KATHARINE OF : INFLUENCE AND LEGACY OF A FOREIGN QUEEN OF

ENGLAND IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY

A Thesis

by

JILL PERILLI MOBLEY

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University-Commerce in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE August 2015 KATHARINE OF ARAGON: INFLUENCE AND LEGACY OF A FOREIGN QUEEN OF

ENGLAND IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY

A Thesis

by

JILL PERILLI MOBLEY

Approved by:

Advisor: Judy Ford

Committee: William Kuracina Sharon Kowalsky

Head of Department: Judy Ford

Dean of the College: Salvatore Attardo

Dean of Graduate Studies: Arlene Horne

iii

Copyright © 2015

Jill Perilli Mobley

iv

ABSTRACT

KATHARINE OF ARAGON: INFLUENCE AND LEGACY OF A FOREIGN QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Jill Perilli Mobley, MS Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2015

Advisor: Judy Ford, PhD

The popular rhyme, “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,” accurately depicts the common cursory knowledge of England’s King VIII and his famous wives.

However, this sentiment only serves to show the queens as temporary figures in Henry’s life without consideration of their education, power, influence, patronage, management of their own lives as individuals. The historiography of England’s queen consorts overwhelmingly recognizes their historical importance only in relation to the politics surrounding their marriage arrangements. Through a study of Henry’s longest reigning wife, Katharine of Aragon, this project intends to show the wider historical, political, and cultural significance of queen consorts.1 The roles she played as Spanish princess, ambassador, , regent, and finally Dowager Princess of England illustrate her capabilities as an individual female ruler as opposed to simply the wife of a king.

1 For the purposes of this work, I have chosen the spelling of “Katharine” as it corresponds to the spelling of her name in the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of Henry VIII as well as many documents signed by her. Throughout the sources of this paper, however, authors choose to refer to her as Catherine, Catharine, Katherine, Catalina, and my adoption of Katharine.

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank Doctors Judy Ford, Sharon Kowalsky, and William Kuracina, my thesis committee, for all the time and effort they dedicated to me to help me complete this work. Their continual notes, candor, and advice made this project possible. I would also like to thank my incredibly supportive family – my husband, Scott, and parents, Bob and Diane – for their continued encouragement and understanding when this project had to take precedence over the recreational aspects of life. My thanks would not be complete without recognizing three specific friends who helped me through all of my trials and complete emotional meltdowns. Thank you to

Ben Williams, Manny Grajales, and Allison Faber for picking me up off the floor when I needed it and providing me with a standard of excellence.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

2. DAWN OF A NEW ...... 17

3. EXERCISING QUEENSHIP ...... 42

Blending English and Spanish Traditions ...... 43

Expanding Influence Through Family ...... 52

Dressing the Part: How Beauty and Wardrobe Affect Power ...... 62

4. A QUEEN’S ROLE IN POLITICS ...... 71

Centralizing the Tudor Monarchy ...... 72

Women’s Involvement in England’s Political Culture ...... 77

Foreign Connections and Dynastic Legacy ...... 81

From Ambassador to Queen ...... 90

5. ONE WOMAN’S AGENCY ...... 101

Pre-Reformation England ...... 102

Katharine and Henry’s Divorce: Spiritual or Temporal Jurisdiction? ...... 110

Effects of Divorce and Schism ...... 129

6. AN EMPIRE ENTIRE OF ITSELF ...... 134

7. CONCLUSION ...... 158

REFERENCES

References ...... 168

Calendars and Published Document Collections ...... 168

Contemporary Printed Works ...... 168

vii

REFERENCES cont’d

Online Resources ...... 168

Theses and Dissertations ...... 169

Journal Articles ...... 169

Books ...... 172

APPENDICES ...... 186

Appendix

A. GENEAOLOGY CHARTS ...... 187

War of the Roses: Lancastrian Line ...... 188

War of the Roses: York Line ...... 189

Dawn of a New Dynasty: Tudor Line ...... 190

Kingdoms of Portugal, Aragon, and Castile ...... 191

Spanish Succession from the Catholic Kings ...... 192

B. STYLES OF THE MONARCHS OF ENGLAND ...... 193

Styles of the English Monarchs, 1154-1603 ...... 194

Styles of the English and Scottish Monarchs, 1603-1707 ...... 195

Styles of the British Monarchs, 1707-present ...... 195

VITA ...... 197

1

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Katharine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, has been discussed by historians for centuries. Her life bridged two centuries, two countries, two religions, and two historical periods, the and the Renaissance. Over time, historians have interpreted the same historical evidence myriad ways resulting in Katharine’s varied portrayal, from a three-page reference in a

Henry VIII monograph, a mere side-note to a bygone era, to a heroic martyr worthy of sainthood.

Debates about the queen, her marriages, and her influence still occur, but over time historians have changed their interpretations of her individual role as their own values have changed.

Considering her life as a whole, beyond the narrow confines of her marriage to Henry, allows historians to understand the queen in her own merits and in the context of her contributions to the court environment.

The intent of this project is to show that Katharine of Aragon was influential culturally and politically, both in England and on the world stage. It illustrates how Katharine’s upbringing and experiences allowed her to shape the concept of queenship and helped launch England on its path to empire. This project is designed not to discover new sources of information about

Katharine of Aragon, but rather to shape a better understanding of her within the social and political contexts of early English sovereignty through an analysis of her life. This work is designed to examine what influence this Spanish princess from Catholic, politically centralized, colonizing had on England’s cultural, religious, and governmental changes in the early sixteenth century.

The end of the fifteenth century saw the height of the Renaissance in Europe. The great

Italian artists Raphael, Botticelli, Michelangelo and Leonard da Vinci were all alive,

2 commissioned by various patrons to produce beautiful paintings and sculptures. Machiavelli and

Copernicus were diligently writing, their humanist influences spreading across Europe reaching

Spain and its rulers, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and influencing English politicians like

Thomas Cromwell. 1 At the same time, the world was getting bigger. The Portuguese garnered a new trade route to India when Bartholomew Diaz returned from sailing around the Cape of Good

Hope and appealed to Ferdinand and Isabella to fund a journey attempting to find a route to China and Japan. Not to be outdone, the newest monarch in Europe,

King Henry VII of England, sent his own explorer, , out to claim new lands for the

Tudor dynasty. Katharine of Aragon was born to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1485, and Arthur,

Prince of , was born to Henry VII and in 1486 at the height of the

European expansion. Thus began alliance and treaty negotiations that would last over thirty years with Katharine, the Infanta Princessa, caught in the middle.2

The social and cultural aspects of Katharine’s life are traditionally the most commonly addressed and have generated substantial secondary literature. Of specific interest is Katharine’s transition from Spanish princess through Princess of Wales and finally to Queen of England.

There was a dramatic cultural change for Katharine during this time. The way that she assimilated to English culture while retaining hints of her Spanish heritage is key to understanding her role in the changing social and political climate. Additionally, during her time as queen, Katharine played a pivotal role in the religious changes happening in England.

1 Isabella of Castile’s name also appears throughout historiography as Isabel. I have chosen the style of Isabella based on the styling found in the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of Henry VIII, the Calendar of State Papers, Spanish and Calendar of State Papers, Venetian primary sources.

2 Winifred Roll, The Pomegranate and the : The Story of Katharine of Aragon (New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, Inc., 1970), 7-8. The terms infante and infanta are reserved for the sons and daughters, respectively, of Spanish or Portuguese kings. The terms begin to appear in the Middle Ages and their use is upheld through the Partidas where it is stated “Infantes llaman en España a los hijos de los Reyes.” (Translation: “Infants in Spain [are] called the children of Kings.”) “The Style of Infante/Infanta de España,” See: www.heraldica.org/topics/national/infantes.htm, accessed December 19, 2014.

3

Katharine’s staunch Catholic upbringing conflicted with Henry’s desires to marry Anne and ensuing conflicts with the , causing a rift in the court’s allegiances and eventually leading to the divorce of Katharine and Henry.

Throughout their divorce proceedings, Katharine showed herself to be not a hapless victim of circumstances beyond her control, but a competent diplomat who utilized all of her political, religious, and familial connections to protect her integrity and defend herself against accusations from the highest members of the English government. Her unwavering belief in the validity of her marriage and her insistence that she would only honor a decision issued by the pope himself forced Henry to seek alternate means to his ends. Through years of intimidation of clergymen and parliamentarians, Henry’s coup d’état was a complete departure from the Roman

Catholic Church’s ecclesiology to one headed by himself in England. Despite England’s separation from the Catholic Church, Katharine managed to continue to inspire and lead

Catholics through this upheaval, showing her popularity with her English subjects and giving insight into her determination and leadership abilities. Spain remained a devoutly Catholic empire with its own native, Katharine’s nephew, Charles V, as Holy Roman Emperor. Without

Katharine’s proud refusal to be demeaned and dismissed so easily, it is plausible that Henry would not have clashed with the Catholic Church and England would have remained Catholic throughout his reign enabling him to maintain a healthy relationship with the leaders of the expanding .

Extant studies of the Tudor dynasty often show the early Tudor queens as temporary figures in Henry’s life without consideration of the extent of their education, power, influence, patronage, or management of their own lives as individuals. This project intends to look deeper at the historiographical depictions of the first foreign Tudor queen and how opinions of her and

4 her actions have changed over time: how she has become less defined by her marriage to (and later divorce from) Henry and more by her individual personality and accomplishments. The works about Katharine of Aragon in the late Victorian era were largely characterized by anti-

Catholicism and nineteenth-century assumptions about gender. Studies of the wives of Henry

VIII began appearing in the mid- to late-1800s from authors such as J.A. Froude and Martin

Andrew Sharp Hume. Froude’s work, The Divorce of as told by the

Imperial Ambassadors at the Court of Henry VIII (1891), heavily favors the King of England and depicts Katharine as ugly, proud, and obstinate. His conclusions are unfavorable to Queen

Katharine even though her nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and his Imperial

Ambassador, Chapuys, were two of the queen’s greatest throughout her life.

Froude’s harsh depiction of Katharine exemplifies the anti-Catholicism at the time.

Granted, this work concentrates specifically on Katharine and Henry’s divorce and is not designed to analyze the life of Katharine as a whole, however the use of sources is so narrow that it borders on the inappropriate. The problems with Froude’s writing go beyond his source-work.

He completely flouts widely-accepted events such as Henry VIII taking as a mistress, a fact that is accepted by the vast majority of Tudor scholars.3 Froude claims that the events never actually happened. The entire thesis of his book attempts to prove that the divorce of Katharine of Aragon and Henry VIII simply occurred to address public policy and he attaches no credit to the king’s infatuation with . This sentiment rebuffs all other accounts of the chronology of the king’s decision to divorce Katharine in which, while there are rumors as early as 1514 regarding Henry’s wish to repudiate Katharine, it is not until the late , after the fixation on Anne began, that actual recourse is sought. Froude himself stated that Henry fell

3 For more of Mary Boleyn as Henry VIII’s mistress, see Allison Weir, Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings (New York: Ballantine Books, 2011).

5

“under the fascination of the impatient Anne” in 1526, a full three years before communications begin regarding the king’s desire for a divorce.4

Historian Martin Hume points out that the queen consorts of Henry VII and VIII have traditionally been important only in proportion to the influence exerted through the political decisions that facilitated their marriages.5 In his collective look at The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History, Hume presents extensive research on the Tudor queen consorts and discusses the role each played in the personal and political life of the King of

England. In his work, he clearly sets out why the conventional views of the women should be altered. In his preface, Hume asks readers to consider that the actions of Katharine of Aragon

(and Henry’s other wives) were less her individual decisions and more the fluid tools of politics, pushed and pulled upon by forces they only partially understood.6 While this statement incorrectly implies that the wives of Henry VIII were oblivious to the politics, scheming, and manipulation of the Tudor Court, Hume’s assessment that the women did not have complete control over their fates due to others’ actions is accurate.

In Hume’s work, hints of a feminist interpretation of the Tudor era appear. He is not shy about depicting Henry VIII as weak and vain, easily manipulated by his advisors to meet their own political and religious agendas. His goal throughout his book is to show how each of

Henry’s wives was only an instrument of politicians at court, who could be manipulated to sway the king to their side and in their interests.7 Exploitation was not limited to their lives after they

4 J.A. Froude, The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon as told by the Imperial Ambassadors at the Court of Henry VIII (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 182.

5 Martin Hume, The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts they Played in History (: Eveleigh Nash, 1905), 9.

6 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 10.

7 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 11.

6 married the king. Hume masterfully explains how these women were used from young ages by their own fathers and relatives to advance their family interests.

One thing lacking in Hume’s interpretation of the men who had the ability to influence the king is consideration of the queen’s influence on his decisions and actions. Surely it behooved members of Henry’s court to involve his queens in their personal ambitions, but

Hume’s take is that the politicians possessed the power. Analyzed from an alternative standpoint,

Hume suggests that it was the queen who had the influence over Henry. The politicians were coming to her with the expectation that she would support them and their desires by attempting to slant Henry’s decisions in their favor.8 Hume depicts Katharine as a level-headed, well- educated, regal princess with a flair for diplomacy and a penchant for piety. He credits Katharine with incredible intelligence and knowledge of political systems throughout her life. Taking this view of Katharine, it is difficult to consider that she was merely a pawn in everyone else’s game.

For the next thirty years, discussion of Katharine of Aragon was again relegated to sections, chapters, and pages of Henry VIII studies. She was addressed rather matter-of-factly in a simple recount of facts and communications garnered from collected works such as the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of Henry VIII and the Calendars of State Papers. The first two monographs about Katharine were not published until the early twentieth century. Francesca

Claremont and Garrett Mattingly both take a holistic approach to Katharine’s life in their biographies and begin making connections between her formative years with her parents and her later political and religious views.

8 Letter from Ferdinand, King of Aragon to Luis Caroz, May 1510, in , ed. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of King Henry VIII, vol. 1, 1509-1514 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1880), item 119. This source will be noted in the future as L&P followed by the volume number and item number of each citation.

7

In the late 1930s, London author Francesca Claremont produced her biographical study of Katharine in Catherine of Aragon. It sets itself apart from previous works regarding Katharine which generally focus solely on Katharine as queen, neglecting her formative years in Spain, her first marriage and widowhood, and the latter years her expulsion from Court.9 Claremont’s work brings to light the underlying influences of Katharine of Aragon’s early childhood, with special consideration to her time in Spain and the observation of her mother, Isabella of Castile.

Katharine’s relationship with her parents is vastly important to the study of her life because it is through observation of their political policy, especially foreign policy, and religious attitudes that

Katharine learned to excel in the court of Henry VIII. Katharine’s devotion to the Catholic faith can be tied directly to Isabella’s belief system and her desire to make Spain wholly Catholic by driving out all Moorish influence. Katharine had direct interaction in her father’s relationship with England either as the enticement as bride or as official ambassador. Claremont covers

Katharine’s involvement in these events using her as a focal point of the event rather than appearing in the periphery.

Throughout the work, Claremont shows Katharine in an extremely favorable light as both woman and ruler. Claremont’s Katharine possesses personality traits that have come to be associated with royalty: passion, level-headedness, friendliness, honesty, and high morality.

However, there are also some characteristics Claremont attributed to Katharine that help explain why she made mistakes in the devious game of court politics, specifically “over-trustfulness” and poor judgment in discerning people’s motives.10 These “mistakes” do not seem to be corroborated by much of the primary source evidence which suggests that Katharine was well

9 Francesca Claremont, Catherine of Aragon (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1939), 11.

10 Claremont, Catherine of Aragon, 12.

8 aware of potential motives of the major players at court and became distrusting of a large number of her contemporaries early on in her tenure.

By the mid-twentieth century, historians were taking the lives of women more seriously and reexamining their contributions to the Tudor dynasty.11 As one of only two monographs written solely about Katherine of Aragon in the mid-twentieth century, Garrett Mattingly’s biography, Catherine of Aragon, assists in breaking new ground in the historiographical understanding on queen consorts during the .12 He shows her as taking a prominent role in both cultural and political life, beginning with the dismissal of her long over-bearing duenna, Doña Elvira. It was the duenna’s secret actions and communications with her own brother in Flanders that put England’s relationship with Spain, and, by extension, Katharine’s proposed marriage to Henry, in jeopardy. When Katharine met with her ambassador and was informed of the details of the duenna’s manipulation of her, Doña Elvira was promptly and unceremoniously dismissed and Katharine became mistress of her own household.13 When she took on the position of her father’s ambassador, she focused on the political gossip of the court, learning to filter the true intentions of Europe’s leaders from the personal agendas their envoys often added. As queen, it was as much her influence as Henry’s that brought humanist scholars to court. Perhaps most effectively, Mattingly points out that Katharine kept deeply entrenched in

11 For more on the early and mid-twentieth century examinations of , see John E. Paul, Catherine of Aragon and her Friends (New York: Fordham University Press, 1966); and Mary Luke, Catherine, the Queen (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967).

12 The only other monograph of Katharine of Aragon was written by Francisca Claremont in 1939, also entitled Catherine of Aragon. There is in existence William Hepworth Dixon’s History of Two Queens (1874) in which Katharine is the subject of the first volume, but as far as a work solely on Katharine of Aragon, Claremont’s is the earliest readily available.

13 For a more thorough account of Doña Elvira’s manipulation, see Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1941), 72-77.

9 the business of the royal household, which allowed her access into the matters of the government of England.14

Mattingly’s approach does not relegate Katharine to importance only as the wife of

Henry VIII, rather, he is able to show that she was an important historical figure in her own right.

Mattingly examines so many facets of the preconceived notion of Katharine of Aragon that his work comes across as largely revisionist. He even employs counterfactual techniques to show the development of Katharine’s character while working to avoid assuming that the actual outcome of her life was inevitable. Most notably, Mattingly refers to Katharine’s aptitude with foreign affairs. For several years into her marriage, Katharine remained the official ambassador of Spain, enabling her to be heavily involved with the policies of both the Spanish and English governments.

Aside from his depiction of Katharine’s personality, the main divergent point in

Mattingly’s work comes in his discussion of the king’s “great matter.” He goes to great lengths to convince his readers that Cardinal Wolsey was the true instigator of the king and queen’s divorce motivated by an expectation that, if the divorce was quickly obtained for the king, it would advance Wolsey’s own position in court and his aspirations for the papacy. Again readers saw a depiction of Henry as the complaisant fool being led around by his genitals while

Katharine acquired new character descriptions such as humanist-educated.

Despite Mattingly’s counterfactual tendencies and occasional exaggeration, his biography of Katharine of Aragon draws from outstanding primary source material and provides a detailed assessment of her entire life. She remains the focus of topics, but Mattingly does not hesitate to provide essential peripheral information about pertinent individuals such as Katharine’s parents,

Thomas Wolsey, various Spanish ambassadors, and even her Spanish duenna. It is easy to

14 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 134-137.

10 understand why his work became both spring board and benchmark for successive biographies of .

Further revision of the role of Katharine of Aragon did not appear until the late twentieth century. Feminist interpretations begin to appear in works like Karen Lindsey’s Divorced

Beheaded Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII. These analyses devote substantial portions of their work to Henry’s longest reigning queen consort and began to examine her (and the other wives) through the lens of the feminist movements that began in the

1970s and 1980s. As its title suggests, Lindsey’s book is a feminist study of the wives of Henry

VIII. Although the section of Katharine of Aragon is relatively small and glosses over much of the detail of her early life in both Spain and England, Lindsey makes it abundantly clear that

Katharine became a tool of Spain.15 Katharine is portrayed as a very sympathetic character, with unwavering love for her husband, no matter how horribly he treated her. Lindsey shows

Katharine as the one queen consort who defended herself most openly and with such bravery and conviction that she was the most “modern” of his wives. Katharine’s personality cannot be the sole focus of a study of her life since the biological condition of not bearing sons must also be considered in the rift between Katharine and Henry. Lindsey does not bash the men in

Katharine’s life in the chapters, but it is clear that she portrays Ferdinand of Aragon as shrewd, inconsiderate, and conniving, caring less for his daughter than his foreign policy. Credit for all of

Katharine’s admirable qualities is ascribed to her mother, Isabella. However, even Lindsey’s

“feminist” depiction of Henry centers round his outrageous egotism and she assigns the wives’ fates to their being “at the mercy of the most powerful man in the world.”16

15 Karen Lindsey, Divorced Beheaded Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII (Reading: Perseus Books, 1995), 13.

16 Lindsey, Divorced Beheaded Survived, xxi.

11

Works of the early twenty-first century once again relegate Katharine of Aragon largely to sections of books addressing all of Henry’s wives or a few chapters in analyses of Henry VIII.

To date, there are only two biographies of Katharine published in the twenty-first century. The rest are interpretations of her role among the other wives and although her life takes up a significant portion of those works, they are not deeply analytical. The most controversial book about the wives of Henry VIII appeared in 2003 from historian David Starkey in his Six Wives:

The Queens of Henry VIII. Again Katharine of Aragon appears in a work about all the Tudor queens but this portrayal of her and her comrades is starkly different from before and takes on a decidedly anti-feminist tone. Starkey’s goal with his book appears to be the complete rewriting of the history of the Tudors based purely on the arrogant assumption that he simply finds previous accounts unsatisfactory. He claims to be responding to the works by Agnes Strickland,

Martin Hume, and Antonia Fraser, noting that their works were typical gendered reactions:

Hume’s a masculine response and Strickland and Fraser’s typically feminine.17 Starkey criticizes

Strickland’s and Fraser’s works as being too romanticized and not written by academic historians. While he is correct that the two were popular authors, Starkey’s own arrogance in being an historian trained in archival research is unimpressive once the reader delves into his book.

There are inherent problems with Starkey’s work both in context and methodology. A major diversion from traditional account of Katharine of Aragon occurs when Starkey reviews the marriage of Katharine and Prince Arthur. He claims that historians and authors have simply accepted the account of the marriage consummation as presented in Bergenroth’s Calendar of

17 David Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003), xvi-xvii. For the arguments of Antonia Frasier, see Antonia Frasier, The Wives of Henry VIII (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). For Agnes Strickland’s work on the queens of England, see Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1852).

12

State Papers of Spain Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere without considering its supplement. He outright says that Katharine of Aragon lied about the consummation of her marriage with Arthur and that the lie could be substantiated through testimony of Katharine’s tutor .18 Though he later admits that this testimony does not prove sexual relations, he holds to the assumption that Katharine fully entered the marital state with her first husband and that Henry’s grounds for divorce were therefore valid. Starkey completely omits other valuable circumstantial information needed to make an assessment as to the consummation.

Henry’s own boasting of Katharine’s virginity, her lack of pregnancy with Arthur despite immediately and repeatedly doing so with Henry, and Henry’s failure to refute Katharine’s claim that he recognized her as a virgin when they wed are all verifiable pieces of evidence that

Starkey completely disregards.

Starkey’s other revision comes in his assessment of Katharine and Henry’s divorce and split with the Catholic Church. Starkey claims that the sole reason for Henry’s pursuit of a divorce was out of his love for Anne Boleyn. He claims Wolsey was “genuinely surprised” at the king’s desire to leave Katharine and points out what a mess Wolsey made of the entire affair.19

Wolsey’s ability to procure the divorce swiftly and cleanly was not always in his control, which

Starkey seems to forget. It is easy to argue that because the king did not get what he wanted when he wanted it, responsibility and accountability must fall to someone else. Starkey cannot place that responsibility on the shoulders of Wolsey when the cardinal had no control over the responses or response time of the Curia to which Henry wrote requesting his divorce. It was not until Henry made himself Supreme Head of the Church in England that he ably moved along his divorce from Katharine. To this end, Starkey goes so far as to state that the Reformation was

18 Starkey, Six Wives, xviii-xx.

19 Starkey, Six Wives, xxii.

13 caused for no other reason than “Henry could get her [Anne Boleyn] no other way.” 20 If desire for Anne Boleyn was the sole motivator, then the Henrician Reformation would not have continued after 1533 when Henry achieved his divorce and married Anne.

When a woman is elevated to the position of queen, changes to her life inevitably occur.

In current historiography, Theresa Earenfight addresses the issue of what it meant to be a queen in Katharine of Aragon’s time. In her Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early

Modern Spain, Earenfight identifies queenship as “a repertoire of collective norms, institutional structures, and strategies for participation within the public political sphere of monarchy that included, but was not limited to, governance.”21 It was not enough to wear a and bear a title. Queens, even consorts, were religious and cultural leaders; they enabled political alliances through their families and ensured the continuation of through their children.

Examination of a monarch’s reign only in terms of the actions and decisions of a king yields only a partial understanding of monarchy.

In acknowledgement of the importance of familial ties to a queen’s position in monarchy,

John C. Parsons’ collection of essays, Medieval Queenship, strives to redefine medieval queenship. Through these authors, Medieval Queenship argues that queenship of the medieval era should be examined juxtaposed with the changing patterns and definitions of family. As we have seen, family structures and the roles each individual plays within the family in the fifteenth and early sixteen centuries are largely determined by political factors. An example of the link between family and state politics can primarily be seen through marriage contracts of a country’s

20 Starkey, Six Wives, 301.

21 Theresa Earenfight, Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), xvi.

14 princesses. Parsons’ contribution to the collection deals with the links between women, marriage, and power in Plantagenet England (1150-1500).

The contributors to Medieval Queenship also claim that the relationship a king’s family had with his kingdom had a direct effect on the amount and focus of a queen’s power and influence.22 For example, in his chapter about Hungarian queens from 1000-1386, János Bak discusses the relationship distance between a king and other aristocratic families by looking at the origins of the queens. Bak claims that, since during that period nearly all Hungarian kings married foreign princesses, therefore the social and political expanse between royalty and aristocracy had to be immense. As a result of their foreign origins, one of the primary functions of the Hungarian queens was to be an agent of foreign influence and immigration.23

Robert Hutchinson’s Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII which covers the early part of

Henry’s reign, ignores any significant discussion about the foreign connections and support

Henry achieved through Katharine’s family and her ambassadorial efforts. Hutchinson instead focuses on Katharine’s early failed pregnancies and Henry’s childish frivolity.24 Furthermore, he barely addresses Katharine’s role in mustering armies, protecting cities, and successfully defeating a Scottish assault on England while Henry was in . Instead there are several pages on Katharine’s communication with Cardinal Wolsey regarding her concern about her husband’s welfare.25 Hutchinson does, at least, spend two pages discussing Katharine’s efforts on England’s behalf and acknowledges her role in the Scottish affair. Two of J. D. Mackie’s works were consulted for this project: an article entitled “Henry VIII and ” and a

22 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 10.

23 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 13.

24 Robert Hutchinson, Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (London: Phoenix, 2011), 129-154.

25 Hutchinson, Young Henry, 170-184.

15 monograph called The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558. In both of his analyses of the Scottish invasion of 1513, he neglects to mention Katharine’s contributions at all, save for her need to consult Henry on what to do with the body of the dead King of Scotland. 26

J. J. Scarisbrick’s biography of Henry VIII from the late 1960s is still considered to be one of the most important biographical works of the Tudor king.27 The five hundred plus page monograph is well written and well researched, but there is one glaring omission from the narrative of Henry’s reign: Katharine of Aragon is mentioned sparingly until their divorce. When

Scarisbrick does get around to analyzing the , there is no discussion of Katharine’s direct involvement in the proceedings except for the well-documented incident at Blackfriars when she appeals to have the case heard in .28 Other than that, this seemingly quintessential work on the reign of Henry VIII contains no consideration of Katharine’s contributions to the political, social, and religious providence of an entire country. Her absence is notable in any number of works on the early Tudor period and this study intends to fill some of the gaps in understanding of Katharine of Aragon’s impact on early sixteenth century England.

A considerable portion of the political, religious, and cultural happenings of England were influenced, even directly shaped, by the personality of Katharine of Aragon. It is surprising then to learn how often her role as a leader in these arenas is glossed over or omitted from previous historiography. Historians seem to focus primarily on the six year period of her divorce and even then, the point of contention is the consummation of her first marriage and the legal recourse Henry had for pursuing an annulment. This thesis challenges readers to alter their

26 J.D. Mackie, “Henry VIII and Scotland,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fourth Series 29 (1947): 93-114 esp 109, accessed May 15, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3678551; and J.D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1994), 279-284 esp 284.

27 J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969).

28 Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 147-240 esp 166-167.

16 preconceived notions of the importance of Henry’s first wife not by revealing new information about her life, but by reevaluating her actions through a lens in which Katharine is the center of events rather than a passive subject of Henry’s actions and decisions. Before their divorce,

Katharine served as an important councilor to Henry and ruled England in his stead. During their annulment proceedings, her unwavering belief in the legality of their union forced Henry to turn away from the Church that proclaimed him a “Defender of the Faith.” Her experiences as a

Spanish princess instilled within her a world view that helped shape early ideologies of English imperialism. In short, Katharine of Aragon, the Infanta Princessa from Spain, forever changed what it meant to be the Queen of England.

17

Chapter 2

DAWN OF A NEW DYNASTY

Katharine of Aragon’s reign as queen consort of England enabled her to become an important component in the changing expectations of English queens. The timing of her ascension to queen and the fact that she did so through the “spare heir,” Henry VIII, were both especially essential to her success. Katharine’s upbringing in Spain trained her in politics, diplomacy, and queenship under the influences of the well-established kingdoms of Castile and

Aragon. In contrast, the Tudor dynasty was in its infancy and approaching a change in leadership, not to the well-trained primary heir, but the second son who was raised in nurseries alongside his sisters under the supervision of his mother.1 While Henry VIII was brought up by intelligent, powerful, and capable women, his education and training in kingly subjects was underdeveloped compared to that of his elder brother, Arthur. The deficiencies in Henry’s political training allowed Katharine to be quite influential and enabled her to secure a position in the forefront of England’s politics.

When researching the early Tudor time period, the vast majority of available material is written from the perspective of Henry VII or VIII and analyzes their actions and policies. Most analyses of who was able to influence Henry VIII concentrate on the male members of his court, oftentimes dismissing the roles his wives played in shaping England’s social, cultural, and political landscape. Katharine of Aragon is particularly susceptible to historians’ neglect because the drama of her tenure as consort is not overtly dramatic until Henry decided to divorce her. By then, she is overshadowed by Anne’s scheming and social climbing. Anne Boleyn is generally acknowledged as having significant influence over Henry and, by extension, the religious fate of

1 Robert Hutchinson, Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (London: Phoenix, 2011), 15-17.

18

England, but her contributions are shadowed by accusations of witchcraft and manipulation, almost as if a woman only achieved influence over a man if it was by some sinister means.

To fully understand the policies and motivations of the Tudor monarchy and Katharine’s role in it, one must understand how the Tudors obtained their tenuous hold on the English kingdom. The Tudor Dynasty emerged on the heels of over eighty years of English civil war.

From 1399 to 1485, England’s kings, descended from the houses of York and Lancaster, endeavored to hold on to their unstable reigns, battling both family members with claims to the throne and “over-mighty” aristocrats who began challenging the accepted order of society. The

Wars of the Roses, as this period of history has been commonly known since the early nineteenth century, was a primarily dynastic conflict that comprised only sporadic military interactions and no large-scale disintegration of civility and social order.2 As military historian Trevor Royle describes it, the brutality of the time rested squarely on the shoulders of the nobility who were applying their ruthless ambition as justification for their support of, or opposition to, the current

King of England.3

The warring houses of York and Lancaster were both descended from King Edward III

(r.1327-1377) through two of his four sons. His eldest surviving son, Edward Plantagenet, the

Black Prince, died in 1376 and therefore was not a hindrance to the others’ claims to the throne. 4

However, before he passed, the Black Prince fathered his own legitimate heir, thereby forcing his

2 For additional information on the , see , David Baldwin, Michael K Jones, eds., The Women of the Cousins’ War: the Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother (New York: Touchstone, 2014); M. A. Hicks, The Wars of the Roses (New Haven: University Press, 2010); and Dan Jones, The Wars of the Roses: the Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors (New York: Viking, 2014).

3 Trevor Royle, The Wars of the Roses: England’s First Civil War (London: Abacus, 2010), viii.

4 When Edward, the Black Prince, died in 1376 he was survived by four other sons of Edward III: (in order from eldest to youngest) Lionel of , ; , Duke of Lancaster; Edmund of Langley, ; and Thomas of Woodstock, .

19 brothers down one position in the line of succession. When Edward III died in 1377, his grandson and heir, crowned Richard II (r.1377-1399), was still a child of ten who required someone to act as regent until he reached an appropriate age. That man was John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, Richard II’s uncle and Edward III’s second eldest surviving son.

Richard II’s reign was marred by revolt and conflict beginning with the Great Revolt of

1381.5 In 1387, control of the English government was seized by the Lords Appellant, members of which included: the king’s uncle, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester; his cousin, Henry

Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt; and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.6 Two years passed before the young king regained control of his realm. Ten years after losing control of his government, Richard was still enacting vengeance upon the Lords Appellant. After the death of

John of Gaunt in 1399, Henry Bolingbroke, who was already exiled in France, was completely disinherited by Richard. By June of that year, Bolingbroke invaded England aiming to reclaim his patrimony. Upon witnessing the successes of his campaigns and the growing support of

English aristocrats and French allies, Bolingbroke soon sought the throne itself. In less than seven months, Henry Bolingbroke overthrew Richard II and was crowned Henry IV. Though

5 For additional information on the Great Revolt of 1381, see Alastair Dunn, The Great Rising of 1381: the Peasants’ Revolt and England’s Failed Revolution (Stroud: Tempus, 2002); Dan Jones, Summer of Blood: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (London: Harper Press, 2010); and Steven Justice, Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

6 The Lords Appellant was a group of five who, in November 1387, presented appeals of treason against some of King Richard II’s court favorites. These appeals stemmed from disagreements between the Lords Appellant and the king regarding foreign and domestic policies. In December 1387, they won a short civil war against the army of Richard de Vere, Duke of , who represented the king’s interests. When the Lords Appellant seized control of the monarchy, eight men were executed, two fled in favor of exile, and several dozen men and women were expelled from court. See: “The Lords Appellant and the forfeitures of 1397,” The Institute of Historical Research and Royal Holloway, www.history.ac.uk/richardII/lordsapp.html (University of London, 2007), accessed December 18, 2014.

20

Plantagenet blood was still on the throne, the reign of the began. It lasted for the next sixty-two years, through Henrys IV, V, and VI.7

The last king of the Lancastrian line, Henry VI (r.1422-1461, 1470-1471), managed to lose all the lands his father, Henry V, gained during his War of Conquest with France.8 Henry

VI’s desire was to establish peace between England and continental Europe, and he was willing to surrender English lands and wealth to ensure it was obtained. His governing decisions became concerns of the parliament and counselors of the king. From Henry VI’s weakness and political inabilities, it is possible to conclude that discussion of the other claimant to the throne took place. Evidence of this possibility is discussed in John Watts’ Henry VI and the Politics of

Kingship which argues that the nobility of England were inclined to work together with Henry V and those who ruled during Henry VI’s minority, but once Henry VI assumed control, they found him to be insubstantial, insufficient, and inadequate.9 Members of parliament and the king’s council would have been aware of other claimants as part of the line of succession. According to

Watts, entertaining the idea of replacing Henry VI as king was less an issue of treason for the noble classes as it was expressive of the common weal. They were, after all, lords of provincial manors and therefore representatives of their English citizens.10 If the nobility were in agreement regarding the ineptitude of Henry VI and they were representatives of the English people, then usurping the king was acting in the best interest of the citizenry. Edward, Duke of York, another

7 See Appendix A for the genealogy charts of the Lancastrian line.

8 The title “War of Conquest with France” is one used by Royle in The Wars of the Roses. Henry V’s campaigns in France were not given a formal title as far as research for this project shows. However, this title is a succinct way to collectively reference Henry V’s three campaigns in France (in 1415, 1417-1420, and 1421). During that time, Henry V took control of Harfleur and Agincourt in 1415, Lower Normandy in 1417, Rouen in 1419, Montereau and Melun in 1420, and Dreux in 1421. In 1420, Henry V was also recognized as the heir and regent of France per the Treaty of Troyes. Royle, The Wars of the Roses, 135-154.

9 John Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 135- 151.

10 Watts, Henry VI, 65.

21 descendent of Edward III through the king’s fourth son, Edmund, was the other legitimate option for the nobility. 11

The Duke of York became Edward IV, King of England, after winning the battle of

Towton and deposing Henry VI. However, without a wife and heir, his new position remained shaky at best. Edward’s councilors, led by his cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, were negotiating a marriage between the new king and Bona of Savoy, the French queen’s sister. A political match such as this held the potential to provide Edward with foreign support should

Henry VI and his Lancastrian counterparts attempt to re-ascend the throne. Edward, however, had his own plans for marriage. Just as the Earl of Warwick was preparing his envoy to France to make the final arrangements, Edward announced that he was already wed to Elizabeth

Wydeville, a Lancastrian widow who already had two sons.12 While she was from a rather obscure family on her father’s side, her mother was the highest-ranking lady at court after

Margaret of Anjou, wife of the deposed Henry VI.13

Two years later, on February 11, 1466, the King and Queen of England welcomed their first child, christened Elizabeth. Agnes Strickland suggests that Edward was motivated by a strong sense that this beautiful and gracious child would ultimately prove the representative of his line.14 If Strickland’s assumption is accurate, then his intuition proved prophetic since five of his ten children did not live to adulthood and this daughter became the matriarch from whom all

England’s rulers have descended since the late 1400s. It has been suggested that Elizabeth was

11 Refer to Appendix A for the genealogy chart that exhibits Edward, Duke of York’s claim to the throne.

12 The spelling of Elizabeth’s last name, Wydeville, as used here, also appears in historiography as “Woodville.” See Appendix A for lineage and family information of Elizabeth Wydeville.

13 Amy Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen (Glouchestershire: Amberley, 2013), 17- 23.

14 Agnes Strickland and Edward Henry Corbould, “Elizabeth of York: Surnamed the Good,” in The Queens of England, a Series of Portraits of Distinguished Female Sovereigns (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1854), 185.

22 involved in the overthrow of Richard III by assisting Henry Tudor’s efforts to assert his claim on

England.15 The experiences she had throughout her life were indicative of the behind-the-scenes approach royal women of England were forced to take if they wanted any political influence and how their fates were at the mercy of their male relatives, making them vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. Although Strickland does not cite a specific source to account for

Edward’s motivation, she claims that his premonition of the importance of Elizabeth was evident in the princess’s christening celebration which carried the extraordinary pomp typically reserved for the birth of male heirs and continued until the queen went for her churching a few months later.16 “The Lady Princess,” as Elizabeth was titled, had for her godmothers the two highest ranking women in England after the queen: Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, and Jaquetta,

Duchess of Bedford, the king and queen’s mothers respectively.17

Princess Elizabeth remained close to her mother throughout her childhood. The queen regularly took her three eldest daughters with her when visiting other towns and palaces as part of her consort duties. It was during a visit to Norwich in 1469, when Elizabeth was just three years old, that she encountered the first of many disastrous events of her life. The timing was indicative of what Arlene Naylor Okerlund describes as a life that continuously fluctuated between moments of triumph and despondency. King Edward IV was in the North fighting a

15 For more information on Elizabeth of York’s role in Henry Tudor’s rivalry with Richard III, see Amy Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen (Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2013); Arlene Naylor Okerlund, Elizabeth of York (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); and Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, and Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins’ War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother (New York: Touchstone, 2014).

16 “Churching” here is defined as the ritual that occurred thirty to forty days after a woman gave birth designed to purify the mother. Mothers typically entered their church in a veil, asked forgiveness for her sins, thanked God for the delivery of the baby, and prayed for His assistance is raising the child. Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, 197-198.

17 Francis Lancelot, “Elizabeth of York, Queen of Henry the Seventh,” in The Queens of England and Their Times: From Matilda, Queen of to Adelaide, Queen of William the Fourth (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858), 315; and Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 4-5.

23 band of rebels led by the king’s cousin and brother, the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of

Clarence, respectively. The king’s increasing independence caused them to lose the power of persuasion and they were no longer able to achieve their own ends. The rebels imprisoned

Edward and beheaded the queen’s father and brother in their attempts to gain control of the kingdom. Queen Elizabeth, fearing for herself and her children, fled the indulgent pleasantries of a holiday in Norwich and found a place of sanctuary in London.18

By Christmastide that year, the Earl of Warwick realized that he not only lacked the support of the people during his coup, but also that Edward’s seal was still required on documents for the government to function; he was forced to release the king. Edward, for reasons unknown, endeavored to forgive his kinsmen and chose to solidify their accord with the first of many betrothals for Elizabeth. At less than four years old and unable to understand the political significance of the marital arrangements of a princess of England, Elizabeth was promised to George Neville, the Earl of Warwick’s nephew and male heir.19 Amy Licence claims that this union was not a prestigious match for what she calls the “primary heir” to England’s throne and concludes that Edward simply made the offer out of political expediency, having no intentions of honoring it.20

Since the Earl of Warwick was actually rewarded for his 1469 uprising with the promise of the princess’s hand, there was little deterrent against rebellion again the following year.

Almost exactly a year after their first rebellion, Warwick and Clarence joined forces again with

18 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 2.

19 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 5.

20 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 57. The use of the phrase “primary heir” by License to describe Elizabeth of York is misleading. Elizabeth was the eldest child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydeville, but the succession laws of England at the time prohibited women from inheriting the titles of their fathers. Elizabeth of York was the king’s primary heir in the sense of being his only issue at the time, but she would not have been able to inherit the English crown directly.

24 the former queen, , in a second attempt to dethrone Edward. The pregnant

Queen Elizabeth and her three daughters were forced to seek sanctuary again, this time in

Westminster Abbey. King Edward was exiled to the Netherlands and by October 1470,

Elizabeth’s privileged world came crumbling down around her yet again. A few days after the royal family fled, Warwick took London and reinstated Henry VI as King of England.21

The birth of Prince Edward to Edward IV and Elizabeth in November 1470 brought a brief moment of relief to the struggling former queen and her family. Here was the long-awaited male heir to preserve Edward IV’s line, if he came back to the throne. The birth of a prince also removed Elizabeth, as Francis Lancelot says, from her dangerous proximity to the throne. Six months later, Edward returned to England with the help of the Duke of Burgundy, killed the Earl of Warwick, defeated the Lancastrian armies, and reclaimed his position as King of England.

The Lady Princess was again restored to her royal life in .22

In 1483, King Edward fell ill and did not recover. Before his death, he amended his will to appoint his brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as the protector of his twelve-year-old heir,

Edward. Licence states that this gesture was done in an effort to ensure family unity.23 However,

Richard envisioned other plans for his brother’s family. As soon as Richard gained control of

Edward V, he arrested the former governor of the young king and brother of the dowager queen,

Anthony Wydeville.24 Elizabeth’s half-brother, Sir Richard Grey, was also imprisoned. The dowager queen sought sanctuary for the third time in Elizabeth’s life out of fear of Richard and

21 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 60-62.

22 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 8.

23 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 65.

24 Spelling of Anthony’s last name, Wydeville, as used here, also appears in historiography as “Woodville.”

25 the influence he possessed over her son. Richard’s regency showed just how vulnerable a woman, even a queen, could be and her total dependence upon the support and wishes of men.25

Two months later, Richard succeeded in sequestering the royal family’s property, denying Elizabeth and her family access to the money and resources Edward IV left for them. He then accused Elizabeth Wydeville of plotting his murder and forced the king’s Council to demand that she release custody of her younger son, Richard, Duke of York, to his uncle. The young boy joined his brother in the Tower while awaiting Edward’s . There again,

Richard Gloucester envisioned other plans. In the same month that he threw the royal family into poverty and deprived the queen of both her sons, Richard completed his coup by announcing that the marriage between Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydeville was invalid and that their children were bastards. Richard claimed that at the time of their marriage, nineteen years earlier, the king was pre-contracted to marry Butler. Conveniently, Eleanor Butler was deceased when the accusations were made, but Richard produced a witness. , bishop of Bath and Wales and a notorious of whomever was in power at the time, claimed that he affirmed the contract between Edward and Butler himself. Two days after Stillington’s testimony, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became Richard III.26

Elizabeth never saw her brothers, the , again. It is widely accepted that Richard III murdered them while they were in his care and while the women relatives of

Edward IV were still in sanctuary.27 Licence argues that this acknowledgement began almost immediately with Richard’s contemporaries alleging he was responsible for the murder of his

25 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 21-23. Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 89-92.

26 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 24-32. Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 89-92.

27 For more on the debate regarding the deaths of the Princes in the Tower, see , The Princes in the Tower (New York: Ballantine, 1994); A J Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991); and John Langdon-Davies, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower: A Collection of Contemporary Documents (London: Jackdaw Publications, 1966).

26 nephews as early as the summer of 1483.28 James Gairdner agrees that they were murdered, but fails to name Richard III as the culprit.29 Richard’s bastardization of all the children meant that he had little to gain by murdering his nephews. Even so, the royal family was already fully at the mercy of Elizabeth’s uncle. It seems the only way they would be free from his influence was if he was no longer King of England.

There were many plots to overthrow Richard III and Licence argues that Elizabeth

Wydeville and Margaret Beaufort may have been involved, but a great many other sources argue that the two women, as well as Elizabeth of York, were much more engaged in the plans to bring

Henry Tudor to England.30 Okerlund claims that while the dowager queen was ensconced in sanctuary, she wrote to Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and mother of Henry Tudor.

Margaret and Henry traced their royal roots back through John of Gaunt and his third wife,

Catherine Swynford, to Edward III and reasserted a Lancastrian claim to the throne. The two mothers planned a politically driven marriage between their children, uniting the York and

Lancaster houses against Richard III.31 Unfortunately, once Richard learned of the mothers’ plotting, effective communication between them and their supporters became increasingly difficult. Elizabeth, however, in her ever calm and quiet demeanor, evaded suspicion allowing her the unique opportunity to be an active participant in the design of her future for the first time in her life. All that was required was a peaceful way out of sanctuary.32

28 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 94.

29 James Gairdner, Elizabeth of York – Queen of Henry VII (Oxford: , 1900), 3.

30 For more on the women’s involvement in bringing Henry Tudor to England, see P W Hammond and Anne F Sutton, Richard III: the Road to Bosworth Field (London: Constable, 1985); and M A Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the War of the Roses (Ohio: Humbledon Press, 1991).

31 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 96.

32 Gairdner, Elizabeth of York – Queen of Henry VII, 3. Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 28-30.

27

Opportunity presented itself from an unlikely source. Richard III negotiated with

Elizabeth Wydeville that she and her family could abandon sanctuary if he swore a public oath to protect her children. Licence asserts that this condition indicated that the dowager queen believed in Richard’s guilt in the death of her sons, but was faced with little choice but to acquiesce.33 In making this agreement with Richard, Elizabeth may have entertained the hope of advantageous marriages for her daughters, despite their bastard status. Gairdner suspects that Elizabeth abandoned hope for a marriage between her daughter, Elizabeth, and Henry Tudor as soon as she handed her girls over to King Richard.34

While Elizabeth was lodged with Richard’s wife, Queen Anne, in Westminster palace, she appealed to her father’s supporter, Lord Stanley, who was now a steward in the royal household. She needed his assistance if she was to aid Henry Tudor in overthrowing Richard and restoring her family’s rights. Francis Lancelot and Agnes Strickland both agree that Lord Stanley was reluctant to betray Richard solely based on the word of a woman. After having time to reconsider, Stanley assented to help Elizabeth but his position in the royal household was conspicuous, so he employed Humphrey Brereton to act as an intermediary between Elizabeth and Stanley’s friends.35

Lord Stanley was unable to write to his friends himself so Elizabeth wrote out the letters of intent and sealed them with Stanley’s signet. Upon receipt of the letters, Lord Stanley’s

33 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 96-98.

34 Gairdner, Elizabeth of York – Queen of Henry VII, 5.

35 Lancelot, “Elizabeth of York, Queen of Henry the Seventh,” in The Queens of England, 319. Strickland and Corbould, “Elizabeth of York: Surnamed the Good,” in Portraits of Distinguished Female Sovereigns, 186.

28 faithful compatriots departed their homes at once for London and began holding secret councils at an old inn near Islington.36 Strickland writes of Elizabeth’s involvement in those councils:

Elizabeth received the intelligence with extraordinary gratitude and agreed to meet her confederates in secret council when they arrived from the north. After Elizabeth conferred with her allies and satisfied herself that they would not murder [Henry Tudor]…she agreed to send him a ring of betrothal, with a letter, informing him of the strength of the party propitious to the union of York and Lancaster. 37

That Christmas, at Rennes Cathedral, Henry Tudor swore to marry Elizabeth of York. The involvement in councils and an active role in determining her marriage path were unusual for a person of Elizabeth’s standing.

When Richard heard the rumors of the pairs’ engagement, he invited Elizabeth to court.

License asserts that Richard was motivated, in part, by a desire to keep watch over her and in part by his alleged romantic interest in her. Richard was concerned about his lack of a male heir and his current wife was not expected to bear him any children in her weakened condition.

Richard was still a young man who could easily marry again and attempt to produce rightful heirs to his throne. Already at court, right under his nose, was the perfect candidate. The duo clearly fell within the prohibited level of , but Richard already moved mountains to become king, a papal dispensation presented no concern to him.38

Henry and Richard met at the Battle of Bosworth in a two-hour long battle. Richard III had more to fear, it seems, from the treachery of his own friends than from the forces Henry

36 Lancelot, “Elizabeth of York, Queen of Henry the Seventh,” in The Queens of England, 320.

37 Strickland and Corbould, “Elizabeth of York: Surnamed the Good,” in Portraits of Distinguished Female Sovereigns, 187.

38 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 100-103. “Degree of consanguinity” refers to the blood-relationship between two individuals. In essence, how a man and woman were related determined their eligibility to be married and remain within the confines of Catholic law. Richard Burtsell, “Consanguinity (in ),” The Catholic Encyclopedia, (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908), accessed December 23, 2014, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04264a.htm.

29 brought with him as many of his supposed supporters turned on him that day. After several attempts by Richard to attack Henry Tudor personally, Richard himself was slain and Henry

Tudor, , became Henry VII by the point of a sword. 39 Once Henry Tudor became Henry VII, Elizabeth largely abandoned her involvement in politics, adopting a more subservient role throughout her queenship.40 Elizabeth’s early actions provide a glimpse of the type of involvement that Katharine made commonplace in the beginning of Henry’s reign, setting a new standard for the place of women in England’s government.

While many in the kingdom may have expected the new king’s marriage to Elizabeth to happen quickly after he achieved the crown, it was five months before they officially wed.

Elizabeth of York’s claim to the throne by birth was stronger than Henry’s claim by conquest and it was his desire to establish his own right to rule before he took a wife. Although he started the parliamentary process immediately, governmental business took time. In addition to

Parliament’s recognition of Henry’s right to rule, he also needed to attend a coronation ceremony before he officially became King of England. Another problem presented to the couple was the

Titulus Regius statute of 1483 which bastardized Elizabeth and her siblings. A bill to repeal this statue was also submitted to Parliament by Henry to reinstate Elizabeth’s royal status. Henry’s desire to repeal this act is further evidence that Elizabeth’s brothers were understood to be dead.

Henry would have known that by re-legitimizing all the children of Edward IV, he would also restore them to the succession, thereby rescinding his own claim.41 There was also the issue of their prohibited degree of consanguinity. Henry obtained special consideration from the papacy

39 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 99.

40 More on the queenship and roles of queen consorts, specifically Elizabeth of York and Katharine of Aragon will be discussed in Chapter 3: Exercising Queenship.

41 Hutchinson, Young Henry, 3.

30 to marry Elizabeth when they got engaged, but that was several years ago and Henry insisted on a second dispensation before he married the deposed princess. A second allowance was finally attained from James, bishop of Imola and papal legate to England and Scotland, in mid-January

1486, and this generation of the houses of Lancaster and York were officially joined two days later.42 A French poet in Henry’s court, Bernard André, reported that the king’s subjects were so delighted with the match that they “constructed bonfires far and wide” and the City of London was “filled with dancing, singing, and entertainment” in celebration.43

When Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, it was not unusual for English kings to marry women of England’s noble class. Domestic choices for brides of kings and elder sons before Henry VII’s reign are evidenced by Richard III’s marriage to and the marriage of Elizabeth of York’s parents, Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydeville. Throughout the long history of the English monarchy, however, foreign brides were widely preferred by rulers and their heirs apparent. Marriage alliances with France and Spain exist back through Edward III and, most interestingly, England’s marital relationship with Castile has its roots at the very beginning of the War of the Roses. Edward III’s son John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, took

Constance of Castile as his second wife and Edmund, Duke of York married Isabel of Castile. In fact, all the rulers of England since Edward IV can, in some small way, trace their lineage through a princess of Castile.44

42 Lancelot, “Elizabeth of York, Queen of Henry the Seventh,” in The Queens of England, 322. Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 51-53. Strickland and Corbould, “Elizabeth of York: Surnamed the Good,” in Portraits of Distinguished Female Sovereigns, 189.

43 Bernard André, James Gairdner, ed., Historia regis Henrici Septimi (London: Longmand, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858), 39.

44 For more detailed information on the marriages of the York and Lancaster lines, see the genealogical charts in Appendix A.

31

Like Henry VII, Isabella of Castile (r. 1474-1504) was not intended to be queen of

Castile; she was a usurper. She was third in line for the throne of Castile behind her half-brother,

Enrique, and her younger brother, Alfonso. Barbara Weissberger’s contribution to The Rule of

Women in describes Isabella’s place in the line of succession as evidence of the de facto sexism found in dynastic rule in medieval and early modern monarchies. Castilian succession was still more forgiving than others of Europe; as a woman, Isabella could still be named as a direct heir in line for the throne. In kingdoms such as Aragon and England, women were exempt from inheriting the titles of their fathers.45

Upon the death of their father in 1454, Isabella’s brother Enrique ruled Castile as Enrique

IV (r.1454-1474). Eight years later, Enrique wed Juana of Portugal and together they had a daughter, Juana. The birth of the infanta changed the line of succession to now omit both

Alfonso and Isabella as Juana became part of the direct line of succession whereas Alfonso and

Isabella were relegated to the collateral line. Noblemen and prelates throughout the kingdom rebelled against Alfonso’s deferment, causing civil war to erupt in 1464. Rumors spread quickly that Enrique’s daughter and heir was illegitimate and therefore Alfonso should remain the true heir of Enrique. In an effort to avoid further conflicts, Enrique acquiesced and named his half- brother as his primary heir. All discord subsided – until Alfonso died unexpectedly in 1468.

Throughout her young life, Isabella proved herself to be decisive to the point of obstinacy and one can imagine how the idea of being forced back down the succession line would have resonated with her. She and her supporters, many of whom were also supporters of Alfonso, embarked on a wide-scale propaganda campaign in an effort to reaffirm her legitimate claim to the throne. They indirectly attacked the kings’ reputation as both ruler and man, laying charges

45 Barbara F. Weissberger, “Tanto monta: The Catholic Monarchs’ Nuptial Fiction and the Power of Isabel I of Castile,” in The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Anne Cruz and Mihoko Suzuki (Urband: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 43.

32 of impotence and sodomy against him. Charges of adultery were also brought against his queen and both of them were accused of having a sexual relationship with another woman present at their court. Though there was no documentary evidence to support their charges, the implication of their validity was enough to cause the aristocracy to question the of the infanta

Juana and therefore the stability of Enrique’s reign.46 In one successful campaign, Isabella managed to undermine the king both as a mortal, biological man and as the immortal, political body.47 Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon wed in 1469 and were already expecting their first child. Public opinion could be further in her favor by showing that she offered something Enrique did not: a male heir to provide the stability and continuity Castilians wanted from their ruler.48

The battle over the rightful heir to the Castilian monarchy raged on for five years, right up to the death of Enrique. Peggy Liss points out in her biography of Isabella that debate continues as to whether Enrique truly named his daughter as his rightful heir, but no one claims that he named Isabella.49 The general consensus can be surprising since little is mentioned historiographically of there being any conflict between Isabella and Juana after Enrique’s

46 Weissberger, “Tanto Monta,” in The Rule of Women, 47-49.

47 The concept of the king’s two bodies originates from Ernst Kantorowicz in the late 1950s. His work is a study of medieval political theology and describes the European monarch as a blend of both religious and legal traditions creating a king that was simultaneously an individual and the embodiment of the realm. Kantorowicz refers to these as a body natural and a body politic. The body natural is a body mortal, subject to the same infirmities, defects, and maladies that can happen to all people. The body politic, however, is not a tangible thing. It consists of policy and government and is established for the management of the public, not subject to problems of mortal flesh. Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 7.

48 Peggy Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 70- 71.

49 For more on Isabella’s rise to power, see David A Boruchoff, Isabel la Católica, Queen of Castile: Critical Essays (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Barbara F Weissberger, Queen Isabel I of Castile: Power, Patronage, Persona (Suffolk: Tamesis, 2008); and Cristina Guardiola-Griffiths, Legitimizing the Queen: Propaganda and Ideology in the Reign of Isabel I of Castile (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2011).

33 passing. It is generally agreed that Isabella followed the Spanish tradition of self-coronation after hearing that

A letrado of Isabel[la]’s council on behalf, as [a notary at the customary mass and rites of the dead held for Enrique] announce, of all her subjects informed her that by law the succession and inheritance and right to reign were hers; that she had been recognized by the previous ruler in September of 1468 and been sworn to by the realm.50

Isabella, now both Queen of Castile and wife of Ferdinand, seemed adamant that her queenship was attained through her own claim to the throne, not through her husband’s. It was always her intention to rule Castile and León in her own right; her claim was outlined in the marriage papers to Ferdinand, ten years before he inherited his of Aragon and Sicily. When Ferdinand became Ferdinand V in 1479, his ascension even brought Isabella certain dominions in Sicily that she ruled in her own right. Ironically, the subversion of gender roles of which Isabella accused her predecessor did not apply to her. She refused to play the role of subordinate wife and queen consort that medieval mores expected of her.51

In Isabella’s time, most treatises available on the expectations of rulers were all written for princes and designed specifically for the education of male successors.

Isabella seemed wise enough to recognize that the same qualities and expectations of a male ruler could and should be applied to a female one. A good ruler, these works suggested, possessed, at minimum, four qualities for a successful reign: being a divine instrument, an even-handed dispenser of justice, a leader in war, and dedicated to

50 Liss, Isabel the Queen, 86. Letrado is the Spanish term for lawyer, synonymous with abogado and jurist.

51 Weissberger, “Tanto Monta,” in The Rule of Women, 47-49. Liss, Isabel the Queen, 75.

34 recovering Spain from the Muslims.52 It was this last expectation that defined the first several decades of Isabella’s reign.

From the time of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711, Christian rulers embarked on a [reconquest] of Spain in the hopes of reclaiming portions of Spain from the Muslims. As rulers of the kingdoms of Christian realms began to regain control over lands in the peninsula, they began to view the Jewish residents who lived peacefully alongside the Muslims as accomplices of the Muslim invasion and therefore enemies of the Christians. To further this conception of the Spanish , parallels were drawn between the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula and those responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.53 By the time Isabella came to power in 1474, the Spanish

Jews had been persecuted for generations but they were still residing in the “rightfully”

Christian dominion of Spain. Isabella’s Trastamáran forefathers tried to expel both the

Jews and the from their territories justifying their tactics and desires through a devotion to the Christian religion and the concept of a right to rule that was anointed by

God. As such, politics, the monarchy, and religion were all interconnected to such a degree that anyone who defied the Catholic Church simultaneously risked treason against the crown.54 Isabella could then refocus the motivations of the Reconquista from ones

52 Liss, Isabel the Queen, 100-101. Samuel Parsons Scott and Robert I. Burns, S.J. Las Siete Partidas, Volume 2: Medieval Government: The World of Kings and Warriors (Partida II) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), http://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed January 6, 2015), Titulo VII, Ley I. Hereafter referred to as Partidas.

53 William Hickling Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. 1 (New York: John B. Alden, 1838), 192.

54 Liss, Isabel the Queen, 177-196.

35 that were politically motivated at a governmental level to those of a religious desire to overcome heresy.55

During Isabella’s crusade against the Moors in 1485, she gave birth to the last of her children, a daughter christened Catalina after Isabella’s grandmother.56 The Catholic Kings held great aspirations for their daughters. By marrying kings and bearing them children, they linked

Spain by ties of friendship and blood to the greater kingdoms of Europe. The daughters of

Ferdinand and Isabella were groomed to be queens and the ambassadors of Spain and

Christendom.57

For Ferdinand, Katharine was “destined almost from her birth to secure the alliance of

England” in his fight against the French.58 However, simply because kings identified a destiny for their children does not mean that destiny was easily achieved. For more than thirteen years, the kings of Spain and England negotiated, agreed, haggled, refuted, lied, and schemed regarding

Katharine’s engagement to Henry VII’s son, Arthur, . To the kings, the benefits of an alliance far outweighed any objections by their respective children. Henry’s throne was unstable and an alliance with a powerful king like Ferdinand had the potential to dissuade any enemies of his throne from further action.

55 For more information on the relationship between Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Iberian Peninsula immediately prior to and during the early years of Isabella and Ferdinand’s reign, see Jean Hippolyte Mariéjol, The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, ed. and trans. Benjamin Keen (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961.

56 Isabella’s grandmother was , daughter of John of Gaunt and his second wife, Constance of Castile. Katharine of Aragon was not only descended from royalty from her parents’ Spanish lineage, she had direct ties to the English throne as well. However, given the nobility’s penchant for keeping tight circles and widening their families’ influence, it is not surprising that Katharine of Aragon shared a common ancestor with both of her Tudor husbands. For more on the lineage of Katharine of Aragon and Henry VIII, see the genealogical charts located in Appendix A.

57 Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1941), 8.

58 Martin Hume, The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts they Played in History (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1905), 140.

36

Henry’s primary concern was Katharine’s dowry. After much mediation, it was agreed that, upon the marriage of Katharine and Arthur, England would receive 200,000 gold crowns of

4s. 2d. each.59 For Ferdinand, any role England played in a war against France benefitted him as

Spain and France were long-time rivals and assistance from the English allowed him to attack

France from both sides.60 Ferdinand wanted England to go to war on his behalf whenever he chose. When he was met with vague verbal assurances from Henry, Ferdinand insisted on a more permanent agreement to which Henry replied, “it is the will of the King of England to first conclude the marriage alliance and the marriage, and afterwards to make war upon the King of

France, according to the bidding of the Catholic Kings.”61 When both kings were in agreement with the marriage terms, the four year old Katharine became known for the first time as the

Princess of Wales in March 1489.

Before Katharine departed for England however, Ferdinand revealed his duplicity to

Henry. Unbeknownst to Henry or the then seven-year-old Katharine, Ferdinand entered into an agreement with the King of France that caused Katharine to go from the Princess of Wales back to a princess of Spain. Despite the long-standing conflicts between Spain and France, marriage proposals between sovereign states were matters of foreign politics and, as such, shaped family dynastic politics as well. According to Hume, a portion of Ferdinand’s agreement with the

French forced the Catholic Kings to “engage their loyal word and faith as Christians, not to

59 Martin Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII and the Parts They Played in History (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1905), 9.

60 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 8.

61 G.A. Gergenroth, ed., Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers Relating to the Negotiations Between England and Spain, Vol. I, Henry VII 1485-1509 (London: Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts, 1862), p 9. This source hereafter referred to as CSP Spain. Here, historian Martin Hume asserts that Henry was simply “cajoling” Ferdinand to send his daughter to Spain. He goes on to say that, “with such a hostage in his hands, Henry knew that he might safely break his oath about going to war with France…” Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 10. Hume does not provide any supporting evidence to show that this was Henry’s intent.

37 conclude or permit any marriage of their children with any member of the royal family of

England.”62 It took five more years of mending faith, ambassadorial negotiations, gift exchanges, and ego-stroking for the young prince and princess to be engaged again. In October 1497, it was agreed that the pair would wed upon Arthur’s fourteenth birthday (in two years’ time) and the bride’s dowry was amended to include one-third of the revenues of Wales, , and

Chester.63

While the King and Queen of England were anxiously attempting to gain physical custody of their proposed daughter-in-law so that she might learn the language and customs of their court, Ferdinand was again displeased with the marriage contract and began demanding amendments. The Papal Bull arrived in 1498 allowing the marriage and Katharine was already thirteen, close to marrying age, when Ferdinand took issue with subjects such as the number and style of ladies Katharine should have in her train. Henry was growing weary of Ferdinand’s games and by 1500 was considering alternatives for his allegiances. Unwilling to let his advantage over France go, Ferdinand relented and finally allowed the pair to marry in December

1500 with Katharine appearing by proxy as she was still in Spain.64 In summer 1501, Katharine finally made her way to England. Her royal upbringing allowed her to understand that she was expected to be both wife and ambassador in her new country, but it was still uncertain how the

English people were going to receive her.

She just arrived in Dogmersfield when Henry VII rode out with Arthur to greet his new daughter-in-law. It was here Katharine experienced the first affront to her traditions and customs that she must overcome in her new surroundings. It was her first opportunity to react to a

62 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 13.

63 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 15.

64 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 18-19.

38 situation that was completely out of her control. According to Spanish custom and by the strict command of Katharine’s parents, it was forbidden for Katharine to be seen or have communication with Arthur until the day of their marriage.65 Henry quickly consulted his councilors and concluded that as Katharine was on English soil, “the commandment of her was in the power and at the disposition of the King of England.”66 Henry rode on to meet Katharine and demanded to be presented to her.67 His actions clearly broke the strict etiquette that governed young Spanish ladies, but Katharine received both the king and her betrothed, speaking to them in Latin as she knew no English and they knew no Spanish.

In a country noted for its distaste of foreigners, Katharine of Aragon was immediately loved for her humble, regal presence.68 The Spanish ambassador, de Puebla, wrote that there were no expenses spared in the celebration of the princess’s arrival. She rode through six separate scenes during her progression into London.69 The scenes were structured around

Honour [sic] with the first two dedicated to achieving honor through a life of virtue and depicted the lives of Arthur and Katharine respectively. The third and fourth scenes were centered round advantageous hopes for the couple in their union. The final two focused on the sacred character of matrimony and the understanding that it was honor that should lead the two on their thrones.70

65 Letter from The Licentiate Alcares to Queen Isabella, October 4, 1501, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 306.

66 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 23.

67 Letter from Henry VII to Ferdinand and Isabella, November 28, 1501, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 311.

68 Paul, Catherine of Aragon, 9. England’s “distaste for foreigners” is an observation by Paul used here to show how readily and widely Katharine of Aragon was received. While there is evidence of international qualms between England and its neighbors, there is an equal amount to show the centuries of English kings marrying foreign women, especially from regions of France and Spain. See the genealogy charts in Appendix A for examples.

69 Letter from Queen Isabella to De Puebla, March 23, 1501, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 293; Sydney Angelo, “The London Pageants for the Reception of Katharine of Aragon: November 1501,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institutes, Vol 26, No. 1/2 (1963). 53.

70 Angelo, “The London Pageants,” 56.

39

While hoped that their marriage would be a good omen for England, it lasted a mere five short months, ending with Arthur’s death, in April 1502.71 An outbreak of occurred where Arthur and Katharine were living and both fell prey to it. A messenger was dispatched to the royal family informing them of the loss of their son and the narrow survival of his young bride. For the fourth time in her short life, Katharine’s title changed. She was now styled the Dowager Princess of Wales.

Possibly the most emotionally difficult event the King and Queen of England faced was the premature death of their eldest son, Arthur. When the news was delivered to Henry, he replied “that he and his wife would take their painful sorrow together.” Strickland’s recount of a friar Observant’s description of their interaction at the news of Arthur’s death painted a more personal and intimate picture of the king than is usually recorded:

After she was come, and saw the king her lord in that natural and painful sorrow, as I have heard say, she, with full great, and constant, comfortable words, besought him that he would, after God, consider the weal of his own noble person, of his realm, and of her. ‘And,’ added the queen, ‘remember that my lady, your mother, had never no more children but you only, yet God, by his grace, has ever preserved you, and brought you where you are now. Over and above God has left you yet a fair prince and two fair princesses; and God is still where he was, and we are both young enough. As your grace’s wisdom is renowned all over , you must now give proof of it by the manner of taking this misfortune.’ Then the king thanked her for her good comfort. But when the queen returned to her own chamber, the natural remembrance of her great loss smote so sorrowfully on her maternal heart, that her people were forced to send for the king to comfort her. Then his grace in great haste came, and with true gentle and faithful love soothed her trouble, telling her what wise counsel she had given him before, and ‘that, if she would thank God for her dead son, he would do so like wise.’72

71 Paul, Catherine of Aragon, 6; Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 48. At the time of Katharine and Arthur’s marriage, Thomas More was studying law at the Inns of Court. He retained a close relationship with Katharine while she was queen and supported her humanist and Catholic sympathies despite being Henry’s from 1529-1532.

72 Strickland and Corbould, “Elizabeth of York: Surnamed the Good,” in Portraits of Distinguished Female Sovereigns, 193.

40

Henry VII was now focused on his surviving son, Prince Henry. His education was quickly changed from preparation for the clergy to a crash-course in matters of State. The ten- year-old was suddenly not only heir to his father’s throne but also replaced his brother as a vital link in the alliance with Spain. Initially, Ferdinand and Isabella feigned interest in having their daughter and her dowry returned to them, but these were not the true desires of Ferdinand; he understood that Henry had no intention of relinquishing Katharine’s dowry peacefully and the decision was made to persuade Henry VII to a new understanding.73

Naturally, Henry was skeptical of Ferdinand; he had already been betrayed by Ferdinand in one treaty. After over a year of negotiations, Katharine was once again engaged to a prince of

England. There were four main clauses to her marriage agreement which needed to be met before any official marriage could take place: a papal dispensation must be acquired to address the first degree of by which Katharine and Prince Henry were related; the King of England had to acknowledge that receipt of the 100,000 crowns he already received as part of Katharine’s dowry in her marriage to Arthur would be applied to her dowry with Henry; the marriage was to take place as soon as Henry turned sixteen and it could be proven that the remainder of Katharine’s dowry was in London; and Katharine renounced her claim to her widow’s jointure of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester with the understanding that they would be reassigned to her upon her marriage to Henry.74 Katharine’s opinions of such arrangements were disregarded, yet she bore her responsibilities as both Dowager Princess of Wales and princess of

73 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 38.

74 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 60-61. This agreement is discussed in more detail with analysis of the primary source data in the following chapters.

41

Spain bravely following her mother’s dignified spirit of duty.75 Though both Henry and

Ferdinand ratified this marriage treaty, when Ferdinand gave instructions to his ambassador in

Rome regarding the papal dispensation, he explained that the marriage of Katharine and Arthur was, in fact, never consummated. Ferdinand indicated that the clause was added to the treaty out of prudence because the “right of succession depends on the undoubted legitimacy of this marriage.”76

In April 1509, Katharine witnessed the next major change in her personal and political situation. Henry VII died leaving a well-established and well-funded domain in the hands of his only living son who was already eighteen and in no danger of having a regent. Ferdinand was having difficulties politically with Flanders and France and he needed assistance from England once more. The newly crowned Henry VIII wanted a triple alliance between himself, the Holy

Roman Emperor, and Ferdinand against the lofty ambitions of France, and he perceived the marriage to Katharine as a means of accomplishing his political goals.77

75 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 43.

76 Letter from Ferdinand to F. De Rojas, his ambassador at Rome, August 23, 1503, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 370.

77 David Loades, The Tudor Queens of England (New York: Continuum Books, 2009), 89.

42

Chapter 3

EXERCISING QUEENSHIP

The way a Tudor queen chose to exercise her power and influence – through family and kinship, personal image, representation, and/or femininity – greatly shaped the actions, decisions, and perception of her king.1 It is logical to consider that a queen consort chose avenues to pursue based upon which option(s) applied most to her natural situation. For example, Katharine of

Aragon benefitted from an extensive family reach which allowed her to have support not only in her home country of Spain, but also in Burgundy, Portugal, and eventually the entirety of the

Holy Roman Empire. Her successor, Anne Boleyn, however, did not have the benefit of such esteemed family ties. Even with their new positions at Henry’s court, the Howards and Boleyns could not offer Henry foreign allies like those he obtained through Katharine.2

Katharine of Aragon employed a variety of methods to exercise power in the twenty-four years she was married to Henry VIII, shaping and influencing nearly two-thirds of his reign. As part of the foreign alliances established by her marriage to Henry, Katharine was required to balance the desires of her father’s country with the needs of her husband’s. To understand why

Katharine exercised the avenues to power that she did, we must first look at the way she managed to represent both countries and navigate the finicky world of political expectations.

Katharine’s approaches and contributions can be best understood within the context of the

1 For the purposes of this study, it is important to understand the difference in power and authority. Earenfight’s definition of authority as the capacity to secure obedience and conformity through a title allowing one to do so, such as a regent monarch, is applied. Theresa Earenfight, Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), xviii-xix. In contrast, power is a more abstract concept. As an example, the term power can be attributed to the ability to secure obedience, support, and conformity on one’s own merits or because of the reciprocated benefits that can be granted.

2 For more on Anne Boleyn, Thomas Howard, and the Boleyns’ rise to power during the reign of Henry VIII, see Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004); J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); and Susan Bordo, The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

43 monarchy of her time. When put in this framework, the education Katharine received from her mother, the ambassadorship required by her father, and the political support given by her nephew all show the importance of Katharine’s family upon her decisions as queen. Additionally, the positions those members of Katharine’s family held enabled her a degree of power at the court of

Henry VIII as she could be either a positive or negative influence on her family and, by extension, England’s foreign policy.3

Katharine seems to have been cognizant of the importance of how she was represented, another quality she probably acquired through observation of her mother. Her clothes, jewels, and other adornments exemplified her rank at court and represented England’s wealth at diplomatic meetings. Her standard and actions affected the public representation and opinion of her. Her acts of piety and devotion established her as a woman worthy of respect and admiration.

Her mastery of self-representation empowered her to such a degree that when she and Henry divorced, he was afraid she would rally on the support of the people and overtake him.4

Blending English Expectations and Spanish Traditions

The examination of Katharine of Aragon’s life as Henry VIII’s longest reigning queen consort allows researchers to develop a new understanding of the intricate roles consorts played.

She was the only one of Henry’s wives to experience a royal upbringing, the only one Henry trusted enough to leave as regent, and she undoubtedly obtained the most experience in Tudor politics. Through her roles as Spanish princess and ambassador, queen consort, regent, and finally Dowager Princess of Wales, Katharine melded England’s expectations of their new

3 Further discussion of how family connections affect foreign policy appears in Chapter 4: A Queen’s Role in Politics.

4 Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Emperor Charles V in James Gairdner, ed., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of King Henry VIII, vol. 6, 1533 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1880), item 1296. This source will be noted in the future as L&P followed by the volume number and item number of each citation.

44 consort with the training and traditions of her Spanish heritage. She ushered the English ideas and applications of queenship from those of the medieval to the early modern eras. 5

It is important to examine the relationship and alliance formed when royals from different countries united through marriage.6 While it is pragmatic to attribute all political and religious policies of a kingdom to its regent, little if any consideration of the reigning monarch’s spouse is given. Consorts immensely influenced their spouses, much as privy councils and personal advisors did, and to overlook their contributions is a gross oversight. Katharine of Aragon was no exception to spousal influence and, in fact, was groomed by her parents to be an influential consort on Spain’s behalf. Katharine exhibited many of the characteristics found in English sovereignty long before Henry took a stand against the Catholic Church. Despite being raised in

Spanish customs and lobbying on behalf of Spain in her younger years, when she married Henry, she abandoned her Spanish attendants in favor of English ones and refrained from speaking her native language to observe the common language of her new land. Her Spanish was reserved only for diplomatic purposes or, during her marital troubles with Henry, secreted communication with the Spanish ambassadors. From the moment she arrived in London, she cast many of her traditional Spanish customs aside in a show of unity with the English civil and social customs

5 For more on medieval queenship in England, see Margo Arnold, Queen Consorts of England: The Power Behind the Throne (New York: Facts of File, 1993); Kavita Mudan Finn, The Last Plantaganet Consorts: Gender, Genre, and Historiography, 1440-1627 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); and J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1509 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). For more on early modern queenship, see Sharon Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Alison Plowden, Tudor Women: Queens and Consorts (New York: Atheneum, 1979); and Liz Oakley-Brown, The Rituals and Rhetoric of Queenship: Medieval to Early Modern (Dublin: Four Courts, 2009).

6 See Appendix A for genealogical charts that showcase the frequency of international marriages.

45 and her involvement in the burgeoning idea of sovereignty and increased participation in governmental business represents a divergence in the role of English queen consorts. 7

Elizabeth of York exemplified the expectations English subjects had of their queens prior to Katharine’s arrival. Elizabeth was groomed to be a queen consort and learned to read and write in both English and French. Her mother allowed her to ride alongside her in parades and processionals and taught Elizabeth the courtly functions that every noble woman needed to know.8 Women were at the cultural center of Edward IV’s court and were expected to know how to have a general appreciation for music, themselves learning how to sing, dance, and play instruments. Needlework and garment sewing were mastered alongside shooting, horseback riding, and hunting.9 Amy Licence provides a poetic summary of Elizabeth of York’s life growing up, describing it as set against a backdrop of cultural innovation and opulence that accentuated all the privileges and ceremonies that occurred with royal existence.10

When her father signed a treaty with Louis XI of France which included plans for the then nine-year-old princess to marry the Dauphin, her future was determined: she would be the next Queen of France. The arrangement forced Elizabeth to commit more to her French studies as she was expected to blend seamlessly into the French court. She spent the next four years of her engagement mastering speaking and writing French and immersing herself in French customs. However, as is the pattern of Elizabeth’s story, the politics of Europe’s kings impeded

7 Bernard André, James Gairdner, ed., Historia regis Henrici Septimi (London: Longmand, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858) 30; John E. Paul, Catherine of Aragon and Her Friends (New York: Fordham University Press, 1966), 9.

8 For more on the roles of women in late-medieval England, see Mavis Mate, Women in Medieval English Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Jennifer C. Ward, English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (New York: Routledge, 1995); David Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985); and Lawrence , The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

9 Arlene Naylor Okerlund, Elizabeth of York (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 9-16.

10 Amy Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen (Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2013), 82.

46 her matrimonial plans.11 In royal alliances, treaties and negotiations were subject to change over the span of many years. As Elizabeth neared the marriageable age of sixteen, problems arose between her father and Louis XI. Quibbling over dowry amounts and when the princess would move to France began between the two and destabilized the certainty of Elizabeth’s life. Arlene

Naylor Okerlund asserts that Elizabeth was of an age that allowed her to grasp that as a princess, her life could be used as a chess piece, its position and future at the mercy of the king’s political aspirations.12 Elizabeth’s desires were inconsequential to her father. Marriages among royals blurred the boundaries of national politics and dynastic politics to the extent that the success of one often depended upon the alliances and/or unions of the other.

Amy Licence is one of the few authors who addresses the change in Elizabeth’s status when she married Henry Tudor and became the wife of a king. While marriage for women of most social classes in fifteenth century England was little more than a relegation to “dependent child” status, subject to the whims and control of her husband, Elizabeth was the highest ranking woman in England. Most of her income was received from the lands and properties she was allowed to own and she did little to oversee the day-to-day activities of her household.13 Because of the income she received, Elizabeth had the ability to be charitable and generous.14 Growing up, Elizabth saw many different types of queens and it was now time for her to establish her own royal identity; her own method of queenship. The trials she faced in her youth gave her a strong

11 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 13-16.

12 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, 17-19; Francis Lancelot, “Elizabeth of York, Queen of Henry the Seventh,” in The Queens of England and Their Times: From Matilda, Queen of William the Conqueror to Adelaide, Queen of William the Fourth (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858), 316-317.

13 Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 124-125.

14 Sir Nicolas Henry Nicolas, “Memoir of Elizabeth of York, Eldest Daughter of King Edward the Fourth and Consort of King Henry the Seventh,” in Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth, with a Memoir of Elizabeth of York, and Notes (London: William Pickering, 1830), lxxi.

47 will and sense of determination. The new queen consort chose to model her reign as her mother did, following “the traditional model of wifedom and queenship” which Licence describes as maintaining silence and discretion, supporting the king, and producing heirs to secure the blood- line.15

Though Katharine represented a departure from the expectations of earlier English consorts, her actions and skills were obtained in a royal context. Education and training from a powerful royal family in Spain ensured that Katharine would be able to balance the expectations of a foreign people with the aspirations of an educated, capable woman. England’s queens were not the only ones to face the obligation to produce heirs. Spanish queens had a similar expectation placed upon them in addition to raising and educating the children they bore.

However, unlike License’s description of traditional English queenship, Spanish queens were also expected to participate more actively in ceremonial functions, be patrons of art and religion, and perform charitable works. Unlike the queen consorts of England, France, and , the foreign princesses and heiresses who married Spanish kings possessed political status of their own, and with that, a degree of autonomy, simply by being the wife of the king or mother of the heir.16 They had the ability to exercise not just power, but legitimate authority in the governance of the realm.17

Birth may determine a queen or princess’s inheritance, but it was ultimately marriage, preferably to a foreign prince or king, that would define her rights and responsibilities in the

15 Amy Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, 124-125. Nicolas, “Memoir of Elizabeth of York,” in Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, lxxi.

16 For more on queenship throughout Europe, see Anne Cruz, The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe (Urband: University of Illinois Press, 2009); and Elena Woodacre, Queenship in the Mediterranean: Negotiating the Role of the Queen in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

17 Earenfight, Queenship and Political Power, xiii. For more on the women of the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth century, see Lisa Hopkins, Women Who Would be Kings: Female Rulers of the Sixteenth Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991)

48 political sphere. Oftentimes, the wives of princes and kings only retained political power and authority through the grace of their husbands. However, in the case of Katharine of Aragon’s mother, Isabella of Castile, her power and authority were obtained through her position as queen regent in Castile. She turned her devotion to the Catholic faith into her personal mission to rid

Spain of the Moorish influence and restore a unified religion.18 Isabella understood the importance of image and representation. She chose specific standards and colors to surround herself to elicit images of Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary when people viewed her. Her goal was to establish a persona of power and protection. She could protect her people against God’s enemies; she could plead to God on their behalf upon their entrance to heaven; she could be the savior of Spain.19 Katharine’s exposure to her mother’s active role in her own representation imparted the importance of image and public support upon queenship. She chose as her own standard the pomegranate, representative of her upbringing in Grenada and her family’s exhibition of power when they seized control of that particular city.20 Later, when the emphasis upon her was to bear the heirs of England, the pomegranate was modified and shown sliced open with the seeds spilling forth, signifying the queen’s fertility.21

Examination of Katharine’s upbringing is vastly important to the study of her time as queen because it is through observation of her mother and father’s political policy, especially foreign policy, and religious attitudes that Katharine learned to excel in the court of Henry VIII.

Isabella’s marriage to Ferdinand opened the doors to the concept of monarchical partnership. In this approach to monarchy, queenship was not perceived as a smaller, subordinate role to

18 Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (Boston: Little, Brown, 1941), 5-6.

19 Earenfight, Queenship and Power, 122.

20 The Spanish term for pomegranate is grenada.

21 Hope Johnston, “Catherine of Aragon’s Pomegranate, Revisited,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 13, no 2 (2005), 153-155.

49 kingship; it was kingship’s equal.22 Isabella and Ferdinand were individually rulers in their own right and collectively referred to as “the Catholic Kings” in the late .They raised all of their children in an environment of gender-equality in respect to political, religious, and militaristic ideology. Garrett Mattingly discusses Katharine’s relationship with her parents as deeply influential both religiously and politically. Julia Fox’s book, Sister Queens, examines the lives of two of Ferdinand and Isabella’s daughters. In it, Fox stipulates that the Catholic Kings were deeply committed to their children. So committed, in fact, that their children were never far away from the battlefields and took up residence with the monarchs in conquered towns.23

The Catholic Kings provided, an education far surpassing that of a typical princess for their daughters. Isabella herself received an extensive education and followed humanist ideals.24

She ensured that a humanist education prepared their children for the positions they could someday hold as rulers.25 The girls learned traditional skills such as sewing, embroidery, music and dancing in addition to some more academic subjects such as Latin and other languages, philosophy, grammar and theology. The daughters were taught by brothers Antonio and

Alessandro Geraldini and through them studied Roman orators and poets and the Latin Church fathers.26 If what historians Fox and Mattingly assert is accurate, then a Spanish match should

22 Earenfight, Queenship and Power, xxv.

23 Julia Fox. Sister Queens: The Noble and Tragic Lives of Katharine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile (New York: Ballantine Books, 2011), 6.

24 For more on the Humanist movement in the European Renaissance, see Angelo Mazzocco, Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism (Boston: Brill, 2006); Roberto Weiss, Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957); , Desiderius, Richard J. Schoeck, and Beatrice Corrigan, Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974); and Thomas More, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).

25 Winifred Roll, The Pomegranate and the Rose: The Story of Katharine of Aragon (New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, Inc., 1970), 19.

26 Maria Dowling, “A Woman’s Place? Learning and the Wives of Henry VIII,” History Today (June 1991): 38.

50 have been desired by all Europe’s princes. The unions that were arranged allowed Spain to possess familial ties to Portugal, Burgundy, and England, furthering both the Spanish Empire and the Hapsburg one.27

It was common for royal children to be used as a means of establishing alliances and dynastic growth for their families. After all, children were pawns in the royal game of diplomacy.28 First, Katharine’s sister, Isabel, was promised to the Prince of Portugal.29 Their engagement lasted nineteen years, their marriage far less. After the prince’s death, Ferdinand negotiated for Isabella to wed the prince’s cousin and successor to keep the alliance with the

Portuguese, much to Isabel’s dismay. After Isabel, Katharine witnessed her second sister, Juana, and brother, Juan (heir to the Spanish crown), go through several years of negotiations with the

Hapsburg family from which there came a dual engagement. While Juana was sent to Flanders to wed Maximilian’s son, Philip the Handsome, Maximilian’s daughter, Margaret, was to return to

Spain to wed Juan.30

Unlike any of Henry VIII’s other wives or love interests, Katharine of Aragon was born into a royal station. In the late 1930s, London author Francesca Claremont published her biographical look at Katharine in Catherine of Aragon. It is set apart from previous works regarding Katharine as they generally focus solely on Katharine as queen, neglecting her Spanish

27 Julia Fox, Sister Queens: The Noble and Tragic Lives of Katharine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile (New York: Ballantine Books, 2011), 23.

28 For additional works that discuss the position of royal children in diplomacy, see Barbara Harris, “Women and Politics in Early Tudor England,” The Historical Journal (Cambridge University Press) 33, no. 2 (June, 1990): 259-281; James Daybell, ed, Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Theresa Earenfight, Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).

29 For a more complete example of the foreign connections Ferdinand and Isabella made through their children, see the genealogical chart entitled “Spanish Succession from the Catholic Kings” in Appendix A.

30 Roll, The Pomegranate and the Rose, 20-21.

51 upbringing, her time as Princess of Wales, and the years following her expulsion from court after her divorce from Henry.31 Claremont’s work brings to light the underlying influences of

Katharine of Aragon’s early childhood, with special consideration to her time in Spain and the observation of her mother, Isabella. Claremont covers Katharine’s involvement in political events using the queen as a focal point of the event rather than appearing in the periphery as she previously has. Her work addresses the historiographical gaps in Katharine’s story that existed up though the early twentieth century, but few works since then strive for the same goal.

From a young age, Katharine must have been aware of her responsibility to Spain in serving as ambassador to England once she married. In 1507, she even took an unprecedented role as official diplomat between her widowhood from Prince Arthur and her engagement to

Prince Henry. Not only was this position able to help her through the financial woes she experienced in England, it seemed as though politics and queenship were her true calling. Her distrust of everyone from Henry VII to her once beloved duenna enabled her to have more confidence in her own decisions and represent her father in a way that honored and respected the interests of both England and Spain. While it was common for consorts to act as de facto representatives of their families once they were established in foreign countries, Katharine was not such a consort and there was no precedent for an unmarried woman to act as a representative for a king. Through her duties as ambassador, Katharine perfected the qualities that served her well as an English consort. She learned to manage her temper and keep a level head, to be patient and discreet, and to endure her hardships, be they insults, humiliations, rebuffs or persecutions, without showing signs that they affected her.32 Katharine’s service as her father’s agent is described by Mattingly as fair and forthright, trying to balance the desires of Spain with the

31 Claremont, Catherine of Aragon, 11.

32 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 92.

52 needs of both England and herself. Mattingly makes a brief, albeit important, assessment of

Katharine’s achievements as ambassador denoting how in her early years in the role, favor and loyalty seemed naturally to go to her father and Spain. However, the longer she spent in England, the more her world view changed, enabling her to possess the confidence and experience to hold out in negotiations for agreements advantageous to England.33

When she became queen, Katharine was forced to balance the view of queenship she observed in her mother with that of a marginalized role of queen consort. She could not approach her position as England’s queen directly as if she were a ruler the way that her mother had in

Spain. Any influence Katharine wielded within the Tudor court was accomplished through nurturing relationships with those counselors who possessed the clout to voice her suggestions to the king.

Expanding Influence through Family

As royal succession lines became cemented and followed a decidedly agnatic pattern, it seemed as though queens and princesses would be marginalized by the roles of their male relatives.34 These changes may have limited women’s participation in official government business or prevented them from exhibiting direct authority, but queens continued to maintain aspects of enormous power. Roles only women could fill – those of being wife, mother, and daughter – were indispensable to royal families, whether they operated on a basis of patrilineal succession or not. It was through these family roles that queens retained their power and influence and sustained their share in shaping the kingdom’s future. Women who could influence

33 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 92-95.

34 John C. Parsons, ed., Medieval Queenship (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 3.

53 marriage agreements or, more importantly, were favored by the biological accident of producing male heirs, even obtained power in their own right.35

Determining where to begin analyzing the influence of family can be difficult. Young princesses are molded and fashioned by their mothers, who themselves were wives before having children, and in turn were molded by their own mothers. Ultimately though, one can assume that the very first queen was a wife before she was a mother and therefore this study will examine family from the perception of first, what made an attractive wife, then how mothers and fathers groomed their daughters in that image.

Royal marriages were oftentimes considered primarily as a device to support a king’s diplomatic and political associations. Prospective brides who possessed their own royal lineages with connections and support from high-ranking relations, such as Elizabeth of York and

Katharine of Aragon, were often eclipsed by the advantages the king received from their union.

It was almost as if the fact that without that particular woman he would have no such advantages was ignored. While men may have been the only ones able to inherit their own thrones in

England, it was the lineages of both a prospective bride’s father and mother that comprised her matrimonial attractiveness throughout Europe. According to John Parsons, a woman’s desirability originated with her male kin’s sphere of influence. However, possessing a high lineage from either her maternal or paternal side determined her suitability.36

Royal mothers possessed the sophistication and political awareness to understand the role that matrimony played in diplomatic affiliation. The practice of some queens of arranging the marriages of their ladies-in-waiting allowed them to escape the loss of control over their own

35 Carole Levin, Debra Barrett-Graves, and Jo Eldridge Carney, eds., High and Mighty Queens of Early Modern England: Realities and Representations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 2.

36 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 3.

54 unions by manipulating those of lesser women. As an example, , a much earlier

Castilian consort for an English king, had a particular penchant for arranging marriages. During her time as consort of Edward II (r.1307-1327), she married her women and their daughters to men of the king’s household. In so doing, she established a broader scope of personal loyalty throughout the English court. Extending that loyalty further, married to her women were the only ones who benefitted from land grants given by the queen and the children of these matched couples were raised alongside Eleanor’s own. For Eleanor, it seems that women’s roles as wives were a means to promote loyalty and dependability for generations.37

As Catholic kingdoms, both England and Spain were bound by the canonical laws of the

Roman Catholic Church.38 Catholic Church doctrine applied to all of Christian Europe in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and the law that most affected marriage contracts dealt with the intended pairs’ degree of consanguinity.39 To avoid marrying with the prohibited degrees, kings and queens frequently arranged marriages for their daughters with foreign princes and nobles. A family alliance with another kingdom could impact the politics of both as the union contained both the expectation of confederacy and the threat of schism. A foreign queen held the potential for access to enormous individual power as well. She benefitted from a cross- cultural perspective and could simultaneously provide benefit for and hindrance to the relationship between both realms.

37 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 71.

38 For recent historiography on the Catholicism of England prior to Henry VIII’s break with Rome, see Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005); Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society Under the Tudors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); and R. N. Swanson, Catholic England: Faith, Religion, and Observance Before the Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993).

39 For more on medieval marriages and the Catholic Church, see Christopher Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

55

Queens cognizant of the amount of power and influence that they possessed could augment that influence by passing on the tools of success to her daughters, who could one day become foreign brides themselves.40 It hardly makes sense that royal parents would disregard the daughters who were expected to serve as ambassadors and representatives. If fathers presumed that daughters would express his interests as informants or go-betweens, it is likely that parents developed personal relationships with them and trained them for their future roles. A mother’s active role in her girls’ training and education while they were in her care helped to ensure that the children acquired a sense of loyalty to their parents. Their children could be molded as agents capable of disseminating and gathering information that allowed the parents to increase their own power and influence.41

The sophistication and training necessary for brides to manipulate the cultural contrasts between families was fundamental to their success as queens. Katharine of Aragon most likely supported the notion of a reigning female monarch. She was the daughter of a queen regent and directly observed that a woman with the proper education and training could be a capable and successful monarch. Quite obviously Katharine would never be a ruler in her own right, but there is no reason to suspect that she would not have educated her daughter, as the sole heir of Henry

VIII, in the manner of a ruling queen. As a beneficiary of a humanist education herself, it stands to reason that Katharine would want the same education for her daughter. In the early sixteenth century, guides existed on how to educate a future king. Henry VIII possessed a copy of The

Education of a Christian Prince by his friend, the humanist philosopher Erasmus. However, in

England, there were no such materials on the education of princesses. For this task, Katharine

40 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 74.

41 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 74.

56 turned to fellow Spaniard and follower of Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives.42 Carol Levin argues that

Vives’s intentions and goals for the education of Princess Mary were to prepare her for marriage negotiations because ultimately, according to Retha Warnicke, the education of women was done to increase their ability to please their husbands.43

Queens apparently recognized the seriousness of the roles their daughters had to play, and keeping princesses at home until they were old enough for married life allowed them to be prepared to meet uncommon challenges and pursue family interest effectively.44 The idea of extending the girls’ time at home was just beginning in the medieval era and became more prevalent during a transition period between the medieval and early modern eras. Previously, girls were sent to their future husband’s families at a young age to learn the language and customs of their new land. Some late medieval queens insisted that they be the ones to raise their own children in their own lands. More intimately involved mothers ensured that the daughter the king and queen sent away was not completely untrained in the practical matters that came with marriage. She would be capable of managing her affairs after marriage, know how to establish a prominent existence in her new home, and develop the aptitude for advocating her family’s interests.45 Parsons notes a specific example of when women’s roles in marriage proposals, and by extension, political foreign policy, began to take a more prominent role. Eleanor of Castile,

42 Levin, High and Mighty Queens, 11-13. For more on the education philosophies of Juan Luis Vives, see his The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth Century Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 2007, for a modern translation. This is the work he wrote for the education of Katharine’s daughter, Mary, and dedicated to the queen in 1523.

43 Levin, High and Mighty Queens, 19; Retha Warnicke, Women of the English Renaissance and Reformation (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1983), 35. For more on the education of women in early-modern Europe, see Kenneth Charlton, Women, Religion, and Education in Early Modern England (London: Routledge, 1999); Edith Snook, Women, Reading, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Co, 2005); and Elizabeth Teresa Howe, Education and Women in the Early Modern World (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Co, 2008).

44 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 69.

45 Parsons, Medieval Queenship, 74-75.

57 consort to Edward I, interceded on behalf of her daughter during the negotiations for her marriage to the Aragonese heir. Eleanor argued that, at just thirteen years old, her daughter was not old enough to be sent to Aragon to be raised and trained by her new mother-in-law.46 Eleanor succeeded in maintaining custody of her daughter and the King of Aragon died before the marriage could officially take place. Eleanor of Castile effectively intervened in political affairs using her influence as mother of a means of foreign alliance. Marriage arrangements for their daughters arose as a practical method by which queens achieved power in their respective monarchies despite obtaining no official authority.

David Loades’ The Tudor Queens of England is designed to illuminate two themes of

Tudor study: one, image and reality and the other, the roles of the queens. Focusing on the benefits each queen brought to Henry’s reign, Loades structures his chapters around the public images of them. Katharine of Aragon and Anna of Cleves are styled as “Queen as Foreign Ally” representing Henry’s two wives born outside England. Henry clearly understood the value of a queen’s family and the power those connections brought.47 Upon his marriage to Katharine, he wrote to Margaret of Savoy:

[I] was charged by Henry VII, on his death bed, among other good counsels, to fulfill the old treaty with Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain by taking their daughter Katharine in marriage; now that [I am] of full age, [I] would not disobey, especially considering the great alliance between Aragon, the Emperor, and the house of Burgundy …48

Katharine’s political role depended on some level upon her womanhood. However, as

Loades points out, a queen consort, especially a foreign one like Katharine, also continued to be

46 John C. Parsons, ed., Medieval Queenship (Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton, 1994), 63.

47 Admittedly, the power that Henry VIII recognized was most likely viewed as political power that he was now endowed with as opposed to any kind of power or influence his queen could wield.

48 Letter from Henry VIII to Margaret of Savoy, June 27, 1509, L&P, vol. 1, item 84. Margaret of Savoy (neé Burgundy) was the wife of Katharine of Aragon’s only brother, Juan. See genealogical charts in Appendix A.

58 defined by her own family. Katharine of Aragon’s position as ambassador is largely overshadowed by her divorce, though she fulfilled an essential role not generally awarded to women in her position for many years making great strides in the relationship between England and Spain. When Henry was trying to force her out of their relationship in 1527, it was her family, in the person of her nephew, Emperor Charles V, who stood in his way and forced him into one of the defining actions of his reign.49

Loades contributes to the understanding that queen consorts of England were always aspects of their husbands but never regarded as people in their own right. He recognizes that while they may have immense influence over their husband, any actions that resulted from the influence were attributed to him. Loades’ consideration of the queen consorts is largely focused on their roles as mother and intercessor. To him, the greatest power a queen consort possessed came from the fact that kings could not bear their own children; “a consort who failed in this respect, like [Katharine] of Aragon, was liable to pay a high price.”50 If a member of the English aristocracy died without a male heir, his title, if he retained one, became extinct. Hereditary title issues were doubly true for the King of England who, during Henry VIII’s reign, could not pass his throne to a daughter.

Katharine had more than proven herself as a diplomat, military strategist, and regent in the early years of her and Henry’s reign, but in so doing, she overlooked her primary duty as queen consort: the King of England was still without an heir. In the , queens underwent significant political pressure to provide for a stable succession. Queens were tasked with providing their kings with a healthy son to whom the family dynasty could pass. The health

49 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England, 6.

50 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England, 11-12.

59 of the body politic hinged upon the fertility of the queen’s personal body.51 Katharine and Anne

Boleyn were both abandoned after failing to provide Henry VIII with a son; died fulfilling that mandate.52 Rumors quickly circulated that Henry had to choose between the life of his queen and that of his son which suggested that producing an heir was regarded so critically that the sacrifice of a queen’s life to achieve that end was considered conceivable.53 Though both the king and queen may acknowledge the benefits of a son and heir, the burden of conception, gender, and safe delivery was primarily the queen’s. Because of her duty to the body politic, the queen’s childbearing occurrences were never private. In a sense, her body was shared by the whole kingdom.54

Katharine of Aragon was first pregnant almost immediately after her marriage to Henry, but gave birth to a premature, stillborn daughter in January 1510.55 Henry and Katharine were both young and believed that other children would still be borne to them, though they were apparently devastated by this first loss. She became pregnant again soon after the birth of their first daughter. This time, she decided to wait to spread the news of her condition until her pregnancy could be well-established. Almost exactly a year after her first failed pregnancy,

51 Jo Eldridge Carney, Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 12.

52 Neither wife was solely discarded because they lacked a son. Henry sought an annulment from Katharine based on their degree of consanguinity, citing the lack of male heir as evidence of the violation of God’s law. Anne was charged with incest, adultery, and treason, though it is commonly argued by her biographers that her life would have been spared had she provided Henry with a son and heir.

53 Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, 12.

54 Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, 37.

55 Letter from Henry VIII to Ferdinand, King of Aragon, November 1, 1509, L&P, vol 1, item 220. Wardrobe order for the Expected birth of a Prince, signed by Henry VIII March 12, 1510, L&P, vol 1, item 394.

60

Katharine delivered a baby boy in January 1511.56 A son would be sure to carry on the Tudor dynasty. Henry especially was overjoyed, arranging tournaments and celebrations that lasted almost two months.57 The boy was christened Henry after his father, but died from illness just fifty-two days later. 58 Miscarriages and stillbirths were often blamed on the mothers, but the death of the young prince was different; he died in infancy. Katharine had shown herself to be devoutly pious and was “conspicuously blameless,” but the death of the young prince still presented dynastic problems for Katharine and Henry.59

Two years passed before Katharine became pregnant again, and in September 1513, she delivered another son who died.60 Katharine was quickly losing her place in her husband’s heart.

Lack of an heir had sent him looking for the company of other women and Katharine lost her influence with Henry and the loving devotion he once showed her. It became increasingly important for her to provide Henry with a child. Not just any child would do though; a king of

England must have a son. In 1516, Katharine’s prayers were answered. She delivered a healthy baby, but instead of the much desired boy, the world welcomed a daughter, christened Mary.61

Though often misattributed to other pregnancies in Henry’s reign in popular historical fiction

56 “Reading in the Senate of the letters from the ambassador in England, Andrea Badoer, dated London, 13th January,” February 20, 1511, in Rawdon Brown, ed., Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of , vol. 2, 1509-1519 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1864), item 95. This source will be noted in the future as CSP Venice followed by the volume number and item number of each citation; L&P, vol 1, item 675.

57 Various documents regarding the establishment of a “Tourney on Birth of Prince,” February 12-27, 1511, L&P, vol 1, items 698-707.

58 Sir John Dewhurst, “The Alleged Miscarriages of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn,” Medical History, Vol 28, 1984, 49-51.

59 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England, 92.

60 Summary of news sent by the Duke of Ferrara, October 6, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2287.

61 Letters and announcements on the birth of Princess Mary, February and March, 1516, L&P, vol 2, items 4074, 4213, 4279, 4288, 4398, 4529, 4568.

61 novels and movies, it was on this occasion that Henry tells a Venetian ambassador that he and the queen are both still young and that if they can have a healthy girl, “by God’s grace boys will follow.”62 Katharine was raised to accept the role of a ruling female sovereign as she had seen in her mother, but Henry and England were still of the mind that only a male child could succeed his father to the throne. The pair did not give up on their hopes for a male heir. Katharine conceived only one more time, some two years later, but that too ended unsuccessfully. For now,

England had a female heir, perceived as a bad omen by the English.63

Katharine’s pregnancy issues marked the beginning of the end of her relationship with

King Henry. Marital fidelity among the royals was not expected in the sixteenth century. A queen was required to be chaste; extramarital affairs and pregnancies could jeopardize the integrity of the royal line. Chastity, however, was not expected of a king, who frequently took official mistresses. To ensure the safety of the fetus, it was customary for the king and queen not to engage in intercourse during the pregnancy and often times kings met their needs among a variety of mistresses. When Henry’s affections toward Katharine began to wane, he found comfort in the arms of Bessie Blount. The longed-for son came to Henry through his affair with

Lady Blount. In 1519, celebrations were held for the birth, christening, and acknowledgement of

Henry Fitzroy, an illegitimate heir to the throne of England and threat to Katharine’s own daughter, Mary. Despite the heavy blow to the queen, Katharine dutifully attended all of the celebrations for Henry’s bastard son. Loades contends that Katharine’s general acceptance of some of Henry’s mistresses (Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn) was based in her royal up- bringing, but that she reacted to Anne Boleyn more harshly because Henry made it possible for

Anne to over-step her station. Katharine must have realized that the birth of this child was

62 Sebastian Giustinjan to the Council of Ten, CSP Venice, vol 2, item 691.

63 Letter from Queen Katharine to Ferdinand, King of Aragon, May 27, 1510, L&P, vol 1, item 473.

62

“incontrovertible proof” that the birth of stillborn children and daughters was her own fault.64

Henry was clearly able to produce healthy sons with other women. Katharine turned again to religion for answers, though it seemed God would not be answering her prayers this time.

Dressing the Part: How Beauty and Wardrobe Affect Power

Determining beauty is entirely subjective; what one man desires in a woman, another may find objectionable. In the last ten years, historians began to consider the role that a woman’s beauty played in her ability to achieve power and influence. Interestingly, many of these works evaluate the significance of beauty from a literary perspective; they seek to answer the question by evaluating how queens were represented in contemporary poems and paintings.65 High and

Mighty Queens of Early Modern England: Realities and Representations, edited by Carole

Levin, Debra Barrett-Graves, and Jo Eldridge Carney, addresses the ways that female rule impacted the depiction of queens in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature. The collection of essays in High and Mighty Queens strives to define the ambivalence toward women in power by analyzing their representations in Renaissance literature.66 Jo Eldridge Carney’s Fairy Tale

Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship is noteworthy as she addresses the various ways in which queens were represented in contemporary fairy tales. Each section is divided in half where the first portion is dedicated to fairy tale characters and how they represented their corporeal counterparts and the second focuses on the historical evidence supporting the correlation between the queens.

64 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 175.

65 For more on the connection between women’s beauty and power, see Kevin Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009); Edith Snook, Women, Beauty and Power in Early Modern England: A Feminist Literary History (Baskingstroke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); and Amy Licence, In Bed with the Tudors: From Elizabeth of York to (Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2012).

66 Levin, High and Mighty Queens, 1-4.

63

Through the contributions of these collected authors, it is apparent that beauty was an essential characteristic for women who became queens through marriage. The princesses who became queens by inheritance did not face the same need to be attractive as their place in the monarchy was already solidified. A glaring example of the importance of physical attractiveness can be found in the first few days of Henry VIII’s introduction to his fourth wife, Anna of

Cleves. While not enthusiastic about her beauty from the start, once they were wed, Henry told his secretary, , that “…as ye know, I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse. For I have felt her belly and her breasts, and thereby, as I can judge, she should be no maid…when I felt them I had neither will nor courage to proceed further in other matters.”67 Their marriage lasted a mere 184 days.

The reign of Henry VIII provides historians with a case study of the significance of beauty in the early modern era. As one ruler who amassed six wives throughout his reign while desperately trying to beget additional sons, his behavior allows for a study of the portrayal of each wife through the lens of Henry’s opinion of their beauty and expected fertility. One of the main roles of a queen consort was to be the public figurehead of the monarchy and therefore she could expect to be regularly subjected to public gaze.68 Queens were often subjected to excessive expectations regarding beauty based simply on the fact that she was they were in that particular social and political position.

When Henry VIII sent his envoy to view prospective wives, they were to report back to him on the candidates’ appearance. The problem came in the ambassadors’ ability to be more objective than subjective. Objectivity regarding personal predilections was necessary as was impartiality on a political scale. Knowing the importance of beauty to Henry, ambassadors had

67 Letter from Thomas Cromwell to Henry VIII, June 30, 1540, L&P, vol 15, item 823.

68 Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, 98.

64 the opportunity to pursue their own political motives in their descriptions of women. If their cause would be better served without a particular union and the interference of her family ties, an ambassador’s description of her could be skewed negatively, or vice versa.69 Their words had to be chosen both accurately and diplomatically.

When Katharine and Henry’s marriage began, she was already at somewhat of a disadvantage. Henry, nearing eighteen years old and athletically built, had at his side a woman six years his senior. When Katharine arrived in England for her marriage to Prince Arthur in

1501, King Henry VII wrote to her parents that we “have much admired her beauty, as well as her agreeable and dignified manners.”70 Even eight years later when she was wed to Henry, Fray

Diego called her “the most beautiful creature in the world,” though as her confessor he was hardly impartial.71 As the years went on, Katharine’s descriptors became less complementary and more diplomatic as evidenced by Venetian Mario Savorgano who said, “If not handsome, she is not ugly; she is somewhat stout and has always a smile on her countenance.”72 The eight years after her marriage to Henry were not as kind to her appearance as the eight prior. By the time she was thirty, Nicolo Sagudino, secretary to the Venetian ambassador, described Katharine as

“rather ugly than otherwise.”73 A few years after that, Francois, the King of France, made a snide

69 Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, 100.

70 Letter from Henry VII to Ferdinand and Isabella, November 28, 1501, in Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers relating to the negotiations between England and Spain preserved in the archives of Simancas and elsewhere, vol 1, item 311. This source is later abbreviated as CSP Spain.

71 Letter from Diego Fernandez, Confessor and Chancellor to Queen Katharine to Ferdinand, May 25, 1510, CSP Spain, supplements to vol 1 and 2, item 7.

72 Venetian Mario Savorgnano’s Tour in England, a letter to ____, August 25, 1531, CSP Venice, vol 4, item 682.

73 Letter from Nic. Sagudino to Al. Foscari, May 3, 1515, L&P, vol 2, item 410.

65 comment to a Venetian visitor that Henry “has an old deformed wife, while he himself is young and handsome.”74

As a queen who was expected to exemplify the ideal standard of beauty, Katharine’s appearance was subject to comparison with every other woman at court, even her ladies-in- waiting. When Henry VII and Ferdinand were first negotiating the marriage contract of

Katharine and Arthur, the English king required that the ladies who accompanied Katharine be of high birth “for the English attach great importance to good connections” and he stipulated that they should be beautiful.75 Good-looking companions could be risky; while beautiful ladies were designed to augment the queen’s own magnificence, too much allure could overshadow the queen’s own qualities. Despite the opinions of foreign ambassadors and royalty regarding

Katharine’s waning appearance, researchers must consider that Henry’s first queen reigned longer than all of his other wives combined.76 Also to be considered are the reasons for her diminished beauty. Katharine was pregnant no less than five times before she was thirty, had been struck with illness several times, and led Henry’s armies into battle in defense of his realm.

Beauty and appearance play their role in obtaining powerful positions or establishing relationships with powerful men, though enhancing influence through beauty alone does not seem to be successful. While appearance mattered to Henry, so did other qualities queen consorts were expected to embody: agreeability, humility, and social and political suitability. Henry’s mistresses were often remarked as more beautiful than his wives. Carney provides a possible explanation for the beauty of a mistress over that of a wife. She suggests that there existed an

74 Letter from Antonio Giustinian and Antonio Surian, Venetian Ambassadors in Franrce to the Signory, June 4, 1519, CSP Venice, vol 2, item 1230.

75 Letter from Don to Ferdinand and Isabella, April 4, 1500, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 260.

76 The remarks about Katharine’s appearance do not seem to be affected by concern over retaining Henry’s favor at court. All the examples cited here are derived from letters between foreign ambassadors and recipients in their home countries and therefore had a higher possibility of escaping Henry’s attention.

66 unacknowledged understanding that a queen consort had difficulty embodying all the qualities that kings found desirable.77 Even when all parties agreed on the beauty of a queen, the opinion that any ideal standard could be fulfilled was undermined repeatedly by the reality of human imperfection.

There was little a queen could do to change the appearance of her physical body, but she could adorn it with fine clothes and jewels.78 A queen’s wardrobe choices often enabled her to wield greater influence than her physical attractiveness. Even when a woman did not make wardrobe choices herself, her entry into a room full of people could speak volumes. Before she was Henry VII’s queen, Elizabeth of York was clearly a favorite at the court of Richard III. Sir

Nicolas, Okerlund, and James Gairdner all reference the same event as evidence of Richard’s partiality. At Christmastide 1484, Richard presented dresses to his wife, Queen Anne, and to his niece, Elizabeth. When they appeared together at the festivities, it was found that both dresses were made in similar styles and colors. Okerlund states that this was in clear violation of sumptuary laws that prohibited someone like Elizabeth, with her bastard status, from dressing in the same colors as the Queen of England.79

The dependent status of queen consorts and princesses meant that a king could exert his control over them through clothing. He could withhold allowances for dresses and gifts of jewels in an attempt to persuade her to behave a certain way or agree to some request he made. The king

77 Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, 109.

78 For additional information on the impact of clothing in early modern England, see Roze Hentschell, The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008); Susan J Vincent, Dressing the Elite: Clothes in Early Modern England (Oxford: Berg, 2003); and Susan Frye, Pens and Needles: Women’s Textualities in Early Modern England (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2010).

79 Sumptuary laws are designed to prevent extravagance and luxury by restricting personal expenditures. They have been in existence since Ancient Greece and were used in England during the reigns of Edward II and III (1307-1327 and 1327-1377, respectively). Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "sumptuary law", accessed January 13, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/573467/sumptuary-law.

67 could control the court’s perception of women at court by providing them with more or less stylish attire compared to other noble or royal women as seen in the previous example of Richard

III. After Arthur’s death, Katharine found herself caught between two kings, neither willing to financially support her. Henry ceased to give allowances for Katharine’s household expenses and dismissed much of her Spanish court. Ambassadors wrote to her father about her ill-treatment from Henry VII, but her parents sent her no money to help and replied to her pleas with assurances that she must accept any decisions made by Henry and defer to Doña Elvira’s authority in all matters. 80 Katharine attempted to appeal to her father directly pleading,

I am in debt in London and this is not for extravagant things, nor yet by relieving my own people who greatly need it, but only for food; and how the king of England, my lord, will not cause them to be satisfied, although I myself spoke to him, and all those of his council, and that with tears: but he said he is not obliged to give me anything…because your highness has not kept promise with him in the money of my marriage portion… I am in the greatest trouble and anguish in the world. On the one part, seeing all my people that they are ready to ask alms; in the other, the debts which I have in London; on the other, about my own person, I have nothing for chemises: wherefore, by your highness’s life, I have now sold some bracelets to get a dress of black velvet, for I was all but naked: from since I departed from Spain I have nothing except two black dresses, for till now those I have brought from thence have lasted me; although I have now nothing but the dresses of brocade.81

Katharine’s coronation ceremony in 1509 was in stark contrast to her way of life just a short time before. The day carried the same costly flare as her first arrival in London, designed to make a statement about the woman at the center of all the attention: she was the Queen of

England. Henry VIII was sure to show her all the pomp that a future Queen of England was due.

Martin Hume gave a description of the procession through the streets on their wedding day:

The Queen rode in a litter of white and gold tissue drawn by two snowy palfreys, she herself being barged in white satin and gold, with a dazzling coronet of

80 CSP Spain, vol I, 389.

81 As quoted in Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, 142 quoted from M.A.E. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain, 3 vols (London, 1846), 140.

68

precious stones upon her head, from which fell almost to her feet her dark russet hair. She was twenty-four years of age, and in the full flush on womanhood; her regular classical features and fair skin bore yet the curves of gracious youth; and there need be no doubt of the sincerity of the ardent affection of her borne by the pink and white young giant who rode before her, a dazzling vision of crimson velvet, cloth of gold, and flashing precious stones.82

During Henry VIII’s reign, queens were not directly subject to sumptuary laws. They wore what they or their king liked without limitation, but the freedom of preference was balanced with the inhibition of expectation. Wardrobes were visible exhibitions of power. A queen’s wardrobe demonstrated the monarchy’s splendor both within and beyond its geographical borders. Queens were often used as representations of a monarch’s wealth at summit meetings or court visits. When new foreign ambassadors met with the Queen of England, they would report back to their kings the state of attire of the members of court, specifically the queen. Dresses made of expensive fabrics and large or numerous jeweled adornments alluded to the hearty financial state of the king, information that could then be extrapolated to speak to a king’s ability to fund foreign allies for war or pursue military action himself. Because Henry’s wives set the standards of fashion for their court and subjects, clothing choice aided in the formation of national identities.83 In this way, the queen’s social preferences influenced the unified culture and identity of an entire people and aided in the representation of the king throughout his territory.

During her childhood, Katharine was exposed to the importance of image and representation and how they could be used both as weapons against opponents and as means of legitimizing one’s own position. Isabella’s entire reign, from her ascension on the back of propaganda, through her sword-wielding coronation procession, and even in her choice of joint

82 As quoted by Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 74.

83 Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, 131.

69 standard with Ferdinand continuously represented her as a powerful leader for Spain. Her own experiences with wealth and poverty reinforced the importance of one’s image. Where once her beautiful clothes, jewels, and possessions were used to demonstrate her worth as a potential bride, her debts and inability to maintain her royal image represented how easily women, even princesses, could be cast aside in favor of the political objectives of men. Yet women’s value could be reconstituted just as quickly. When Henry VII died and Ferdinand and Henry VIII were finally able to come to an agreement about the marriage of Katharine, she was once again showered with fine clothes and jewels and provided with an ostentatious coronation.

Once she married Henry and became Queen of England, it is clear to see how her family connections and popularity enabled her to be influential at court. Her family ties provided wealth and connection for England’s young king as well as a military alliance against their common enemies. Through her communication with her father, siblings, and nephew, Henry gained ties to the Hapsburgs, Spain, and even the and her dowry increased the already deep coffers his father left him. She was a natural liaison between England and her family and was able to become an important player in foreign affairs. Her many years of experience as an ambassador to her father and her associations throughout Europe made her a logical, if unofficial, advisor during Henry’s early years as king.

After being introduced to the English people eight years prior in a spectacular procession through London, Katharine was once again displayed magnificently to the people during her coronation. The expanse of funds Henry and his father spent on the public displays of Katharine exhibited to their citizens how important their connection with her was. These kings of England essentially showed the people how valuable Katharine was to them, how important it was to treat her royally because of the benefits she brought to England through her marriages with Arthur

70 and Henry. Katharine was poised to be one of the most influential queen consorts of England’s late medieval and early modern history.

71

Chapter 4

A QUEEN’S ROLE IN POLITICS

England’s religious reformations and revolutions in government are regularly discussed among Tudor historians. The two are so interwoven and ingrained in all aspects of Tudor monarchy that even studying social and cultural aspects of the time must, in some way, include discussion of religion and politics. However, Katharine of Aragon’s function in these key areas is regularly disregarded. She is left out of analyses of overall influence at the king’s court; she is barely addressed in examinations of women’s influence and power in government; and her ability to exercise individual agency in her own defense is rarely considered. To attain a complete understanding of the inner mechanisms of Henry VIII’s reign, this chapter aims to address the missing pieces of Katharine’s historiography that address her participation in Tudor government and include the effects of Katharine through both her direct action and more subtle influences.

Publications about the wives of Henry VIII rarely center on the political actions and decisions of the women themselves, focusing more on how the women were manipulated by powerful men at the king’s court. The very definition of politics within the dominant historiography makes it seem natural and inevitable to address history as if the world of politics was exclusively affected by men.1 There have been significant changes in the historiography of

England’s queen consorts since the Victorian era. This chapter examines sources chronologically as they pertain to a queen’s role in politics to show the continual, albeit gradual, acceptance of a woman’s individual agency amid the male-dominated world of government.

1 Barbara Harris, “Women and Politics in Early Tudor England,” The Historical Journal 33, no. 2 (June 1990): 259, accessed February 10, 2012.

72

In earlier Victorian works, if Henry’s wives are credited at all it is often done in a negative capacity as seen in J.A. Froude’s The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon as told by the

Imperial ambassadors at the Court if Henry VIII where he chastises Katharine’s stubborn refusal to accept the divorce and blames her for the following religious turmoil in England.2 This chapter intends to counter that assessment of Katharine. While she certainly did refuse to accept a divorce from Henry and did play a crucial part in England’s schism from Rome, these two events can be used to show Katharine’s ability to shape the political and religious temperament of an entire nation. Martin Hume follows Froude fifteen years later, writing about The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts they Played in History. In his work, the argument is not that the wives should receive credit for England’s politics, but that the real contributors were Henry’s advisors.3

He is, however, favorable to Katharine in his descriptions of her flair for diplomacy. Hume argues that from a young age, she was aware of her responsibility to Spain in acting as ambassador to England once she married and even took an unprecedented role as official ambassador between her widowhood from Prince Arthur and her engagement to Prince Henry.

Hume credits Katharine with incredible intelligence and knowledge of political systems throughout her life.4

Centralizing the Tudor Monarchy

Changes in the English monarchy began before Katharine was even considered as a match for an English prince. When Henry VII achieved victory on Bosworth Field and was subsequently crowned as King of England, he enabled the Tudor family to have a distinct

2 J. A. Froude, The Divorce of Catherin of Aragon as told by the Imperial Ambassadors at the Court of Henry VIII (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 182.

3 Martin Hume, The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts they Played in History (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1905), 9.

4 Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 12-13.

73 advantage in the political arena: where once they had the difficult task of seizing or obtaining power, they now had only to maintain it. Retention of power is surely easier than initially gaining it, but it is not without its trials. Throughout the Tudor dynasty, all monarchs were plagued by rebellion and uprising from the attempts to unseat Henry VII to the plots against Elizabeth I by her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, and the .5 Over the course of the century and a quarter that the Tudor family ruled England, there were a number of peaceful political inducements provided through the printing press, church pulpits, and even the theater, but as the years wore on, each successor employed bloody execution as a means to thwart opposition.6

Before Henry VII came to power, the English government was comprised of various institutions such as the chancery and parliament, but there was no set sphere in which each institution operated, nor was there any set procedure for the operation of the institutions themselves.7 The domestic politics of the early and mid-Tudor years applied growth, order, and structure to a government that had been haphazard. Henrys VII and VIII centered their domestic policy on making the crown the central and dominant power in English public life. Both kings took an active role in expanding the authority of the crown by making effective use of the extant administration system, parliament, and judicial system, though Henry VIII took far longer in his reign to do so. Henry VII started by making an important, albeit implied, distinction between the

“crown” and the “king.” In an effort to protect those loyal to him in his campaign against

Richard III, the Statute of Treason (1495) passed through parliament containing the idea that the

“command of a king is the command of the crown, and that a subject who obeys that command

5 For an analysis of some of the larger rebellions during the reigns of the Tudors, see R.W. Hoyle, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Anthony Fletcher and Diarmain MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions (Revised Fifth Edition) (Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2014).

6 Frederick George Marcham, A Constitutional History of Modern England, 1485 to the Present (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 3.

7 Marcham, Constitutional History, 10.

74 ought not to be in jeopardy even though the king who gave the command might later be declared no king.”8 Therefore, consideration of and allegiance to the crown, or rather, the actual office of the king, should be paramount and fidelity to the person in that office, secondary.

When considering Katharine of Aragon’s role in the realm of Tudor government, the difference between loyalty to a position and loyalty to a person is no mere trivial case of semantics. Once it is coupled with matters of succession, such a distinction becomes pertinent both in the overall discussion of Tudor politics and in discussion of Katharine’s specific situation. No standard laws of succession existed when the Tudors ruled England. Though much of the dynasty was defined by changes in succession, the actual laws of the time were made a statute at a time, depending on a monarch’s current marital status and existence of legitimate children. During Henry VIII’s marriage to Katharine, their daughter, Mary, had the hereditary right to rule, but was not recognized as Henry’s successor. There was no formal law forbidding female rule, but a female ruler was traditionally unacceptable.9 In addition to Henry’s beleaguered conscience, he cited the “lack of a male heir” as evidence of God’s displeasure at his and Katharine’s union. His personal feelings for Anne Boleyn aside, the fact remained that

Katharine was unlikely to produce more children with Henry and therefore a threat to the crown existed by not having a stable line of succession. The importance of succession to the crown is further exemplified by changes to the list of crimes against the king (treasonable offenses). In addition to planning the king’s death, making war against the king, and joining with his enemies,

8 Marcham, Constitutional History, 12.

9 Marcham, Constitutional History, 12.

75 questioning Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn or the legitimacy of any of their children also became a treasonable offence after 1534.10

Though succession issues plagued Henry VIII throughout his reign, creating an heir was not an English king’s only concern. The King of England was also responsible for acts of war and peace, both internally and abroad, arranging marriages for the members of his household, managing the realm’s coinage, and pardoning deserving offenders, among other obligations.11

Adequate management and governance of a country by a single individual was not common in

England, even before the Tudors. Monarchs were bound by custom to consult with whomever necessary to effectively operate the government. When Henry VII came to power, he followed the lead of his father-in-law, Edward IV (r. 1461-1470, 1471-1483) and created his council based on ministers that he himself appointed and controlled. Additionally, he continued to limit the authority of the with regards to managing the finances of the crown. In the exchequer’s place, Henry VII appointed trained financiers who began supplying him with an annual report, the Declaration of the State of the Treasure, so that he may always be abreast of the state of the crown’s finances.12 He continued to make use of the three secretarial offices (the chancery, privy seal, and signet) to keep his administration running efficiently. The Lord

Chancellor handled the bulk of the clerical work. This work often came from the Lord Privy Seal who was a step closer to the king and had a more direct impact on his decisions. The signet office carried the authority of the king’s own signature and was a branch of the royal household.

However, this rank was second to the Lord Privy Seal and Lord Chancellor among the king’s

10 Marcham, Constitutional History, 14. See also the Treason Act of 1534 (26 Hen. 8, c. 13) and the Succession Act of 1536 (28 Hen. 8, c. 7).

11 David Loades, Tudor Government (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Inc, 1997), 18.

12 Marcham, Constitutional History, 24.

76 councilors as this position was generally used as a negotiator in foreign courts and was often out of England on diplomatic business.13

Though there were a number of advisors to the king, there was no unified responsibility among his advisors. Consultants were not expected to work together to collectively assess a situation and provide a unanimous suggestion for resolution. Each individual noble swore his own oath to serve the king to the best of his conscience and ability alone.14 In fact, as David

Loades points out, Tudor kings often solicited the advice of a number of individuals because conflicting opinions permitted the king to act as he pleased and still give the impression that he was listening to at least some of his noblemen.15 Toward the end of his father’s reign and early during his own rule, Henry VIII was advised by a number of his father’s councilors, but his most trusted advice came from his grandmother, , and his wife, Katharine of

Aragon. Henry’s trust and reliance on Katharine can be seen in a letter he wrote to Ferdinand of

Aragon shortly after their marriage, “The bond between [us] is now so strict that all [our] interests are in common, and the love [he bears] Katharine is such, that if [he] were still free, [he] would choose her in preference to all others.”16

In recent years, historians have given more credence to the subtler aspects of the influence that people in positions close to the king had over him and acknowledge the significant role that manipulation played in the world of high politics. There is more focus on the importance of the court’s role in political maneuvering as this was the primary place that the king

13 Marcham, Constitutional History, 25.

14 Loades, Tudor Government, 19.

15 Loades, Tudor Government, 18-19.

16 Letter from Henry VIII to Ferdinand, King of Aragon, July 26, 1509, in James Gairdner, ed., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of King Henry VIII, vol. 1, 1509-1514 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1880), item 119. This source will be noted in the future as L&P followed by the volume number and item number of each citation.

77 and queen interacted with their nobles and gentry. The court was where personal relationships were cultivated with their majesties, where the king and queen would essentially interview noble families to determine who would benefit from office appointments and patronage. Positions and support were awarded based on the king and queen’s favor, allowing more intimate access to the mechanisms of politics and life at court naturally became the center of the political process.17 It is through the importance of patronage, the royal household offices, and the court that historians integrate upper-class women into Tudor political debate. Evidence exists that women successfully managed, maintained, and exploited patronage networks. In this way, women used their roles as wives, mothers, and daughters to achieve political benefits for their families and adeptly find their niche in the political world.

Women’s Involvement in England’s Political Culture

The family was the ultimate source of power among the aristocracy. Individuals’ activities inevitably affected the political influence and effectiveness of their spouses and children.18 Where the reigns of Henry VII and VIII solidified domestic politics around a strong central core, they were much less successful in terms of foreign policies. England’s long years of civil war essentially required its kings to focus on domestic issues and consequently caused

England’s isolation from other European powers. For the first time since Henry V’s reign (1413-

1422), England’s kings could put their attentions on strengthening their positions through foreign allies. By the early sixteenth century, the Tudor dynasty began to spread the scope of England’s influence by seeking foreign marriages for the children of kings. Henry VII and Elizabeth of

York attempted an alliance with Scotland through their daughter Margaret’s marriage to James

17 Harris, “Women and Politics,” 259.

18 James Daybell, ed., Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 43.

78

IV in 1503. They sought alliance with France through their daughter Mary’s marriage to Louis

XII (though this happened in 1514, long after the death of her parents) and with Spain first through the marriage of their elder son, Arthur, and then their younger son, Henry, to Katharine of Aragon.19

Upper-class women lobbied for beneficial marriages for their children as stringently as men. Just as marriage and kinship of princesses allied nations and aided in foreign policy, the alliances made between noble families held the potential to shape the king’s council and have a lasting impact on domestic policies. Noble women were just as eager as their male counterparts to secure offices and favors for their relatives and dependents. In fact, the consolidation of the monarchy and the rising authority of the crown made it necessary for the nobility to turn to the crown, often via their court relationships, to obtain the economic and political resources required to maintain their positions.20 Nobles’ prosperity and power depended on securing offices, privileges, and patronage for themselves and their families.

While women certainly worked to advance the patrilineages of their families through marriage and advancement of their husbands’ and sons’ careers, it is important to note that their relationships and connections with other women were equally important. In the centralized government that emerged at the beginning of the Tudor dynasty, the crown relied on its noblemen to implement their policies throughout the country and rewarded them for their service. Aristocratic families recognized the importance of strong networks of family relationships to gain the most reward for their service and therefore, larger influence with the

19 Marcham, Constitutional History, 4. Henry VII’s death proved to be the catalyst to Katharine and Henry’s marriage, so he did not directly benefit from their union.

20 Harris, “Women and Politics,” 271.

79 crown.21 Aristocratic women’s horizontal family ties then become important for the growth and expansion of the family.

The connections women made throughout the court enabled elite parents to seek out homes for their children with wealthier or better-connected relatives in the hopes of expanding their education and receiving the benefits of extended personal networks.22 Often, the new homes provided the children with advantageous positions or marriages in the queen’s household, as in the case of three of Henry VIII’s wives: Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Katherine Howard.23

The appointment of girls to the queen’s household depended largely on the patronage of the queen’s extant ladies-in-waiting. These ladies had the power to recommend daughters of their kin or friends when new positions opened. It was possible for the ladies of the queen’s household to become important political players for their families and have influence in a way that was not available to men. In addition, the senior ladies had power in their own right as spaces for new girls was limited and mothers who wanted to place their daughters were required to cultivate relationships with the more senior ladies. Admission to the queen’s household, and more so, the queen’s , allowed women access to information that could only be obtained through a woman’s position at court. This information, that historian James Daybell refers to as

“gossip,” enabled women to know the intimate details of an individual’s standing at court, reaction to gifts and letters, and the progress of suits and petitions. Daybell argues that this

21 Barbara Harris, “Sisterhood, Friendship and the Power of English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550,” in Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700, ed. James Daybell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 22.

22 Harris, “Women and Politics,” 263.

23 Each of these English brides served as a member of her predecessor’s household and court. Anne Boleyn was a member of Queen Katharine of Aragon’s household as well as the household of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. Jane Seymour was a member of Queen Anne Boleyn’s household. Katherine Howard was a member of Queen Anna of Cleves’s household.

80 gossip was an essential tool for women as they could use this type of information to further the interests of their own families.24 Women used the knowledge they acquired from gossip as a method to exercise power at court.

Women’s positions at court often placed them in the middle of the intersection of personal, family, dynastic and religious politics, as happened with the ladies of Katharine of

Aragon during the king’s “great matter.” A number of high-ranking women openly opposed

Henry’s divorce from Katharine including Anne, Lady Hussey, and the king’s own sister, Mary,

Duchess of Suffolk. Some, like Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, claimed that they would “never desert her.”25 However, it is important to note that where women forayed into politics, the consequences that followed were the same as for men. Soon after her letter to Katharine proclaiming her allegiance, the Duchess of Norfolk was expelled from court for speaking too freely.26

One method used to foster relationships and show support at court was through gift- giving.27 Exchanging gifts at court was not without the expectation of reciprocation. Givers often expected commensurate presents or favors in return for their contributions, a response to their offer of friendship. There existed an unofficial hierarchy of gifts and appropriate responses. Gifts of food, wines, or animals between nobles could be seen almost as pleasantries between friends where the expectation for support might be limited to smaller, more trivial requests. Exchange of tokens, however, took on a much more significant implication. Tokens were often personal belongings or a treasured possession such as jewelry and represented the owner’s special

24 Daybell, Women and Politics, 6.

25 Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V, January 31, 1531, L&P, vol. 5, item 70.

26 Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V, May 14, 1531, L&P, vol 5, item 238.

27 For more on the culture of gift giving in England see Felicity Heal, The Power of Gifts: Gift-Exchange in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

81 relationship with the intended recipient. Tokens were not expected to be kept by the recipient, only accepted and recognized as a symbolic representation of their relationship, then returned to the sender.28 Commonly, gifts were exchanged among individuals of equal status and power.

Among women of unequal status, the lower ranking women granted the gifts and the higher ranking ones often reciprocated with patronage and the benefit of their own connection.29 Gifts were not limited to the noble classes. They were also sent and received by the king and queen.

Henry VIII’s personal accounts show a number of gifts granted to him by women in the 1520s and 1530s. Additionally, a listing of the king’s New Year’s gifts can be found in his Letters and

Papers wherein Henry granted over 160 women either small, individual gifts or grants of lands, annuities, or favors throughout his reign.30

Foreign Connections and Dynastic Legacy

Katharine of Aragon’s role in the political and religious world of England was unique for her time. Her behavior illustrates a pivotal change between the queen consorts of England’s past and the regnants of its future. Protestant reformer John Knox generalized Englishmen’s opinion of female rulers in 1558 through his The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous

Regiment of Women, sparking debate about the ability of women to rule for centuries to come.

His assessment was that “to promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation or city is repugnant to nature” and that any woman who presumed to

28 Harris, “Women and Politics,” 266.

29 Harris, “Women and Politics,” 267.

30 “The King’s Book of Payments” in each volume of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. J.S. Brewer (London, 1867). See also entries from January of each year of Henry’s reign for listing of New Year’s gifts.

82

“reign above man” was, indeed, a “monster of nature.”31 Knox went on to claim that women were incapable of ruling because, by their very design, they were weak, foolish, inconsistent, and

“lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment.”32 Only a few months after The First Blast’s publication, Katharine’s daughter Mary became the first queen regnant in England.33 Ironically, the first ruling queen after Knox’s publication was descended from women who were the very opposite of what he described. Mary was the daughter of Katharine of Aragon and great granddaughter of Lady Margaret Beaufort, both important players in shaping England’s political and religious culture.

Katharine’s political importance began as many other foreign princesses’ had: as a method of uniting two kingdoms. In November 1501, Katharine of Aragon and Arthur, Prince of

Wales, were married, sealing an alliance between Spain and England. Celebrations lasted for over a week and included banquets, jousts, music and dancing. Now a married young woman of sixteen, it is interesting to see how little control she still possessed over her own affairs. For instance, the King of England and his council debated about whether the new Princess of Wales should be allowed to accompany her own husband back to the Marches of Wales. Henry eventually determined that she should be sent with Arthur, though it was under the condition that she be continually “under the surveillance of [her] duenna,” Doña Elvira. It was even left up to the duenna, Katharine’s chaplain, the Spanish ambassador, and King Henry as to whether the

31 John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, ed. Edward Arber (London: Southgate, 1878), 2. 32 Knox, Monstrous Regiment of Women, 2.

33 For additional historiography on , see John Edwards, Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011); and Linda Porter, The First Queen of England: The Myth of “Bloody Mary” (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

83 couple could “enter fully into the martial state.”34 Arthur was clearly happy in the union for he had “never felt so much joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet face of his bride, and no woman in the world could be more agreeable to him.”35

Upon Arthur’s death, Katharine’s role in foreign affairs abruptly changed. Unlike her mother, who chose her husband for herself to further her own political aspirations rather than be matched to someone her brother desired, Katharine allowed her fate to be subject to the will of others.36 The death of her first husband marks a specific turning point in Katharine’s life. At sixteen, nearly seventeen, years old, Katharine must have known that it was unusual for her to be unwed, childless, and relatively alone in a foreign country. She once again became a bargaining chip between England and Spain, but this time was educated and experienced enough to be cognizant of the negotiations. She contended with deceitful kings, impoverished living conditions, and over-bearing attendants with their own agendas.37

Katharine’s parents immediately sent word to their ambassador, De Puebla, indicating that, while they were sorry to hear of the king’s loss, they still expected Henry to give Katharine

“all the revenues of her dowry in order to be able to pay her personal expenses and her household.”38 They went on to explain that their request was not unusual as they had other

34 John E. Paul, Catherine of Aragon and Her Friends (New York: Fordham University Press, 1966), 10- 11.

35 Letter from Arthur, Prince of Wales to Ferdinand and Isabella, November 30, 1501, in Calendar of State Papers, Spain, vol 1, 1485-1509 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1862), item 312. This source will be noted in the future as CSP Spain followed by the volume number and item number of each citation.

36 Sharon L. Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 114.

37 “Impoverished living conditions” here must be taken in context of who she was, a dowager princess, and how she was accustomed to living. This is not to say that Katharine experienced the same poverty as the lower classes.

38 Letter from Ferdinand and Isabella to De Puebla, May 29, 1502, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 321.

84 daughters who were widowed and afterward cared for by the families of the deceased.39

Katharine was encouraged to accept what she could get from Henry as he still retained her marriage portion and was therefore obligated to support her.40 Ferdinand and Isabella still wanted the alliance with England, but with Henry VII’s wealth steadily growing, he became more confident in his position among the European princes.

Katharine’s parents wrote De Puebla numerous times between April 1502 and April 1503 demanding that he return Katharine and her marriage portion to them. In an August 1502 letter,

Isabella wrote to her ambassador, Estrada. She instructed him to “make such a show of giving directions and preparing for [Katharine’s] voyage that the members of the Princess’s household may believe it is true.”41 However, Estrada was also given additional instructions to listen to any proposals the King of England made regarding the betrothal of Katharine to the new Prince of

Wales and, if the terms were acceptable, “clinch the matter at once without further reference” because then Spain could seek the aid of England against France.42 Throughout her letters to both

De Puebla and Estrada, Isabella made it abundantly clear that the princess’s duenna, Doña Elvira was to be “protected as being [Spain’s] deputy” and that the ambassadors were to give their

“countenance to her in everything she may desire to do, so that everyone may obey” her. Clearly,

Ferdinand and Isabella entertained no qualms about women participating in their politics, but this

39 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 321.

40 Letter from Ferdinand and Isabella to De Puebla regarding the obligations of King Henry to the Princess of Wales, June 14, 1502, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 323.

41 Letter from Queen Isabella to Ferdinand, Duke de Estrada regarding the departure of the Princess of Wales for Spain, August 10, 1502, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 343.

42 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 343.

85 particular grant of power would, a few years later, become the cause of Katharine’s first real foray into the deceit and betrayal inherent to political games.43

Ferdinand consistently caused problems with Katharine’s dowry and Henry ceased to give allowances for her household expenses and dismissed much of her Spanish court. At first, ambassadors attempted to intervene and wrote to her father,

The King of England refuses to pay anything, though she implores him with tears to do so. He says he has been cheated about the marriage portion. In the meanwhile she is in the deepest anguish, her servants almost begging for alms, and she herself nearly naked. She has been at death’s door for months, and prays earnestly for a Spanish confessor, as she cannot speak English.44

Her parents sent her no money to help and replied to her pleas with assurances that she must accept any decisions made by Henry and defer to Doña Elvira’s authority in all matters.

Ferdinand and Isabella held Doña Elvira in high esteem and seemed to have complete faith in her. Their position was supplemented by De Puebla’s reports of her competency and abilities. De

Puebla went so far as to inform their majesties that Doña Elvira had such influence at court that she publically received a gift of a fine headdress from Henry and he predicted that she “may hold the reins of government in her hands.”45

The duenna was not the only woman in Katharine’s life who provided her with guidance and influenced her behavior. Katharine’s close observation of her mother, Isabella, was perhaps the single most significant contribution to her ideas about queenship. Katharine was still living in

England when news of the death of her mother reached her in 1504. This great loss was not only a personal tragedy for the princess, but also a political one. The death of Isabella allowed

Ferdinand to claim a new position as sole regnant, but there were hindrances. Isabella’s crown

43 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 343.

44 Pope Julius II, December 26, 1503, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 389.

45 Letter from De Puebla to Ferdinand and Isabella, October 23, 1504, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 401.

86 should be passed to her daughter Juana and, if Juana was deemed disqualified, the next heir to the Castilian throne was Katharine herself. The established line of succession made abandoning

Katharine helpless in England, marriage or no marriage, an attractive alternative and politically wise decision for Ferdinand. Ferdinand was not the only king with his eyes on Castile. Juana’s husband, Philip of Burgundy, intended to pursue Juana’s claim to the Castilian throne and become king himself. While Katharine’s interests naturally aligned with those of her father at this stage of her life, Doña Elvira’s brother, Juan Manuel, was the leader of the pro-Philip faction. Doña Elvira’s unchecked authority in England and the implicit faith in her by Ferdinand placed her in a prime location to act on her brother’s behalf.

Katharine’s isolation and mistreatment by Henry VII made her susceptible to the slightest positive attention anyone paid her. Philip sent ambassadors to meet with both Henry and

Katharine and, according to De Puebla, Katharine reacted “very cheerfully” to the ambassadors and the news that Philip and Juana would be arriving in England themselves. As head of

Katharine’s household, Doña Elvira made certain that Philip’s ambassadors were granted every audience with the princess that was requested. Katharine was so taken with the ambassadors and so reliant on Doña Elvira’s judgment, that she even proposed a meeting between Henry and her sister and brother-in-law with the hopes of joining them so she could visit with Juana.46 Philip was, of course, amenable to her proposal as it was necessary for him to secure the support of

England if he were to be successful in acquiring the from Ferdinand.

Unaware of Philip’s intentions, Katharine promptly wrote to Henry imploring him to accept the meeting. De Puebla, ever loyal to Ferdinand, insisted upon delivering her message to Henry

46 Letters from De Puebla to Ferdinand, August 12, 1505 and August 17, 1505, CSP Spain, vol 1, items 439-440.

87 himself so that he might prevent its arrival. Doña Elvira intervened and made certain that

Katharine sent her request to Henry.47 Doña Elvira betrayed them both.

De Puebla went immediately to Katharine to explain to her the truth of Philip’s intentions; he meant to “do injury to [your] royal father, and to the Queen, [your] sister.”48

Katharine wrote a retraction to Henry, begging him to consider the interests of her father

“beyond those of any other Prince in Christendom” and said nothing about her renunciation to

Doña Elvira. De Puebla requested that she no longer participate in matters of state without his approval and begged that she no longer listen to Doña Elvira’s advice.49 Once again, Katharine did not comply, but this time it was to her benefit. She did not trust De Puebla either and the recent duplicity within her own household taught her that the only person she could rely upon was herself. The betrayal and manipulation of her beloved duenna elicited a change in Katharine.

She refused to bow out of state affairs; she was taught that it was her duty and obligation as a princess to pave the way for foreign relations between her father and her husband. In the future, however, she would only deal with information directly given by her father and King Henry.

Despite her parents’ explicit desires to have Katharine returned to them, she adamantly refused to leave England. Her seemingly simple decision was the catalyst to Katharine’s new role as a major political player in the foreign politics of both England and Spain. After Doña

Elvira’s deceit, Katharine wrote her father continuously begging for a new ambassador to be sent to England to replace De Puebla, who she firmly declared was no longer loyal to Ferdinand but

47 Letter from Katharine, Princess of Wales to Henry VII, August 1505, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 441; Letters from Vincenzo Quirini to the Signory, July 26, 1505 and November 29, 1505, in Rawdon Brown, ed. Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, vol. 1, 1202-1509 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1864), items 850, 860. This source will be noted in the future as CSP Venice followed by the volume number and item number of each citation.

48 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 441.

49 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 440.

88 instead switched his allegiance to Henry.50 Through these letters, Katharine clearly articulated her understanding of the importance of ambassadors to foreign politics, “It cannot be doubted that nothing contributes more towards the prosperity or adverse fortune of kingdoms than the sufficiency or incompetence of ambassadors.”51 She requested that the new ambassador be either

Don Pedro or the Commander of Membrilla because of their experience and knowledge of England.

Her distrust of De Puebla was so intense that Katharine began communicating directly with Henry regarding her father’s wishes. In a letter from Henry to Ferdinand, Henry attested to

Katharine’s abilities to act on behalf of her father indicating that he “liked to hear [Ferdinand’s communications] from her better than any other person.”52 Katharine became adept at deciphering her father’s letters, but was hesitant to use cyphers in her own writing for fear that it would not be understood by the recipient.53 Better cyphers came in time, but Katharine proved herself to be an adept diplomat regardless. On May 19, 1507, Ferdinand sent a letter to De

Puebla including the “credentials for the Princess of Wales, to enable her to act in his name. [De

Puebla] must therefore communicate to her the contents of the letters sent to him, while she… will communicate to him those which she has received.”54 Katharine was officially an active member of the political arena in both Spain and England.

Katharine’s new political position enabled her to perceive events more fully than before.

She still wrote to her father of her destitution and requested that he assist her, but she now

50 Letters from Katharine to Ferdinand, September and December, 1505, CSP Spain, vol 1, items 444-520.

51 Letter from Katharine to Ferdinand, April 15, 1507, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 513.

52 Letter from Henry VII to King Ferdinand of Spain, April 12, 1507, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 509.

53 Letters from Katharine to Ferdinand, April 15, 1507, CSP Spain, vol 1, items 513-514.

54 Letter from Ferdinand to De Puebla, May 19, 1507, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 520.

89 understood that the treatment of her was, in part, her own father’s fault and that it was in his

“power to alter the state of things.”55 She explained to her father that “[t]he reason why she has been thus treated is because he cannot at present fulfil [sic] what has been agreed upon.”56

Though Ferdinand assisted her a little with some funds, she “ha[d] been treated worse in England than any other woman” because of his continued delay in sending her marriage portion to

Henry.57 His postponements were a direct cause of both her treatment and her hitherto failed marriage arrangements. She attempted to make Ferdinand understand that Henry lost nothing by her father’s postponements, but was rather the “gainer under the present circumstances” because

Henry maintained that, so long as the marriage portion remains unpaid, “he does not think himself and the Prince bound by the marriage contract.”58 Katharine informed Henry that she was of the opinion that her “marriage was a thing which could not be undone,” and she was committed to the agreement between Spain and England. 59

Historiographically, Katharine’s destitution is often credited to malicious acts against her by Henry VII.60 However, further examination of the Calendar of State Papers reveals Ferdinand and Isabella’s dubious roles in the affair as well. From the onset of Katharine’s widowhood,

Ferdinand and Isabella demanded their daughter and her marriage portion back while, at the same time, required their ambassador to negotiate for the marriage of their daughter to her

55 Letter from Katharine, Princess of Wales to King Ferdinand of Spain, July 18, 1507, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 527.

56 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 527.

57 Letter from Katharine to Ferdinand, August 8, 1507, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 532.

58 Letter from Katharine to Ferdinand, September 7, 1507, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 541.

59 Letter from Katharine to Ferdinand, October 24, 1507 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 551.

60 For sources that argue this point, see Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (New York: Little and Brown, Co., 1941); and Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII (London: Faber and Faber, 2010).

90 deceased husband’s brother.61 After an arrangement was made a year later, Ferdinand delayed in sending the next portion of Katharine’s marriage payment because of the lag in receiving the papal dispensation for the newly arranged marriage. Deferment was an acceptable course of action considering that the marriage treaty indicated that “all payments are to be made in London within ten days before or after the solemnization of the marriage” and the marriage could not be conducted without this dispensation.62 However, the dispensation came within six months of the ratification of the treaty. A dispensation was only part of the necessary requirements for the marriage to proceed. Once the dispensation was available and the marriage was permitted to take place, it would not be arranged until “Ferdinand and Isabella, or their successors, can show that the whole marriage portion is in London, ready for delivery.”63 Four years later, when Katharine was both destitute and acting as an ambassador for her father, she learned that Ferdinand was asking for yet another deferment of the payment.64

From Ambassador to Queen

When Henry VII died in 1509, he was succeeded by his son, the newly crowned Henry

VIII. According to the new king, it was his father’s dying wish that Henry and Katharine be married and the old treaty with Ferdinand fulfilled. Ferdinand apparently abandoned the old hostilities between himself and Henry VII, moving quickly after the old king’s death to provide the final payment of Katharine’s dowry and he removed all impediments to her marriage.65

61 Letters from Ferdinand and Isabella to De Puebla, June 1502-June 1503, CSP Spain, vol 1, items 321- 364.

62 Treaty between Ferdinand and Isabella and Henry VII, June 20, 1503, CSP Spain, vol 1, item 364.

63 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 364.

64 CSP Spain, vol 1, item 541.

65 Letter from Ferdinand to Katharine, May 14, 1509, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 11.

91

Ferdinand explained, by way of his secretary, that he “[knew] perfectly well” that Henry VII had no true intention of allowing the marriage between Katharine and the Prince of Wales because he

“fear[ed] that his son might obtain too much power by his connexion [sic] with the house of

Spain” that Katharine provided.66 Despite his treatment of her the past several years and keeping his reasons for the delay of her marriage from her, Ferdinand claimed that Katharine was loved

“most of all his children” and, as such, he would look on her new husband as his own son, sharing with him all his secrets and expecting absolute confidence between the two.67 Katharine reassured Ferdinand of the relationship between England and Spain by telling him that being his

“true daughter and servant” was the “only thing she values in this life” and what made her “love her husband the most” was that Henry was as much a “true son to Ferdinand” as she. The rest of that letter explains to Ferdinand the support that she and her husband intended to show him and their shared eagerness to be placed “entirely in his hands.”68

Katharine began to adjust to her new position as Queen of England, but had to define her role. She would still be expected to perform as an intermediary between her father and her husband, but in what capacity and to what degree? There were traditional English interpretations of where a queen consort belonged in the world of national politics, but Katharine was already exposed to a more active and intimate position within that paradigm than tradition envisioned for her. Ultimately, Katharine followed some of the examples set forth by her mother. She found a way to balance her roles in the two spheres of influence: in the public, traditionally masculine sphere, she adopted the role of wife and mother; in the private, traditionally feminine sphere, her

66 Letter from Miguel Perez Almazan, First Secretary of King Ferdinand to Katharine, May 18, 1509, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 12.

67 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 12.

68 Letter from Queen Katharine to Ferdinand of Aragon, July 29, 1509, L&P, vol 1, item 127.

92 role became much more active as she advised Henry on political matters during their more personal interactions.69

There is little direct primary evidence of the extent of Katharine’s influence with the young king, but historians often argue that in these early years of Henry VIII’s reign, Katharine was the king’s most trusted councilor.70 She had the means and information to advise Henry based on her own opinions. There is little doubt of the significance of Katharine’s position, but as with many politicians, it is important to understand the motivation behind the advisor. For example, the advice and council that Katharine gave her husband was not always a result of her own conclusions, but often those of her father as she remained his greatest advocate in

England.71 Her father continued to send her letters concerning political matters, begging her to share them with her husband because the interests of Spain and England were so aligned.72

Through communication with her father, Katharine received information about the political and military decisions of the King of France, pope, and Marquis of Mantua, in addition to the happenings of the emperor in Venice.73 With Katharine acting as go-between, Henry became convinced that the alliance with Spain was one that would benefit him above all others and indicated to Ferdinand that he would reject all other offers of alliance to preserve the friendship between England and Spain.74

69 Jansen, Monstrous Regiment of Women, 117.

70 See Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon , 1941; Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon, 2010; Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment of Women, 2010; and David Loades, The Tudor Queens of England (New York: Continuum Books, 2009) for examples of the debate regarding Katharine’s influence on Henry.

71 Jansen, Monstrous Regiment of Women, 117.

72 Letter from Ferdinand to Katharine, September 13, 1509, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 22.

73 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 22.

74 Letter from Henry VIII to Ferdinand, November 1, 1509, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 23.

93

In November, 1509, Henry wrote to Ferdinand that it was his intention to prevent the destruction of Venice by the King of France. Henry agreed with Ferdinand that keeping Venice under Rome’s control enabled them to use it as a wall separating the Christian world from the

Turks. Henry wished to pursue a closer alliance between himself, Ferdinand, the King of the

Romans, Queen of Castile, and Prince Charles.75 Rather than reply to Henry, Ferdinand directed his response, admonitions, and advice through his ever faithful daughter. In a letter to her a few weeks after Henry wrote him, Ferdinand once again showed his faith in his daughter’s political abilities:

Before he makes an answer on these subjects, he begs her to tell the King her husband that secrecy and circumspection are always necessary in great enterprise. It would be very inconvenient, if the French were to know anything concerning their close alliance, their plan to preserve to Venice the territories which belong to her by right, and other similar matters, before they are ripe for execution. The King of England must therefore, henceforth write in his letters nothing but such things as the French may read without danger. All other communications must be made by her, and be written in her cypher…76

Henry had much to learn about discretion in politics, lessons Katharine mastered during her years as her father’s ambassador. The letter continues on for another nine pages, instructing Katharine about what the King of England must do regarding establishing alliances and to whom he should turn for intelligence on these matters. It seems obvious by this communication alone, that Katharine was deeply involved in England’s political situation, at least regarding foreign affairs.

Katharine and Henry placed all their faith in Ferdinand, a decision that, a few years hence, would prove faulty and cause Henry to reject Katharine’s considerable influence. In 1510,

Spain was at war with France and Henry wanted to enter the fray as an ally of Spain. Katharine

75 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 23.

76 Letter from Ferdinand to Katharine, November 18, 1509, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 27.

94 was there to assist in the negotiation of a treaty that ensured Henry’s support of Ferdinand. The following year, Henry agreed to join the League of Cambrai, further allying himself with Spain and cementing an invasion of France before April 1512.77 Henry sent his troops to Spain to join

Ferdinand’s army, but not to the effect that was understood in the treaty. Ferdinand used the presence of English troops as a stand-in army while he and his own troops took control of

Navarre. Ferdinand got what he wanted, but his lack of support for England forced Henry to abandon his own interests in France. Ferdinand made a number of excuses to Henry explaining why his actions were necessary and eventually won back the favor of the English king.

Another treaty of alliance against France was signed in 1513, this one heavily influenced by Katharine. In Katharine’s own letter to Cardinal Bainbridge, the English ambassador in

Rome, she was “so bent on war against the French, the foes of the Church, that she is determined never to rest nor desist until their king be utterly destroyed.”78 The Venetian ambassador, Andrea

Badoer, described the intimacy of Katharine’s knowledge of war, politics, and finance, exemplified by her enquiry as to the cost of “four large galleasses and two ‘bastard galleys,’” including the cost to man them. She deemed them necessary because “she understood that France was building two vessels of that description.” Katharine shared her husband’s appetite for war;

“The King bent on war – the Council averse to it – the Queen wills it.”79 Once again, Ferdinand betrayed Katharine and Henry. Two weeks before Henry and Ferdinand signed their treaty,

77 Jansen, Monstrous Regiment of Women, 118; Letter from Ferdinand to Luis Caroz, L&P, vol 1, item 483. Letter from Katharine to Ferdinand, June 26, 1510, L&P, vol 1, item513. For more information on the League of Cambrai, see Michael Edward Mallett and Christine Shaw, The 1494-1559: War, State, and Society in Early Modern Europe (Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2014).

78 Letter from Katharine to Cardinal Bainbridge, English Ambassador in Rome, November 2, 1512, CSP Venice, vol 2, item 203.

79 Letter from Andrea Badoer to the State, January 8, 1513, CSP Venice, vol 2, item 211.

95

Ferdinand signed a year-long treaty of peace with the French king, Louis XII.80 This time, Henry turned his infuriation on Katharine. She, in turn, made explanations and excuses for her father, and Henry decided to commence the invasion of France, with or without Ferdinand’s assistance.81

Henry must not have been cross with his wife for long and he clearly had faith in her political abilities. If Henry was going to war with France and intended to accompany his troops there, he had to name a trusted person to act as regent in his stead. Henry chose Katharine to be

“Regent and of England, Wales, and Ireland” and captain-general of the forces for home defense, “during the King’s absence in his expedition against France, for the preservation of the Catholic religion and recovery of his rights” and he instilled her with the “power to issue commissions of muster and array… to grant money to churches on behalf of the king… to appoint sheriffs, to issue warrants to the king’s treasurer… for payment of such sums as she may require” and to issue warrants to the three main advisors of the king: his secretary, keeper of his signet, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Lord Chancellor.82 The powers that Henry transferred to

Katharine went well beyond those given to other royal women who previously served as regents.83

While Henry was occupied with France, his brother-in-law, James IV, King of Scotland, determined that the best time to invade England was while Henry was away. In July 1513, James wrote to Henry informing the English king of his intentions to side with France and by the beginning of August, Katharine informed the mayor and sheriffs of Gloucester that she received

80 Letter from Ferdinand to Luis Caroz, , 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 1999.

81 Jansen, Monstrous Regiment of Women, 118; L&P, vol 1, item 1999.

82 Grants in June, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2055, no 46; Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 155.

83 Jansen, Monstrous Regiment of Women, 118.

96 news from the Borders that the “King of Scots means war.”84 Katharine took the Scottish invasion in stride, outwardly exhibiting the same warrior spirit that her mother possessed. In her letters to who was with her husband, she expressed that though she was encumbered with the preparations for war, her heart was “very good to it” and she was keeping herself busy with making standards, banners, and badges for her troops.85 James IV invaded

England on August 16, 1513 with 10,000 men and Katharine intended to meet him on the battlefield personally.86 Katharine rallied her troops by appealing to their sense of loyalty to

England, imploring them to be “ready to defend their territory, that the Lord smiled upon those who stood in defense of their own, and they should remember that English courage excelled that of all other nations.”87

By the middle of September, Katharine sent word to Henry in France informing him of

“the great victory that our Lord hath sent your subjects in your absence.” She intended to send him a piece of the dead King of Scotland’s coat for his banners, but, preferred to send more: “I thought to send himself unto you, but our Englishmen’s hearts would not suffer it,” and asked instead what Henry would like her to do regarding the burial of James’s body.88 Letters were hastily sent all across Europe, telling of England’s victory over the Scots. Henry wrote to the

Duke of Milan about how the English “slay[ed] a great number of the Scots and [put] the rest to flight;” Venetian diplomats wrote to each other that “the Queen widow of Scotland would make

84 Letter from Ferdinand to Luis Caroz, Junly 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2122; and Letter from the Queen to Mayor and Sheriffs of Glocester, August 4, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2143.

85 Letter from Katharine to Wolsey, August 13, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2162.

86 Letter from Katharine to Wolsey, September 2, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2226.

87 Letter from Peter Martyr to Lud. Furtado, September 23, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2299.

88 Letter from Katharine to Henry VIII, September 16, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2268.

97 a match for the Emperor;” and the English clerk of the signet wrote about the battle in detail to

Richard Pace, Secretary of the Cardinal of England.89 The Duke of Ferrara recorded in his diaries how content Katharine was with her accomplishment:

The King sent a French prisoner as a present to the Queen, and she sent him back three Scotsmen of note, saying it was not a marvel for one man-of-war to take another man-of-war, such as that Frenchman sent to her by the King, to whom she sent back these three Scotsmen taken by a woman alone.90

Now that England was secure from foreign invasion, Katharine began the administrative and diplomatic tasks that follow war. Ten days after her victory, she recalled her armies from

Scotland and, determining that there was no further threat to England, paid her troops the

£10,020 they were owed and dismissed them so as to not cause further expense to the crown.91

She then reached out to Lord Dacre of Scotland to act as intermediary between herself and

Henry’s sister, Margaret, the recently widowed Queen of Scotland. Katharine requested that

James IV’s son, the “young King of Scots” be remanded to the King of England who was his

“natural guardian.” She also extended her love to Margaret and offered to “send a servant to comfort her.”92 In the shadow of the queen’s victory, there are scant two lines, one in the Letters

& Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of Henry VIII and one in the Calendar of State Papers, Venice, that allude to Katharine’s delivery of a son and heir for Henry.93

89 Letter from Henry VIII to Maximilian Duke of Milan, September 16, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2270; Letter from Lorenzo Pasqualigo to his brothers Alvise and Francesco, September 18, 1513. L&P, vol 1, item 2278; and Letter from Brian Tuke, Clerk of the Signet to Richard [Pace], Secretary of the Cardinal of England, September 22, 1513, CSP Venice, vol 2, item 316.

90 Letter from October 8, 1513, CSP Venice, vol 2, 329. Venice, October 6, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2341.

91 Venice, September 26, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2307; and Thomas Elderton’s Accounts, Exchequer accounts, L&P, vol 1, item 2546, no ii.

92 Instruction from Katharine to Lord Dacre, L&P, vol 1, item 2323.

93 Venice, September 20, 1513, L&P, vol 1, item 2287; and CSP Venice, vol 2, item 326.

98

As Katharine took up her matronly duties and resolved herself to a more domestic portion of her queenship, Cardinal Wolsey stepped in as the primary advisor to Henry. Katharine focused instead on her charitable efforts and management of the royal household. She handled the care of

Henry’s linens, supervised officers in of various tasks around the household, and managed the movement of the court from one castle to the other as the seasons (or Henry’s will) allowed. In addition, Katharine oversaw the maintenance of her own estates and personally presided over the business meetings of the Queen’s Council.94 Her almoner gave increased amounts to the poor, common people of England and she often visited the homes of the destitute families of the area in which she was staying, bringing them food, money, and clothes.95

Katharine devoted herself to more passive views of foreign affairs, perhaps influenced by the humanists she patronized and with whom she surrounded herself, such as Thomas More,

Erasmus, and Juan Luis Vives.96 She was still very much concerned by the relationship between

England and France and advocated for a closer relationship with the Holy Roman Empire, of which her nephew, Charles V, was now emperor. She helped arrange the marriage of her daughter, Mary, to the emperor and saw it fall apart when Charles sought another match, more in line with his immediate needs. She was present at the meeting between Henry and Francis I, the

King of France at their summit at the Field of Cloth and Gold. Here Mary was engaged to the dauphin of France, an arrangement unappealing to Katharine and which drove a further wedge between her and Cardinal Wolsey, who was a strong supporter of a French alliance.

94 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 176-177.

95 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 179.

96 Letter from Vives to Erasmus, November 13, 1524, L&P, vol 4, item 828; Letter from Earsmus to Vives, December 27, 1524, L&P, vol 4, item 941; and Letter from Erasmus to Lupset, 1525, L&P, vol 4, item 1547. For more on Thomas More, see J. A. Guy, Thomas More (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). For more on Erasmus, see Desiderius Erasmus and Richard DeMolen, Erasmus (New York: St, Martin’s Press, 1973).

99

A few years later, in 1525, the king’s bastard, Henry Fitzroy, was given the royal title of

Duke of Richmond.97 It is not surprising that Henry bestowed a title upon his only son, but the choice of a royal title specifically could be cause for alarm for Katharine and Mary. Even Mary, the king’s legitimate daughter, was not given a title indicating her right to succeed to the throne.

Acknowledging and titling his son opened many succession options for the king, should

Katharine not produce any legitimate heirs. Shortly after Henry Fitzroy became the duke of

Richmond, Henry sent Mary away to the with her own household. It seems that

Henry acknowledged that Mary was his daughter and should therefore be treated as the Princess of Wales but continued to withhold the royal title from her, despite the protestations of

Katharine.98

It seemed to Henry that he had three options to secure succession. First, he could simply acknowledge his legitimate daughter, Mary, as his heir and arrange for her an acceptable match to serve as King Consort. Second, Mary could be married off as quickly as possible in the hopes that she would produce a male heir to whom Henry could pass the crown directly, thereby skipping Mary in the line of succession. This option forced the king to gamble on the ability to find a suitable match, his survival until Mary was old enough to bear children, and the chance that she bore male children. The third option was to renounce Katharine and remarry in the hopes that his future queen would provide a legitimate male heir. In 1525, with the encouragement of

Cardinal Wolsey and Anne Boleyn, Henry ultimately decided on the last option.99

97 Various entries dealing with the preparations, ceremonies, and titles surrounding Henry Fitzroy, July 16- 31, 2015, L&P, vol 4, items 1500, 1512, 1513, 1514, 1515, 1530, 1533.

98 Princess Mary’s Household, October 13, 1525, L&P, vol 4, item 1698.

99 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England, 100.

100

Henry claimed that he sought a divorce from Katharine because it was against God’s law for him to marry his brother’s widow. Historians continuously argue whether that was truly the case or if Henry simply wanted to be with Anne Boleyn. However, few analyses address the legitimate concern about English succession. If Henry VIII and his father both observed a position of “loyalty to the crown over loyalty to the ruler,” then the absence of a living male child was more than Henry’s contrived evidence of God’s displeasure at their union. Lack of a legitimate male successor directly impacted the security of the crown of England. Taken in this vein, Katharine and Henry’s divorce could be seen as a political necessity to protect the office of the King of England. It is possible though that Henry pursued a more theological approach because of Katharine’s devotion to the Catholic Church. Katharine was exposed to female rulers throughout her life and would probably not be opposed to her daughter, Mary, being regnant of

England. She would likely not acknowledge “lack of a male heir” as an acceptable rationale for divorce. However, if she could be convinced that she was offending God and living in sin, she may be less reluctant to impede Henry’s divorce request, whatever his actual motives were.

101

Chapter 5

ONE WOMAN’S AGENCY

In sixteenth century England, it is impossible to separate the world of politics from the world of religion. One cannot even divide them enough to simply say that religion only bled over into politics through persecutions, , or holocausts. The two were so intertwined that throughout Europe one could not function without consideration of the other and the court of

Henry and Katharine was no exception. Two of the defining events of Katharine and Henry’s lives serve as an example of this interconnectivity. In Henry’s divorce from Katharine and separation from the Catholic Church, one can see the power that the Roman Catholic Church held over the government and dynasties of all the countries of Europe. While there were certainly political implications to their divorce, their separation had a much greater impact on the religious culture in England. From the onset, Henry named religious concerns as the cause of his uncertainty about their union and theologians were among the first people consulted about the dilemma. The methods Henry and his advisors used to obtain the annulment throughout the six years’ time were all religious in nature and Henry was not even able to obtain his divorce without separating himself completely from Catholic ecclesiology.

Katharine also appealed to religion and religious leaders in defense of the legitimacy of her marriage. She discussed her case with her own theologians, both in England and in the Holy

Roman Empire, she appealed directly to the pope, she negotiated with the papal emissaries about her options and, most importantly, exercised her own agency by refusing to acknowledge any decision made by a court outside the papacy. Her actions are often over-looked because so much of the historiography focuses on the outcome of conflicts; the story of the victor gets told and analyzed, but the actions of the loser are rarely considered even though the choices and decisions

102 of the losing party often dictate the course of action the victor pursues. Because Katharine was ultimately divorced from Henry, historiography tends to portray her as a victim of Henry’s whims, the Boleyns’ scheming, and Cromwell’s religious agenda. Through analysis of the primary sources, particularly the Spanish Calendar of State Papers, one must instead conclude that Katharine was the champion of her own advocacy. A valid argument can be made that she was a “victim” of the societal times because her position as a consort and her nature as a woman both compelled her into subservient positions, however, even here Katharine bridges a gap between medieval and early modern ideas about queens and women by blatantly refusing the king’s requests and by thwarting the authority of both the king and his legal courts. Henry was the one who initiated the divorce from Katharine, but her responses to his accusations and staunch repudiation of English authority over such a decision, led to the complete upheaval of the English social, political, and religious culture.

Pre-Reformation England

Religious changes in England occurred concurrently with expanding religious division and dissention throughout mainland Europe, which made it much easier for Henry VIII to pursue his own course. The English Reformations did not happen because of Luther, and the Catholic

Church in England was not as corrupt or as worldly as in Germany.1 Luther’s ideas were adamantly opposed by Henry before he saw their advantage to his divorce cause and found personal benefit from portions of Luther’s railings against the Catholic Church. The initial waves of Protestantism that were catching on mainland Europe only reached England through

1 Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society Under the Tudors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 12. For more on the religious changes happening throughout Europe, see G. R. Elton, Reformation Europe, 1517-1559 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963); G. R. Elton, ed., The New Cambridge Modern History II: The Reformation 1520-1559 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958); and Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

103 individual travelers and contraband books.2 Henry worked diligently to keep what he viewed as heretical ideas out of England, even printing his own treatise defending orthodox Catholicism which earned him the title “Defender of the Faith” from the pope.

The events of Henry’s Reformation that enabled religious change in England occurred as the consequences of everyday politics and the outcomes of power struggles. The reformations were built upon many small but important decisions. Were you for or against Cardinal Wolsey when he was accused of deliberately slowing the divorce progress in 1529? Did you still support

Henry’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon after their divorce in 1533? Did you recognize Henry as Supreme Head of the Church in England or were you a believer in papal authority in 1534?

While one decision often led to the need for the next, the changes of the Henrician Reformation in England did not happen en masse or in a predetermined chronology. Change was piecemeal and took years to implement.3 The participants in these decisions did not know at the time that they were participating in a ‘reformation.’ As Christopher Haigh puts it, even the term

‘reformation’ is inaccurate to describe the many changes occurring throughout England.4 The label of a reformation is designated after the fact, grouping individual events such as the break from Rome, secular control over the church, and the “Protestantization” of church services into an overall movement, regardless of whether a completely revolutionary movement was intended.

However, for the purposes of this work, this time in English history will be referred to as the

Henrician Reformation.

2 Frederick George Marcham, A Constitutional History of Modern England, 1485 to the Present (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 5.

3 Haigh, English Reformations, 14.

4 Christopher Haigh, “The Recent Historiography of the ” The Historical Journal 25, no. 4 (December 1982), 995.

104

Historians’ interpretations of the Henrician Reformation seem to be grouped into one of four schools of thought based upon the motives for reform and the pace by which reform spread.

In the first analysis, it is argued that a nationalization of the Church was rooted in the political structures of England and instituted by official political channels which enabled the rapid spread of Protestantism. In his Reform and Reformation: England 1509-1559, Elton effectively argues how Cromwell’s policies were accepted at the center of English politics, but fails to show how those programs were instituted outside of London to argue for religious nationalism.5 A second consideration, embraced by author A.G. Dickens, maintains that the Reformation was “easy and fast” because its roots were in the religious aspects of life, rather than the political. In this way, reforms could spread more easily to people of all classes or stations regardless of their involvement in politics.6 The problem with this second approach is that is requires a rather large assumption by the historian: that the general population as a whole was open to new, heretical ideas and retained no loyalty or respect for the Catholic Church. In the third school of thought, there are historians of the opinion that the Henrician Reformation was essentially haphazard and indecisive and contributed only building blocks to an actual Protestant Reformation which did not occur until the Elizabethan period. Finally and most realistically, an approach appears in works by Penry Williams and A. L. Rowse which argues that reform was imposed on the English people from above by political authorities, but that actual reform at the national level occurred slowly, only achieving popularity during the reign of Elizabeth I.7

5 G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509-1559 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 157-200, 273-295, and 353-371.

6 Haigh, “Recent Historiography,” 997. For the Dickens work referred to, see A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (New York: Schocken Books, 1964).

7 Haigh, “Recent Historiography,” 1001. For the Williams work referred to, see Penry Williams, The Tudor Regime (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). For the Rowse work, see A.L. Rowse, Tudor Cornwall: A Portrait of Society (New York: C. Scribner, 1969).

105

Before addressing the end of England’s relationship with the Catholic Church, one must understand the connection the English had with religion before the Henrician Reformation. To do so necessitates a definition of “religion” as it applied to pre-sixteenth century England. In his

Catholic England: Faith, Religion, and Observance Before the Reformation, R. N. Swanson defines religion much as it is today - as a prescribed and authoritarian structure of beliefs.

However, he also refers to a distinction between “religion” and “religiosity” where he defines religiosity as an individual construction of expressions of spiritual belief and action, similar to the distinction made today between religion and spirituality.8 Through these definitions,

Swanson’s argument is that the Catholicism of pre-Reformation England was achieved more as a common holistic belief in Catholicism’s overall view rather than a strict adhesion to its fixed dogmas. When people think of the cultures of previous centuries, be they religious, social, or political in nature, they often do so with a modern bias that leads them to believe that those beliefs were held throughout an entire nation. Swanson’s argument that it is more likely that local and regional devotions and practices differed from each other and were fragmented parts of the overall concept of Catholicism is more likely than a nation-wide system that appealed to all people.9

The Ecclesia Anglicana, the English arm of the Catholic Church, was a chief influence in the daily lives of English citizens. The church in England exercised an enormous influence on contemporary concepts of virtue and political order through the control of the sources of information. Religion, morality, and virtues were taught to children primarily by their families

8 R N Swanson, Catholic England: Faith, Religion, and Observance Before the Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 1. In his definitions of religion and religiosity, Swanson also refers to G.I. Langmuir’s History, Religion, and Antisemitism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), specifically chapters 7, 9, and 10.

9 Swanson, Catholic England, 7.

106 and cultural continuity.10 Access to the religious teachings of the Bible was available solely through the sermons delivered in local parishes. Because the preachers of these sermons were appointed by higher-ranking members of the Church and those members were selected in an agreement between the Church and the monarch, the preachers held the potential to teach political mores through the pulpit as well as divine lessons.11 Much attention was given to the afterlife and many gravitated toward the churches and religious teachings that offered the rewards of heaven in exchange for a virtuously lived life. Beginning with the Plantagenet house, kings of England operated as though they were endowed with a God-given right to rule. Nearly two centuries later, Henry VIII tested the limits of his divine authority and began the upheaval of the established order through his Henrician Reformation.

Dissemination of religious information was a key concept throughout the religious world of England and became a major point of the Henrician Reformation. Before the early sixteenth century, content of faith was spread through familial activities and simple cultural continuity: ‘I believe this because my family and my community do.’ Godparents, particularly godmothers, played an important role in their lives of their godchildren; they were charged with instilling the basic tenets of faith and teaching Catholic prayers. In a denomination known for its veneration of the Virgin Mary, it is no surprise that aspects of the religious culture were passed on by women despite its existence in an overall patrilineal society.12 However, the main point of contention during the Reformation was not one of concern that the people were being educated about their

10 R.N. Swanson, Catholic England: Faith Religion and Observance Before the Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 8.

11 For more information on Catholic England, see John Saward, J.S. Morrill and Michael Tomko, Firmly I Believe and Truly: the Spiritual Tradition of Catholic England, 1483-1999 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

12 For more on godparents’ roles, see S.G. Bell, “Medieval women book owners: arbiters of lay piety and ambassadors of culture” in J.M. Bennett, ed, Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); and C. Richmond, “The English Gentry and Religion, c. 1500” in C. Harper-Bill, ed. Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England (New York: Boydell Press, 1991).

107 religion, but who was the source of education and interpretation. Access to the Bible was limited and the editions that did exist were written in Latin which required the reader to possess a certain degree of education. The obvious solution to this problem was to translate the Bible into English editions.13 The problem with an English Bible, as the Church regarded it, was that the contents then become open to too many varying interpretations and could not be regulated by the Church.

Availability of religious information to the masses would decrease the Church’s political and religious power over them. In fact, Derek Wilson argues that the Henrician Reformation

“worked” primarily because of the effectiveness of the method of dissemination.14

Lack of a unified religious practice in England allowed for continuous questioning of religious practice and religious officials. In a time when charity was an essential part of English community and the church was expected to help care for the town’s impoverished and destitute, citizens saw their alms spent on adornments for the church.15 If a neighboring town or county practiced something different, which was the correct way? Which clerics were providing the right path to God? These types of questions led to general opposition to the clergy, not to the various accusations of inappropriate behavior, dereliction of duties, or acceptance of indulgences, but to the very position of priests.16

Priests were not just exerting their power and influence through the pulpit. High ranking religious officials like bishops, archbishops, and cardinals held influential positions within government as well. Henry VIII’s reign exemplified the principle of appointing one’s own ministers and councilors to further the king’s interests. Such appointments were not considered

13 However, even this solution would not guarantee any further access to the contents of the Bible as illiteracy was widely extant and there was no standardized spelling or grammatical rules for English.

14 Derek Wilson, The English Reformation (London: Constable and Robinson, 2012), vii.

15 Wilson, The English Reformation, 26.

16 Swanson, Catholic England, 33.

108 to be lifetime nor even for a specific term; they were granted at the sole discretion of the King of

England.17 For the bulk of Henry’s reign, he was advised primarily by his Lords Chancellor. As expected, when Henry was married to Katharine of Aragon and was closely aligned with the

Roman Catholic Church, his Lords Chancellor were of the Catholic faith and advocated for good relations with the other Catholic kingdoms. His reign began under the advisement of William

Warham, the . However, Katharine and her father, Ferdinand of

Aragon, proved to be much more effectual at influencing Henry than Warham. Warham was followed by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the , who held the Lord Chancellor position from 1515-1529. The king remained as the ultimate power and signatory, but Wolsey was left to manage the details and negotiations. This arrangement worked successfully for both

Wolsey and Henry until Henry’s impatience with his divorce proceedings caused him to lose faith in the Cardinal.

The Lord Chancellor position was not the only way to advise or impart religious views to the king. By the time of Henry’s divorce from Katharine of Aragon, supporters of the king’s

“great matter” were achieving their influence through the office of the Lord Privy Seal. Anne

Boleyn’s father, , served as the Lord Privy Seal from 1530 until the family fell from grace in 1536.18 There are many theories as to the exact cause of Anne Boleyn’s demise.

Eric Ives argues that Anne’s opinions about confiscated monastic wealth threatened Thomas

Cromwell’s relationship with Henry so Cromwell falsified charges to get rid of her.19 Boleyn biographer Hester Chapman and G.W. Bernard’s arguments center round the continuing problem

17 David Loades, Tudor Government (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Inc, 1997), 18-20.

18 For more on Anne Boleyn’s role throughout the English Reformation, see Eric Ives, “Anne Boleyn and the Early Reformation in England: The Contemporary Evidence” The Historical Journal 37, no. 2 (1994), 389-400.

19 Ives, “Anne Boleyn and the Early Reformation in England,” 400.

109 of succession and Henry’s consistent lack of a legitimate male heir and therefore Henry dispatched of Anne for somewhat the same reason he had Katharine.20 Regardless of the reason,

Anne’s downfall also had serious ramifications for friends and family close to her. Her brother and other accused adulterers were executed and her father was stripped of his titles.

Thomas Cromwell replaced Boleyn after serving in multiple departments of government and obtaining a large amount of influence in the management of the church.21 Both Boleyn and

Cromwell were supporters of Martin Luther and advocates for Lutheranism. They and other members of the Boleyn faction are often credited with influencing Henry to break from

Catholicism.22 One of Cromwell’s significant contributions to the central government came in his guidance of Henry to establish a Privy Council which supervised, under Cromwell’s own eye of course, the routine tasks associated with the central government.23 Cromwell presided over the dissolution of the monasteries which allowed him to enhance the financial position of the monarchy through the acquisition of the property and wealth of the Catholic Church’s holdings in England. In Cromwell’s opinion, all acquired funds should be allotted to the king (with a convenient percentage set aside for himself), rather than being diverted for public uses.

Cromwell was making Henry a wealthy man and thereby remained in the king’s good graces.

Chapman’s book argues that Henry’s ultimate decision to fracture England’s allegiance to the Catholic Church came from the influence of Cromwell and an extremely controversial

20 Hester Chapman, The Challenge of Anne Boleyn (New York: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1974), 41; G.W. Bernard, “The Fall of Anne Boleyn” in The English Historical Review 106, no. 420 (1991), 589.

21 For more on Thomas Cromwell’s management of the church finances and his role in the dissolution of the monasteries, see G.R. Elton, Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

22 Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (Boston: Little Brown, 1941), 278.

23 Marcham, Constitutional Monarchy, 29. For more on the Privy Council, see Marcham, Constitutional Monarchy, 29-36 and Elton, Tudor Revolution in Government, in discussion of Cromwell’s contributions to Henry VIII’s administration.

110 book he brought with him from Italy, Marsiglio of Padua’s Defensor Pacis. This book, and

Cromwell’s continued reference to it in his counsel of Henry, propagated Henry’s ideology that he did not come under the authority of the pope and was, in fact, the spiritual leader of England, able to apply canon law based on his interpretation, not the pope’s.24 Historian Retha Warnicke also suggests that Thomas Cromwell convinced Henry that spiritual supremacy in England

“belonged to the king over a church which was to enjoy ‘provincial self-determination’” which ultimately led to the schism. In Cromwell’s counsel to Henry he declared that, “[p]apal authority was thus identified as a late and illegal intrusion into the kingdom.” 25 According to Ives,

Cromwell’s manipulation of Henry VIII began during the king’s courtship of Anne Boleyn. After he planted the idea of royal supremacy in Henry’s head, Cromwell convinced the king that the best route to assert his newfound supremacy was to marry Anne Boleyn.26

Katharine and Henry’s Divorce: Spiritual or Temporal Jurisdiction?

Henry’s decision to seek a formal way out of marriage was founded upon both a change of circumstances and a change of heart. The change of circumstances came in the fortunate death in battle of the only potential rival for the English throne who was not within Henry’s reach,

Richard de la Pole, the last surviving son of Edward IV’s sister.27 The change of heart was provided by his mounting affections for Anne Boleyn, lady-in-waiting to Katharine of Aragon.

Only now could alternative solutions to the succession crisis truly be pursued. A divorce from

24 Chapman, The Challenge of Anne Boleyn, 104.

25 Retha Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 101.

26 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 152.

27 Richard Rex, The Tudors (Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Limited, 2006), 58.

111

Katharine of Aragon would free him for a second marriage.28 By the close of the Middle Ages were a common practice of royal houses of Europe, and obtaining them was at the discretion of the pope. “Complex family relationships within a relatively narrow elite obsessed with genealogy provided plenty of grist to the mill of Catholic canon law,” leaving many marital disputes to be ruled on by the pope and his various legates.29 Henry insisted his case was straightforward and based on the text of the Biblical Book of Leviticus. The text forbade marriage to a brother’s widow, which seemed to coincide with his predicament exactly. His conscience convinced him that his marriage to Katharine was an affront to the laws of God and as such, not even the pope possessed enough authority to dispense anyone from their duty to obey that law. Henry argued therefore that his marriage was invalid even though it had been sanctioned by the pope decades before.

Anglophone historiography tends to approach Katharine and Henry’s divorce primarily from the English point of view. The letters and papers exchanged between Henry, his ambassadors, and Cardinal Wolsey are commonly examined to address Henry’s “great matter,” but with an eye to Henry’s desires and devices for achieving his goals. There are two very recent exceptions to this analysis. Lauren MacKay’s Inside the Tudor Court: Henry VIII and his Six

Wives through the writings of the Spanish Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys is helpful in ascertaining the views of Spain throughout the divorce, but since Chapuys did not become an

Imperial/Spanish ambassador until 1529, his writings offer few insights into the origins and early years of the proceedings. Additionally, MacKay only addresses Chapuys’s involvement in the divorce issues in a single chapter, reserving the remainder of the book for discussion of the

28 “Divorce” here is not, as now, the termination of a valid marriage, but what would today be considered an annulment, a judgment that a marriage had not in fact been validly contracted.

29 Rex, The Tudors, 58-59.

112

Princess Mary (later styled the Lady Mary), Henry’s feelings regarding Anne Boleyn, and the actions of Archbishop Cranmer in turning England away from the Catholic Church. The second exception is Catherine Fletcher’s The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the

Vatican which analyses Katharine’s divorce from the perspective of Gregorio Casali, England’s ambassador in Rome. Though he, too, is part of the Henry VIII/Wolsey regime, Fletcher addresses the precarious position of balancing the needs and desires of Henry, Charles V, Francis

I, and Pope Clement VII, highlighting that there were more forces at play than just Henry and his advisors.

However, there is a significant source being neglected in both these works: that of the

Spanish Calendar of State Papers. The story of the divorce is too often told with Katharine only having a minor role in the affair. Examination of the State Papers paints a very different picture of Henry’s deviousness, Katharine’s purposeful inaction, and the lengths her nephew, the

Emperor Charles V, and his ambassadors went to exhibit their support for her cause. It is accurate to say that by this time, Katharine lost much of her direct political power and was often subject to the supervision and espionage of Cardinal Wolsey. However, her restricted opportunity to act publicly and actively should not be interpreted as if those options were not available to her. In fact, it is Katharine’s inaction and staunch belief in the validity of her marriage that changes the course of English history forever.

In 1527, the Imperial ambassador, Don Iñigo Mendoza desired nothing more than an interview with Queen Katharine. He was relatively new to court, a representative of Katharine’s nephew, and came from her home country, yet had only been granted audiences with Henry.

Equally intent upon speaking with the new ambassador, Katharine sent messages to him via her confessor, informing Mendoza that obtaining an interview with her would only happen “by

113 applying to the Cardinal [Wolsey].” Katharine advised Mendoza to explain to Wolsey that his intention was merely to relay messages from her friends in Spain and was, in no way, political.30

He applied for and was granted an audience, but only under the supervision of Wolsey, who subsequently cut their meeting short. Mendoza informed the emperor of his suspicion that

Wolsey was intentionally keeping the two from speaking and that even if they were able to communicate, whatever was said “might do her more harm than good.” Katharine shared this opinion, observing to her confessor that Henry and Wolsey often “do not tell her the truth,” especially in matters that involve her nephew.31 Cardinal Wolsey’s continued regulation of

Katharine’s visitors and communications is indicative of how much power and influence she had, both at Henry’s court and abroad. His attempts to keep her out of the political sphere imply that despite his increasing influence over Henry, Katharine was still able to wield a significant amount of power. If not, the Cardinal would not have concerned himself with the implications of

Katharine’s conversations with an ambassador or the letters to her family.

Two months later, Mendoza reported that a “reliable authority” informed him of

Wolsey’s “scheming to bring about the Queen’s divorce.”32 He never revealed his source, but went on to say that Henry was in support of a divorce from Katharine and argued that their marriage was invalid because she had been his brother’s wife first. As long as historians have been researching the divorce of Katharine and Henry, there has been debate about Henry’s true reasons and the debate is typically polarized between two views: first, Henry argued that his marriage was void based on the Biblical Book of Leviticus and second, Henry was in love with

30 Letter from Mendoza, to the Emperor, March 18, 1527, in Calendar of State Papers, Spain, vol 2, 1509- 1524 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1862), item 37. This source will be noted in the future as CSP Spain followed by the volume number and item number of each citation.

31 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 37.

32 Letter from Mendoza, to the Emperor, May 18, 1527, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 69.

114

Anne Boleyn. It seems that through Mendoza’s letters, it can be ascertained that the former is the more likely motive. Mendoza was aware that Henry already secretly assembled a panel of bishops and lawyers to discuss the matter. The secret committee is often referenced by Tudor historians, but it is clearly not as clandestine as implied. Mendoza found out via his “reliable authority” and, given the rampant communication among ambassadors, it is probable that other ambassadors were aware as well. At the close of his letter, Mendoza indicated that even

Katharine was aware of the discussions – something many historians say she was not made aware of until the following month – informing the emperor that “the Queen desires perfect secrecy to be kept in the matter, at least for the present.”33

She was aware that Henry was contemplating their divorce, but Katharine seemed to be oblivious to the multitude of benefits Henry and Wolsey predicted would come from the annulment. Katharine failed to provide Henry with a male heir and a new wife may be able to succeed where she had not. Additionally, she proved to be a liability for more than just dynastic reasons. Henry was at odds with her nephew, Charles V, to the extent of being on the verge of war with him and Katharine symbolized the Imperial alliance. Ambassador Mendoza wrote “she will do her best to restore the old alliance between Spain and England, but though her will is good, her means are small” and was of the opinion that “the principle cause of [her] misfortune is that she identifies herself entirely with the emperor’s interests.”34

In June 1527, Henry finally approached Katharine with his concerns about the validity of their marriage and the news that theologians and canonists agreed that the two had been living in

“mortal sin” for the past eighteen years. Henry begged Katharine to keep the findings private until they could be formally ruled upon, but the request was unnecessary since the “affair [was]

33 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 69.

34 CSP Spain, vol 2, items 69 and 37.

115 as notorious as if it had been proclaimed by the public crier.”35 Mendoza claimed that the reason

Henry wanted to keep his divorce request quiet was out of fear of the public dissent “for so great is the attachment that the English bear to the Queen that some demonstration would probably take place in her household.”36 Katharine’s immediate reaction was to reach out to Charles, but she was concerned that any messenger she sent to him would be intercepted by the English. She decided, instead, to send a trusted man from court, Francisco Felipe, who was not one of her usual messengers, to Spain with a letter for the emperor explaining her current situation. 37

The emperor responded to Katharine’s request for secrecy, writing a response to both

Mendoza and the queen in his own hand and without the consultation of his own Privy Council.

Charles immediately honored the queen as a member of his family, letting Mendoza know, “We cannot desert the Queen in her troubles and intend on doing all We can in her favor.” 38 Charles went on to explain that he could not “believe it possible” that such actions could be taken against his aunt who was so “good and virtuous, having always conducted herself in so irreproachable a manner, and being of such Royal blood.” 39 Mendoza’s claims that Wolsey was the driving force behind Henry’s divorce were reciprocated by Charles who wrote to the pope and requested that the Cardinal’s legatine powers be immediately revoked and that neither he, nor any other ecclesiastic of England, interfere with the divorce proceedings as they all surely had malice

35 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, July 13, 1527, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 113.

36 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 113.

37 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 113.

38 Letter from the Emperor to Mendoza, July 29, 1527, CSP Spain, vol 3, part 2, item 131. The term “We” in Charles’s quote is in reference to the “Royal ‘We’” wherein the monarch is refering to himself as both king and representation of God.

39 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 131.

116 towards Katharine.40 The support of Charles, a man who had a direct line of communication with the pope and had ambassadors and kin all throughout Europe, became the best chance Katharine had for defending her position.

By August, reports started reaching Charles about the involvement of the .

It was generally accepted throughout Henry’s court that if his marriage to Katharine was annulled, he would marry the daughter of Master Boleyn, who was once an ambassador at the

Imperial Court.41 Mary Boleyn, Henry’s former mistress, was married and gone from court by this time, so it can only be assumed that Mendoza was referring to Anne when he passed this news to Charles. Anne’s power and influence at court grew rapidly. She made no secret of the dominance she held, displaying it publicly during an interaction with Cardinal Wolsey. When

Wolsey returned from a trip and sent an assistant to ask the king when and where they could arrange a meeting to discuss the business of his travels, Anne interjected before Henry could respond, answering, “Where else is the Cardinal to come? Tell him that he may come here, where the King is.”42

Through her communication with Charles, Katharine learned that her nephew possessed the original copy of the papal bulls and dispensations that were granted upon her marriage to

Henry.43 Ambassador Mendoza retained a transcript of the same dispensations, but requested that a copy be sent to him that was “so fully and legally attested that it may be presented in Court” because in England, a separate dispensation was found that “materially differ[ed]” from the

40 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 131; Letter from the Emperor to Katharine, September 1, 1527, CSP Spain, vol 3, part 2, item 537.

41 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, August 16, 1527, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 152.

42 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, October 26, 1527, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 224.

43 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 537.

117 transcripts to which he had access.44 Katharine’s access to the original papers from Spain seemed to unnerve Henry. If all parties possessed merely copies or transcripts, it would be easy to argue the authenticity of any one of them, but an original, with the Papal seal attached, would certainly render the English copy, that so differed from the Spanish transcripts, counterfeit. Henry could not risk such a blow to his cause and consequently arranged to send someone to Spain to assess whether Charles truly retained the originals and, if so, to “get that document into his hands and place it where it cannot be found again.”45 Katharine insisted upon warning Charles, communicating to him the dangers of the documents “falling into the hands of her enemies” because she was aware that “all the strength of her case” depended on his retention of them and his continued support of her.46

The only other hope of success that Katharine had was to have the trial heard in Rome, away from the corruption of Henry’s court. The pope sent an emissary, Cardinal Campeggio, to

England to ascertain the true account of events regarding Henry’s desire for a divorce. Charles was assured that this visit would in no way cause detriment to Katharine and that it was the pope’s wish for the case to be heard in Rome. Katharine was apprised that Campeggio was instilled with a secret mission for his trip to England: he was to advise Henry to “do his duty” by putting aside “these infatuations” and not bring matters to a scandalous head.47 It is this instruction to Campeggio that causes historians to seriously question Henry’s motives for a divorce. It does not seem appropriate for a Cardinal to refer to Henry’s religious concerns as

“infatuations,” a word generally reserved more for admiration of someone in particular.

44 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, September 18, 1528, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 550.

45 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, November 23, 1528, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 592.

46 Letter from Katharine to the Emperor, November 24, 1528, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 593.

47 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 537.

118

Campeggio’s reference to Henry’s “infatuations” hints that the pope suspected Henry’s motivation for divorce was driven by his desire for Anne Boleyn, not his religious apprehensions.

Katharine remained resolute in her assertion that her marriage to Henry was valid and that her honor and reputation were undamaged. As evidenced by her many letters and appeals to

Charles and the pope, it is certain that Katharine staunchly maintained that she was Henry’s lawful wife and was likely motivated by truth and honor rather than concern about retaining her position as Queen of England. Additionally, her unwavering stance was supported by Charles who advised her “by no means to consent to the marriage being dissolved.”48 It is also apparent, however, that everyone involved wanted a quick end to this matter. Henry already endeavored to achieve his ends through a secret council, the pope already sought to have Cardinal Wolsey act as Legate and intervene in the matter, Campeggio was in England trying to sort out a resolution, and Katharine received a number of “offers” if she would just assent to the divorce. Even

Campeggio had an offer to make to her on behalf of the pope.49 The pope presented cloistral life as an option for Katharine:

In order to do away with the scruples and other great evils which the discord between her and her husband the King was likely to produce, were they to live together, and in order also to remove any difficulties as to the succession to the crown of England, he (the pope) thought that the best expedient to be adopted was that she should profess in some religious community, and take vows of perpetual chastity. The since Her Highness had already reached the third and last period of natural life, and had spent the first two setting a good example [of virtue] to the world, she would thus put a seal to all the good actions of her life…”50

48 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 537.

49 For more on the pope’s mission for Campeggio, see James Gairdner, “New Lights on the Divorce of Henry VIII” The English Historical Review, 12, no 45 (January 1897), 12; and Catherine Fletcher, The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

50 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, November 18, 1528, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 586.

119

Katharine reacted with anger and irritation. When she calmed, she explained to

Campeggio that, though she held her husband’s conscience in the highest esteem, she had no misgivings about the validity of her marriage and therefore the proposition from the pope was unnecessary. She was convinced that if His Holiness consented to hearing her plead her own defense against Henry’s accusations, he would never consider making her such an offer.

However, Katharine considered herself to be a “dutiful daughter of the Church” and would not go against the wishes of the pope – after she was heard and then only if a cloistral life remained the pope’s wishes afterwards.51 The next day, Henry was apprised of the discussion and its ineffectiveness and he began planning his next schemes. First, Henry thought to steal Katharine’s absolving evidence; now, he attempted to manipulate her religious devotion. The king informed

Katharine that they were no longer married and that all the jurists of England drafted a declaration attesting to their divorce. Henry told her that the pope condemned her in Rome and that Campeggio was in England, not to offer her a peaceful way out of their divorce, but to render her sequestration to a nunnery as her sentence for living in sin with him.52 Katharine was convinced that she had been found guilty, though she consented that it was “against [her] soul and conscience.” She went to see Cardinal Campeggio to offer her confession where she learned of Henry’s treachery. She took up her cause even more fervently afterwards, loudly and publicly declaring that she was the “lawful wife of Henry and remained the true Queen of England.”53

51 Mendoza to the Emperor, November 18, 1528, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 586.

52 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 586.

53 CSP Spain, vol 2, item 586.

120

Henry tried a number of other tactics to coerce Katharine into a divorce.54 She was accused of “attempting the King’s life” so that she and her daughter could seek marriages that

Katharine thought were more appropriate for them than Henry’s choices. The king’s lawyers deemed Katharine’s copy of the papal dispensation inadequate and “not a faithful copy of the original.” They argued that a woman who would attempt to take the life of her king would certainly not hesitate to falsify documents and hide originals where they could not be found.55

Before long, Henry was circulating a petition among the principal men of the kingdom designed to show that the annulment was actually desired by the people of England. He failed miserably, only managing to secure the signatures of Thomas Boleyn, George Boleyn, and Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk.56 By the end of 1528, Henry and Wolsey extorted and cajoled communications from Katharine attempting to convince the pope and emperor that she had finally resolved herself to divorcing Henry.57 Henry’s many attempts to discredit Katharine and ingratiate himself in the eyes of his people proved disastrous. Ambassador Eustace Chapuys routinely reported on the support Katharine seemed to receive from many of the people of

England.

On June 18, 1529, a unique legatine court opened at Blackfriars in London. Henry tasked them “to determine the validity or nullity of his marriage, about which he had from the beginning

54 For more on the various ways Henry tried to influence the outcome of his divorce, see Jessica Sharkey, “Between King and Pope: Thomas Wolsey and the Knight Mission” Historical Research, 84, no 224 (May 2011); James Gairdner, “New Lights on the Divorce of Henry VIII” The English Historical Review, 12, no 45 (January 1897), 12; Catherine Fletcher, The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); and Lauren MacKay, Inside the Tudor Court: Henry VIII and his Six Wives through the writings of the Spanish Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys (Glouchestershire: Amberley, 2014.

55 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, November 19, 1528, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 587.

56 Letter from Mendoza to the Emperor, December 2, 1528, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 600.

57 Letter from Mendoza to Muxetula, Imperial Ambassador in Rome, January 25, 1529, CSP Spain, vol 2, item 618.

121 felt a perpetual scruple.” 58 Queen Katharine appeared before the court in person and implored that she should not be discarded and dishonored. She pleaded with the king to consider her honor and that of their daughter. She thought he should be pleased at her willingness to defend their honor and show her loyalty to him by maintaining belief in their mutual adherence to God’s will.

The Queen said that it was not the time to say this after so long silence. For which [Henry] excused himself by the great love he had and has for her. He desired, more than anything else, that the marriage should be declared valid…59

Her final request was that this case be heard in Rome “as the present place was subject to suspicion, and because the cause is already at Rome.”60

[Henry] remonstrated with the judges that the Queen's request for the removal of the cause to Rome was unreasonable, considering the Emperor's power there; whereas this country is perfectly secure for her, and she has had the choice of prelates and lawyers.61

When the court reconvened, its sole purpose was to pass sentence upon the royal marriage as the Papal Legates, Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey had refused Katharine’s appeal to the pope. The judges were instructed that confirmation of their rejection of her appeal must be made in her presence, any appeals made by her in writing must be rejected, and if she left the courtroom, she must be warned that the judges will proceed whether she is present or not.62 By this time the queen had very strong support both among the nobility and the general populace of

England. Bishop led a powerful legal and canonical team, which conducted her defense and the established nobility who hated the rise of the upstart Boleyn clan were staunch

58 Letter from DuBellay to Francis I, June 22, 1529, L&P, vol 4, item 5702.

59 L&P, vol 4, item 5702.

60 L&P, vol 4, item 5702.

61 L&P, vol 4, item 5702.

62 The Divorce, June 18, 1529, L&P, vol 4, item 5695, no. 7.

122 supporters of her cause. Her image as a “wronged woman” seemed to appeal to other women throughout England.63

Once the divorce proceedings began, arguments were made as would be expected. The king’s lawyers argued that the marriage was unlawful because the pope could not grant a dispensation that was against God’s law and, even so, the necessity of granting a dispensation implied that the marriage was unlawful.64 Canonical arguments were made in accordance with

Henry’s interpretation of the Book of Leviticus in which he should not have married his brother’s widow and that the pope should not have even granted a dispensation for such a thing.

Katharine’s attorneys countered with John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester’s interpretation that

“this marriage of the King and Queen can be dissolved by no power, human or divine; and for this opinion he declared he would even lay down his life” lest he risk the damnation of his soul.65

The secretary of Cardinal Campeggio wrote that because of Bishop Fisher’s testimony, Henry would have to abandon his quest to dissolve the marriage; “for this man being adverse to it, the kingdom will not permit the Queen to suffer wrong.”66 Katharine was not present to hear Fisher’s support of her cause. She refused to attend court after her initial appeal to have the case heard in

Rome.

There was a continuing concern that Henry’s subjects may choose to side with his wife and the pope and ultimately rise against him. Thomas More, a champion of the queen’s interests

63 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England, 103.

64 James Gairdner, “New Lights on the Divorce of Henry VIII” The English Historical Review, 12, no 45 (January 1897), 2-3.

65 Letter from Campeggio to Salviati, June 29, 1529, L&P, vol 4, item 5732.

66 Letter from the Secretary of Campeggio to ___, June 29, 1529, L&P, vol 4, item 5734.

123 and Catholicism, was still extremely influential at court and Katharine had powerful supporters.67

After the summer of 1531, Katharine kept her own court and lived completely separate from the king. Ambassador Chapuys visited her regularly and she became increasingly a focus for opposition to the Boleyn faction, and more importantly, the king himself. The king’s fears of rebellion mounted and he alleged that, with her supporters behind her, she could have waged a war “as fierce as any her mother had waged in Spain.”68

Henry VIII’s domestic politics are often centered round the religious upheaval that shortly followed his divorce from Katharine. The religious problems of England proved to be a divisive force among the powers of sixteenth century Europe. The schism between Catholic and

Protestant caused England to be in opposition with Katharine’s family in Spain and the Holy

Roman Empire, among others. However, this schism allowed another opportunity for a Tudor monarchy to increase the authority of the crown. It was not until Henry brought his personal religious issue to light - his dissolution of marriage to Katharine - that Henry diverged from the

Catholic faith. When the pope did not grant his request, Henry raised the question of the ability of the pope, or any foreign power for that matter, to decide issues that were essential to the welfare of England. The point of contention went from being Henry’s conscience regarding marriage to his brother’s widow to questioning whether the church in England was truly subordinate to the Church of Rome.69 Henry’s argument was that governmental authority over the church in England rested in him, not in the pope.

67 Susan Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603, (New York: Viking, 2000), 118.

68 Letter from Chapuys to Charles V, October 16, 1533, L&P, vol 6, item 1296.

69 Marcham, Constitutional History, 6.

124

Henry argued that the church was part of the whole of the English community and therefore subject to the authority of the crown. The idea that the church in England was also subject to the king was not a new concept in Tudor times. Richard II (1377-1399) and his parliament passed the Provisors and Praemunire of 1393 which railed against the application of ecclesiastical jurisdiction without the king’s authorization.70 While successive popes regarded the statue as an infringement of their privileges (and therefore an affront to divine law), the

English crown maintained its position. The crown deemed that all property of the church that existed in England, and rights to it, fell under English law and thus the authority of the king.

Richard II also argued that the primary allegiance of the clergy presiding in England should be to the king rather than the pope as they were residents of his kingdom.71

Taken as an isolated incident, Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church seems a brash decision made by a spoiled king who did not get his way. Swanson argues that there was genuine opposition to Catholicism brewing throughout England before 1530 and adds that Henry and

Katharine’s divorce played little role in the religious changes of England.72 His assessment falls into the trap of assuming that opposition extant in small pockets of clergymen scattered throughout England was indicative of nation-wide opinion. In fact, Katharine’s opinions about religion and her marriage were the catalyst for Henry’s need to split from the control of the papacy. Katharine’s appeal to have her case heard in Rome introduced a more significant question than whether the clergy were subject to the laws of a king. Were there certain parts of

70 David Loades, Tudor Government: Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd, 1997), 12.

71 Loades, Tudor Government, 13.

72 Swanson, Catholic England, 43-44.

125 the lives of every person over which someone outside the Church could have jurisdiction?73 If a marriage was performed by the Church and sanctioned by God, did a layman have the authority to undo it? If not, then Henry’s marriage was subject to the jurisdiction of the Church and could only be decided upon with papal authority. Considering that the was under the control of Katharine’s nephew, Charles, and accounting for Katharine’s reputation for devoutly serving the Church, it can be posited that if the case was referred to Rome, Katharine would be the victor.

The contention that the Church received its authority from God and, as such, was beyond

Henry’s royal or statutory control was contrary to Henry’s arrogance and threatened both his claim of supremacy and his aim of divorce, though his divorce proceedings were stagnant.74 He received conflicting advice from his councilors, all of whom held differing opinions about his divorce, but none offered a prudent solution. Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, and her faction were advocating an autonomous solution within England, but that avenue was impeded when members of the clergy and educated lawyers advised that parliament could not empower a member of the clergy to act against the pope’s prohibition.75 Thomas More, the marquis of

Exeter, and Katharine’s supporters wished to block the divorce and protect the Church. The only way an obstruction could happen and still allow Katharine’s supporters to retain royal favor was if Henry tired of Anne and returned to Katharine of his own accord.76 The dukes of Norfolk and

Suffolk, among others, hoped to get the king his divorce by threatening the pope and the English

73 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 302.

74 Haigh, English Reformations, 113.

75 Letter from William Tresham to Cardinal Wolsey, L&P, vol 4, item 6679; Letter from to Wolsey, L&P, vol 4 item 6687; and Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V, L&P, vol 4, item 6738.

76 Haigh, English Reformations, 105.

126

Church, but that approach had failed so far, and they were increasingly fearful that the threats might become painful realities.77 To make matters worse for Henry, Cardinal Wolsey’s current strategies and Henry’s threats to Rome made no progress against Clement VII’s fear of the emperor. In fact, in June 1529, Clement and Charles settled their differences in the Treaty of

Barcelona. Within two weeks, Katharine achieved her first and only major victory in her divorce case: the divorce of Katharine and Henry was advocated to Rome and would be decided by papal authority.78

Henry ultimately took matters into his own hands and began pursuing intimidation tactics against members of both parliament and the clergy. Henry advocated that England held a jurisdictional autonomy from Rome and that sovereignty entitled Henry to a spiritual supremacy over the Church in England, but he still wanted the pope to support his assertion and permit a decision about the divorce to be made within England. The king did not foresee a schism, and was still adamantly opposed to tactics that utilized outright heresy. Henry’s betrayal of his own clergy was not in an effort to instill Protestantism or establish a completely autonomous . Henry perceived intimidation and suppression of the clergy as the best way to obtain his divorce and balance the conflicting desires of his advisors.79

Despite all its drama, Henry’s attempts to intimidate the clergy really made little progress. The pope showed no concern over the threat to the English Church, especially considering that he and Charles set aside their differences and taking action against Charles’ beloved aunt could cause more harm than anything Henry was threatening. The clergy in

77 Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V, L&P, vol 4, item 6738.

78 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 291.

79 Haigh, English Reformations, 106.

127

England conceded to Henry’s demands on their own. They allowed Henry to retain the title of

‘supreme head of the Church in England,’ but only with the qualification ‘as far as the law of

God allows.’ Essentially, Henry’s new title (and exactly what it allowed him to do) had little practical application. To him, it only meant what he was willing to make it mean and for the clergy, it only meant what they were willing to let it mean.80 The Submission of the Clergy in

1532 seemed a decisive event for his cause. The Church relinquished its jurisdictional autonomy, allowing Henry control over canon law and a new path to marriage with Anne Boleyn.

To assert his own position as king over the church, Henry worked with parliament on a number of declarations that would leave little question of who was indeed head of the church in

England. The Act of Restraint of Appeals to Rome of 1533 was designed to cut the judicial ties between England and the Papacy. The immediate ramification was to ensure that the ultimate decision regarding Katharine and Henry’s marriage would be decided in England by the

Archbishop of Canterbury, thereby rendering moot Katharine’s successes to this point. This tactic had been attempted by Henry two years prior with the previous Archbishop, Warham, but his staunch refusal of Henry’s request and loyalty to the pope’s determination that Katharine’s case would be referred to a court in Rome prevented further pursuit.81 There was also still some debate in Parliament as to whether matrimonial matters were in the realm of ecclesiastical or temporal jurisdiction. Lord Darcy seemed particularly inclined to the opinion that it was fine for

80 Haigh, English Reformations, 108-109.

81 James Gairdner, ed. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of King Henry VIII, vol. 5, 1531-1532 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1880), items 27, 31, 45. This source will be noted in the future as L&P followed by the volume number and item number of each citation. See also Mortimer Levine, “Henry VIII’s use of his Spiritual and Temporal Jurisdictions in his Great Causes of Matrimony, Legitimacy, and Succession,” The Historical Journal 10, no. 1 (1967): 3-5, accessed October 3, 2014.

128

Henry to assert his authority in temporal matters without deferment to the pope, but that the particular issue of the king’s marriage was one of spirituality and he was not alone.82

A few months later, during a meeting of the House of Commons, two motions were made and supported requesting that the king restore Katharine as his lawful wife.83 However, now that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, , was a prelate who supported Henry’s divorce, and the Act of Restraint of Appeals to Rome was passed, Parliament’s concerns about

Henry’s jurisdiction in spiritual matters were assuaged. The decision would, indeed, be made by a member of the church, but one who was willing to deny his allegiance to Rome. There was no longer a separation between church and state. The new Church in England was fully incorporated into Henry’s government with the king at its head. On May 23, 1533, Archbishop Cranmer passed his sentence on the marriage between Katharine and Henry, declaring it to be annulled.84

Katharine, of course, refused to recognize either the court or its decision, but her position was now extremely dangerous. On the basis of Cranmer’s decision, Henry declared that she was no longer Queen of England, but reverted to her previous title of Dowager Princess of Wales.85 A proclamation was not a law and the penalty for disagreeing was minimal, but it was enough to cause some of the queen’s supporters to renounce their open support of her. Katharine was by no means abandoned, but her position was becoming increasingly tenuous. The king’s proclamation had concluded: “…nevertheless the King’s most gracious pleasure is that the said Lady

Catherine [sic] shall be well used, obeyed and entreated according to her honour and noble

82 Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V, February 14, 1532, L&P, vol 5, item 805. See also, Levine, “Henry VIII’s Spiritual and Temporal Jurisdiction,” 3-10.

83 Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V, May 2, 1532, L&P, vol 5, item 989.

84 The Divorce, May 23, 1533, L&P, vol 6, item 529.

85 Letters from Archbishop Cranmer to Henry VIII and Thomas Wolsey, May 1533, L&P, vol 6, items 461, 495, 496, 525.

129 parentage, by the name, style and title of Princess Dowager.”86 Katharine could have accepted the fait accompli, which would have left her in a kind of “honourable retirement” or she could have taken the veil, even at this late stage, or even demanded to go back to Spain. Instead she remained obstinate, making her own life far more wretched than it need have been.87

Pope Clement did finally rule in Katharine’s favor in March 1534.88 According to the pope and the Catholic Church, Katharine and Henry’s marriage was valid in the eyes of God.

Katharine’s victory came too late and the ruling of the Catholic Church mattered little to Henry who already divorced Katharine and married Anne Boleyn. The Succession Act of 1536 determined that Henry’s marriages to both Katharine and Anne were invalid and that the issue resulting from them “barred to claim…inheritance” from Henry. The daughters of Henry VIII were excluded from the line of succession entirely.89

Effects of Divorce and Schism

Eustace Chapuys continued to serve as imperial ambassador throughout Katharine and

Henry’s divorce and Henry’s years of religious transformations. Letters from him to Charles V indicate that not all of England’s nobles and peerage accepted the divorce or the break with

Rome. In fact, a number of the nobles quietly hoped that Charles would attack Henry and bring a religious crusade to England’s shores. Lord Hussey informed the ambassador that the northern nobles were determined to remedy the ills of the kingdom; Lord Darcy claimed there were six hundred peers and gentlemen in the north opposed to royal policy; and Lord Bray thought he could muster as many as twenty lords and a hundred knights to take up arms in defense of

86 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England, 105.

87 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England, 105-106.

88 The Papal Sentence, March 23, 1534. L&P, vol 7, 363.

89 28 Henry VIII, c.7. Statutes of the Realm, III, 658-660.

130

Katharine and Catholicism.90 Evidence suggests that genuine outrage against Henry’s treatment of Katharine, the emperor, and the pope existed among Henry’s own people. These were some opinions of the people of England, but how was Henry’s Reformation affecting England’s relationship with the rest of Europe, most notably Spain and the Holy Roman Empire which held deep familial ties with Katharine?

In 1530s Spain, the raged and concerns mounted about Lutheranism seeping into its borders through foreign trade. Coastal towns and cities like Calahorra, Cadíz, and became centers for detecting and punishing those merchants and visitors attempting to bring

Luther’s heretical teachings into Spain.91 The English were not exempt from the suspicion of the inquisitors especially since Henry had been flirting with heresy for some time before England’s complete break with Rome. In fact, English merchants began being detained and questioned as early as 1534 and by the early , complaints about the treatment of the English throughout the emperor’s lands were causing a significant diplomatic issue.92 Charles V already intervened with the Inquisition on England’s behalf in 1535, but his actions then were not enough for the

King of England. Henry complained to the imperial ambassador that his people were being held as heretics without trial and that he would no longer tolerate this ill-treatment of his subjects.93

England’s troubles in the Holy Roman Empire were not limited to interactions with Spain.

English ambassadors in Brussels were accused of “religion [being] extinct in Englande [sic].”94

90 Letters from Eustace Chapuys to Emperor Charles V, in CSP Spain, vol 5, part 1, items 441 and 610.

91 Peter Marshall, “The Other Black Legend: The Henrician Reformation and the Spanish People,” The English Historical Review 116, no. 465 (February 2001), 34-36.

92 Letters from Thomas Cromwell to Eustace Chapuys, L&P, vol 7, item 1297; and L&P, vol 8, item 189.

93 Letter from Van der Delft, imperial ambassador, to Charles V, L&P, vol 20, part 1, item 1087.

94 Letters from Wriothesley, Vaughan and Carne to Henry VIII, November 20, 1538, L&P, vol 13, part 2, item 880.

131

Lord Lisle experienced similar malcontents during his progress through France and Flanders and wrote to Henry that “the people of the said exterior parts have conceived very evil opinions towards our nation.”95 In Bruges, Richard Pate claimed to hear people say that “all pietie and religion having no place was banished owte of Inglande [sic]” and “how unkyndely Englishmen be delt withal by the Frenchmen [sic].”96

It seems a logical argument that the handling of English subjects throughout their travels in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire was a direct effect of the soured relationship between

Henry and Charles. However, the rift between the kings seems to be deeper than the difference in their religious beliefs. By the time many of these interactions occurred, the Henrician

Reformation became much more conservative.97 In 1539, Henry passed the Act of Six Articles which reinstated many of the Catholic beliefs and traditions such as the transubstantiation, private masses, communion, and vows of celibacy for the clergy. Henry’s own people were describing him as having reverted to once again being a “Christian, Catholic prince.”98 That same year, ‘A sumarie declaration of the faith uses and observacions in England [sic]’ was published to enumerate in what exactly Englishmen believed. It included a number of affirmations of Catholic dogma that were extant in the Act of Six Articles. The publication of this ‘sumarie declaration’ so close to the passage of the Act of Six Articles implies that the

‘sumarie’ was intended for overseas audiences. Henry was trying to convince the rest of Europe that religion in England had not strayed from Catholic orthodoxy; it merely contested the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. Based on the communication records between Charles,

95 Muriel St. Clare Byrne, ed., The Lisle Letters (Six Volume Set) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), vol 5, 553.

96 Letters from Richard Pate to the Duke of Norfolk, L&P, vol 15, item 876; and L&P, vol 16, item 1141.

97 Marshall, “The Other Black Legend,” 41. Haigh, English Reformations, 152.

98 L&P, vol 6, item 465; L&P, vol 7, item 1257; and L&P, vol 8, item 666.

132

Eustace Chapuys, and Katharine of Aragon, there is evidence to suggest that the emperor’s difficulties with the King of England had less to do with the religious desires of Henry and more to do with how Henry went about achieving them. Henry very publicly put aside his devout, pious, loyal, and lawful wife, the emperor’s own aunt, to marry a perceived heretic and used the

Catholic Church as a means to his own end.

Back in England, Eustace Chapuys tried to persuade the emperor to make war against

England, almost from the day Cranmer submitted his judgment. Chapuys assured Charles that he would have the support of Englishmen.

Considering the great injury done to Madame, your aunt, you can hardly avoid making war now upon this king and kingdom, an undertaking which would be, in the opinion of many people here, the easiest thing in the world at present, for this king has neither horsemen nor captains and the affections of the people are entirely on the side of the Queen…99

Chapuys may have called for war against England, but Katharine did not support his call to arms in her defense. She wrote repeatedly to both Chapuys and Charles pleading for passivity and to temper their desire for bloodshed.100 Charles ultimately deferred to

Katharine’s wishes and let the matter alone.

The early stages of the Henrician Reformation in England included complaints of early religious protesters who claimed that the Catholic Church was corrupt, worldly and superstitious. Accusations of priests cheating people with gimmicks and providing false promises of salvation appeared in the list of grievances. These disparagements are why religious reformers wanted reformation. They achieved it through a series of statutes:

Acts against clerical abuses (1529), Acts against Roman jurisdiction (1532-1535), and

99 Letter from Chapuys to Charles V, April 10, 1533, CSP Spain, vol 4, part 2, items 630-632. These letters are also referenced in Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 359-360.

100 Letters from Katharine to Chapuys and Charles V, 1533, CSP Spain, vol 4, part 2, items 554, 596.

133

Acts against monasteries (1536 and 1539).101 One event begot another, not because of a predetermined sequence, but because of the consequences of the decisions of the participants. Without Katharine’s insistence that her divorce be decided by papal authority in Rome or if she had accepted Cardinal Campeggio’s offer to join a nunnery,

Henry would not have sought alternative methods to be free to marry Anne Boleyn. The religious course of England could have been very different if Henry had not decided to break with Rome, and, years later, had his children not furthered the rift and broken with

Catholicism altogether. There may have still been a Protestant movement; there was a

Protestant movement even before it got the backing of the state. However, it is difficult to predict its success on a national level without the state’s endorsement. After all, Henry was originally a fierce opponent of Lutheranism and any divergence from the Roman

Catholic Church. It is hard to reconcile how a Protestant movement would have gained support from the state if political decisions had not aided the piecemeal advance of anti-

Catholic courses.

101 Haigh, English Reformations, 16.

134

Chapter 6

AN EMPIRE ENTIRE OF ITSELF

England’s relationship with Spain and rest of the European world during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was significantly influenced by Katharine of Aragon and her family connections. The foreign policies of the early Tudor era (1485-1547) influenced the evolution of

England’s idea of sovereignty. Katharine’s conduct throughout her divorce proceedings provided the catalyst for England’s split from the Roman Catholic Church and budding movement towards autonomy. Katharine maintained her position out of religious devotion and an unyielding belief in the validity of her marriage and the legitimacy of her daughter, but there was no way for her to know that taking such a stance would provide a foundation for English nationalism. Katharine’s agency and Henry’s reactions inadvertently provided the groundwork for England’s Protestant national identity, an identity that became a defining characteristic of England’s imperial ideology a quarter-century later.1

When Henry was trying to force Katharine out of their relationship in 1527, she and her family, especially her nephew, Emperor Charles V, obstructed his path and forced him into one of the defining actions of his reign.2 Where once Katharine was able to use her influence and experience with Henry to shape his political decisions, those times were gone. Her views about

“accessory unions” where people of conquered territories achieved the same rights and were subject to the same laws as those of the citizens in the victor’s own lands were no longer pertinent.3 The desire for religious conformity that she shared with her mother was present, but

1 David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the (Ideas in Context) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3.

2 David Loades, The Tudor Queens of England (New York: Continuum Books, 2009), 6.

3 J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 (London: Penguin Books, 2002), 7.

135 now it was against her; where once she crusaded for the Catholic faith in England, Catholic persecution was now on Henry’s agenda. In her “The Creation of Britain: Multiple Kingdoms or

Core and Colonies?” Wormald observes that Henry provided his own definition of “empire” in his time. She claims that the final phase of England’s transition from a to an empire occurred when Katharine forced Henry to pursue the Acts of Restraint in Appeals where he decided that England was its own empire because it was a “kingdom free from outside influence or interference.”4 Rather than establish England as an “empire,” it is more accurate to argue that Katharine drove Henry to change England’s definition and application of

“sovereignty.” He broke from the outside influence of Spain, the Papacy, and the Holy Roman

Emperor, established England as a sovereign kingdom, and exhibited that newfound autonomy primarily through his relationships with other kingdoms.

To fully realize the impact that Katharine of Aragon had on the idea of English sovereignty or British Empire, there must first be an understanding of empire itself through examination of the extant historiography. For centuries, historians have engaged in a debate about the British Empire. Discord emerges in such questions as the existence of a segmented empire, the origins of imperial ideology, and the characteristics that define each part or phase in the evolution of the empire.5 There is not yet a consensus on the parameters of the British

Empire, as historians debate whether it began in Elizabeth I’s reign and simply continued through the American Revolution into British relations with India, or if the Revolution served as

4 Jenny Wormald, “The Creation of Britain: Multiple Kingdoms or Core and Colonies?” (Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1992), 188-190.

5 For more on the idea of characteristics of English empire and historiographical debate regarding the origins of imperial ideology, see David Armitage, “The Elizabethan Idea of Empire,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Sixth Series, 14 (2004): 269-277, accessed October 3, 2014; Roger A. Mason, “Scotland, Elizabethan England and the Idea of Britain,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Sixth Series, 14 (2004): 279-293, accessed October 3, 2014; Steve Pincus, “Reconfiguring the British Empire,” The William and Mary Quarterly 69, no. 1 (January 2012): 63-70, accessed October 3, 2014; and Susan Doran and Glenn Richardson, eds., Tudor England and its Neighbors (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

136 a demarcation between the two causing Britain’s imperial aspirations to be split into a First and

Second Empire.6 The “two empires” concept is largely contingent upon differing characteristics exhibited during the eras giving each time period distinct attributes. Regardless, there are hundreds of years of English monarchy before England is considered an “empire.” An ideological question then inevitably arises: how was England defined prior to the mid-sixteenth century?

J. H. Elliot presents the idea that Europe in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was comprised largely of a competitive system of sovereign, territorial nation states, better known and more widely discussed in relation to this time period as composite monarchies.7

David Armitage concurs, beginning his investigation of the British Empire with the composite monarchies of Europe, describing early England as a monarchy that consisted of diverse territories, peoples, institutions, and legal jurisdictions cemented under a single, recognized sovereign authority.8 These composite monarchies were ultimately the building blocks of unitary statehood and both Elliot and Armitage cite them as the beginning stages of European empires.9

Elliot describes composite monarchies as fitting into one of two categories. The first comprises contiguous composites such as England and Wales. The second encompasses those separated from all their ruled lands by other kingdoms or geographic barriers such as oceans and seas as

6 For information on the First British Empire, see Ned C. Landsman, Nation and Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and the Americas, 1600-1800 (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2001); and Robert W. Tucker and David C Hendrickson, The Fall of the First British Empire: Origins of the War of American Independence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982). For information on the Second British Empire, see Margaret Strobel, European Women and the Second British Empire (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); and Timothy Parsons, The Second British Empire: in the Crucible of the Twentieth Century (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).

7 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 3. Also seen in J.H. Elliot, Spain and the Wider World, 1500-1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 5.

8 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 22.

9 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 5-6.

137 exemplified by Spanish holdings.10 Armitage, in contrast, describes Katharine’s native Spanish monarchy as constructed as a multiple monarchy. That is, various kingdoms being ruled by an individual sovereign while they each maintained varying degrees of autonomy.11

Armitage maintains in his Ideological Origins of the British Empire that it is important not to underestimate the continuities between the creation of composite states and the formation of European empires because they were fueled by similar ideologies.12 That is not to say that each composite monarchy operated under the same ideology. Armitage’s argument is more individualized; the ideology of the English composite monarchy evolved into the ideology of the

English Empire. For example, Henry VII concentrated his interests on unions founded on common languages and customs. The Spanish monarchy, to which Katharine of Aragon was intimately exposed, worked to ensure that the diverse lands that were acquired maintained their customary laws and institutions.13 A survival of customs existed only to a point, naturally, as

Ferdinand and Isabella worked tirelessly to obliterate all religions except Catholicism from their realm. In his discussion of the importance of religious dynamics during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Elliot made a keenly foretelling observation about the relationship between Spain and England, concluding that such aggressive religious nationalism often had a severe negative impact on relationships between composite monarchies.14 Within thirty-five years of the Catholic

Kings’ conquest of Grenada, Henry VIII’s Lutheran inclinations and his divorce from Katharine

10 Elliot, Spain and the Wider World, 5.

11 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 22.

12 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 23.

13 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 8.

14 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 13; and Elliot, Spain and the Wider World, 11-13.

138 of Aragon drove a wedge between England and Spain which took the rest of the Tudor dynasty to overcome.

In discussing the transition from a composite monarchy to an empire, it is also important to understand how the very definition of “empire” was changing in the . Using

Elliot’s model of two types of composite monarchies, two variations of imperial ideology emerge. The first, one of dominium, centers around governance of a domestic empire. In this ideology, the focus is not on expansion, but on independence and isolation. In Nicholas Canny’s

The Origins of Empire, he notes that the description of England as an empire in the sixteenth century simply referred to England’s long tradition of independent rule as opposed to being under the jurisdiction of a foreign monarch.15 The second variation on imperial ideology focuses on the idea of imperium, that is, a ruler having the power to command others. This type of imperial ideology was utilized by Spain more so than England in the sixteenth century. The enabled Spain’s rulers to actively expand their territories and influence by conquering lands across the seas. Ultimately, Armitage argues that the origins of British imperial ideology can be found in the extant problems of composite monarchies.16

In the introduction to Ideological Origins, Armitage stresses that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the term “empire” was more likely to coincide with the ancient Roman definition aligning with “sovereignty” rather than the more modern approach which requires ruling over many peoples and lands.17 The best English support for Armitage’s argument is found in Henry VIII’s Act of Restraint of Appeals in 1533. When Katharine of Aragon continued

15 Nicholas Canny, “The Origins of Empire: An Introduction” in The Origins of Empire. The Oxford History of the British Empire, ed. Nicholas Canny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1.

16 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 25-26.

17 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 29-32.

139 to demand that her divorce case be heard in an appeal to Rome, Henry instituted the Act of

Restraint of Appeals declaring that the “realm of England is an empire, entire of itself.”18

Henry’s aim in passing the act was to assert that there were no others above him in his kingdom; he enjoyed supreme authority and therefore there could be no appeal to anyone higher than himself.19 The idea of being sovereign and independent within his own dominions – regal independence – equates to England’s national independence and therefore establishes a statutory definition of “empire” that implies isolation and autonomy.20 Henry’s assertion of his own superiority had little effect on Katharine who continued to plead with her nephew and the papal representatives to issue a ruling on her case.

If one could pinpoint an ideological origin of English sovereignty, it would appear well before the mid-sixteenth century as varying degrees of autonomy can be found throughout the reigns of the Plantagenets, some 230 years earlier.21 The characteristics and methods of English monarchy extant since the reign of Henry II (r. 1157-1189) should be interpreted as transitional or as the evolution of a singular ideology that was adapted as needed. Katharine of Aragon’s unintentional stimulus of a particularly prominent characteristic of a much later English national identity (i.e. Protestantism) caused England’s concept of sovereignty and, by extension, empire, once again to change to fit its needs and ushered in the next wave of empire. Her contributions

18 “An Act in Restraint of Appeals. St. 24 Hen. VIII, c. 12, 1553” from Stat. Realm, III, 427 in David C. Douglas, ed., English Historical Documents, Volume V, 1485-1558 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1971), 738-741.

19 See more on Henry VIII’s Act of Restraint in Appeals and its effect on English sovereignty, see Krishan Kumar, “Nation-states as Empires, Empires as Nation-states: Two Principles, One Practice?” Theory and Society 39, no. 2 (March 2010): 119-143, accessed October 3, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40587550.

20 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 11-12.

21 For other historians who argue for an early establishment of the English Empire, see Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion, Manipulation, Murder, the Story of England’s Most Notorious Royal Family (New York: PublicAffiars, 2013); and R. R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093- 1343 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

140 must be placed within the context of a perpetual ideology which swings like a pendulum between aspects of dominium and imperium and began as early as the twelfth century.

In 1154, Henry II, son of Geoffrey of Anjou and the , became the first king of England from the Angevin line.22 Thanks to his family connections and his marriage to

Eleanor of , in addition to being the King of England, Henry II was also in direct control of more land in continental Europe than the King of France. He held the titles of Duke of

Normandy, Aquitaine, and , Count of Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and controlled for a period during his reign. In this example of a multiple monarchy, control of these territories meant that Henry II owed homage to the King of France, but he was nonetheless the authority in those realms. Additionally, Henry II was also the Lord of Ireland and claimed control of Wales and Scotland, both for limited periods during his reign. When Henry II’s son Richard I (“Richard the Lionheart,” r. 1189-1199) was on crusade throughout Europe, the French king, Philip II (r.

1180-1223), exploited his absence in an effort to repossess the English holdings in France for himself.23 By 1204, Philip recovered most of the French lands from the Angevian kings.

Following the Battle of Bouvines (1214), King John lost Anjou, Brittany, Maine, and Normandy in what was a decisive French victory, and in 1324, England’s King Edward II (r. 1307-1327) lost all remaining territory, save for a few provinces in Gascony, to Charles IV of France (r.

1322-1328). By 1325, England suffered the loss of power and authority on the European continent.

22 For more on Henry II, see Christopher Harper-Bill and Nicholas Vincent, Henry II: New Interpretations (Woodbridge, UK: Broydell Press, 2007).

23 For more on the Plantagenet kings, see Dan Jones, The Plantagenets: the Warrior Kings and Queens who made England (New York: Viking, 2012); and Michael Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 1225-1360 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

141

Once Edward III became King of England in 1327, he was in no position to challenge the

French for possession of any of England’s former duchies.24 According to Desmond Seward,

Edward’s only intention was to retain the duchy of Aquitaine which had been held by England from the reign of Henry II. In addition to being a traditional territory, the proceeds from

Aquitaine’s wine production provided Edward with income that could, at times, be more than the revenues collected in England.25 However, after decades of poor military showing by the

English, Edward had little choice but to pledge his “faith and loyalty” to the Valois king.26

Edward had other concerns besides France. Between 1314 and 1323, the Scots raided the northern borders of England, causing severe devastation each time.27 Ten years later, when the boy-king of Scotland, David II (r. 1329-1371) sought refuge in France after , a to the Scottish throne, was crowned King of Scotland and recognized as such in

England, relations between England and France became strained. Any negotiations for peace between the two kings now had to take into consideration the needs and interests of the king of

Scotland as well. Edward, recognizing that such terms meant that his country would be surrounded and that France was supporting the same country that had invaded England countless times, now regarded Philip as an enemy.28 After Edward offered sanctuary to a French exile,

Philip retaliated by declaring that Guyenne (used synonymously with Aquitaine to describe the

24 For more on Edward III, see W. Mark Ormrod, Edward III (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); and Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards: War and state in England, 1272-1377 (London: Routledge, 2003).

25 Desmond Seward, A Brief History of The Hundred Years War: The English in France, 1337-1453 (London: Robinson, 2003), 23.

26 Seward, The Hundred Years War, 24.

27 For more on the relationship between Scotland, England, and France in the fourteenth century, see Andy King and Michael A Penman, England and Scotland in the Fourteenth Century: New Perspectives (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2007).

28 Seward, The Hundred Years War, 28.

142

English territory in France) was to be forfeited by Edward “because of the many excesses, rebellious, and disobedient acts committed against us by the King of England against Us and Our

Royal Majesty.”29 If Philip intended to diminish Edward’s authority and hereditary lands,

Edward meant to reciprocate. Six months after Philip’s declaration, Edward announced his intention to pursue his claim to the French throne and become the rightful King of England and

France. The foreign policy of England under Edward III initiated the first swing of the ideology pendulum. No longer was Edward content to defend his kingdom and focus on his domestic issues; it was time to exercise military conquest and expand his influence onto the continent and so began the Hundred Years War.30

England ultimately lost the War, but engaging in this series of conflicts spurned a number of long-term effects on its people and national identity. In his analysis of the effects of early

English military policy, Ben Lowe argues that because of the English people’s concern about the

French invading England and destroying the English culture, the Hundred Years War effectively confirmed the decline of the French language spoken in England.31 Where once French was the language of the elite classes, merchants, and the secular courts, the idea of speaking it became linked with the notion of supporting France’s endeavors. The people began to associate language with national identity and, even more so, acknowledged that it was important that they were not identified as supporters of anyone other than England. Lowe also states that England began a

29 'Close Rolls, Edward III: May 1337,' in Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III: Volume 4, 1337-1339, ed. H C Maxwell Lyte (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1900), 59-71, accessed April 18, 2015, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/edw3/vol4/pp59-71.

30 For more on the Hundred Years War, see Denise Nowakowski Baker, ed., Inscribing the Hundred Years’ War in French and English Cultures (New York: New York University Press, 2000); and Anne Curry, The Hundred Years War, 1337-1453 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002).

31 Ben Lowe, Imagining Peace: History of Early English Pacifist Ideas (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 147-195. Lowe discusses in this chapter a number of significant outcomes of the Hundred Years War and how the war changed the political, social, and economic aspects of England.

143 method of “cost-benefit analysis” in determining when they went to war. Questions were asked about what conflicts would benefit the national interest. Kings and queens of England still included France in their title until 1801 in the reign of George III.32

The Hundred Years’ War did not just involve conflicts between England and France.

During the 1370s, Edward III’s son, John of Gaunt, seemed to set his sights on English possession of part of the Iberian Peninsula. The best way for him to achieve this was through marriage to the eldest daughter of Castile’s king, Pedro (r. 1334-1369), who was currently seeking sanctuary in England. A mutually beneficial union between Constance of Castile and

John of Gaunt was not the first attempt to unify the two kingdoms and certainly would not be the last. Over century earlier, King (r. 1272-1307) married Eleanor of Castile and through their union, three generations later, their great-grandson was attempting to unite the kingdoms by more than just marriage. As with all royal marriages, approval for their union had to be obtained through the ruling entities of each kingdom. Approval was granted and the pair were permitted the use of the styling “King and Queen of Castile and Leon,” but the path to physical control of Castile was just beginning.33

The newest union of England and Castile happened during the extensive Reconquista era in Spain which lasted from the eighth to the fifteenth century.34 The “reconquest” of lands is described in detail by historian Joseph O’Callaghan in his book, A History of Medieval Spain.

O’Callaghan argues the Reconquista might be described as a “holy war,” but that to pigeonhole it into such a broad term does not adequately reflect the deeper aspects of the battle. He contends

32 For a complete list of the royal styles from Henry II through Elizabeth II, see Appendix B.

33 Allison Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 108-109.

34 For the purposes of this study, the latter portion of the Reconquista will be studied, particularly from the thirteenth century on.

144 that, “by proclaiming oneself a Christian, Muslim, or a Jew, one espoused specific religious doctrines and…a whole system of cultural values that affected one’s daily life, one’s habits, traditions, laws, and even language” and that trying to force reconciliation and assimilation on neighboring peoples was at the core of the conflict. 35 Ultimately, O’Callaghan asserts that the

Christians, Muslims, and Jews of medieval Spain arrived at the conclusion that the only solution to their clashes was “complete triumph” of the others.36

Consequently, the Iberian Peninsula of the thirteenth century was not unified as it appears today. It consisted of the smaller, independent monarchies of Portugal, Castile, Leon, Aragon,

Navarre, Grenada, and Almohades. For several centuries before, the kingdoms were racked with turmoil caused by the Christian Reconquista and dynastic politics that kept boundaries and alliances in a constant state of flux. Castile in particular faced a number of dynastic problems when the kingdom was ruled by a string of minors and their regents. 37 Castilians followed a strong tradition of hereditary monarchy up through the tenth century. However, minors ascending the throne in Castile caused the kingdom to be an easy target for invasion and betrayed alliances. When he became King of Castile, Alfonso XI (r. 1313-1326), attempted to strengthen

Castile and the surrounding areas through marriages and negotiations between Castile, Portugal, and Aragon.38 By turning his attentions to the internal political problems of Castile, which came

35 Joseph O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 22.

36 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 22.

37 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 125.

38 For more on the reign of Alfonso XI, see Joseph O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).

145 in the form of false claimants and quarrelling noble families, he helped to solidify his sovereignty and later apply that authority and experience to matters of inter-kingdom relations.39

Castilians were forced to reconsider their tradition of hereditary monarchy after the death of Alfonso XI. Alfonso’s eldest legitimate son, Pedro (r. 1350-1366), inherited the crown at sixteen, but Alfonso also produced a number of children with his long-time mistress, Leonor de

Guzman.40 Pedro’s half-brother, Henry of Trastámara, had the support of a number of noble families throughout Castile and posed a significant political threat to the young king.41 Because the kings of Aragon, Castile, Leon, and Portugal were so concerned with reconquering lands held by other kings, few of them concentrated on who was retaining (or obtaining) power within their own kingdoms. Their oversight allowed the noble families of Castile to consolidate and expand their own territories, increasing their overall influence. Alfonso XI and his son’s desire to establish a powerful central monarchy was in stark contrast to the structure that was already in place in England. Both Castilian kings were plagued by a need to prove their worthiness as rulers and attempted to balance the needs of kingship with the popular approval of their subjects.42

Pedro came to power with the intent of emulating his father’s ruling abilities, but inevitably, not everyone in Castile was pleased with his methods and there was another of Alfonso’s sons to whom those discontented with Pedro could turn.

Pedro did manage to mimic his father in at least one aspect: the love of a mistress.

Alfonso had only one living child with his legal wife, Maria of Portugal, but managed to produce

39 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 408-409.

40 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 414.

41 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 419.

42 Amanda Clay Sanders, “The Duchesses of Lancaster: An Examination of English Noblewomen’s Exercise of Power and Influence During the Fourteenth Century” (master’s these, Texas A&M University- Commerce, 2015),75.

146 ten children with his mistress, nine of them sons. In 1353 Pedro consented to a marriage with the

French princess, Blanche of Bourbon. However, Pedro remained interested in her for only a few days before he once again returned to his mistress, Maria de Padillla. 43 Pedro eventually imprisoned his wife in Toledo, unsurprisingly infuriating the French king who petitioned Pope

Innocent for assistance in defending Blanche’s rights as both Pedro’s wife and Castile’s queen.

The consequences of Pedro’s actions were not only detrimental to his relationships with foreign kingdoms, but also had dramatic effects on the future of Castile as well. Through his long-term relationship with Maria de Padilla, the pair had three children: Beatrice, Constance, and Isabel.44

Sydney Armitage-Smith and O’Callaghan both claim Pedro had “secretly” married Padilla in

1352 and could produce witnesses to the fact, but there is no verifiable primary source to support whether the pair ever did marry.45 The question of Pedro’s actions and their effects on Castile then rests in the question of the legitimacy of his children. The biographies of John of Gaunt that discuss the claim of his second wife, Constance of Castile, to the throne acknowledge her legitimacy to do so based on a decision by the cortes.46 In her master’s thesis on the duchesses of

Lancaster, Amanda Sanders’s research shows that the feudal wars of Castile likely led to the definition of legitimatization meaning something different to the Castilian people than it did to the English.47 Where the English show later in the Wars of the Roses that legitimized children

43 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 420.

44 Sydney Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster (n.p.: Forgotten Books, 2012), 92. O’Callaghan credits the union with four children and claims that the cortes “acknowledged the rights of his four children by Maria de Padilla to inherit the throne” but, that is the extent of the information he provides, so only three names appear in this work. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 423.

45 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 37; and O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 423.

46 See Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt; and Anthony Goodman, John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth Century Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).

47 Sanders, “The Duchesses of Lancaster,” 77.

147 should not appear in the lines of succession, it is possible that the legitimized children of

Castilian kings could be heirs regardless of their previous illegitimate status.

In 1365 Trastámara joined forces with the kings of Aragon and France and assembled an army of to fight his half-brother for control of Castile.48 In response, Pedro relied upon a long-established relationship with England for support. The following year, Trastámara invaded Castilian lands dubbing himself “King Henry II.” He was widely received by the

Castilian as Enrique “el Magnifico.”49 Recognizing that Trastámara had the support of the populace and the backing of France (and by extension, the papacy), Pedro gathered his daughters and sought sanctuary in English-controlled Bordeaux. To secure further financial and military support from King Edward III, Pedro was required to leave his daughters in English hands as both a measure of good-will and collateral. Though Pedro regained control of Castile for a time, he was ultimately defeated by Trastámara who ruled as King Henry II until 1379.

Pedro’s daughter, Constance of Castile, remained in England and married Edward III’s son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Like Katharine of Aragon, her great-great-granddaughter over a century later, Constance was very well received by the English court.50 As the daughter of

Pedro, Constance retained her own claim to the Castilian throne, one that, it could be argued, was stronger than that of her uncle. Through her child, she could provide another heir to the Castilian throne and amplify her and her husband’s claim to the throne. A son would have all but ensured their claim, but in 1372 a daughter, was born. A few years later, a son was born but died shortly thereafter.51

48 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 38.

49 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 39.

50 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 49.

51 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 149.

148

John of Gaunt continued his attempt to control Castile through his wife’s hereditary claim. In July, 1386, Gaunt, Constance, and their daughters, Philippa and Catherine, left England for Castile.52 It can be argued that Gaunt brought his family, especially Constance, as added evidence of his claim for legitimacy. Goodman also posits that Gaunt brought his daughters to secure possible marriage alliances when it came time for him to establish his court in Castile.53

The two girls were indeed part of purposeful marriage alliances; married

Juan I of Portugal to become Queen of Portugal and, when John and Constance failed to obtain the kingdom of Castile for themselves, their daughter Catherine of Lancaster was married to

Henry II’s son who became Henry III of Castile in 1390.54

By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Spanish monarchy was headed by Katharine of Aragon’s parents, Queen (r.1474-1504) and her husband, King Ferdinand V of Aragon (r.1479-1516), jointly referred to as the

Catholic Kings.55 As with all European countries at the time, the ’s rulers is heavily rooted in Catholicism. France, Italy, Germany, England, and other smaller,

Christian kingdoms were involved in some kind of crusade on behalf of Christendom between the Reconquista and the end of the fifteenth century and Spanish clergy and kings were not exempt from the allure of holy war.56 From this crusading period comes

52 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 107; and O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 533.

53 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 119-126.

54 See genealogical table entitled “Kingdoms of Portugal, Aragon, and Castile descended from John of Gaunt” in Appendix A.

55 Isabella of Castile was the granddaughter of Catherine of Lancaster and Henry III of Castile. For more on the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, see Jean Hippolyte Maríejol, The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, ed. and trans. Benjamin Keen (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961).

56 For recent historiography of the crusades, see Helen J Nicholson, The Crusades (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004).

149 an early idea of national identity in Spain, one aligned with biblical Israel, the Spanish

Christians as God’s elect.57 The idea of defending Christendom against infidels and demons who would harm it became part of the national rhetoric as a unifying force for all

Spaniards from king to commoner. When Spain was ruled by the Romans, Christianity was introduced. Spanish rulers first encountered the concept of a divine calling of kings and the rhetoric of a blessed Spain during its Visigothic control.58 The desire of Christian kings to return the Iberian Peninsula to the Christian glory of Gothic times by freeing it from the control of Muslim populations was a vision shared by rulers throughout the centuries and was a customary influence on Isabella who portrayed herself as Spain’s

Joan of Arc bent on saving the Christian souls of her people.59

The other great influence on Isabella came from a uniform royal law code called Siete

Partidas. In 1251, Alfonso X assigned a group of letrados to codify the legislative reform his father, Fernando III, implemented. The Partidas was the first organized official collection of laws since Visigothic times and was designed to promote social harmony between monarchs and their subjects. It is comprised of seven books or parts, each addressing different aspects of law and social life: Canonical Code; Emperors, Kings & other Lords; Justice and its administration;

Laws governing matrimony, kinship, position of legitimate and illegitimate children, paternal rights, et cetera (today, this might be referred to as family law); Commercial Law; Wills,

Inheritance and Guardianship; and finally, Criminal Law.60 The Partidas imparted that kings are

57 Peggy Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1992), 93.

58 Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times, 93-95.

59 William Thomas Walsh, Isabella of Spain: The Last Crusader (New York: Robert M. McBride & Co., 1930), 92-113.

60 Suzanne Petersen, “The Legislative Works of Alfonso X, el Sabio: Siete Partidas, 1251-1265,” University of Washington, accessed April 17, 2015, http://faculty.washington.edu/petersen/alfonso/lawtrans.htm.

150 the vicars of God, each put in his specific kingdom to reign over its people and to ensure justice and truth in temporal matters. The Partidas envisioned kings ruling in similar fashion to emperors in their empire.61 Isabella owned at least six copies of the Partidas.62 To Spanish kings and queens, especially those of Castilian decent, they were the true representatives of God in their realms, reinforcing the coalescing of religious faith and national identity. Castilian rulers viewed themselves as superior to other peoples and therefore entrusted with a divine mission to achieve a universal empire, the union of all of mankind under the direction of a single ruler which would then give way to universal harmony.63 Through a universal empire, Spanish rulers would bring a civilized and Christian way of life to those peoples who were not of the Catholic faith. 64

Isabella and Ferdinand exhibited their devotion to the ideal of universal empire early in

Katharine’s life through their crusade against the Spanish Moors in Grenada and the expulsion of the Jews, both in 1492. From as young as age seven, Katharine was immersed in a monarchy that justified the governance of its people by aligning their political responsibilities with their religious obligations.65 It is no surprise that Katharine maintained her devotion to the papacy throughout her years as queen consort and that she was able to retain the support of the Holy

Roman Emperor, her nephew. Her childhood and early youth were spent in close company with

61 Samuel Parsons Scott and Robert I. Burns, S.J. Las Siete Partidas, Volume I: Medieval Church: The World of Clerics and Laymen (Partida I) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), http://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed January 6, 2015), Titulo II, Ley I-IV. Hereafter referred to as Partidas.

62 Liss, Isabel the Queen, 99. Liss cites Francisco Sánchez Canton, Libros, tapices, y cuadros que coleccionó Isabel la Católica (, 1950) p32 as the source for her information, but Canton is not directly quoted.

63 Elliot, Spain and its World, 1500-1700, 7-9.

64 Elliot, Spain and its World, 1500-1700 , 8.

65 Elliot, Spain and its World, 1500-1700, 9.

151 her parents and she experienced their religious fervor first-hand. As a ruler of Castilian descent who already possessed the title “emperor,” Charles V likely aspired to a universal empire that united politics and religion similar to that of his grandparents. Katharine of Aragon’s repudiation by Henry VIII and the consequent separation of England from the Roman Catholic Church were anathematic to those ends.66 Spain encountered a major problem with the idea of a universal empire: how to integrate a number of kingdoms into one cohesive empire. Castilians viewed themselves as the natural rulers of such an empire, but it is unrealistic to think about Europe’s princes simply handing over their royal positions and individual authority.

When expanding into new territory, governments often justify their actions. Justification of imperium via religion was widely used by both the Spanish Empire of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the evolving definition of Henry’s sovereignty in England. When

Ferdinand and Isabella funded Columbus’s journey to the and gradually conquered the Caribbean throughout the 1490s and early , it was done under the guise of bringing

Christianity to the unenlightened peoples of the new territories. As Holy Roman Emperor and

King of Spain, Charles V oversaw the conquest of Mexico in the 1520s and Peru in the 1530s, again showing how the Spaniards were exercising their right to command over these foreign peoples with the rationalization of spreading Christianity.67 How then does the concept of religion and religious identity affect imperialist ideology? The answer to this question takes us back to Elliot and Armitage and their discussion of the idea of conformity among the conquered people. In their article on religion and empire, Joan Martin and Linda Barnes say that one way

66 For more information on Charles V, see Charles, Holy Roman Emperor; Joseph Marie Bruno Constantin Kervyn de Lettenhove, Baron; Leonard Francis Simpson, The Autobiography of Emperor Charles V (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1862); and William S. Maltby, The Reign of Charles V (New York: Palgrave, 2002).

67 Canny, “The Origins of Empire,” 6-10.

152 religion and imperial ideology coexist is through an adaptation of another’s traditions to more obviously align with one’s own.68 Adaptation is exactly the method that Henry VIII used when he first began proclaiming England as its own empire. As evidenced in the previous chapter,

Henry’s religious preferences were not as disconnected from Roman Catholicism as is popularly supposed.

When Katharine insisted upon adhering to Catholic dogma, Henry adapted themes from

Lutheranism that enabled him to meet his ends and satisfy his beleaguered religious conscience in a way that the Roman Catholic Church would not. Lutheranism in England was vastly different from the Lutheranism of Germany because when it spread to Henry’s realm, it was adapted to align more closely with Catholicism, the religion practiced in England at the time.

Changing the religious ecclesiology of his kingdom enabled Henry a degree of power and authority as an emperor by giving him control over people’s way of life. Joan Martin and Linda

Barnes refer to an article by Nathan Rein which discusses the relationship between the Protestant

Reformation and the Holy Roman Empire, arguing that it created multiple versions of

Christianity and therefore created a form of religious pluralism.69 If pluralism is not an attribute of the church’s vision of itself, then, naturally, conflict arises over the superiority of one over the other. Katharine facilitated the spread of religious pluralism throughout Europe by forcing Henry to terminate his relationship with the Catholic Church. Her piety and devotion to Rome actually served to push England away from Catholicism rather than serve as a unifying presence. England went through two decades of religious turmoil as subsequent Tudor monarchs alternated between

68 Joan M. Martin and Linda L. Barnes, “Introduction: Religion and Empire” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 71, no. 1 (March 2003), 3-12, accessed October 3, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1466301.

69 Martin and Barnes, “Introduction: Religion and Empire,” 9. The article they are discussing is Nathan Rein’s “Faith and Empire: Conflicting Visions of Religion in a Late Reformation Controversy: The Augsburg “Interim” and Its Opponents,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 71, no. 1 (March 2003), 45-74, accessed April 21, 2015, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1466303.

153

Protestantism and Catholicism as England’s acceptable religion, but finally stabilized during

Elizabeth’s reign (1558-1603). The monarch remained head of the Church of England but the church incorporated a number of Catholic practices. Ultimately, this form of Protestantism would be a significant characteristic of the British Empire and its expansion.70

To Henry, England was an empire and he its emperor. However, it was one thing to believe such an assertion and quite another to turn it into reality. As a newly declared “emperor,”

Henry was quick to expand his dominion and set his sights on Ireland. Recent historiography emphasizes that origins of the English imperial ideology emerge in the analysis of England’s policies toward Ireland.71 Armitage convincingly argues that the “divinely appointed civilizing mission” of the Christian English in Ireland in the sixteenth century was the basis of imperial ideology during the Tudor dynasty.72 English insurgency in Ireland allowed the English to proclaim their racial, cultural, and religious superiority over another people. Though Armitage does not draw a specific connection to England’s economic exploitation of Ireland, John Patrick

Montaño addresses the ways in which Henry put the resources and products of Ireland to use in his Roots of English Colonialism in Ireland. His work solely addresses England’s approach to

Ireland as a colony and can be placed in the context of the Second Empire. The book’s entire introduction examines the role of nature and agriculture in England’s conquest and exploitation

70 For more on British expansion, see Kenneth R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

71 See William Palmer, The Problem of Ireland in Tudor Foreign Policy, 1485-1603 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1994); and Richard Glen Eaves, Henry VIII and James V’s Regency, 1524-1528: A Study in Anglo- Scottish Diplomacy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1987).

72 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 6.

154 of Ireland. Montaño specifically cites England’s assumed control over the Irish wool industry as an example of both these concepts.73

Armitage considers the aspects of the “Second” British Empire and concludes that it too had roots in the era of Henry VIII. According to him, characteristics of the later empire included

“military conquest, economic exploitation, and territorial expansion.”74 To his credit, Armitage later fuses these concepts with aspects of Henry’s rule, specifically in that the Irish tension was ultimately mollified through Henry’s use of military force and resulted in territorial expansion for England. In Armitage’s approach to the England-Ireland debacle, he maintains that the goal of the English was to “Christianize the Gaelic and Catholic Irish.”75 The idea of a shared religion came to the forefront, for even though Catholicism was a Christian religion, it was not the practice of the English monarchy and therefore became a serious point of contention throughout

England and in England’s relations with other states. Armitage confronts the transition between composite monarchy and imperialism using Ireland as a focal point. The unresolved conflict for him was ultimately how Ireland should be treated politically by England. On one hand, Ireland should be viewed as an English colony, despite becoming its own kingdom in 1541. On the other, as Armitage argues, Ireland should be approached as part of the English composite monarchy because since 1495, all decisions made by the Irish parliament were subject to approval by the English Privy Council. 76

Scott Hendrix takes the English-Irish relationship during the Tudor era a step further in his The Impact of the English Colonization of Ireland in the Sixteenth Century. He identifies

73 John Patrick Montaño, The Roots of English Colonialism in Ireland (Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1-10.

74 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 3.

75 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 24.

76 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 24-25.

155

Henry’s portrayal of the Irish as somehow inferior to his own countrymen as the source of the more modern ideological concept of ostracizing the “other.” According to Hendrix, in the 1530s and 1540s Englishmen begin to “operate through the fiction that what they were doing was not selfish or self-serving” but instead a noble cause in an attempt to improve another people. He even goes so far as to assert that the prejudicial view toward the Irish that “is still deeply entrenched to this very day” in England was something born out of the sixteenth century and

Henry VIII’s court. Probing the imperial strides in Ireland further, Hendrix suggests that Ireland was used as the English example of what exploration and exploitation could do for the English monarchy. Henry VIII’s policies, centered round political, social, and religious assimilation, would be used as models for the future colonization of the Americas and India. 77 Canny concurs, suggesting that even after James I united England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales under the new name of “Britain” in 1603, the idea of Britain being an empire was nothing more than a resurrection of the definition Henry VIII used seventy-five years prior.78 While there were now new states grouped together and the amount of land and people over whom James claimed dominion grew, the increase was not from any kind of expansionist ideology; nothing new was acquired, those states belonged to him by right of succession.

Though it took until 1542 for the English monarchy to officially take control over

Ireland, Hendrix attributes the idea of territorial expansion to Henry VII. He claims that the first

Tudor demonstrated interest in claiming other lands for his new title, but that the lack of resources and “natural cautious nature” prevented him from doing so.79 His son was not afflicted

77 Scott Hendrix, The Impact of the English Colonization in the Sixteenth Century (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Pr, 2012), 7-14.

78 Canny, “The Origins of Empire,” 5.

79 Hendrix, The Impact of English Colonization, 24.

156 with the same circumstances. Henry VIII was notoriously arrogant and egotistical, and where the desire to expand once existed to ensure family heritage, Henry pursued annexations to suit his own ego. After his break with the Church in 1532, Henry set his sights on acquiring the territories fit for an English emperor. His world-view and foreign policy were so far from where they had started - intertwined with Katharine’s - that it is no surprise that she had long since lost the ability to influence him.

The historiography of the British Empire continues to be contentious, especially when addressing the origins of imperial action. Of those who argue that the empire’s origins began in the early to mid-Tudor era, David Armitage makes the most compelling and well-rounded claim.

While others like J.H. Elliot limit their consideration of Henry VIII’s reign to England’s relationship with Spain, Armitage studies the characteristics of Henry’s reign in all matters of dominium and imperium. As Armitage remarks, the very idea of Henry VIII as an emperor and of

England as an empire stemmed from suggestions of his domestic advisors in the midst of his quest for divorce in 1533.

Despite Katharine’s family’s efforts, a universal empire was never achieved. Eventually, the Church recognized that states would put defense of their individual state over allegiance to the Christian commonwealth – at least as it was defined by the Church.80 Katharine and Henry’s divorce was example enough that universal dominion under one ruler could not compete with the unique needs of various monarchies. In addition to his religious bothers, dynastic concerns also drove Henry to cite lack of a male heir as a threat to the line of succession in his divorce petition.

Loyalty to the individual crown of England overrode his allegiance to the Catholic Church to such a degree that he cut through the only bond unifying the majority of European states.

80 Elliot, Spain and the Wider World, 1500-1800, 3.

157

A more fluid, evolutionary approach to England’s sovereignty highlights the ways in which Katharine of Aragon’s actions served as a precursor to the concept of empire adapted in the early Tudor dynasty. It is through the family connections she brought to their marriage that

Henry even had the opportunity to have connections with the princes of Europe. Her ambassadorial, diplomatic, and communication efforts enabled Henry to benefit from intimate relationships she fostered with both foreign kings and queens and the English noble families who were once rejected from political influence. Katharine’s ability to put the interests of England above those of any other state saved it from Scottish invasion and at the same time, her understanding of the government of multiple kingdoms influenced Henry during his time as regent of Scotland. Her refusal to accept Henry’s divorce and the unintended consequence of

England’s break from the Catholic Church directly led to the biggest defining characteristic of

England’s imperial future: Protestantism. Katharine of Aragon set in motion England’s next major adjustment to its concept of sovereignty.

158

Chapter 7

CONCLUSION

Katharine of Aragon was Queen of England for twenty-four years, but her influence upon the English monarchy and society casts a long shadow. Her story can be tied to England’s history from when she was a young child in 1489, when her parents signed the first negotiations with

Henry VII of England for a marriage between their children, and her legacy can be seen throughout the reign of her daughter, Mary I of England which ended in 1558, and beyond.

Katharine’s involvement in England’s cultural, political, and religious culture can be seen for nearly seventy-five years. Katharine altered the definition of English queenship; she was so adept at politics that she was appointed as Henry VIII’s regent; she exercised her own agency so successfully that a king was forced to forever change the religious practices of his kingdom to circumvent her supporters; and, ultimately, she influenced the way an entire nation defined its sovereignty. Katharine of Aragon contributed significantly more to English history than simply being the cast-aside first wife of Henry VIII.

It is easy to assume that nothing more can be contributed to the debate about Katharine of

Aragon and Henry VIII, however there are facets of her life that need to be addressed and put into context with her time. Much consideration is given to Katharine’s subjugation to others’ will, but rarely is it discussed who was controlling her day to day activities. Just how much control over her own life did Katharine have? The answer to this question often appears as a description of what she could not control (i.e. the terms of her engagement, the course of the divorce proceedings) instead of the power and authority that she did possess. Even the feminist interpretations of the lives of Henry’s wives do not adequately assess the political importance of

159 their own actions, only citing their political and diplomatic value to the leading men of court.1

There should also be examination of Katharine’s relationship with major players of the Tudor court and the motivations behind their friendship or animosity. Thomas More and Charles

Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, were staunch supporters of the queen and it would serve to supplement an understanding of Katharine’s life if historians put their support in context. Lastly, it is no novel idea that Katharine of Aragon was an important member among the ranks of Queen of England. An immensely important concept of her legacy is how she conformed to and/or shaped England’s ideals of queenship, religious identity, and acceptance of women in government. These topics tend to be overlooked in favor of the more culturally dramatic aspects of her life, but should instead resonate as the true depiction of Katharine of Aragon, Queen of

England.

One of the primary roles of consorts (and marriages) in general was to achieve support and connection through their networks and associations. These types of connections are not just limited to Katharine as a consort. Constance of Castile provided John of Gaunt with a means to the Castilian crown and Thomas Cromwell hoped that Anna of Cleves would provide Henry’s blossoming Lutheran aspirations with the support of German princes. Katharine provided connection to the princes of mainland Europe and thereby helped to legitimize Henry VIII’s position as King of England. Through Katharine, Henry formed alliances with some of the most powerful kingdoms of Europe – Spain, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire. However, it must also be considered that Henry did not instantly obtain these allies by himself. Katharine played a key role by acting as intermediary and ambassador, corresponding with her relations to greater effect than Henry.

1 For more on this argument, see Karen Lindsey, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII (Reading: Perseus Books, 1993).

160

Female consorts especially were tasked with one other important responsibility: to provide heirs for the king. In this respect, queen consorts like Katharine obtained incredible power and influence. The relationships between royal mothers and daughters played a very important role in shaping ideas of queenship and a study of Katharine shows how powerful maternal connections are. Queens were responsible for teaching their young princesses how to one day be consorts and regnants themselves. In Spain, there were no laws or customs prohibiting women from inheriting the crown and that acceptance of female rule trickled down through the generations. Katharine of Aragon’s humanist education and training was comparable to her brother’s and her mother saw that she was adequately prepared for her position as a queen.

When she became a mother herself, Katharine fought diligently for her daughter’s rights as

Henry VIII’s heir and commissioned works by humanist Juan Luis Vives for Mary’s education.

Katharine’s desire for Mary to be recognized as Henry’s legitimate daughter and retain a position in his line of succession was realized when Henry outlined his plan for succession in his will.

Mary was not only reaffirmed as a legitimate descendent of Henry VIII, but also became the first

Queen Regnant of England after the death of her half-brother in 1553.

Katharine may not have lived to see the fruition of her political efforts on behalf of her daughter, but she experienced a successful political career during her years as queen. Her upbringing and influence from her mother proved invaluable to Katharine’s participation in

England’s government as their relationship provided the basis for her understanding of politics and government from the perspective of Isabella who was building her Spanish monarchy into an empire. At the beginning of their reign, Katharine was more to Henry then a bedfellow or simple consort. Though her formal credentials as an ambassador ended with Henry VII’s death and showed no signs of renewing now that she was queen, her political function continued much as it

161 had before. Where Henry required assistance or gentle nudging in the direction of alliance with

Spain, or war with France, Katharine was there to provide her opinion and influence. Her political experience was greater than his as Henry only began his political training after the death of his brother. Her knowledge of English, once lacking and having little opportunity to improve, made great progress during her tenure as ambassador and now as queen she no longer kept to the company of her Spanish speaking ladies. Instead she worked diligently for friendship and

“quietly rebuilt the good will of some aristocratic families, which Henry VII had treated with indifference and hostility.”2

When Katharine became queen, she dismissed much of her Spanish court, opting instead for the company of English nobles. She worked tirelessly to learn the language and customs of the English and master them. The conscious decision to assimilate to and adamantly support the

English way of life was likely fuel to Henry VIII’s ego and represented Katharine’s acceptance of Englishness. At the time, Henry had just received notice of his denial for consideration as the new Holy Roman Emperor. According to Armitage, Katharine’s nephew, Charles, being named

Holy Roman Emperor was a major catalyst in Henry’s decision to become an emperor himself.

The merger of the Spanish kingdoms and the Roman Empire under one crown made Charles V’s rule the “most far-flung monarchy the world had ever known.”3 Having the support of the new

Holy Roman Emperor’s own aunt in England can hardly be ignored when considering the value of Katharine as Henry’s wife.

Katharine’s regency in 1513 served as a definite change in the expectations of England’s queen consorts. Consorts had not been granted the amount of autonomy that Katharine received since served as regent for her son, King Richard the Lionheart in the late

2 David Loades, The Tudor Queens of England (New York: Continuum Books, 2009), 91.

3 Armitage, Ideological Origins, 32.

162 twelfth century. Soon into her regency, the Scots began to move South and Katharine took to her council full force and managed military personnel affairs for her troops in both Flanders and along the Scottish borders. Once those were secure, she even formed a reserve army around

London for the protection of its citizens. Following in her mother’s courageous footsteps,

Katharine took to the field of York to lead her troops herself. By the middle of September,

Katharine and her English forces were successful in fending off the Scots and defeated the King of Scotland. Ever aware of the costs of war, once knowledge of the Scottish king’s fall reached her, she disbanded the reserve army and reduced her army in the North. She was also mindful of the political intricacies of defeating another nation. The Queen of Scotland was Henry’s sister,

Margaret. Katharine wrote that she would send someone to comfort the widowed Queen of Scots if she would rule Scotland in the interest of the English Tudors. Between the two women, a permanent peace with Scotland was achieved, at least for a time.4 Throughout her difficulties with Scotland, Katharine was able to utilize the education she received by observing her mother’s methods of queenship and apply them to the interests of England while understanding that this kind of autonomy came with a prescribed expiration date.

Unfortunately for Katharine, her political aptitude was not enough to counter the fact that she had not provided Henry with the male heir he so desired. A recurring theme in sixteenth century Europe was that national politics were directly tied to dynastic politics. Marriage alliances were made based upon what each family could gain from the union and often led to territorial expansion and increased political power. Just as production of heirs from these unions solidified the relationship between the two families; lack thereof left one or both families vulnerable. When it became clear that Henry would not be able to secure the continuation of his

4 Instruction from Katharine to Lord Dacre, L&P, vol 1, item 2323; and Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 157-161.

163 dynasty through the child(ren) of Katharine, he convinced himself that God was punishing him for marrying his brother’s widow. For Henry, the only way to assuage his religious conscience and protect his dynastic aspirations was to seek an annulment from Katharine and remarry in the hopes of producing male heirs with his next wife.

In June 1527, Henry confronted Katharine with his decision that they were not legally man and wife. She never doubted for a minute the legality of her marriage and she even convinced herself that God decreed it. Her reaction was highly emotional but extremely pragmatic. Realizing that Henry would have to resort to Rome for a decision, she promptly dispatched her steward with a message to her nephew the Holy Roman Emperor beseeching his immediate aid. Charles reacted immediately. He wrote first to Katharine, vowing his full support, then to Henry, begging him to “desist from so dishonorable a course,” and finally to the pope to preempt any resulting proceedings in the Curia.5 Katharine refused to accept that she was anything but Henry’s true wife and the rightful Queen of England and insisted that she would recognize no court decision save for one decided and sanctioned by the pope himself. Katharine appealed directly to Pope Clement, explaining the tactics that Henry was using to obtain his divorce and outlining her concern for the souls of her English countrymen.6 The pope refused to grant Henry his requested annulment and Katharine refused to accept any decision made outside papal jurisdiction. Katharine’s steadfast obstinacy provided Henry little other choice but to seek out alternative solutions to his great matter. Henry VIII began his political and religious separation from the Catholic Church to become head of his own Church in England to get his

5 Loades, The Tudor Queens of England , 102.

6 Correspondence between Katharine, Eustace Chapuys, Charles V, and Pope Clement, Summer 1531, L&P, vol 5, items 287,308,340,361. See also the Calendar of State Papers, Spain, vol 4, part 2 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1882), items 720, 721, 725, 739, 753, 756, 765, 772. This source will be noted in the future as CSP Spain followed by the volume and item numbers.

164 way. He required all his subjects to recognize him as the Supreme Head of the Church in

England, proclaimed that he had jurisdiction in all matters temporal and spiritual, and began dissolving Catholic monasteries, claiming them to be heretical, and usurping all of their lands and wealth. What started as a Catholic king wanting a divorce from his Catholic queen quickly led to political and religious reforms for England and changed the country’s relationship with mainland Europe. Now that Katharine was no longer recognized as the Queen of England, Henry lost much of the support he formerly received from the Spanish and Catholic princes who were her relatives.

Many historians cite this point in the chronology to claim that imperial ideology emerges in the reign of Henry VIII. Katharine drove Henry to pursue the statutory acts used to split from the Catholic Church and Henry referred to himself as an emperor of England. Modern characteristics of empire began to appear through Henry’s relationship with Scotland and

Ireland. Land and dominion disputes raged between England and Scotland. Henry’s treatment of and reaction to Scotland and Ireland began the transition of England’s definition of sovereignty.7

What was once a familial alliance had broken down to a question of land interests pitting family against itself. In his Imperial Spain: 1469-1716, J. H. Elliot argues that large political units like

Castile and England proceeded in a unitary direction through medieval Europe until the “deeply rooted European sense of family and patrimony” caused Europe’s princes to expand their individual families’ wealth and land holdings.8 During the transition from the established composite monarchy toward the blossoming of empire, a leading characteristic was dynastic expansion. Elliot also notes that unity could only be achieved until dynastic ambition throws it

7 David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Ideas in Context) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 16.

8 J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 (London: Penguin Books, 2002), 6.

165 off course. Katharine and Henry’s divorce changed the Tudor dynastic future and altered

England’s relationship with the rest of Europe.

Katharine of Aragon’s influence over England’s changing ideology was not deliberate, but it nonetheless provided lasting effects. She embraced Englishness and fought for England’s interests above all others once she became queen, providing an early example of the Anglo- superiority philosophy that permeates the characteristics of the British Empire centuries later.

She was intimately exposed to and understood the concepts of multiple and composite monarchies and her ideas about proper governing and assimilation of territorial additions to the kingdom often mirrored the tactics employed by Elizabeth I and James VI. Finally, forcing

Henry to break from the Catholic Church during their divorce and embrace Lutheranism initiated a reformation that ended in the creation of a specific national identity. Protestantism later moved from a national identity to one of an entire empire, making it the leading characteristic of the

British Empire. If Katharine would have consented to a divorce from Henry, it is likely that

Protestantism would not have gained the foothold it did and England would have remained a

Catholic nation.

Authors and historians will continue to debate the merits of the Tudor dynasty as long as there are people interested in reading about it. There was simply too much drama and intrigue during those years to ever garner a unified position from writers. History’s reliance on interpretation allows for a constant redefinition of individuals, events, and causality. David

Loades’ brief work on Katharine seems to outline the general opinion of contemporary historians, exposing her as both queen and human who was at the same time pertinent to cultural and political changes and helpless against the will of various schemers and climbers anxious for the king’s affections. More and more, historians are considering women’s contributions to

166 history and acknowledging their effects on the world around them. The recognition is especially true of women of the royal and noble classes on whom there is more readily available primary source material. Scholarship on queenship has greatly increased in the twenty-first century.

Historians are looking more towards the roles and powers of the leading women of monarchy in conjunction with their more readily addressed husbands.

Palgrave Macmillan publishing company has released twenty-nine monographs since

2002 as part of their “Queenship and Power” series. The primary goal of the series is to lend to the understanding of the tactics that queens, both regnant and consort, used to wield political power in male-dominated societies. Though a significant portion of the series is focused on the queens of England, especially Elizabeth I, studies of queens throughout Europe are included in an effort to contrast the approaches of queens in differing cultures.9 Many of these recent works on European queenship present a somewhat feminist approach to the topic. The authors recognize that the women they study are not considered equal to their male counterparts during their reigns, however, each book of the series strives to show that, while perhaps not considered equivalent in status to their kingly husbands, the queens of Europe were able to find their place in their respective political arenas and became capable of exercising great power and influence.

Katharine of Aragon is once again relegated to chapters within these works in assessments of her own contributions or in comparison to the impact of other consorts. However, unlike her appearances in previous historiography, Katharine is now being considered as she should be - in the context of her own agency and her impact on the political, religious, cultural, and imperial aspects of a country to which she was not a native.

9 A full list of titles in Palgrave Macmillan’s Queenship and Power series can be found via the publisher’s website at http://www.palgrave.com/series/queenship-and-power/QAP/.

167

Whether or not Katharine was truly the Queen of England after 1533 is still a much debated topic among historians. However, even if historians accept Cranmer’s sentence,

Katharine was still accepted by Henry and all of England as his wife for more than twenty years, longer than all of his other wives combined. Katharine benefited from an unusually extensive education in her youth and was a great patron of scholars as Queen. Her personality traits mirrored her mother’s in many ways and, though separate from Mary for much of her life, were passed on to the young princess as well. Their intelligence, diplomacy, and piety both served them well and were the causes of problems throughout their reigns. During her time as ambassador and for the first ten years of her marriage, she devoted her influence to maintaining the alliance between her husband and her homeland, though, like much else in her life, eventually lost her battle in favor of other men’s desires. Despite spending more than thirty-five years in England and enduring both good and bad fortune, Katharine never forgot that she was of the royal blood of Spain. She maintained confidence in herself and her virtue and remained a devout Catholic until the end.

168

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calendars and Published Document Collections

Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers relating to the negotiations between England

and Spain, Vols 1-5, Supplement and Further Supplement to Vols 1 and 2, G. A.

Bergenroth, Pascual de Gayangos, and Garrett Mattingly, eds, London: Longman, Green,

Longman and Roberts (1862).

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vols 1-14, J. S. Brewer, James Gairdner,

and R. H. Brodie, eds, London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts (1864).

Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives and Collections of Venice

and in other libraries of northern Italy, Vols 1-5, Rawdon Brown, ed., London:

Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts (1864).

Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III: Volume 4, 1337-1339, H C Maxwell Lyte, ed..London: Her

Majesty's Stationery Office (1900).

Contemporary Printed Works (includes modern editions)

Knox, John. The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1557).

Modern translation. London: Southgate, 1858.

Vives, Juan Luis. The Instruction of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth Century Manual (1541).

Modern translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Online Resources

“Consanguinity (in Canon Law).” Richard Burtsell. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4. New

York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. Accessed December 23, 2014.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04264a.htm.

169

“History of the Monarchy: The Tudors.” The Official Website of the British Monarchy.

Accessed May 29, 2014, www.royal.gov.uk

“The Legislative Works of Alfonso X, el Sabio: Siete Partidas, 1251-1265.” University of

Washington. Accessed April 17, 2015.

http://faculty.washington.edu/petersen/alfonso/lawtrans.htm.

“The Lords Appellant and the forfeitures of 1397.” The Institute of Historical Research and

Royal Holloway. University of London, 2007. Accessed December 18, 2014.

www.history.ac.uk/richardIII/lordsapp.html

“The Style of Infante/Infanta de España.” François Velde. December 30, 2004. Heraldica.

Accessed December 19, 2014. http://www.heraldica.org/topics/national/infantes.htm.

“Sumptuary Laws.” Encyclopædia Britannica Online. s.v “sumptuary law.” Accessed January

13, 2015. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/573467/sumptuary-law.

Theses and Dissertations

Sanders, Amanda Clay. “The Duchesses of Lancaster: An Examination of English

Noblewomen's Exercise of Power and Influence During the Fourteenth Century.” Masters

thesis, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2015. Received April 16, 2015.

Journal Articles

Angelo, Sydney. "The London Pageants for the Reception of Katharine of Aragon: November

1501." Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institutes (The Warburg Institute) 26, no.

1/2 (1963): 53-89.

Armitage, David. “Making the Empire British: Scotland in the Atlantic World 1542-1707.” Past

& Present (Oxford University Press) 155, (May, 1997): 34-63.

170

Armitage, David. “The Elizabethan Idea of Empire.” Transactions of the Royal Historical

Society, Sixth Series (Royal Historical Society) 41, (2004): 269-277.

Ban, Joseph D. “English Reformation: Product of King or Minister?” Church History

(Cambridge University Press) 41, no. 2 (June, 1972): 186-197.

Bernard, G. W. “The Making of Religions Policy, 1533-1546: Henry VIII and the Search for the

Middle Way.” The Historical Journal (Cambridge University Press) 41, no. 2 (June,

1998): 321-349.

Dewhurst, Sir John. "The Alleged Miscarriages of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn."

Medical History 28 (1984): 49-56.

Gairdner, James. “New Lights on the Divorce of Henry VIII.” The English Historical Review

(Oxford University Press) 12, no. 45 (January 1897): 1-16.

Haigh, Christopher. “The Recent Historiography of the English Reformation.” The Historical

Journal (Cambridge University Press) 25, no. 4 (December, 1982): 995-1007.

Harris, Barbara J. “Women and Politics in Early Tudor England.” The Historical Journal

(Cambridge University Press) 33, no. 2 (June, 1990): 259-281.

Highley, Christopher. “‘A Pesilent and Seditious Book’: Nicholas Sander’s Schismatis Anglicani

and Catholic Histories of the Reformation.” Huntington Library Quarterly (University of

California Press) 68, no. 1-2, (March, 2005): 151-171.

Ives, Eric. “Anne Boleyn and the Early Reformation in England: The Contemporary Evidence.”

The Historical Journal (Cambridge University Press) 37, no. 2 (1994): 389-400.

Johnston, Hope. “Catherine of Aragon’s Pomegranate, Revisited.” Transactions of the

Cambridge Bibliographical Society (Cambridge Bibliographical Society) 13, no. 2

(2005): 153-173.

171

Kumar, Krishan. “Nation-states as Empires, Empires as Nation-states: Two Principles, One

Practice?” Theory and Society (Springer) 39, no. 2 (March 2010): 119-143.

Levine, Mortimer. “Henry VIII’s Use of His Spiritual and Temporal Jurisdictions in His Great

Causes of Matrimony, Legitimacy, and Succession.” The Historical Journal (Cambridge

University Press) 10, no. 1 (1967): 3-10.

Mackie, J.D.. “Henry VIII and Scotland.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fourth

Series (Royal Historical Society) 29 (1947): 93-114.

Marshall, Peter. “The Other Black Legend: The Henrician Reformation and the Spanish People.”

The English Historical Review (Oxford University Press) 116, no. 465 (February 2001):

31-49.

Martin, Joan M. and Linda L. Barnes. “Introduction: Religion and Empire.” Journal of the

American Academy of Religion (Oxford University Press) 71, no. 1 (March 2003): 3-12.

Mason, Roger A. “Scotland, Elizabethan England, and the Idea of Britain.” Transactions of the

Royal Historical Society (Cambridge University Press) 14, (2004): 279-293.

Pincus, Steve. “Reconfiguring the British Empire.” The William and Mary Quarterly

(Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture) 69, no. 1 (January 2012):

63-70.

Sharkey, Jessica. “Between King and Pope: Thomas Wolsey and the Knight Mission.” Historical

Research (Institute of Historical Research) 84, no. 224 (May, 2011): 236-248.

Williamson, Arthur H. “An Empire to End Empire: The Dynamic of Early Modern British

Expansion.” Huntington Library Quarterly Vol. 68, no. 1-2 (March 2005).

Wormald, Jenny. “The Creation of Britain: Multiple Kingdoms or Core and Colonies?”

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vol. 2 (1992).

172

Books

André, Bernard, James Gairdner, ed. Historia regis Henrici Septimi. London: Longman, Brown,

Green, Longmans, and Roberts. 1858.

Andrews, Kenneth R. Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of

the British Empire, 1480-1630. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Archer, Ian W., ed. Religion, Politics, and Society in Sixteenth-Century England. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Ideas in Context). Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Armitage-Smith, Sydney. John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and

Lancaster. n.p.: Forgotten Books, 2012.

Arnold, Margot. Queen Consorts of England: The Power Behind the Throne. New York: Facts of

File, 1993.

Bainton, Roland H. Women of the Reformation in France and England. Minneapolis: Fortress

Press, 2007.

Baker, Denise Nowakowski, ed. Inscribing the Hundred Years’ War in French and English

Cultures. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Beem, Charles. The Lioness Roared: The Problems with Female Rule in English History. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Bennett, J.M., ed. Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1989.

Bernard, G.W. The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

173

Borchoff, David A. Isabel la Católica, Queen of Castile: Critical Essays. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2003.

Bordo, Susan. The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

Bridgen, Susan. New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603. New York:

Viking, 2000.

Brooke, Christopher. The Medieval Idea of Marriage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, ed. The Lisle Letters (Six Volume Set) (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1981.

Canny, Nicholas, ed. The Origins of Empire. The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume

I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Cantor, Norman and Michael S. Werthman, eds. Early Modern Europe: 1450-1650. New York:

Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1967.

Carney, Jo Eldridge. Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Chapman, Hester. The Challenge of Anne Boleyn. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan,

Inc., 1972.

Chappell, Julie and Kaley A Kramer. Women During the English Reformations: Renegotiating

Gender and Religious Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Charles, Holy Roman Emperor; Joseph Marie Bruno Constantin Kervyn de Lettenhove, Baron;

Leonard Francis Simpson, The Autobiography of Emperor Charles V. London: Longman,

Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1862.

174

Charlton, Kenneth. Women, Religion, and Education in Early Modern England. London:

Routledge, 1999.

Chibnall, Marjorie. The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, , and Lady of the

English. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.

Claremont, Francesca. Catherine of Aragon. London: Robert Hale Limited, 1939.

Cockerill, Sara. Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen. Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2014.

Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and

Stuart England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Crowson, P.S. Tudor Foreign Policy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973.

Curry, Anne. The Hundred Years War, 1337-1453. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002.

Cruz, Anne and Mihoko Suzuki, eds. The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe. Urband:

University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Davies, R. R. The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093-1343.

New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2002.

Daybell, James, ed. Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

De Lisle, Leanda. Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England’s Most

Notorious Royal Family. PublicAffairs, 2013.

Dixon, William Hepworth. History of Two Queens Volume I: Catharine of Aragon. Google Play

Books. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1873.

Doran, Susan and Glenn Richardson, eds. Tudor England and its Neighbors. New York:

Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

175

Douglas, David C. ed., English Historical Documents, Volume V, 1485-1558. London: Eyre &

Spottiswoode, 1971.

Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580. Second

Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Duggan, Anne J. Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe. London: Boydell Press, 2008.

Dunn, Alastair. The Great Rising of 1381: the Peasant’s Revolt and England’s Failed Rebellion.

Stroud: Tempus, 2002.

Earenfight, Theresa. Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain.

Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

Earenfight, Theresa. Queenship in Medieval Europe. Baskingstroke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Earenfight, Theresa. Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2010.

Eaves, Richard Glen. Henry VIII and Janes V’s Regency, 1524-1528: A Study in Anglo-Scottish

Diplomacy. Lanham: University Press of America, 1987.

Elliot, J. H.. Imperial Spain 1469-1716, London: Pelican, 1970.

Elliot, J. H.. Spain, Europe, and the Wider World, 1500-1800, New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2009.

Elliot, J. H.. Spain and its World, 1500-1700. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Elton, G. R.. Reform and Reformation: England 1509-1559. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1977.

Elton, G.R.. The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of

Henry VIII. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.

176

Erasmus, Desiderius, Richard J Schoeck and Beatrice Corrigan. Collected Works of Erasmus.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.

Erasmus, Desiderius and Richard DeMolen. Erasmus. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973.

Finn, Kavita Mudan. The Last Plantagenet Consorts: Gender, Genre, and Historiography, 1440-

1627. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Fletcher, Anthony and Diarmain MacCulloch. Tudor Rebellions (Revised Fifth Edition).

Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2014.

Fletcher, Catherine. The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Fletcher, Catherine. Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and his Italian Ambassador. London: Bodley

Head, 2012.

Fox, Julia. Sister Queens: Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castille. London: Phoenix,

2012.

Frasier, Antonia. The Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

Froude, J.A. The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon The Story as Told by the Imperial

Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry VIII. Kindle. New York: Charles Scribner's

Sons, 1891.

Frye, Susan. Pens and Needles: Women’s Textualities in Early Modern England. Philadelphia:

University of Philadelphia Press, 2010.

Gairdner, James. Elizabeth of York: Queen of Henry VII. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1900.

Goodman, Anthony. John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth Century

Europe New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

177

Gregory, Philippa, David Baldwin, Michael K Jones, eds. The Women of the Cousin’s War: the

Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother. New York: Touchstone, 2014.

Guardiola-Griffiths, Cristina. Legitimizing the Queen: Propaganda and Ideology in the Reign of

Isabel I of Castile. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2011.

Gunn, S J. Early Tudor Government, 1485-1558. Basingstroke: Macmillan, 1995.

Guy, J.A. Thomas More. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Haigh, Christopher. English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society Under the Tudors.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Hammond, P.W. and Anne F. Sutton. Richard III: the Road to Bosworth Field. London:

Constable, 1985.

Hanawalt, Barbara A. The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1986.

Harper-Bill, C., ed. Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England. New

York: Boydell Press, 1991.

Harper-Bill, Christopher and Nicolas Vincent. Henry II: New Interpretations. Woodbridge, UK:

Broydell Press, 2007.

Harpsfield, Nicholas. A Treatise on the Pretended Divorce Between Henry VIII and Catharine of

Aragon. Google Books. Westminster, 1877.

Heal, Felicity. The Power of Gifts: Gift-Exchange in Early Modern England . Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2014.

Hendrix, Scott E. The Impact of the English Colonization of Ireland in the Sixteenth Century.

Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Pr, 2012.

178

Hentschell, Roze. The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England. Aldershot: Ashagte Pub.,

2008).

Herlihy, David. Medieval Households. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Hicks, M. A. The Wars of the Roses. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

Hicks, M. A. Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the War of the Roses.

Ohio: Humbledon Press, 1991.

Hoak, Dale. Tudor Political Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Howe, Elizabeth Teresa. Education and Women in the Early Modern Hispanic World. Aldershot:

Ashgate Pub., 2008.

Hoyle, R.W.. The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2001

Hume, Martin Andrew Sharp. The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in

History. Kindle. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1905.

Hutchinson, Robert. Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,

2011.

Ives, Eric. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Maldon: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Jansen, Sharon L. The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Jones, Dan. The Wars of the Roses: the Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors. New

York: Viking, 2014.

Jones, Dan. The Plantagenets: the Warrior Kings and Queens who made England. New York:

Viking, 2012.

Jones, Dan. Summer of Blood: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. London: Harper Press, 2010.

179

Justice, Steven. Writing and rebellion: England in 1381. Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1994.

Kamen, Henry. Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492 -1763. New York:

HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.

Kantorowicz, Ernst. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theory. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1957.

Kesselring, K. J. Mercy and Authority in the Tudor State (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern

British History). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

King, Andy and Michael A. Penman. England and Scotland in the Fourteenth Century: New

Perspectives. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2007.

Lancelot, Francis. “Elizabeth of York, Queen of Henry the Seventh” in The Queens of England

and Their Times: From Matilda, Queen of William the Conqueror to Adelaide, Queen of

William the Fourth. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858.

Landsman, Ned C.. Nation and Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and the Americas,

1600-1800. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2001.

Langdon-Davies, John. Richard III and the Princes in the Tower: a Collection of Contemporary

Documents. London: Jackdaw Publications, 1966.

Layher, William. Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2010.

Laynesmith, J. L.. The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503, Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

180

Levin, Carole, Debra Barrett-Graves, and Jo Eldridge Carney, ed. High and Mighty Queens of

Early Modern England: Realities and Representations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

2003.

Levin, Carole and R.O. Bucholz. Queens & Power in Medieval and Early Modern England.

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Levin, Carole and Patrician Ann Sullivan. Political Rhetoric, Power and Renaissance Women.

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.

License, Amy. Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen. Glouchestershire: Amberley,

2013.

Lindsey, Karen. Divorced Beheaded Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of

Henry VIII. Reading: Perseus Books, 1995.

Liss, Peggy K. Isabel the Queen: Life and Times. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

1992.

Loades, David. Tudor Government: Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century. Oxford:

Blackwell Publishers, Ltd, 1997.

Loades, David. The Tudor Queens of England. New York: Continuum Books, 2009.

Lowe, Ben. Imagining Peace: History of Early English Pacifist Ideas. University Park, PA:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.

Luke, Mary. Catherine, the Queen. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967.

Mackie, J. D. The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952.

MacKay, Lauren. Inside the Tudor Court: Henry VIII and his Six Wives through the writings of

the Spanish Ambassador Eustace Chapuys. Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2014.

181

Marcham, Frederick George. A Constitutional History of Modern England, 1485 to the Present.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960.

Mariéjol, Jean Hippolyte. The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella. ed. and trans. Benjamin Keen.

New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961.

Maltby, William S., The Reign of Charles V (New York: Palgrave, 2002).

Mate, Mavis. Women in Medieval English Society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

1999.

Mattingly, Garrett. Catherine of Aragon. Boston: Little, Brown, 1941.

Mattingly, Garrett. The Armada. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969.

Mazzocco, Angelo. Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism. Boston: Brill, 2006.

Montaño, John Patrick. The Roots of English Colonialism in Ireland. Cambridge, UK.:

Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Nicolas, Nicholas Henry. “Memoir of Elizabeth of York, Eldest Daughter of King Edward the

Fourth and Consort to King Henry the Seventh” in Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of

York: Wardrobe Expenses of Edward the Fourth, with a Memoir of Elizabeth of York,

and Notes. London: William Pickering, 1830.

Nicolas, Nicholas Henry. Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth. London: William Pickering,

1827.

Oakley-Brown, Liz. The Rituals and Rhetoric of Queenship: Medieval to Early Modern. Dublin:

Four Courts, 2009.

O’Callaghan, Joseph. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.

O’Callaghan, Joseph. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

182

Okerlund, Arlene Naylor. Elizabeth of York. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Ormrod, W. Mark. Edward III. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

Pagden, Anthony. Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France c.

1500-c. 1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Palmer, William. The Problem of Ireland in Tudor Foreign Policy, 1485-1603. Suffolk:

Woodbridge, 1994.

Parsons, John C, ed. Medieval Queenship. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.

Parsons, John C. Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth Century England. New

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

Parsons, Timothy. The Second British Empire: in the Crucible of the Twentieth Century.

Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Paul, John E. Catherine of Aragon and Her Friends. New York: Fordham University Press,

1966.

Plowden, Alison. Tudor Women: Queens and Consorts. New York: Atheneum, 1979.

Plowden, Alison. Two Queens in One Isle: The Deadly Relationship of Elizabeth I and Mary,

Queen of Scots. Sussex: Harvester Press, 1984.

Pollard, A. J. Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

Prescott, William Hickling. History of the Reign on Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. 1. New York:

John B. Alden, 1838.

Prestwich, Michael. Plantagenet England, 1225-1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Prestwich, Michael. The Three Edwards: War and state in England, 1272-1377. London:

Routledge, 2003.

Rex, Richard. The Tudors. Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Limited, 2006.

183

Roll, Winifred. The Pomegranate and the Rose: The Story of Katharine of Aragon. New Jersey:

Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970.

Ronald, Susan. The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, her Pirate Adventures, and the Dawn of

Empire. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.

Rowse, A.L.. Tudor Cornwall: A Portrait of Society. New York: C. Scribner, 1969.

Royle, Trevor. The Wars of the Roses: England’s First Civil War. London: Abacus, 2010.

Rubin, Nancy. Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen. Lincoln NE: ASJA Press, 2004.

Saulsbury, G. T.. Street Life in Medieval England. St. Albans: Gainsborough Press, 1948.

Saward, John, J.S. Morrill, and Michael Tomko. Firmly I Believe and Truly: the Spiritual

Tradition of Catholic England, 1483-1999. Okford: Oxford University Press, 2011.weir

Scarisbrick, J. J. Henry VIII. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

Seward, Desmond. A Brief History of the Hundred Years War: the English in France, 1337-

1453. London: Robinson, 2003.

Sharpe, Kevin. Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-Century England.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Snook, Edith. Women, Reading, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England. Aldershot:

Ashgate Pub., 2005.

Snook, Edith. Women, Beauty, and Power in Early Modern England: A Feminist Literary

History. Baskingstroke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Starkey. David. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII. New York: Harper Perennial, 2003.

Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800. New York: Harper &

Row, 1977.

Strickland, Agnes. Lives of the Queens of England. Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1852.

184

Strickland, Agnes and Edward Henry Corbould, “Elizabeth of York: Surnamed the Good,” in

The Queens of England, a Series of Portraits of Distinguished Female Sovereigns. New

York: D. Appleton & Co., 1854.

Strobel, Margaret. European Women and the Second British Empire. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1991.

Swanson, R. N. Catholic England: Faith Religion and Observance Before the Reformation.

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993.

Tremlett, Giles. Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.

Tucker, Robert W. and David C Hendrickson, The Fall of the First British Empire: Origins of

the War of American Independence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.

Vincent, Susan J. Dressing the Elite: Clothes in Early Modern England. Oxford: Berg, 2003.

Walsh, William Thomas. Isabella of Spain: The Last Crusader. New York: Robert M. McBride

& Co., 1930.

Ward, Jennifer C. English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Warnicke, Retha. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1989.

Warnicke, Retha. Women of the English Renaissance and Reformation. Westport: Greenwood

Press, 1983.

Watts, John. Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1999.

Weir, Allison. Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings. New York: Ballantine Books, 2011.

Weir, Allison. Mistress of the Monarchy. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009.

Weir, Allison. The Princes in the Tower. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.

185

Weiss, Roberto. Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 1957.

Weissberger, Barbara F. Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Weissberger, Barbara F. Queen Isabel I of Castile: Power, Patronage, Persona. Suffolk:

Tamesis, 2008.

Williams, Patrick. Catherine of Aragon. Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2013.

Williams, Penry. The Tudor Regime. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

Wilson, Derek. A Brief History of the English Reformation: Religion, Politics, and Fear, How

England was Transformed by the Tudors. London: Constable & Robinson, Ltd, 2012.

Woodacre, Elena. Queenship in the Mediterranean: Negotiating the Role of the Queen in the

Medieval and Early Modern Eras. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

186

APPENDICES

187

APPENDIX A

GENEALOGICAL CHARTS

188

GENEALOGICAL CHARTS

189

190

191

192

193

APPENDIX B

STYLES OF THE MONARCHS OF ENGLAND

194

STYLES OF THE MONARCHS OF ENGLAND

Table 1 Styles of the English Sovereigns, 1154-1603 Dates of Use Style Monarch(s) King of England, Duke of Normandy 1154-1199 Henry II, Richard I and of Aquitaine and Count of Anjou King of England, Lord of Ireland, 1199-1259 John, Henry III Duke of Normandy and Duke of Aquitaine King of England, Lord of Ireland, Henry III, Edward I, 1259-1340 and Duke of Aquitaine Edward II, Edward III 1340-1397 King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland Edward III, Richard II King of England and of France, 1397-1399 Richard II Lord of Ireland, and Prince of Chester 1399-1420 King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland Henry IV, Henry V King of England, Heir and Regent of France, 1420-1422 Henry V, Henry VI and Lord of Ireland Henry VI, Edward IV, King of England and of France 1422-1521 Edward V, Richard III, and Lord of Ireland Henry VII, Henry VIII By the Grace of God, King of England and France, 1521-1535 Defender of the Faith and Lord of Ireland By the Grace of God, King of England and France, Henry VIII 1535-1536 Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland, and of the (language changes only, no Church of England in Earth Supreme Head claims to additional By the Grace of God, King of England and France, territories or kingdoms) Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland, 1536-1542 and of the Church of England and of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head By the Grace of God, King of England, France and Henry VIII, Edward VI, 1542-1555 Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church Mary I of England and of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head By the Grace of God, King and Queen of England and France, Naples, Jerusalem and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, Princes of Spain and 1554-1556 Sicily, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Milan, Burgundy, and Brabant, Count and Countess of Habsburg, Flanders, and Tyrol Mary I and Philip II By the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, Spain, France, Jerusalem, both the Sicilies and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, Archduke and 1556-1558 Archduchess of Austria, Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, Milan and Brabant, Count and Countess of Habsburg, Flanders and Tyrol By the Grace of God, Queen of England and 1558-1603 Elizabeth I France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland,

195

and of the Church of England and of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head

Table 2 Styles of the English and Scottish Sovereigns, 1603-1707 Dates of Use Style Monarch(s) By the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, James I, Charles I, 1603-1689 France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Charles II, Charles III and of the Church of England, etc. Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief of all 1650-1653 the armies and forces raised and to be raised within the By the Grace of God and of the Republic, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Oliver Cromwell, 1653-1659 Scotland and Ireland, et cetera, and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging By the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Stadholther of the 1689-1694 Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, William III and Mary II Prince of Orange, Count of Nassau, Defenders of the Faith, etc. By the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Stadholther of the Republic of William III 1694-1702 the Seven United Netherlands, Prince of Orange, (removal of Mary only) Count of Nassau, Defender of the Faith, etc By the Grace of God, Queen of England, Scotland, 1702-1707 Anne France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. Italics are used to denote listings that are not attributed to kings or queens.

Table 3 Styles of the British Sovereigns, 1707-present Dates of Use Style Monarch(s) By the Grace of God, Queen of Great Britain, 1707-1714 Anne France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. By the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, George I, George II, 1714-1801 Archtreasurer and Prince-Elector of the Holy George III Roman Empire, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg By the Grace of God, King of the United and Ireland, 1801-1814 Defender of the Faith, Arch-treasurer and George III Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg

196

Table 3 Continued Styles of the British Sovereigns, 1707-present By the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom George III, George IV, 1814-1837 of of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the William IV Faith, King of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick By the Grace of God, Queen of the United 1837-1876 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith Victoria By the Grace of God, Queen of the United 1876-1901 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India By the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British 1901-1927 Edward VII, Dominions beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India By the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, 1927-1948 Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India George V, Edward VIII, By the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, George VI 1948-1952 Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith By the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 1953-present Elizabeth II and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith

197

VITA

Jill Perilli Mobley graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor of

Science degree in Social Science Education in 2003 and received a Paralegal Studies

Certification from Oklahoma State University in 2010. In 2012, she enrolled in Texas A&M

University-Commerce and pursued her Master of Science degree in History; she will graduate in

August 2015 and will immediately begin pursuing her Doctorate of Education in Higher

Education Administration at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Jill has also worked for Texas A&M University-Commerce since 2011 and is the current

Stewardship Coordinator for Advancement Services. She serves on a number of university committees and regularly participates as a judge in the Northeast Texas National History Day

Competition. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Alpha Theta (President, 2014-2015), and the Student Veterans Association (President, 2014-2015).

History Department, PO Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75428 [email protected]