Queen of England, was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain. She was born in 1483, and, in November, 1501, was married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, son to Henry the Seventh of England. He died April 2nd., 1502, and his widow was then betrothed to his brother Henry, then only eleven years old, as Henry the Seventh was unwilling to return the dowry of Catharine. In his fifteenth year the prince publicly protested against the marriage; but, overpowered by the solicitations of his council, he at length agreed to ratify it, and gave his hand to Catharine, June 3rd., 1505, immediately after his accession to the throne; having first obtained a dispensation from the Pope, to enable him to marry his brother's widow.
The queen, by her sweetness of manners, good sense, and superior endowments, contrived to retain the affections of this fickle and capricious monarch for nearly twenty years. She was devoted to literature, and was the patroness of literary men. She bore several children, but all, excepting a daughter, afterwards Queen Mary, died in their infancy. Scruples, real or pretended, at length arose in the mind of Henry concerning the legality of their union, and they were powerfully enforced by his passion for Anne Boleyn. In 1527, he resolved to obtain a divorce from Catharine on the grounds of the nullity of their marriage, as contrary to the Divine Laws. Pope Clement the Seventh seemed at first disposed to listen to his application, but overawed by Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, and nephew to Catharine, he caused the negotiation to be so protracted, that Henry became very impatient. Catharine conducted herself with gentleness, yet firmness, in this trying emergency, and could not be induced to consent to an act which would stain her with the imputation of incest, and render her daughter illegitimate.
Being cited before the papal legates, Wolsey and Campeggio, who had opened their court at London, in May 1529, to try the validity of the king's marriage, she rose, and kneeling before her husband, reminded him in a pathetic yet resolute speech, of her lonely and unprotected state, and of her constant devotion to him, in proof of which she appealed to his own heart; then protesting against the proceedings of the court, she rose and withdrew, nor could she ever be induced to appear again. She was declared contumacious, although she appealed to Rome. The pope's subterfuges and delays induced Henry to take the matter in his own hands; he threw off his submission to the court of Rome, declared himself head of the Church of England, had his marriage formally annulled by Archbishop Cranmer, and in 1532 married Anne Boleyn. Catharine took up her abode at Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, and afterwards at Kimbolion Castle, in Huntingdonshire. She persisted in retaining the title of queen, and in demanding the honours of royalty from her attendants; but in other respects employing herself chiefly in her religious duties, and bearing her lot with resignation. She died in January, 1536.
By her will she appointed her body to be privately interred in a convent of friars who had suffered in her cause; five hundred masses were to be performed for her soul; and a pilgrimage undertaken, to our lady of Walsingham, by a person who, on his way, was to distribute twenty nobles to the poor. She beqeathed considerable legacies to her servants, and requested that her robes might be converted into ornaments for the church, in which her remains were to be deposited. The king religiously performed her injunctions, excepting that which respected the disposal of her body, resenting, probably, the opposition which the convent had given to his divorce. The corpse was interred in the abbey church at Peterborough, with the honours due to the birth of Catharine.
It is recorded by Lord Herbert, in the history of Henry the Eighth, that from respect to the memory of Catharine, Henry not only spared this church at the general dissolution of religious houses, but advanced it to be a cathedral.