Catherine of Aragon, queen of England

b. 1485; d. 1536

First wife of Henry VIII and mother of Mary I. She was born at Alcalá de Henares, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.

She first married Arthur, Prince of Wales, elder son of Henry VII, in 1501, but he died in 1502, allegedly without the marriage having been consummated. The following year she was betrothed to Arthur's brother, Henry, six years her junior, papal dispensation for the union being obtained. The marriage did not take place until after Henry's accession in 1509, and between 1504 and 1509 Catherine remained penniless and virtually a prisoner in England. The marriage was a happy one until about 1525 although of Catherine's five children only one, a girl, later Mary I, survived infancy. But then Henry's desperate desire for a male heir, which Catherine now seemed unlikely to bear, and his infatuation for Anne Boleyn, made him determined to have his marriage with Catherine annulled and to marry Anne instead. In 1526 Henry informed Catherine that until the validity of their marriage was confirmed their relationship should cease; in 1529 annulment proceedings opened before Campeggio, the papal legate. Catherine appealed to Rome and the court was adjourned. In 1531 Henry finally left Catherine who spent the rest of her life strictly confined in various country houses, forbidden to see her daughter and provided with only the slenderest resources. Meanwhile Henry repudiated papal supremacy and an English ecclesiastical court pronounced his marriage with Catherine null; in 1534 the Pope pronounced it valid.

To the end of her life Catherine refused to acknowledge the annulment or accept the Act of Supremacy. She is buried in Peterborough Cathedral.

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