Home » History » Tudor History » Catherine of Aragon, Part III

Catherine of Aragon, Part III

© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler

Where was Catherine of Aragon during Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's newly fledged romance? When the evidence appeared that Henry was setting up another flirt - possibly even another mistress to supplant Mary Boleyn - Catherine probably sighed the sigh of the resigned and took up her embroidery philosophically. Henry was a man and a king; it was not in Catherine's nature nor in her training to deny him his pleasures, nor to question his preoccupations. She was still his beloved wife, adored by his subjects and acknowledged as queen, despite the cessation of physical relations between herself and Henry. In her wildest imagination she could never have dreamed that future years would see her set aside and banished in favor of a usurper. Her own eyes told her that Anne was taking precedence in the king's estimation, but the patient and forgiving Catherine merely informed others that she held Anne "in more estimation for the King's sake than she had before." She assumed that Anne, like her sister Mary and Bessie Blount, would go the way of the discarded mistress in time, leaving Catherine's position as queen and wife unassailed.

She was disabused of her complacency in May of 1527 when Wolsey managed to convene a secret ecclesiastical court at Westminster to try the legality of the king's marriage. Henry himself did not confess the true state of matters to her until 22 June, and even then he only informed her that his conscience was troubled, and that he would separate from her until matters could be sorted out. Catherine was shattered, but the king was not to be foresworn. In spite of every evidence that Henry was following his heart, Catherine refused to the very end to believe that Henry no longer loved her, and chose instead to believe that he was being led astray by Anne, by Wolsey, by unnamed evil sources - but never that he was acting of his own accord, even when his personal animosity over her intransigence grew great, and he separated her forever from their daughter and banished her from court.

Between 1527 and 1532 Henry tried every means possible to gain his freedom from Catherine. Catherine, for her part, communicated secretly with her nephew Charles, who had become Holy Roman Emperor upon the death of Maximilian in 1521, and he promised to do all that he could to aid her. The ecclesiastical court at Westminster had not really the authority to grant Henry his divorce, which could only come from the Pope, and to that end Wolsey went to visit His Holiness in Spring of 1527, only to find that Emperor Charles had sacked Rome and sent Pope Clement VII scurrying to the hill city of Orvieto for refuge. From there, naturally, under the thumb of Catherine's nephew, the Pope could scarcely issue an annulment of Catherine's marriage. Eventually, at the urging of Cardinal Wolsey, he agreed to dispatch one Cardinal Campeggio to England to try the case in the Pope's name, but Campeggio's arrival was delayed until autumn, 1528, partly because of the cardinal's ill health and partly because the delay was favorable to the Pope, who desired to avoid making a decision in the case at any cost. Once Campeggio was in England and the trial commenced, Wolsey assured the king, all would be well, and he guaranteed Henry his ultimate freedom. Wolsey had initially begged the king with tears not to attempt to obtain the divorce, but faced with the king's determination Wolsey at last threw the whole weight of his diplomacy behind the issue, probably hoping in secret that Henry would eventually fall out of the spell of Anne Boleyn and agree to a more propitious marriage.

The copyright of the article Catherine of Aragon, Part III in Tudor History is owned by Ellen McDaniel-Weissler. Permission to republish Catherine of Aragon, Part III in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.