CATERINA D'ARGONA

CATERINE OF ARAGON. - Queen of England, daughter of Ferdinand V and Isabella the Catholic, born at Alcalá de Henares on 15 Dec. 1485, died in Kimbolton Castle on 7 Jan. 1536. In 1489 an Anglo-Spanish treaty, directed against France, was concluded, and CATHERINE was designated as the bride of Arthur, Prince of Wales. The marriage was celebrated in Nov. 1501, when the spouses had reached a suitable age. Widowed six months later, CATHERINE, having obtained a papal dispensation, became betrothed to the new heir apparent, the future HENRY VIII, who was the brother of her deceased husband. The wedding took place on 3 June 1509, when the new king ascended the throne. Only one daughter, MARY, born in 1516, survived; four other children, two girls and two boys, were born dead or lived only a few weeks. The lack of a male heir estranged HENRY from CATHERINE. When he became strongly infatuated with Anne Boleyn, the king conceived the idea of divorce. In June 1527 he informed his wife of the necessity of separation, alleging the alleged invalidity of the papal dispensation. CATHERINE opposed her husband’s plan with all her strength. After the king’s attempt to obtain an annulment of the marriage from Pope Clement VII failed, the annulment was pronounced by C. Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and sanctioned by Parliament. Thereafter CATHERINE spent the last years of her life devoted to religious practices.