Ferdinand expressed concern about Arthur’s inheritance, however. The Tudor “dynasty” could hardly be termed as such; the prince was born the same year that his father, then the Earl of Richmond, snatched up the crown from where it lay on Bosworth Field after Richard III met the blade of a broadsword. With Richard’s death the reign of the Plantagenets ended. After his victory at Bosworth, the Welsh-born Henry proclaimed himself Henry VII, and the Tudor era began.
But Henry and Ferdinand were both aware that in a world where might made right, nothing was a guarantee. The nephew of Edward IV, Edward, Earl of Warwick, had a strong enough pedigree to warrant a claim to the English throne and threaten Henry’s successor—namely, little Arthur. Ferdinand needed to be certain that his daughter’s future would be secured, so he stalled the negotiations until he was satisfied. Eager to move the talks along, Henry had Warwick killed. That little assassination accomplished, the royal marriage could take place—once the children came of age.
Finally, on May 14, 1499, twelve-year-old Arthur married Katherine (who was only thirteen) by proxy at Tickhill Manor. However, the bride’s parents were still insisting that she not travel to England until her groom reached the age of fourteen. Further wrangling over the details of Katherine’s dowry, as well as the composition of the entourage that would accompany her to England, continued through the following year.
After a Muslim uprising and storms at sea postponed Katherine’s departure, her ship landed at Plymouth on October 2, 1501, surprising her future father-in-law, who hadn’t expected her arrival until the seventh of the month. Eager to check her out, Henry intercepted her journey to London, meeting her in Hampshire on November 4. He flouted the Spanish protocol enforcing Katherine’s seclusion until her wedding day, insisting that before he would introduce his son to her, he would see his future daughter-in-law “even if she were in her bed.” Apparently satisfied with the package, the king departed with Arthur in tow and Katherine was left with her retinue to continue her progress into London.
There they were greeted on November 12 with a series of lavish pageants and spectacles. Two days later Katherine and Arthur, both clad all in white, were formally wed at St. Paul’s Cathedral in a three-hour ceremony, which followed the exchange of the first installment of Katherine’s dowry, and the reading of the formal terms of the marriage along with the appropriate papal dispensations, as Katherine was a third cousin of her father-in-law, Henry VII, and fourth cousin of her mother-in-law, Elizabeth of York.
A raised six-hundred-foot runway, covered in red cloth trimmed with gilt nails, had been erected from the west doors of the church all the way to the chancel, where the nuptial mass was conducted on a raised stage. The musicians were stationed in the soaring vaults, which gave the illusion that their resounding melodies emanated from on high.
The bride was considered a beauty, blessed with abundant auburn hair, gray eyes, dainty hands and feet, and the damasked pink-and-white complexion that was so prized in England. But the English had never seen an ensemble quite like her wedding attire. With her skirts stretched over her Spanish farthingale—a horizontal cage tied about her hips—Katherine resembled a ship of state as she sailed along the walkway, high above the crowd. Her white silk veil, or mantilla, fluttered to her waist, weighed down by a jeweled border two fingers wide.
Outside the cathedral the wine flowed freely from a conduit—royal largesse to the cheering throngs—as the bells of London pealed. After the ceremony the teenage newlyweds, “both lusty and amorous,” were conveyed to Baynard’s Castle in a grand procession, where a sumptuous feast awaited them, as did a public, though strictly ceremonial, bridal bed.
Preparing the actual bed of state was a production number involving several participants who were honored to get the assignment, including the yeoman of the guard, whose job it was to roll “up and down” the litter of straw that formed the bed’s base layer.
This brave soul was not merely matting the rushes; he was searching for hidden weapons.
After what amounted to a stag night, replete with bawdy songs to get the groom in the proper frame of mind to perform his conjugal duty, Arthur was escorted to the great bed, where Katherine was already waiting for him. The bishops blessed the couple and wished them many years of fruitful life together, then departed and left the newlyweds to nature.
Or not—depending on whom you asked. And depending on the circumstances in which you asked and how many days, weeks, or years it was from the wedding night itself.
Arthur’s steward recalled his fifteen-year-old master boasting of his sexual prowess on the morning after the wedding night with the bawdy metaphor, “Willoughby, bring me a cup of ale, for I have been this night in the midst of Spain.” Other witnesses heard this remark as well as Arthur’s exhortation, “Masters, it is good pastime to have a wife.” True, it could have been no more than macho swagger—but why? Those who saw the young couple together noticed a genuine attraction between them.
And Katherine had a rock-solid sense of duty. Her marriage negotiations had been long in the making; now that she was wed to the future King of England, her job was only half accomplished. To permanently cement Spain’s alliance with England and fulfill her parents’ diplomatic aims, she had to get pregnant and deliver an heir, an obligation made all the easier with a nice-looking husband. Two days after the wedding, she attended St. Paul’s to formally witness her husband and father-in-law give thanks to God “that so prosperously His Goodness had suffered everything of this laudable [marriage] to be brought to its most laudable conclusion [the getting of children].” Now, it’s possible that she could have been playing along, knowing what was expected of her, and if there had been a problem in the bedroom she would never have dared to disclose a word of it. However, it’s equally conceivable that everything went just fine in the boudoir and the marriage was consummated, even enjoyably so, without a hitch.
Katherine’s duenna Doña Elvira insisted—and Katherine reiterated as much years later—that the conjugal visits remained chaste. But Doña Elvira’s assertion would seem to contradict the opinion of William Thomas, Arthur’s Groom of the Privy Chamber and one of his most intimate body servants. Thomas was in charge of preparing the prince for his visits to the marriage bed. He “made [Arthur] ready to bed . . . and conducted him clad in his night gown unto the Princess’s bedchamber door often and sundry times . . . and that at the morning he received him at the said doors . . . and waited upon him to his own privy chamber.”
At the end of November Arthur wrote to his in-laws, informing them that “he had never felt such joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet face of his bride. No woman in the world could be more agreeable to him. [He] promises to be a good husband.” This comment, too, would indicate that he fully intended to do his dynastic duty and become a father.
Yet the royal wedding still didn’t mean that all was settled between Spain and England. Initially, Henry VII had not been keen to have the young couple set up their household and assume full marital relations. Doña Elvira, Katherine’s duenna, agreed with him. But for Katherine, who had inherited her mother’s iron will, time was of the essence and it was she who managed to change the king’s mind. Additionally, Katherine’s tutor and confessor, Alessandro Geraldini, persuaded Henry that “on no condition in the world should [he] separate them, but send her with her husband.” Otherwise, Isabella and Ferdinand would be highly displeased and Katherine herself “would be in despair.” So Arthur and Katherine set off for Ludlow, arriving on December 21, 1501.
In the spring of 1502 Arthur became ill, his ailment described by a herald as “the most pitiful disease and sickness that with so sore and great violence had battled and driven, in the singular parts of him inward, [so] that cruel and fervent enemy of nature, the deadly corruption, did utterly vanquish and overcome the pure and friendful blood.” Many modern historians believe that the herald refers to the Sweating Sickness that was sweeping the West Country, or else to a bronchial or pulmonary infect
ion, such as pneumonia or consumption. However, the phrase “the singular parts of him inward” may allude to testicular cancer.
An unknown witness recalled hearing one of Arthur’s servants dating the onset of his illness to Shrovetide, February 8, 1502: “He had lain with the Lady Katherine, and was never so lusty in body and courage until his death, which [he] said was because he lay with the Lady Katherine.” Arthur died on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1502.
The servants’ accounts suggest that the Waleses enjoyed frequent and successful connubial visits. Katherine’s confessor and tutor, Alessandro Geraldini—who was recalled to Spain not too long after Arthur’s demise—concurred. But according to Katherine, between their arrival in Ludlow and the prince’s death, the newlyweds had spent only seven nights together, and although they had shared a bed, they had never in fact consummated the marriage. Nearly thirty years later, during the hearings regarding the validity of her marriage to Henry VIII, the same contradictions about whether the union of Arthur and Katherine was consummated would emerge. Arthur’s steward repeated his young master’s boast on the morning after his wedding, to the effect that he “had spent the night in Spain,” intimating that the couple had enjoyed intercourse, although Katherine would testify that she had remained “as intact and uncorrupt as when she emerged from her mother’s womb.”
Arthur’s body lay in state for three weeks before it was buried at Worcester Cathedral. Katherine, sixteen years old, nearly alone and friendless in a foreign kingdom, would remain in England for the next seven years in a state of political limbo. She was retired to Durham House to await whatever fate Henry VII and her parents decided for her. As her marriage portion had not been fully paid by Ferdinand and Isabella, Katherine was not entitled to claim her widow’s dower of one-third of Arthur’s lands. Additionally, because several of Katherine’s retinue vociferously insisted that her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated, Henry VII went so far as to assert that she was not in fact the Princess of Wales, and therefore, he was not obligated to provide for her. Katherine’s debts mounted, and when she had to pawn her jewels and plate—a contested element of her dowry—to pay her entourage, she was accused of spending Henry VII’s property.
Eventually, a marriage was brokered between Katherine and Henry’s surviving son, the future Henry VIII, but her marriage to Arthur and the subject of its consummation would remain the elephant in the parlor—rearing its trunk and smashing breakables—for years. It was the subject of the papal dispensations required for her union with young Henry—a brief and a bull that either contradict or complement each other, depending on one’s interpretation of the wording. The argument over whether Katherine’s union with Arthur was a “true” marriage would be fought again when Henry chose to put her aside in order to wed Anne Boleyn. Katherine continued to avow that she had come to Henry’s bed a twenty-three-year-old virgin.
By the time Henry’s Great Matter was under debate in the late 1520s, Katherine’s keen understanding of dynasty and diplomacy had made her more than a loving wife and devoted mother. She was Spain to Henry’s England, an alliance that possibly overrode any qualms of conscience.
Perhaps Arthur had spent his wedding “night in the midst of Spain” after all.
Henry VIII 1491-1547
RULED ENGLAND: 1509-1547
and
KATHERINE OF ARAGON
(“HUMBLE AND LOYAL”)
married 1509-1533
“This twenty years I have been your true wife . . . and when ye had me at the first I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid without taint of man. And whether this be true or no, I put it to your conscience.”
—Katherine to Henry and his council in open court, June 21, 1529
EVER SINCE SHE CAME TO THE ENGLISH COURT IN 1501, the diminutive, round-faced Spanish infanta with the penetrating gray eyes and hip-length auburn hair had intrigued the boisterous and precocious Duke of York. Katherine had married his older brother, Arthur, that fall, but the prince had died on Easter Sunday 1502, after a brief illness, throwing Katherine’s status into limbo while her father and father-in-law wrangled and carped and dithered over the outstanding payments on her dowry.
In 1503, extensive negotiations between Henry VII and the Catholic Monarchs resulted in a formal treaty to wed Katherine to Henry’s younger son and namesake when the boy reached the age of fifteen, in June 1506. Yet before this treaty could be ratified a papal dispensation was necessary, on the assumption that Katherine had consummated her marriage to the youth’s older brother. When Henry, Duke of York and Katherine of Aragon were betrothed on June 25, 1503, the paperwork was still in progress. Young Henry, who seemed game enough to wed Katherine, still had a way to go until his fifteenth birthday; perhaps that was the reason why Pope Julius II didn’t bother to make a dispensation available until a document referred to as a papal brief was sent to Isabella shortly before her death in November 1504. This document bluntly stated that Arthur and Katherine had in fact consummated their union. The eventual papal bull was backdated to December 26, 1503, and covered all eventualities, granting dispensation for the marriage of Katherine and Henry forsan—“even if”—Katherine’s previous marriage had been consummated.
However, during the intervening years between Arthur’s death and Katherine’s marriage to Henry, the shifting political landscape in Spain had an impact on England’s foreign policy. After Queen Isabella’s will named her daughter Joanna heir to the Castilian crown, appointing Ferdinand as regent if Joanna proved mentally unfit to rule, Spain quickly split into factions. Unsure of which way the wind would eventually blow, Henry VII became leery of allying himself too closely to Ferdinand. So, on June 27, 1505, the day before his son’s fourteenth birthday, the king compelled the young Henry, now formally Prince of Wales, to privately repudiate his betrothal to Katherine, alleging that he had never given his consent to it. It was a political ploy, intended to buy the English some time until the situation in Spain sorted itself out.
For her part, Katherine remained adamant about going through with the marriage, keenly aware of the political importance of an alliance between Spain and England—the very reason she had been sent to marry Arthur. She got her wish when Henry VII died on April 21, 1509, and his seventeen-year-old son became King of England. He summoned Guitierre Gomez de Fuensalida, the new Spanish ambassador, and told him to make the marriage to Katherine happen—without further delays or negotiations. According to Henry VIII’s biographer A. F. Pollard, the pair were wed “with almost indecent haste.”
In contrast to the spectacle of her first royal wedding, Henry and Katherine were quietly married in the Franciscan Oratory in Greenwich on June 11, 1509, just six weeks after Henry’s accession to the throne.
Though Katherine was six years Henry’s senior, he was not at all unhappy about the match, cheerfully telling people that “he loved true where he did marry,” informing his father-in-law that “if I were still free, I would choose her for a wife before all others.” Katherine wrote to Ferdinand, “Among the many reasons that move me to love the King, my lord, the strongest is his filial love and obedience to Your Highness.”
The newlyweds enjoyed a double coronation at Westminster Abbey on Michaelmas, June 24. Once they were married, Henry and Katherine spent several hours of the day together, enjoying lively discussions of statecraft, politics and religion, and sportive pursuits, such as hunting, and evening entertainments. Henry VIII’s court was vibrant, filled with gallant courtiers and comely damsels intent on showing off their finery and having fun. One visitor in the early days of Henry’s reign described the king as “young and lusty, disposed all to mirth and pleasure, nothing minding to travail in the busy affairs of his realm.”
Katherine was a delighted and willing audience to Henry’s jousts and the masques in which he would appear in some exotic disguise. He wore her favors in the lists; when he came across a new piece of music that he thought would please her, he couldn’t wait for her to hear it. They shared a
passion for literature and theology. Henry adored Katherine’s high spirits and her grace, her dignity and nobility, and her penchant for fine gowns in colors rich as gemstones.
During the early years of his reign Henry was very much the warrior-king, and he trusted Katherine to act as his regent. In 1513, while he campaigned in France, Katherine had the authority to raise troops and make appointments, although much of the administration of the realm was done long-distance by Henry’s council in the field. Under Katherine’s regency, while Henry was in France, England achieved its most significant Tudor-era military victory until the vanquishing of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The queen led a reserve army north to meet her husband’s troops, but it was disbanded in Buckinghamshire when word came of the English victory at Flodden and the death of the Scots king on the field. Katherine gleefully wrote to Henry, “In this your grace shall see how I can keep my promys, sending you for your banners a king’s coat. I thought to send himself unto you, but our Englishmen’s hearts would not suffer it.” Katherine also acted (de facto) as England’s key diplomat with Spain until her father died in January 1516.
Meanwhile, she was busy with her primary duty as consort: bearing an heir to her husband’s throne. Katherine became pregnant soon after the wedding, suffering a stillbirth late in January 1510. However, the incident was kept a secret and Katherine was instructed to maintain the pretext of a pregnancy, including the acquisition of a lavish layette and the enduring of a lengthy and claustrophobic prenatal confinement. The Tudor spin doctors released the story that the queen had been pregnant with twins, and had lost one of them. Unfortunately, the Spanish ambassador blew Katherine’s cover when he learned that her periods had returned and reported as much to his employer.
Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire Page 8
