Catherine Of ARAGON

Notes:

Queen Catherine of England ne Catherine of Aragon (Castilian: Catalina de AragÛn y Castilla) (December 16, 1485-January 7, 1536) was queen consort of England as Henry VIII of England's first wife. Henry tried to have their twenty-four year marriage annulled in part because all their male heirs apparent death in childhood, with only one of their six children, Princess Mary (later Queen Mary I) surviving as heir presumptive, at a time when there was no precedent for a woman on the throne. The Pope refused to allow the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine, which set off a chain reaction that led Henry to break with the Roman Catholic Church and his subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn in the hope of fathering a male heir to continue the Tudor dynasty.

Catherine of Aragon was said to have made the lane "Aragon road" in Great Leighs, Chelmsford, and was said to have lived in Windsor house, which is situated on that lane to this very day
Born in Alcal· de Henares, Catherine was the youngest surviving child of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Her older siblings were Isabella, Princess of Asturias, John, Prince of Asturias, Joan I of Spain and Maria of Castile and Aragon, Queen of Portugal. She was an aunt, among others, of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, John III of Portugal and their wives, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Henry I of Portugal.

She was a granddaughter of both John II of Castile and John II of Aragon born in 1558. She was descended from the English royal house through both her great-great-grandmothers Catherine of Lancaster and Philippa of Lancaster, daughters of John of Gaunt. She was thus a third cousin of both Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York.

Princess of Wales
Catherine first married to Prince Arthur, the eldest son of Henry VII of England, in 1501. As Prince of Wales, Arthur was sent to Ludlow Castle on the borders of Wales, to preside over the Council of Wales, and Catherine accompanied him. A few months later, they both became ill, possibly with the sweating sickness which was sweeping the area. Catherine herself nearly died; she recovered to find herself a widow. Catherine testified that, because of the couple's youth, the marriage had not been consummated; Pope Julius II then issued a dispensation, so that Catherine could become betrothed to Arthur's younger brother, the future Henry VIII of England.

Catherine of Aragon was said to have made the road 'Aragon Road' in the village of Great Leighs, Chelmsford, and was said to have lived in the Windsor house on that road.

Queen consort of England
The Six Wives of
King Henry VIII
Catherine of Aragon
Anne Boleyn
Jane Seymour
Anne of Cleves
Catherine Howard
Catherine Parr
The marriage did not take place until after Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1509, the marriage on June 11, followed by the coronation on June 24, 1509. Both as Princess of Wales and as Queen, Catherine was extremely popular with the people. She governed the nation as Regent while Henry invaded France in 1513.

Henry VIII supposedly married Catherine of Aragon at his brother's dying wish and was happily-enough married to her, although not faithful, for 18 years, until he became seriously worried about getting a male heir to his throne as she approached menopause. Her first child, a daughter, was stillborn in 1510. Prince Henry, Duke of Cornwall was born in 1511 but died after 52 days. Catherine then had a miscarriage, followed by another short-lived son. On February 18, 1516 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London, she gave birth to a daughter named Mary (later Queen Mary I of England). There was another miscarriage in 1518. A male heir was essential to Henry. The Tudor dynasty was new, and its legitimacy might still be tested. The last time a female had inherited the English throne civil war had occurred; Henry I of England's daughter Empress Matilda had been ousted from the throne immediately upon succeeding as the English Barons refused to allow a woman to rule. The disasters of civil war were still fresh in living memory from the Wars of the Roses (1455 ? 1485).

In 1520, Catherine's nephew Charles V paid a state visit to England, and the Queen urged the policy of gaining his alliance rather than that of France. Immediately after his departure, May 31, 1520, she accompanied the king to France on the celebrated visit to Francis I, remembered (from the splendors of the occasion) as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Within two years, however, war was declared against France and the Emperor once again made welcome in England, where plans were afoot to betroth him to Henry and Catherine's daughter Princess Mary.

At this point Catherine was not in physical condition to undergo further pregnancies. The marriage was further soured by trouble made by Catherine's father, Ferdinand, over payments of her dowry and by a shift of allegiance on the part of Ferdinand, who signed a treaty with the French, to Henry's fury. Because of the lack of heirs, Henry began to believe that his marriage was cursed and sought confirmation from two verses of the biblical Book of Leviticus, which said that, if a man marries his brother's wife, the couple will be childless. He chose to believe that Catherine had lied when she said her marriage to Arthur had not been consummated, therefore making their marriage wrong in the eyes of God. He therefore asked Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage in 1527.

The Pope stalled on the issue for seven years without making a final judgement, partially because allowing an annulment would be admitting that the Church had been in error for allowing a special dispensation for marriage in the first place, and partially because he was a virtual prisoner of Catherine's nephew Charles V, who had conquered Rome. Henry separated from Catherine in July 1531, and married one of Catherine's former ladies-in-waiting (and sister of his former mistress Lady Mary Boleyn), Anne Boleyn in January 1533. Henry finally had Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, annul the marriage himself on May 23, 1533. To forestall an appeal to Rome, which Catherine would have almost certainly won, he had Parliament pass the Act of Supremacy, repudiating Papal jurisdiction in England, making the king the head of the English church, and beginning the English Reformation.

Later years
Catherine refused to acknowledge the divorce and took the issue to the law, but she lost and was forced to leave Court. She was separated from her daughter (who was declared illegitimate) and was sent to live in remote castles and in humble conditions, in the hope that she would surrender to the inevitable; but she never accepted the divorce and signed her last letter, "Catherine the Queen". By this time, she was aware that Henry's marriage to Anne was turning bad, and she had not ceased to hope that he might one day return to her.

Catherine died of a form of cancer at Kimbolton Castle, on January 7, 1536 and was buried in Peterborough Cathedral with the ceremony due to a Princess Dowager of Wales, not a Queen. Catherine's embalmer confessed to her doctor that Catherine's heart had been black through and through, which led many people to believe that Anne Boleyn had poisoned her. Henry and Anne Boleyn celebrated her death - Henry did not attend the funeral, nor did he allow Princess Mary to do so.

Catherine married Arthur Prince Of WALES in Nov 1501. Arthur (son of Henry VII King Of ENGLAND and Elizabeth PLANTAGENET) was born on 20 Sep 1486 in St. Swithin's Priory, Winchester; died on 02 Apr 1502 in Ludlow Castle. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Catherine married Henry VIII King Of ENGLAND in 1509. Henry (son of Henry VII King Of ENGLAND and Elizabeth PLANTAGENET) was born on 28 Jun 1491; died on 28 Jan 1547. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Mary I Queen Of ENGLAND was born on 18 Feb 1516 in Greenwich Palace; died on 17 Nov 1558 in St. Jame's Palace, London.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Ferdinand V King Of Aragon
• Fact: Between 1468 and 1516, King of Castile, Sicily
• Fact: 1469, Became Ferdinand V of Castile when he married Isabella
• Fact: Between 1479 and 1516, King of Aragon
• Fact: Between 1504 and 1516, King of Naples
• Death: 1516

Notes:

Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

Ferdinand was the son of John II of Aragon by his second wife, the Aragonese noblewoman Juana Enriquez. He married Infanta Isabella, the half-sister and heiress of Henry IV of Castile, on October 19, 1469 in OcaÒa and became Ferdinand V of Castile when Isabella succeeded her brother as Queen of Castile in 1474. The two young monarchs were initially obliged to fight a civil war against Juana, princess of Castile (also known as Juana la Beltraneja), the purported daughter of Henry IV, but were ultimately successful. When Ferdinand succeeded his father as King of Aragon in 1479, the Crown of Castile and the various territories of the Crown of Aragon were united in a personal union creating for the first time since the 8th century a single political unit which might be called Spain, although the various territories were not properly administered as a single unit until the 18th century.

The first decades of Ferdinand and Isabella's joint rule were taken up with the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada, the last Muslim enclave in the Iberian peninsula, which was completed by 1492. In that same year, the Jews were expelled from both Castile and Aragon, and Christopher Columbus was sent by the couple on his expedition which would ultimately discover the New World. By the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, the extra-European world was split between the crowns of Portugal and Castile by a north-south line through the Atlantic Ocean.

The latter part of Ferdinand's life was largely taken up with disputes over control of Italy with successive Kings of France, the so-called Italian Wars. In 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and expelled Ferdinand's cousin, Alfonso II, from the throne of Naples. Ferdinand allied with various Italian princes and with Emperor Maximilian I, to expel the French by 1496 and install Alfonso's son, Ferdinand, on the Neapolitan throne. In 1501, following the death of Ferdinand II of Naples and his succession by his uncle Frederick, Ferdinand of Aragon signed an agreement with Charles VIII's successor, Louis XII, who had just successfully asserted his claims to the Duchy of Milan, to partition Naples between them, with Campania and the Abruzzi, including Naples itself, going to the French and Ferdinand taking Apulia and Calabria. The agreement soon fell apart, and over the next several years, Ferdinand's great general Gonzalo Fern·ndez de CÛrdoba conquered Naples from the French, having succeeded by 1504. Another less famous "conquest" took place in 1503, when Andreas Paleologus, de jure Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, left Ferdinand and Isabella as heirs to the empire, thus Ferdinand became de jure Roman Emperor.

After Isabella's death, her kingdom went to her daughter Joanna. Ferdinand served as the latter's regent during her absence in the Netherlands, ruled by her husband Archduke Philip. Ferdinand attempted to retain the regency permanently, but was rebuffed by the Castilian nobility and replaced with Joanna's husband, who became Philip I of Castile. After Philip's death in 1506, with Joanna mentally unstable, and her and Philip's son Charles of Ghent was only six years old, Ferdinand resumed the regency, ruling through Francisco Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros, the Chancellor of the Kingdom.

In 1508, war resumed in Italy, this time against Venice, which all the other powers on the peninsula, including Louis XII, Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Pope Julius II joined together against as the League of Cambrai. Although the French were victorious against Venice at the Battle of Agnadello, the League soon fell apart, as both the Pope and Ferdinand became suspicious of French intentions. Instead, the Holy League was formed, in which now all the powers joined together against France.

In November 1511 Ferdinand and his son-in-law Henry VIII of England signed the Treaty of Westminster, pledging mutual aid between the two against France. Earlier that year, Ferdinand had conquered the southern half of the Kingdom of Navarre, which was ruled by a French nobleman, and annexed it to Spain. At this point Ferdinand remarried with the much younger Germaine of Foix (1490?1538), a grand-daughter of Queen Leonor of Navarre, to reinforce his claim to the kingdom. The Holy League was generally successful in Italy, as well, driving the French from Milan, which was restored to its Sforza dukes by the peace treaty in 1513. The French were successful in reconquering Milan two years later, however.

Ferdinand died in 1516 in Madrigalejo, C·ceres, Extremadura. He had made Spain the most powerful country in Europe. The succession of his grandson Charles, who would inherit not only the Spanish lands of his maternal grandparents, but the Habsburg and Burgundian lands of his paternal family, would make his heirs the most powerful rulers on the continent. Charles succeeded him in the Aragonese lands, and was also granted the Castilian crown jointly with his insane mother, bringing about at long last the unification of the Spanish thrones under one head.

Ferdinand married Isabella I Queen Of Castile And LEON on 19 Oct 1469 in Ocana. Isabella (daughter of JuanIIJohn II King Of Castile And LEON and Isabel Of PORTUGAL) was born on 23 Apr 1451; died on 26 Nov 1504. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Isabel I Queen Of Castile
• Residence: Between 1474 and 1504, Queen of Castile and Leon
• Death: 1501