Catherine of Aragon

Summary

In Our Time: Catherine of Aragon

Podcast: In Our Time
Host: Melvyn Bragg
Release Date: March 13, 2025

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Introduction and Background

The episode delves into the life of Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), exploring her lineage, early engagements, and her pivotal role in English history. Melvyn Bragg introduces Catherine as a woman born into royalty, destined to influence the course of the Tudor dynasty.

Early Life and Engagement

Catherine was born to Ferdinand and Isabella, the formidable monarchs who unified Spain and established it as a burgeoning European power. At three years old, she was betrothed to Arthur Tudor, the heir to the English throne, a common practice among royal families to secure alliances. Gonzalo Velasco Berengar explains, "It was quite common for royal families to betroth children at that age... it wasn't atypical" ([04:49]).

Her education was extensive, reflecting her royal status. Alessandro Gheraldini, her Italian humanist tutor, provided her with a curriculum that included law, history, arithmetic, and multiple languages, preparing her for her future roles.

Arrival in England

At fifteen, Catherine arrived in London to marry Arthur Tudor. Maria Hayward describes her grand reception: “She came with a really magnificent and splendid retinue... greeted with pageants” ([07:22]). Her Spanish attire, particularly the pomegranate symbolizing Granada, captivated the Londoners, though it also highlighted her foreignness and the distinct Spanish fashions that set her apart.

Marriage to Henry VIII

Tragedy struck when Arthur died shortly after their marriage, leaving Catherine a widow at sixteen. With Arthur's death, she was compelled to marry his brother, Henry VIII, to honor her betrothal and maintain the alliance between England and Spain. Melvin Bragg reflects on their marriage: “Politically, her job was to secure the alliance... personally, they seemed to have a warm and affectionate relationship” ([15:24]).

Their early years were marked by mutual affection and cooperation. Henry trusted Catherine implicitly, even appointing her as Governor and Captain General of England during his military campaigns. Gonzalo Velasco Berengar highlights her active role: “She kept very strongly attached to the Spanish alliance... exerting active patronage” ([18:13]).

Role as Queen

Catherine was far from a passive queen. She was politically active, a patron of the arts and humanists like Hans Holbein, and played a significant role in diplomatic relations, such as during the Battle of Flodden in 1513. Her leadership and political acumen were instrumental in maintaining stability in Henry's absence. Maria Hayward notes, “She is very much an agent of Spain in England, which Henry initially welcomes” ([21:31]).

Conflict and Annulment

The crux of Catherine's legacy revolves around her marriage's annulment, which Henry VIII sought to secure a male heir. Despite producing a daughter, Mary, Catherine remained steadfast in defending the legitimacy of her marriage to Arthur. Gonzalo Velasco Berengar states, “She bombards her father with letters... becomes very self-assertive” ([11:02]).

Henry's desire for a male heir led him to challenge the marriage's validity, citing biblical objections from Leviticus while ignoring Deuteronomy's contradictory stance. Catherine, supported by theologians and intellectuals, fought the annulment vigorously. Melvin Bragg underscores her determination: “She preserved her state as queen... fighting to the end for the sake of her daughter” ([32:45]).

Legacy and Death

Catherine's resistance ensured the legitimacy of Mary, who would later become Queen Mary I. Her unwavering commitment to her daughter and her status as queen laid the groundwork for Mary's succession. Gonzalo Velasco Berengar remarks, “Mary sees Catherine as her model... she embodies her parents' project” ([27:22]).

Catherine's death in 1536 marked the end of her tumultuous relationship with Henry VIII but solidified her legacy as a strong-willed and politically savvy queen. Maria Hayward reflects on her lasting impact: “She sets the model for what the expectations are for those wives that come after her” ([41:52]).

Notable Quotes

• Gonzalo Velasco Berengar: “It was quite common for royal families to betroth children at that age... it wasn't atypical.” ([04:49])
• Melvin Bragg: “She preserved her state as queen... fighting to the end for the sake of her daughter.” ([32:45])
• Maria Hayward: “She sets the model for what the expectations are for those wives that come after her.” ([41:52])

Conclusion

Catherine of Aragon is remembered not merely as the first of Henry VIII's six wives but as a formidable queen who upheld her dignity, protected her daughter's succession, and played a crucial role in the political and cultural landscape of early modern England. Her legacy as a politically active and intellectually engaged monarch endures, highlighting the significant impact she had on the Tudor dynasty and English history.

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Guests:

• Gonzalo Velasco Berengar: Lecturer in Global Medieval and Early Modern History, University of Bristol
• Maria Hayward: Professor of Early Modern History, University of Southampton
• Lucy Wooding Langford: Professor and Tutor in History, Lincoln College, University of Oxford

Host:

• Melvyn Bragg

Transcript

[Melvin Bragg]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

[Helena Bonham Carter]

I'm Helena Bonham Carter and for BBC Radio 4. I'm back with a brand new series of history's Secret Heroes.

[Narrator]

And he tells her that she will be sent to France as a secret agent. She will work undercover and if she is caught, she's going to be shot.

[Helena Bonham Carter]

Join me for more stories of unsung heroes, acts of resistance, deception and courage from World War II. Subscribe to History's Secret Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts this is.

[Lucy Wooding]

In our time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoyed the program. Hello. Catherine of Aragon, 1485-1536, was born to greatness with her parents ruling most of Spain and her siblings marrying into the great royal families of Europe. At the age of three, she engaged to Arthur, heir to the Tudor crown, and for the next decade she was educated for her role and developed her formidable skills and powers. Widowed at 16, she later married her brother in law, Henry VIII and loyally supported the Tudor and Spanish interests and above all, remained true to herself even when her husband of 23 years and father of their six babies tried to end their marriage. With me to discuss Catherine of Aragon are Gonzalo Verrasco Berengar, Lecturer in Global Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Bristol, Maria Hayward, professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton, and Lucy Wooding Langford, professor and Tutor in History at Lincoln College, University of Oxford, and professor of Early Modern History at Oxford. Lucy, I've said she was born to greatness. Who were Catherine's parents? Why do we use the word greatness?

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, she had two very formidable parents, and we remember Ferdinand and Isabella as the monarchs who laid the foundation for a united Spain, who went some way to ensuring that Spain would eventually become, if you like, the early modern superpower. So Ferdinand is King of Aragon and in many ways the lesser partner in this partnership. I mean, we always talk about Ferdinand and Isabella, or at least we do in English textbooks, but really Isabella was in many ways the more important member of that duo. And Isabella and Ferdinand married when they were teenagers. And although they have this reputation for later greatness, they really had to fight to establish themselves on their respective thrones. Particularly Isabella literally had to fight to establish herself as Queen of Castile.

[Lucy Wooding]

You mean literally go to war?

[Melvin Bragg]

She literally had to go to war. She's the half sister of the previous king of Castile, but he does have a daughter. So there's a civil war, if you like, between, or a war of a succession. But they come to rule co equal and very successfully.

[Lucy Wooding]

What was the example that her mother Isabella set for Catherine?

[Melvin Bragg]

Isabella was the most extraordinary sort of resilient female ruler. Sometimes people are surprised to find how many women were running countries in the early modern period. But Isabella is in many ways a sort of prime example. I mean, I've said already that she fought for the throne, she fought as well to reconquer Granada. She took her children with her, but you know, she's, she's a military campaigner who somewhere, let's get.

[Lucy Wooding]

I mean, sorry to be so literal, but that means she got it, she got an army together, she led it and she herself, yes, she got on.

[Melvin Bragg]

A horse, you know, she, she rallied the troops and she took her, her children with her. I mean, she knows she manages to unite this kingdom, win back Granada. Somewhere in there she has seven children, five of whom survived to adulthood. And she's also, you know, she's not just a fighter, she's a reformer. She is very pious. She backs reform of the Church in various ways. She patronizes education. You actually have a couple of women academics at Spanish universities in this period, which I think is fascinating. One of them was her Latin teacher. She was a bit ashamed that she hadn't learned Latin herself until she was an adult. But her Latin teacher then went on to. To teach her four daughters.

[Lucy Wooding]

Gonzalo. Why, at the age of three, was she engaged to the equally youthful Arthur Tudor?

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

It was quite common for royal families to betroth children of that age. I mean, three is also a little bit early, but it wasn't that atypical. I think the fact that England and Spain are seeking an alliance at this point in 1489, we know that Henry VII came to the throne after the Battle of Bosworth. So there's been a contested succession crisis in England throughout the wars of the roses, etc. And as Lucy was saying, this has been the same for Castile. There's been a civil war. So the two dynasties in a way are relatively. I mean, the Ferdinand Isabel's dynasties have been around for longer, but it still has been in a position of weakness. And I think that's one of the reasons why they're trying to strengthen both monarchies. The other great reason they have for this betrothal is a common enemy. France. France is the traditional enemy of The English. And it's also the enemy of especially Ferdinand, because Ferdinand has interests in Naples and Sicily and southern Italy, which the French have as well. And so Ferdinand and Isabelle create this very ambitious and very powerful set of marriage alliances for all their children. And the one with England is the last of them. So they marry two of their daughters off to Portugal to their son and another one of their daughters with the Habsburg Empire, which comes with Burgundy and Flanders as well, and finally Catherine and Arthur. So it's a politics of trying to not just bolster their own dynasty and their own kingdoms, but also isolating France.

[Lucy Wooding]

I mentioned Catherine's education.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

What was that Lucy mentioned already? The Latin tutor, Isabelle, had always been very conscious that she had received quite a deficient education for a princess. And she is a great patron of humanists at court. And Catherine is brought up from a very early age, like her four siblings, with some of the most advanced humanist education that you could find in Europe. Her tutor is an Italian humanist called Alessandro Gheraldini. She learns law, she learns history, she learns arithmetics, she learns languages as well. So apart from her native Castilian, she can speak French, she can speak Latin, taught by Beatri Ticalindo, she can speak a little bit of Greek, and of course, eventually she would learn English as well. But that's further ahead in the future.

[Lucy Wooding]

Thank you, Maria. What impression did Catherine make in London when she arrived, age 15 for her wedding to Arthur?

[Maria Hayward]

She made a great impression on the public and the court and the royal household. She came with a really a retinue that was going to be very magnificent and splendid. She has a sort of a formal procession into the city. She's greeted with pageants. This allows Henry and the City of London to present messages to her about what her prospective role might be like, but also to show off the wealth of the city. The prestige of the Tudors and her Spanish retinue around her are also very keen to sort of present the magnificence and the might of Ferdinand and Isabella.

[Lucy Wooding]

In Spain, as I understand that quite a bit of this was to do with Spanish fashions taking Londoners by the throat, perhaps. Astonishing. What were they?

[Maria Hayward]

Yes. So Spanish fashions would have looked very different, especially women's fashions, to English eyes. We have some really interesting descriptions of her appearance from the. The receipt of the Lady Catherine. The things that they particularly highlight are the way that her hair is dressed and the hood that she is wearing. But more importantly, they focus on the gown or the. The seya that she's wearing. They notice it has very big sleeves, it's heavily pleated, it's very opulently decorated. But most. It has this big skirt that is held out. They refer to it as being held out with sort of essentially bands of cane. This is. They're referring to the farthingale. And this would have looked very unusual. English women's skirts were not held out in this way, would she.

[Lucy Wooding]

Did she get a big reception from the London crowd?

[Maria Hayward]

Yes, they were very excited to see her. You know, she represents that excitement about the prospect of a, an alliance between the Tudors and between Ferdinand and Isabella. There's the excitement of the, you know, a royal marriage, the sort of the continuity of the Tudors and also someone really different and exotic and exciting coming to London.

[Lucy Wooding]

Lucy. Lucy Wooding. She used to spend only five months with Arthur before he died.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yes. We don't know very much because he was sent off as Prince of Wales. He was sent with his, his court, his household to Ludlow. There was some debate as to whether she was old enough to go with him as his wife at that point, because although these royal families like to get their children married quite young, or at least betrothed quite young, they then have to be very, very careful that they don't jeopardize their childbearing potential by allowing them to begin marital relations when they're still quite immature. So there was a school of thought that said they shouldn't actually live together yet, but in the end she did go with him. And quite what happened during their time together was of course then raked over mercilessly 20 something years later. And it is so much contested later on that it's very hard to know whose account we should trust. Catherine herself said that she shared a bed with Arthur all of seven nights in total, and that she was a maiden when she came to Henry viii later on, there was a school of thought that said they had become more intimate than that. Yeah, it's very, very hard to tell. And of course, it became such an important question later on that it's hard to know whose account to trust.

[Lucy Wooding]

Who do you trust?

[Melvin Bragg]

I think I trust Catherine. I think Catherine was a deeply religious woman and I don't think she would have perjured herself even to save her queenship.

[Lucy Wooding]

Thank you, Gonzalo. What changed for Catherine when she was widowed?

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

Yeah, just a few months after the. The wedding, she becomes a widow. She is 16 and it's the beginning of an awful period of her life. The first thing is that she's not pregnant and she's not pregnant, she claims, because the marriage has never been consummated. So she's in some sort of limbo because she's the Princess, the Dowager Princess of Wales, but she has no actual function. Her mother, Isabell, from the beginning, wants her back as soon as possible. Even if there's going to be a marriage with Prince Henry, with Arthur's brother, she wants her daughter back and that marriage can be arranged later on when Henry grows. But there's an issue that emerges very early on about the dowry. Henry VII and Ferdinand are at loggerheads because Henry VII needs that the dowry has to be paid in full, even if the marriage with Prince Henry that they are planning takes place. Ferdinand says that because the marriage has not been consummated, that Catherine can take control over her dowry. And Henry VII keeps his daughter in law, Catherine in London. But she keeps complaining increasingly about a lack of proper clothing and that she doesn't have enough money to pay her servants, that her servants are all going back to Spain because she cannot afford them. And she continues to claim that Henry VII is mean, that he is treating her horribly and not as befits an Infanta of Spain and Dowager Princess of Wales. She also hates very clearly the Spanish ambassador, Puebla. She accuses him constantly of being just trying to take advantage of the situation in cahoots with the King of England. And she is very vocal about all of this. And we see a Catherine that emerges that is very self assertive. She bombards her father with letters telling him how he's not treating her like a father should treat his daughter. And she becomes very, very outspoken to the point that Ferdinand names her officially his ambassador in England. So one of the first, if not the first official female ambassadors in European history.

[Lucy Wooding]

Maria, can I turn to you? What was her life like when she was drifting, as it were, between a dead Tudor and a very live Tudor?

[Maria Hayward]

We see her very much, as we've heard, in a degree of financial difficulty. One of the consequences of this tussle between Henry VII and Ferdinand over the dowry is that she's not entitled to dower rights, so she has a relatively limited income. Henry VII seeks to try and control where she lives as well. And by bringing her back to court, he doesn't have to provide her with property. So if we come back to the sort of markers of status, she doesn't have money directly that she can use to create a position for herself. She is caught within her ex father in law's orbit. She very much focuses on her religion, her piety becomes Very important for her. There are quite a lot of anxieties that she takes her religious observant too far, that sense of fasting and contemplation and prayer. And there was concern over the impact that that would have on her health, in particular her future fertility. And alongside that, we see her in those letters that we've heard about already complaining about the things that she doesn' have that she should have that would help present her as an Infanta of Spain, as previous daughter in law of Henry vii. In particular, she comments about the lack of linen to make underclothing key garments that any woman would have required. She is saying she doesn't have. She also is talking about having to sell her jewellery in order to be able to provide fabric to buy new gowns because Henry VII is keeping her very short of clothing. And while she may well have been using up the truce in essence that she brought with her, she ends up in the position where she has to fund her own appearance. And that's when she then comments that she's bought velvet for gowns. It's black. Other than that she only has brocade dresses. So there's clearly an implication that she doesn't have the right wardrobe to reflect her status and that she's having to self fund this.

[Lucy Wooding]

Lucy, why did Catherine marry Henry viii?

[Melvin Bragg]

In a rather surprising development, as soon as he becomes King, he's absolutely determined to marry her. And as to why she wanted to marry him, I suspect there's a political reason and a personal reason. We can of course only guess really at the personal reason, but she seems to have been very fond of him and they seem to have had, for the first, at least the first 10 years of their marriage, a very warm and affectionate relationship. She had known him for some years, she'd known him since she first arrived in, in England. So I think, you know, they felt warmly towards one another. But politically, of course, she had a job to do. Her job was to secure the alliance that her parents had designed for her and to become Queen of England. I mean, Henry at this point is still a teenager, exuberant, very athletic, very physically impressive. As he himself points out to ambassadors. He doesn't, he doesn't, you know, wait to be told. He, he tells them how beautiful he is. She is of course, six years older and so maybe she was also a reassuring presence. And the Tudor dynasty is young and raw and not wholly established yet on the European stage. So I think the fact that Catherine came with the glamour and sophistication and general prestige of Her Spanish background, I think, would also have been a reassurance to this young king.

[Lucy Wooding]

Yes. How did he feel about her?

[Melvin Bragg]

He seems to have adored her, and he went beyond the usual kind of courtly conventions to demonstrate how much he loved her. Famously, when he jousts, and kings weren't necessarily supposed to joust, it was very risky business. But he's full of joie de vivre, and he is jousting wearing her colors, wearing her favors, which is not the courtly love convention at all. You're not supposed to have your wife as the object of your affections. But no, for him, he is delighted to lay all his triumphs at her feet. And they make a very sweet couple, actually, in. In the early years, the way they are sort of reported as dining together, dancing together. Henry loves to dress up, so he loves to have court masks where he comes in elaborately disguised and then throws off his disguise. And everyone says, goodness, I would never have guessed. I mean, obviously everybody knew. But, you know, they play along. You know, he loves to come to the Queen and her ladies in disguise, and then, you know, there's the great unmasking and. Yeah. And she seems to respond with warmth and affection and appreciation. And it goes very well, to begin with.

[Lucy Wooding]

Thank you, Gonzalo. How did Catherine conduct herself as queen?

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

I think there seems to be this general view of her as maybe being the devout, boring wife, in a way, and I think that she is very, very far from that. She's also politically active, which is a very important aspect of her queenship. She keeps very strongly attached to the Spanish Allian, so she is very much an agent of Spain in England, which Henry at the beginning welcomes, and he's very happy to let himself be guided by Ferdinand. He thinks very highly of Catherine's political experience. She's a great patron of humanists, like the Spanish Juan Luis Vives, but also painters, Hans Holbein, Susannah Horenbaut. So she is exerting active patronage. And Henry trusts her so much that he even names her governor and Captain General of England at one point in.

[Melvin Bragg]

1513 that year, 1513 is a really good indication of how much he trusts her when he goes off to France. And of course, the campaign in France is what he's been dreaming of ever since he became king. And he's had frustrations in the way, and so finally he rides off to glory, but he trusts her to keep everything running at home. And, of course, ironically, almost she is in charge at the time of the Battle of Flodden, which was arguably the most impressive victory over the. The Scottish army. The army which actually won the battle was led by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, but there was a relief army and she was leading it.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

Yeah, I think it's a very important moment in Catherine's life because she is advised to stay at the Tower of London and she decides that she's going to move to Warwick. And that's where she starts organizing, buying armors, buying supplies for the armies, sending them up north and making the decision, even though she's heavily pregnant, that if it comes to it, she will go up north. And that's when the. Of the defeat of the. Of the Scots. And that's when James IV is the King of Scots is killed and she sends back to Henry his bloodied coat. But in the letter, when she's sending the coat to, in her letter to Henry, she also says that she would have liked to have sent him the body of the King of Scots itself, but she says something like, our. Our Englishman's hearts wouldn't suffer it.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yeah. And she, she makes a joke about that because she's previously written to him saying that she and her ladies are very busy sewing banners, campaign and so on, and now she sends him the King of Scots coat as a banner. It's an interesting sort of mixture of very feminine and domesticated themes and a very, very martial.

[Helena Bonham Carter]

I'm Helena Bonham Carter and for BBC Radio 4, I'm back with a brand new series of History's Secret Heroes.

[Narrator]

And he tells her that she will be sent to France as a secret agent. She will work undercover, and if she is caught, she's going to be shot.

[Helena Bonham Carter]

Join me for more stories of unsung heroes, acts of resistance, deception and courage from World War II. Subscribe to History's Secret Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lucy Wooding]

Maria, can you tell us how did she, in all this battle with Scotland and so on, maintain her Spanish identity?

[Maria Hayward]

She did that in several ways. Partly she did it through her choices of clothing. I mentioned earlier, when she arrives, she was very much dressed in the Spanish style. But soon after, she predominantly adopted English style of dress for women. But on occasion she would continue to dress in the Spanish style. So for instance, when she meets with Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, equally at the Field of Cloth of Gold, she presents and really pushes forward the Spanish agenda by actively dressing in this way when she's surrounded by the French court. So she's the sort of one beacon for Spanish interest. In that event, did the English not.

[Lucy Wooding]

Think of her as sort of an agent for Spain in some way.

[Maria Hayward]

I think in some ways they did, but potentially they might expect her to do so. You know, she is a representative of the royal Spanish family. And also there are the benefits of trade with Spain, in particular, the wool trade, the wine trade. There are. There are sort of some real benefits.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

Sometimes, you know, this alliance between England and Spain can be seen to have happened in a vacuum, but it doesn't. England and Castile have happened very good international relations for a very long time. It's trade, but it's also dynastic relations. The royal families of England, Spain have been intermarrying since the 13th century. Catherine is named after her great grandmother, Catherine of Lancaster, granddaughter of Edward iii. So they are two countries that are very much linked.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yeah. I think, though, Catherine begins very much as the representative of Spain, and then I think she gets a little wary because her father. Father behaves so badly. Ferdinand is a very wily operator and I think he takes advantage of the young King Henry and his enthusiasm. There's a bit of a debacle in 1512 when an army is sent. Ostensibly, they're going to make war on the French together. Well, what Ferdinand actually does is leave the English army sort of stewing, distracting the French long enough for him to conquer the kingdom of Navarre, which he's had his eye on for a while. And then just to sort of add insult to injury, he says to Henry, well, you know, your troops mutinied and went home. And I think, although Catherine can't really take sides with one against the other, I think she, over time, does become more sympathetic to her husband and wary.

[Lucy Wooding]

Of her father on that grounds. Lucy, she rebuffed Henry's attempts to end their long and arguably successful marriage. Why was that?

[Melvin Bragg]

We often refer to this as the divorce. And for ease of reference, you know, that's fine. But of course, it wasn't a divorce, it was an annulment that he was seeking. So I think if he had come to her. Well, because they haven't produced a son, they have produced Princess Mary, born in 1516. That's the only healthy child of the union who survives to adulthood. I think from Catherine's point of view, that was fine. You know, she comes from a long tradition of feisty women who have no problem with wielding authority. But from an English point of view, there has yet to be a queen regnant. The memory of the wars of the Roses is very strong. You don't want any kind of question over the succession. So Henry is perturbed by this lack of a Male heir. This is also the point at which Catherine, being that much older than him, becomes a little bit more of an issue. So there's a rather unkind comment by one of the Venetian envoys when she's about 30, saying, well, she's more ugly than not, or words to that effect. And he begins to have doubts about the religious viability of their match, because she had been married to his brother before that. But I think if he had come to her and said, I want a divorce, course I need to have a son, maybe she could have been persuaded. You know, it was not unusual, it was not without precedent for a queen in those circumstances to quietly retire to a nunnery. But he came and said, our marriage never existed. You have never been my wife. All those pregnancies, those children were illegitimate. I mean, it's an appalling thing that he said to her. And not unsurprisingly, she fought back.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

I agree that Henry's approach was not the best. I do think that having had a living child and with Catherine's sense of royal dignity, and this was a culmination, the continuation of her parents project, she embodied it, her daughter embodied it. I think especially with Anne Boleyn in between, I think she would have been very, very reluctant to grant anything. And she was offered at points, you can retire and Mary will still be considered Princess. She won't be made. She is given that option, but she never takes it, does she?

[Melvin Bragg]

I think. I don't think she. I don't think it was very seriously meant. I mean, he claims in 1531 that he hasn't slept with her for seven years. So that would take us back to 1524. And there's a very significant moment in 1525 when Princess Mary is sent off as Princess of Wales, you know, with her cottons on. But his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, is made Duke of Richmond. Now, Duke is a royal title, really, and the choice of Richmond is even more telling because that was the title which Henry VII had had before he came to the throne. So I think it's fairly clear in 1525 already that he is grooming his illegitimate son potentially to take over.

[Lucy Wooding]

Can we talk a bit more about Mary, Maria? One of Catherine's roles had been to prepare her daughter Mary to rule. How'd she done this?

[Maria Hayward]

Several key ways. So she plays an influential role, not the only influential role, but she plays a key role in her daughter's education, as we've heard. She had a very good education herself, as had her mother, and she really can see the value of education for all royal children, but especially for daughters, that there's a need for that. And it would then prepare her daughter for a similar career as she was having herself as either as a royal bride and hopefully queen. And we see that in particular in terms of the humanist education. So she works with Juan de Vivez, as we've heard, he writes a particular book, a sort of a handbook on how to be a royal princess. And this includes guidance on education, also her religious life, her political life. So she. She prepares her that way sort of intellectually and in terms of her education. But equally, I think she prepares her very much as a role model. She provides Mary. You know, Mary will look back on her mother as someone who really protected what was important, Catherine's interest in sustaining of her Spanish heritage. That's something she shares and gives to Mary. You know, that Mary is seen as the Spanish Tudor following on from her mother. And she looks to that Spanish marriage, while others might have guided her against Philip. So I, you know, her mother is inspiring to her in that way.

[Lucy Wooding]

She succeeds in that sense with Mary, doesn't she?

[Maria Hayward]

Yes, absolutely. She can look back at her mother's absolute determination, and I think you can see that same determination in Mary.

[Melvin Bragg]

I think it's interesting. I mean, Catherine could have commanded education for her daughter from almost anyone in Northern Europe, or Europe more generally. In fact, she's quite good friends with Erasmus. Erasmus writes a treatise on marriage which he dedicates to Catherine. But it's the Spanish humanist that she chooses to draw up a plan of education. And I think that's significant. And one touch, if you look at the portraits of Mary I later on, she nearly always is depicted wearing the towel cross that was her mother's.

[Lucy Wooding]

Anne Boleyn is on the scene now.

[Maria Hayward]

Yes.

[Lucy Wooding]

Could you develop that for the listeners?

[Maria Hayward]

Anne offers Henry the prospect of a younger woman, the prospect of children that he's hopeful for, and a male heir above all. And a male heir above all. Also, she brings the prospect of a closer relationship with France. She had some of her upbringing was within the French royal context. So it would be a shift in the sort of political dynamic and the geographic dynamic and later, as things progress. Then also there's the whole question of her patronage, her interests, and the question of her religion.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yes. Henry does like to cast this a little bit in terms of he's. He's had some kind of religious revelation. He has discovered the Bible. The book of Leviticus says, you must not marry your brother's wife.

[Lucy Wooding]

Deuteronomy says the opposite unhelpfully.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yes, Deuteronomy does say the opposite, but funnily enough, he. He doesn't pay quite so much attention to that. And it's very much cast as I have suddenly realized this now we know that that was actually raised as a possible objection back in 1509 when they first got married, because Ferdinand writes in some alarm saying, no, no, no, of course this is fine. The Pope has said it's fine. So the idea that the book of Leviticus might pose a problem, it's not new, but. But around 1527, 1528, Henry is giving it a new spin, I think.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

Yes. And I think that to add to that, the dispensation, and this is something that is raised both before the marriage between Catherine and Henry takes place, but also at the time of the divorce. The dispensation was double binding, if you like, because it dispensed them to be able to marry even though she had been married to Arthur previously, whether or not the marriage had been consummated. So what for Henry becomes this big issue. And, you know, all the investigations and all the witnesses that are called to talk about the night after Catherine and Arthur's wedding and what happened afterwards, from Catherine's point of view, aside from her feelings as, you know, as a queen and as a woman, for her, it's like it doesn't matter because the Pope dispensed this marriage whether it had been consummated or not.

[Maria Hayward]

Maria, Catherine's response to the situation is really interesting. It really shows that fight and determination and that intellectual interest that we've heard about from, from the others. You know, she engages with some of the best intellects in, in England and in Europe, just indeed as Henry does. But she's mustering her evidence in support of the case that we've just been hearing about. You know, that debate over, over which verse in the Bible should be the one that you are, you are listening to. And, you know, Catherine gets one of the greatest intellectual minds very much supporting her corner, producing publications, asserting her case, her rights. So it is a really interesting sort of intellectual tussle. And she proves herself, Henry's equal. Absolutely. In that.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yeah. I think, I mean, this is a very complicated period and I think, I think the problem is that there's basically three different debates going on at this point. There's the question of papal authority. Does the Pope have the power to dispense in this kind of thing? So a lot of the canon lawyers are sort of wrangling over that. Henry is, meanwhile, he's on a bit of a mission from God. So he feels that there's a religious answer to this and one in which his authority, which he. He believes very strongly as God given. And Henry always, you know, fancies himself as having quite a special relationship with God. So, you know, I think he feels that he's being called to take a stand and to assert his authority. And I think for Catherine, although she does, as you quite rightly say, have connections to these very impressive intellectuals, I think on a more human level, for her, there's also this argument that I have been your wife for 20 years. I have had all these children. How can you possibly say I'm not your wife? So these three things all get sort of interwoven.

[Lucy Wooding]

This is where Mary comes in. Does she?

[Melvin Bragg]

Sometimes people think, why did Catherine fight so hard? And obviously, she's a woman fighting for her own dignity and her own place as queen. But I think probably the thing that motivated her more than anything else was her need to protect her daughter and her need to defend her daughter's right to the throne, because it was scandalous that it should be taken away from her like this. So, yeah, I think she fought to the end for the sake of her daughter.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think that that's the main motivations she has, as you say, because from her perspective, she has given Henry six heirs. She hasn't failed at her job. She's done her job, and Mary is alive. So Henry has an heir. So despite all these conversations around papal authority and the dispensation and whether Catherine consummated her marriage with Arthur or not, I believe that there is a point when Henry asks the Pope for a dispensation to marry Anne Boleyn because he had slept with her sister. Which is.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yeah, the irony. Yes, the irony of this. So he's had an affair with. With Mary Boleyn. And so he asked the Pope, just in case. Just in case it doesn't have to go to the full extremity of breaking with the Pope. He says, well, can I have a dispensation to marry someone who I am related to in the first degree, whether by legitimate or illegitimate means, which is so obviously speaking to his situation with Anne Boleyn. So it's fine that he slept with the sister, but not that, you know, Catherine was married to the brother.

[Lucy Wooding]

Was there a sense in which she was banished?

[Melvin Bragg]

It's sort of the summer of 1531. That I think is the watershed moment. And up to that point there has been a rather kind of uneasy coexistence with her still presiding at court as Queen. But Anne Boleyn also very much, much part of the picture. There's even a story that they played cards together, but I think that's apocryphal.

[Lucy Wooding]

Anne Boleyn was a very independent person, wasn't she? She took sides which were not necessarily those that the King wanted her to take.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yes, she too, I mean he, he does seem to be drawn, at least initially, to very impressive, strong minded women. So. Yeah, and Anne Boleyn was, was very annoyed about some things. At one point she finds out that Catherine is still making the King's shirts for him and, and she's fairly irate about this. And there's also a point where he has a bit of a dispute with Catherine and she's supposed to have said, well, you know, whenever you argue with the Queen, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but whenever you argue with the Queen, she has the upper hand. Yeah. So there's two quite powerful women here fighting over this slightly unpredictable man. But in the summer of 1531, that's the point where he doesn't see Catherine again and more, perhaps even more poignantly, where Catherine never sees Mary again.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

And one of the first things that Queen Mary does when she comes to the throne in her first parliament is to get Parliament to approve that her parents marriage had been valid from the beginning, in agreement with the Papal ruling. So she gets back at that. And that law is never repealed by Elizabeth or subsequently. So in, you know, historically that marriage, according to Parliament and according to the Pope, according to the Church of England, it's a different story perhaps, but that marriage had been valid. And I think a very touching aspect of that relationship and how much Mary saw Catherine as her model, is that when Mary dies in her will, she asks to be buried with her mother in Westminster Abbey, which we know never happened, but that was her dying wish, to be reunited because Elizabeth wouldn't fund it. So Catherine stayed in Peterborough and Mary was buried in Westminster.

[Lucy Wooding]

Lucy, to what extent did Catherine come to terms with her new realities in life?

[Melvin Bragg]

I am not sure she ever did. She insisted on being addressed as Queen, not as Princess Dowager, which was the title Henry had forced upon her. She tried, tries not to get her servants into trouble for this by living quite a sort of discreet life. She's sort of sent from one manor house to another in rather remote bits of England where she won't command too much popular support. But I Think right till the end, she went on hoping when Mary, her daughter, was ill in 1534, 1535, she asks to be allowed to nurse her daughter. Well, I think Henry, that by this point is feeling very vindictive towards both of them, and he does not allow this. But, no, I think. I think to the end, she preserved her state as queen.

[Lucy Wooding]

Gonzalo. Would bearing did this treatment on Catherine have on relations with Spain?

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

It had a big bearing because it creates a fraud relationship. Initially. Once it is clear that Henry VIII wants to get rid of Catherine, there is a cooling of relations between Charles V and Henry viii and that that sort of uneasy relationship remains as long as Catherine is alive, because Catherine is, as we heard earlier, garnering all this support from theologians across Spain, but also other parts of Europe. Charles V is also, from a theological point of view, trying to help her gather this support for her marriage. But he does put that at her disposal. But he never quite commits to invading England or breaking full with Henry viii. So that break never quite comes. And when Catherine dies, especially a few months later when Anne Boleyn is executed, that relationship starts to be mended as well. But I think going back to this very strong relationship that existed between England, Castile, but also Flanders, which was part of Charles v's territories, that remains very strong throughout both the reigns of Henry VIII and Charles V, to the point that in 1543, 1546, so 10 years after Catherine's death, Charles V and Henry VIII signed two mutual treaties of mutual defense that will be in force until well into, well, when Elizabeth broke war with Spain. So that relationship is very important.

[Lucy Wooding]

What do you think about the letter just before her death that she wrote to Henry?

[Melvin Bragg]

It's a very moving letter. She writes with love, she writes with affection. She tells him, I suppose, a hint of steel in her tone, to take care of his soul and not let. There's something about, you know, not let the care of his body get in the way of the care of his soul, which is a very sort of delicate allusion to Amberlynn. She would have seen as the concubine. That's what the imperial ambassador tends to call her. She asks him to sort of take care of their daughter. And then there's this really heartbreaking closing sentence where she's says something like, lastly, mine eyes desire above all to see you. You know, it's astonishing that her last recorded expression should be of love for this man who had treated her and her child so appallingly. But nonetheless, it seems like there was something there. And I Don't know. Unless you think.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

No, no, I agree. And I think that that's part of her. Her sense of duty. She's still the queen, she's still. He is the king, so she's still. As a wife, she's still. To him. It's just she has only been disobedient in things that went against God from her point of view. So she can. I think she's separating those two things, isn't she? But, yeah, I've always thought, and some people have said that maybe it's not Catherine's, that letter, but every time I've read it, I think, well, if it's not, it definitely sounds like her.

[Lucy Wooding]

Thank you. We're getting to the end now, Maria, nowadays, Catherine's chiefly remembered as the first of the six wives of Henry viii. What do you think about that?

[Maria Hayward]

First and arguably most important, she is married to Henry for the longest, indeed, the length of their marriage is the equivalent of. And some of his marriages to the other five put together. So in terms of just the longevity of their marriage, hugely significant, as we've heard, during the course of that time, she's regent. Catherine Parr is also a regent, but in terms of, you know, the significance of the timing, that's hugely important. She is the only of the queens who is of royal blood, born to be queen, and she fulfils that role really well. And she fully. And I think she sets the model for what the expectations are for those wives that come after her, and they are the ones that get past the jewels, the clothes and everything else from her, and they get passed from queen to queen. But she is. She's the first. I think she sets the model well.

[Lucy Wooding]

Thank you very much. Thanks to Lucy Wooding, Maria Hayward and Gonzalo Velasco Berengar. Next week, it's the great Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith, author of she Stoops To Conquer, the Vicar of Wakefield and the Deserted Village. Thank you for listening.

[Maria Hayward]

And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.

[Lucy Wooding]

Lucy, what did you not get time to say? You'd like to have said?

[Melvin Bragg]

I thought Henry, this is perhaps a little bit tangential. I thought Henry VII came out of that a bit badly. And I always feel a little bit protective towards Henry VII because he gets this terrible, terrible, you know, reputation, which is largely constructed by his rather uncaring son after he's dead. And, yes, I know he didn't treat Catherine well. To be fair to him, the whole Castilian or, you know, Castilian and Aragonese alliance had rather fallen apart when Isabella of Castile dies. And it's looking like Catherine briefly, is not nearly quite, you know, not nearly as much of a catch as she, she, she promised to be. And of course, Ferdinand is mean. Ferdinand is very mean. He doesn't support his daughter properly, really. He should have been sending her money, but he's not going to do that. So he passes the buck on to Henry and then Henry ends up looking bad. But, yeah, I think it's maybe a little bit more complicated there than we made out.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

Yes, we've seen it from Catherine's size, I guess, and I think she, she found it very hard to blame her father, but she does blame her father because she does write very strongly worded letters to tell him, you're not treating me like a father should treat his daughter and especially a daughter of Spain. So she does tell him off, but I think she concentrates all that fury and frustration on Henry VII and the Spanish ambassador Puebla as the ones who are the ones causing her misfortunes, whereas her father is just equally to blame for them.

[Maria Hayward]

And I think where she's, you know, where she's complaining about the shortage of clothes. Henry vii, as you say, he sometimes has the bad reputation there as being not necessarily the sort of flamboyant dresser that, that his, that his son is, but actually he, he spends quite a lot on his own clothes and appearance and he really appreciates the value of it. So, you know, he could have interceded and he didn't have to provide Catherine with a huge amount, I think, to maybe offset some of the, the complaints that she was making in, in, in that respect.

[Melvin Bragg]

So I'm always struck too by that there, there's a moment in March of 1509 where she, she almost seems to have lost, lost her courage just for a brief moment, because having stuck to her task, I know she was going to marry Prince Henry, she was going to fulfill the job she'd been sent to do. In March of 1509, she actually writes home and says, I'll come home, I'll enter the religious life. You know, a month later, Henry VII is dead and suddenly she's on her way to being Queen of England. But that, that extraordinary reversal just at the last minute, it, I think, has always struck me.

[Lucy Wooding]

Why was there that reversal, do you think?

[Melvin Bragg]

I think it had just been such a long, long time of waiting and, you know, trying so hard. I mean, that time when as a teenager, she is empowered to act as this as the Spanish ambassador, she's given a cipher. She's got to somehow work all of this out herself. And she sends off these letters in cipher. She doesn't trust herself to have got it right, so she sends off an ordinary version of the letter as well. But, you know, had really, really asked a lot of her. And, yeah, I. I think, you know, even the bravest soul occasionally quails.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

Yes. And I think that those years, we really see her fight and I think that we really. We can really understand how politically apt she was because she. She will send the letter that she has. So the King of England, Henry vii, asks for a letter that she's going to write to her father about a marriage, I think the marriage with her sister Juana. So she sends to her father a letter saying, this is the letter that I showed the King, but this is the letter that I'm writing to you with my actual advice, and I don't think you should allow your daughter Juana, my sister, to marry the King of England. So she does play that game really well. And I think something that those letters of that time really show as well is contrary to the perception of Catherine as a sort of dour, boring woman, is that she had a sarcastic sense of humor. And it comes very clearly when she. She, as I've mentioned before, she. She hates the Spanish ambassador, but she, after several letters in which she's referred to him as inefficient and incapable and a liar, at one point she encounters him and she writes to her father, your ambassador was there, efficient as ever, so, you know, you can. And then there's a lady that she. An English lady that she dislikes, and there's a couple of letters where she mentions how poorly she dresses. But then in another letter she says, oh, yeah, lady, can't remember her name, but lady whatever was there, impeccably dressed, as usual. As usual. So we see that she's not, you know, she has that sort of sarcastic sense of humor, which tells us a bit more about how she was as a. As a woman.

[Melvin Bragg]

I think it says something important, doesn't it, about what women were capable of doing in this period. You know, we talk about this as a time when there was a patriarchal system, and it rather suggests that, you know, women had raw end of the deal, and often they did, as Catherine's own example shows, as her poor sister Joanna, who is shut up for 50 years in a palace in Spain and declared mad. Well, it's not entirely clear that she was, but she needed to be you know, out of the way. So terrible things happen to these women and yet at the same time they are capable of so much sort of political intervention and initiative and patronage. Yeah. And at the Field of Cloth of Gold, I mean, you see.

[Lucy Wooding]

Can you use the Field of the Cloth of Gold? Can you tell listeners what that is?

[Helena Bonham Carter]

Sorry.

[Melvin Bragg]

The Field of the Cloth of Gold was a kind of extraordinary International Summit in 1520 when most of the English court decamped to northern France for this great encounter with the King of France and his court. And a sort of makeshift city was, was constructed, so tents were put up, made of cloth of gold and it was very, very elaborate. There's a fabulous painting which shows you all the, all the glories on display, including of course, the wine fountains, which are always a very popular feature of any celebration at this point. And it's meant to herald lasting peace between these two ancient enemies. I mean, in fact, the piece lasts an uneasy 30 months. I think it's something like that. But it is an, an extraordinary encounter and there's a tension between Francis, King of France and Henry viii. There's a wrestling match begun in a very sort of bluff and good humoured way which goes a bit wrong until the Queen intervene.

[Lucy Wooding]

A bit wrong means Henry gets defeated.

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, he gets thrown. Yes. And it could have gone a little bit sort of, it could have got even more awkward. But, but the, the queens are very good at sort of smoothing things over and there's also a lovely moment when they're hearing Mass together and they go to kiss the PAX board. And that was something which was supposed to happen in, in order of sort of, you know, hierarchical status and that here are two queens. So they both hesitate, they both try and give precedence the other one and then they laugh and just kiss one another, which is, you know, a very sweet moment and also a very clever diplomatic moment at the same time.

[Maria Hayward]

I think one of the really interesting visual sources from the Rain is the woodcut celebrating their joint coronation. And there essentially, you know, Henry, Catherine are essentially equal, aren't they? They're essentially the same size, they have the same people around them, they have the rose and the pomegranate above them. And if we look at the description, the order of the coronation, we know that she has sort of slightly less regalia, a slightly shorter service, a slightly smaller contracted version of the sort of the robes that are required. But if you look at that image, she is very much sort of presented of Henry's equal.

[Melvin Bragg]

The pomegranate always seems so sad. I mean it was, it was the symbol of Granada, wasn't it? It's, it's a Granada apple or whatever. And, and we know that six year old Catherine was there at the ceremonial conquest of Granada. She, she witnessed it, there's a description of the whole family there. And so she took the pomegranate as her, her symbol. But of course the pomegranate is, is meant as a symbol of fertility and, and that's the thing that didn't precisely work out as it was intended, but.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

It is, it is readopted by Mary, which again, there's a, there's a, there's another, another sadness in that, that symbol there because obviously Mary and Philip didn't have children but Mary adopts it first as so Queen, and then when she marries Philip, the pomegranate stays and sometimes it is placed in, in, in portraits of them, it is placed above in King's Bench records, it's placed above Philip, as you know, back to that Spanish lines.

[Melvin Bragg]

And I think that's the thing that perhaps Catherine would most want to be remembered for. She raised England's first queen regnant. And that's, you know.

[Lucy Wooding]

And here's our producer, Simon.

[Melvin Bragg]

Would anyone like tea or coffee? Tea, Coffee, anybody? Cup of tea would be. Yes, please.

[Gonzalo Velasco Berengar]

I have some water.

[Melvin Bragg]

Tea, Water. Melvin?

[Lucy Wooding]

I think I'm all right, Simon, you're right. Thank you very much.

[Melvin Bragg]

Don't you think, Maria? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. In our Time with Melvin Bragg is.

[Maria Hayward]

Produced by Simon Tillotson and it's a BBC Studios audio production.

[G]

Hello, Greg Jenner here. I am the host of youf're Dead to Me from BBC Radio 4. We are the comedy show that takes history seriously and then laughs at it. And we're back for a brand new series, Series nine, where we're covering all sorts of things from Aristotle to the legends of King Arthur to the history of coffee to the reign of Catherine of Medici of France. We are looking at the Arts and Crafts movement and the life of Sojourner Truth and how cuneiform writing systems worked in the Bronze Age. Loads of different stuff. It's a fantastic series. It's funny. We get great historians, we get great comedians. So if you want to listen to your dead to me, Listen first on BBC Sounds.

[Helena Bonham Carter]

I'm Helena Bonham Carter and for BBC Radio 4, I'm back with a brand new series of history's secret heroes.

[Narrator]

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[Helena Bonham Carter]

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