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— FIRST OF A SERIES —
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 Catherine
of Aragon’s parents were the King &
Queen of Spain,
Ferdinand & Isabella, the same
monarchs who financed Columbus’s voyage of
discovery to America in 1492 seven years after
Catherine was
born. |
CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF
QUEEN CATHERINE OF ARAGON
AT ABOUT 40 YEARS OF AGE.
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 Catherine
of Aragon was married twice herself. Her first
husband was Arthur, the older brother of Henry VIII.
First son of Henry VII and Crown Prince of England, he
married Catherine when she was 15 and he 13 years
old. The union would have helped ensure
peace between
Europe’s two great maritime powers, and
would have affected
the colonizing of the Americas by Britain and Spain.
CROWN PRINCE
ARTHUR, PRINCE OF WALES, ELDER
SON OF KING HENRY VII, BROTHER OF KING HENRY VIII,
1ST HUSBAND OF CATHERINE OF ARAGON. |
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 Before
Arthur could become King Arthur—his father,
Henry VII was still alive—Arthur died, leaving Catherine
a teenage widow living in a strange land.
No children resulted from Catherine’s first marriage.
KING HENRY VII,
FOUNDER
OF THE TUDOR DYNASTY
AND TWICE FATHER-IN-LAW
OF CATHERINE OF ARAGON. |
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 Arthur’s
healthy, strong, handsome younger brother,
Henry, fell for his brother’s young widow. His father, the
king, had had a change of heart about joining
the
Tudors with the Spanish royal family and forbade his
second son from marrying Catherine. Four years went by, then
Henry VII died. Young Henry became Henry
VIII and
immediately took Catherine of Aragon as his queen in a joint
coronation in 1509.
CATHERINE OF
ARAGON—
TEENAGE WIDOW IN A STRANGE LAND.
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 Every
monarch’s first duty is to provide an heir to
ensure continuity and security to the realm. Catherine worked hard to
meet this goal. She had at least seven pregnancies, of which four lasted
to term. Of these, two boy babies were born
alive. One of these lived more than one month.
Another son died shortly after birth. A
daughter, her first child, was stillborn and premature.
One child, a daughter, lived. She grew up to become
Queen Mary I, known to history as Bloody Mary.
PRINCESS MARY,
DAUGHTER OF CATHERINE OF ARAGON.
LATER SHE WOULD BECOME QUEEN MARY I, "BLOODY MARY".
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ANNE BOLEYN, FOR
WHOM HENRY VIII HAD
HIS 24-YEAR MARRIAGE
TO CATHERINE OF ARAGON ANNULLED.
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 During
their marriage Catherine’s husband Henry VIII
pursued a series of relationships with other women. By
time Catherine was 42 years old Henry was considering
how he could replace her with one of his younger woman
friends, who could produce a male heir. Henry decided
that he deserved an annulment to his marriage with
Catherine because she had once been married and had
failed to produce any living male children. When one of
Henry’s girlfriends,
Anne Boleyn, turned up pregnant,
Henry put pressure on the Pope to provide special
dispensation for the annulment. When the Pope—an ally
of England’s great rival, France—turned down the
request, Henry pursued a different strategy. He had
England’s highest cleric, Archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas Cranmer, declare Henry’s married dissolved.
Henry was now free to marry Anne Boleyn.
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 Catherine
was no longer queen. Her new title—one she
never accepted—was Princess Dowager of Wales. She no longer lived in the
royal palace at Hampton Court and at the
Tower
of London, where she had been patron of the
neighboring St. Katharine’s hospice. Rather, she
was exiled to various less-than-queenly castles in rural
England and along the border with Wales. She no longer
saw her daughter, Mary, who would eventually become
Queen of England. Early in 1536, two and a half years
after her marriage to Henry VIII had been annulled,
Catherine of Aragon died in Kimbolton
Castle north of London in Cambridgeshire.
Catherine was under a kind of house arrest in
Kimbolton Castle for refusing to acquiesce
to Henry and his church and accept her
annulment and demotion from Queen. It is believed
that Catherine’s ghost haunts the castle. A
procession—not the grand procession of a queen
brought Catherine’s remains to
Peterborough Abbey, where they were buried.
Three years later the fallout from Henry
VIII’s separation from the Church of Rome over his
annulment from Catherine of Aragon caused him to
close, destroy, or simply take over Catholic
churches, monasteries, and
abbeys throughout Britain. Among those he
closed was Peterborough Abbey, but not for
long. The king soon re-opened the grand church
as Peterborough Cathedral, |
KING HENRY VIII. PORTRAIT
ATTRIBUTED TO HANS EWORTH FROM
ABOUT 1545, TWELVE YEARS AND FIVE WIVES AFTER ENDING HIS MARRIAGE WITH
CATHERINE OF ARAGON. |
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home church of the
region’s bishop in Henry’s new Anglican
state church.
Catherine’s grave remains in its place by the High Altar.
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— END OF PART ONE —
WATCH FOR FUTURE INSTALLMENTS |
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DIED: 19 MARCH, NEAR NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA—
Bob Fry, longtime resident of Swarthmore, PA, and, with his wife
Betsy, longtime friend and supporter of Home At First. Bob was an
avid traveler, as he was an avid outdoorsman, family man, friend, and
husband. Bob enjoyed life and he helped others enjoy their lives, too.
When Bob walked into the room he brought fresh air with him, and
everyone breathed easier. Survived by Betsy, their children Lynn, Rob,
and Ted, and their families.
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BOB
FRY |
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