Catherine of Aragon
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), the youngest child of the newly dominant Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. When she was 3, her parents contracted her to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, the heir to the Tudor king Henry VII in order to strengthen Spain’s alliances, since Henry’s kingdom was a longstanding trade partner and an enemy of Spain’s greatest enemy, France. For the next decade Catherine had the best humanist education available, preparing her for her expected life as queen and drawing inspiration from her warrior mother. She arrived in London to be married when she was 15 but within a few months she was widowed, her situation uncertain and left relatively impoverished for someone of her status. Rather than return home, Catherine stayed and married her late husband’s brother, Henry VIII. In her view and that of many around her, she was an exemplary queen and, even after Henry VIII had arranged the annulment of their marriage for the chance of a male heir with Anne Boleyn, Catherine continued to consider herself his only queen.
→ Listen on BBC Sounds website
Guests
- Lucy Wooding
2 episodes
Langford Fellow and Tutor in History at Lincoln College, University of Oxford and Professor of Early Modern History at Oxford - Maria Hayward
2 episodes
Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton -
Gonzalo Velasco Berenguer No other episodes
Lecturer in Global Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Bristol
Reading list
-
Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor, 1503-1533
Michelle Beer (Royal Historical Society, 2018) Google Books → -
The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church
G. R. Bernard (Yale University Press, 2007) Google Books → -
Spanish Fashion at the Courts of Early Modern Europe
Jose Luis Colomer and Amalia Descalzo (eds.) (Centro de Estudios Europa Hispanica, 2014) Google Books → -
Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England
Theresa Earenfight (Penn State University Press, 2022) Google Books → -
Ferdinand and Isabella: Profiles In Power
John Edwards (Routledge, 2004) Google Books → -
Catherine of Aragon
Garrett Mattingley (Random House, 2000) Google Books → -
Henry VIII
J. J. Scarisbrick (Yale University Press, 1997) Google Books → -
Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
David Starkey (Vintage, 2004) Google Books → -
Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen
Giles Tremlett (Faber & Faber, 2011) Google Books → -
The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth-Century Manual
Juan Luis Vives (trans. Charles Fantazzi) (University of Chicago Press, 2000) Google Books → -
Catherine of Aragon: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII's First Unfortunate Wife
Patrick Williams (Amberley Publishing, 2013) -
Henry VIII
Lucy Wooding (Routledge, 2009) Google Books →
Related episodes
-
Margaret of Anjou
24 May, 2018 940 History of Europe -
Eleanor of Aquitaine
28 Jan, 2016 940 History of Europe -
Mary, Queen of Scots
19 Jan, 2017 940 History of Europe -
Marie Antoinette
8 Nov, 2018 940 History of Europe -
Holbein at the Tudor Court
15 Oct, 2015 750 Painting -
The Tudor State
26 Oct, 2000 940 History of Europe -
William Cecil
7 Mar, 2019 940 History of Europe -
The Hanoverian Succession
28 Nov, 2024 940 History of Europe -
The Battle of Bosworth Field
26 Apr, 2012 940 History of Europe -
Marguerite de Navarre
23 Nov, 2023 840 French and related literatures
Programme ID: m0027twc
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0027twc
Auto-category: 940.2 (History of Europe: 1450-1600)