Catherine of Aragon

[Prince_Lieven]

You think people didn't see Anne as witty and intelligent?  But that's what all her contemporaries (who were on her side) said about her!

Thanks for the info you posted above Kim. I believe the Duke of Norfolk, sent by Henry to intimidate Mary, threatened to bang her head of the wall till it was 'soft as a boiled apple' if she didn't sign something acknowleging Anne as queen. 

[imperial angel]

Yes, the way the Tudors did things was that way.. I am sure Anne had her supporters. I guess the books I have read make it sound like most of England disliked her, although that wasn't all the case. Was the symapthy of the common people more with Anne or Catherine?

[Prince_Lieven]

Definitely with 'Good Queen Catherine' - Anne 'the Goggle-eyed Whore' Boleyn was mostly detested.

[ilyala]

Definitely with 'Good Queen Catherine' - Anne 'the Goggle-eyed Whore' Boleyn was mostly detested.

well, it's very easy to understand why.

catherine, besides providing a male heir, was a good queen. she fitted exactly the image a queen should have had at that time: a highly born princess, obeying her husband, but also intelligent (she was a regent when henry was away - that's quite a task and i believe she did it quite well). she was a nice woman, a very religious one (important point at that moment) and basically the middle age version of penelope.

and here comes this dudette, daughter of a merchant (if i'm not mistaken), with a dubious family (her sister was the mistress of the king - that will always extend upon her and her family an image of "parvenu") and the king wants to drop his faithful wife for her? hm. no. but wait, it gets better, the king creates a national revolution in order to do this. add to that anne's arrogance, and you've got a recipe for disaster. who cares if she was intelligent? most of the english people didn't talk to her to know it. not to mention charm, and other personal qualities...

[Prince_Lieven]

Actually, Anne Boleyn's father was a 'star on the rise' so to speak - he'd been an envoy to the Netherlands and France for Henry, due to the fact that he could speak other languages, a rare gift in those days. Her grandfather (or maybe great-grandfather) had been mayor of London. So while she wasn't quite the daughter of a 'merchant' she was still a parvenu, compared to Catherine.

Interesting that Catherine was, in everything except the 'Great Matter', entirely submissive to Henry - when she was regent in 1513, he was campaigning in France. After winning the 'Battle of the Spurs' and capturing two tiny towns, Therrouane and Tournai (try saying that fast! ) his campaign was becoming a bit of a joke. In England, however, the Earl of Surrey had just annihilated the Scots at Flodden under Catherine's eye, but her letters to Henry at the time are always 'bigging up' his 'great victories' and not paying much attention to her own, except to say that she sent him the coat of the dead James IV, because the English nobles wouldn't let her send James's head!  A true daughter of Isabel of Castile!

[imperial angel]

Well, I think that Queens then were supposed to be submissive, and that Catherine was only fulfilling that stereoptype when she did that. Queens were expected no matter what to be submissive,even if they had a dominant personality. Catherine certainly did so, although it seems she was pretty conventional, and most likely didn't have a problem with this. It was only when she was backed into a corner, with no choice, that she became less than submissive. She had various reasons, but she must have really believed in herself, because she was certainly going in the face of convention. Her personality seems to be she could put up a fight if pushed...

[Eddie_uk]

 

[Eddie_uk]

I didn't understand Imperial Angels last post and she kindly explained it to me in a pm

I meant that she [Catherine] was supposed to be submissive as part of her role, yes. I think she was naturally submissive, but that when she had to, she stood up for herself. Otherwise, she was submissive, and okay with her submissive role. I guess my whole point was her being submissive had more to do with her role, then that she chose to be submissive in personality, as the last poster stated.

[ilyala]

i think she was educated to be so. and maybe, if you asked her, she would have answered you that a woman's role was to sit and listen to her husband (something henry appreciated very much, i'm sure). however, i also think her natural personality was very simmilar to her mother's and that showed when her husband did not agree to her principles of what a husband should do (as a continuation of the above theory - the husband is supposed to love and take care of the wife).

[FaithWhiteRose]

I thought I would start a special thread for Catherine of Aragon, that especially intelligent and gifted woman, the first and perhaps historically the most influential of Henry VIII's six wives. Of course people should feel free to discuss here any aspect of Catherine's character and life, but to get the ball rolling, I wanted to pose a few questions, related to her motivation in refusing Henry a divorce:

Was Catherine right to refuse Henry a divorce? Was her insistence on the legitimacy of her marriage really made with the ultimate good of England in mind, or were more personal dynastic issues at stake for her?

Furthermore, had Catherine granted Henry a divorce in 1527 or thereabouts, do you think it possible that his break with Rome might never have happened? Or was this break, given the intensity of English anti-clericalism, all but inevitable, if not during Henry's reign, then later?

In short, did Catherine's celebrated principles - political, religious, and/or dynastic - serve either England or the Catholic Church well in the long run?  

I think Katherine was right to refuse the divorce, for Mary and herself, but I'm not sure in religous beliefs. She denied that her marriage with Arthur Tudor, Henry's older brother, was consummated BUT that was when Henry wanted a divorce, and she couldn't just say (if it was consummated) "Yeah it was consummated." that'd be disgraceful to the Pope, you know. And not only that---but Dona Elvira, her duenna, said Katherine and Arthur's marriage was never consummated, but the girl and her duenna were never close for Madam Elvira later betrayed her. So was 16 year old Arthur and young Katherine's marriage consummated? The world will never know. For your third question, Katherine's parents were called 'The Catholic Monarchs' and were the ones who drove out, tortured, and killed the Muslims and Jews of Spain. Very, very devout. And they were, of course, very close to the Pope 'His Holiness'. I think that England was more of her adopted country, the country of her marriage. She always loved her Espana and wanted England and Spain to have an alliance. Spain then was strongly Catholic, for it had just recently been under the influence of Ferdinand and Isabella. Her religion really came before anything, except in 'The Constant Princess' Philippa Gregory, the author, states that she defied her religion for love but that was just fiction, though everything in the book remains a mere possibility.

[FaithWhiteRose]

i think she was educated to be so. and maybe, if you asked her, she would have answered you that a woman's role was to sit and listen to her husband (something henry appreciated very much, i'm sure). however, i also think her natural personality was very simmilar to her mother's and that showed when her husband did not agree to her principles of what a husband should do (as a continuation of the above theory - the husband is supposed to love and take care of the wife).

I don't think that she was THAT submissive. She was raised and taught so, but her mother was a warrior and very un-submissive. When Henry was first unfaithful to her, she was not at all submissive. But after that she tried to keep quiet, but when Henry Fitzroy was getting all those royal titles she said openly that a bastard shouldn't deserve such things. She and Ferdinand (her father) also schemed alot when they were going to war to France with Maximillian, the Holy Roman Emperor, when Henry was very young and newly King. When Henry realized what was happened he turned on Katherine and she never was involved with politics again. That was apparently why she didn't like Thomas Wolsey.

[bell_the_cat]

Hi FaithWhiteRose!

David Starkey thinks that she wasn't the submissive type - sounds quite convincing to me! H equotes the letters she sent to Henry while he was invading France in 1514, quite the opposite to the usual submissive Katherine!

[FaithWhiteRose]

Hi FaithWhiteRose!

David Starkey thinks that she wasn't the submissive type - sounds quite convincing to me! H equotes the letters she sent to Henry while he was invading France in 1514, quite the opposite to the usual submissive Katherine!

Yeah, I'm glad someone agrees with me   

[FaithWhiteRose]

I don't think everythiong was lost. She saved her honour and that of her daughter's. She thought that a Spanish infanta with Ferdinand and Isabella's blood  could not give in to a King from a new Royal House and a woman who belonged to the English nobility just in her mother's side!


If she had given in, she would have probably locked up in a convent... and maybe the same for Mary...

Your exactly right. The same happened with Juana 'La Loca', her sister.

[ilyala]

i don't think she had a submissive personality. just like jane seymour probably didn't either. but i believe that both put the face of a submissive wife on and that henry was self-absorbed enough to buy it.