On this day in history, sometime during the night of 15th/16th December 1485, Queen Isabella I of Castile gave birth to her youngest daughter at the Archbishop of Toledo’s palace at Alcalá de Henares, a town just east of Madrid. Isabella and her husband, Ferdinand II of Aragon, named their daughter Catalina after her great-grandmother, Catalina (Catherine) of Lancaster.
Isabella had travelled to Alcalá in the autumn of 1485, after a summer of campaigning against the Moors in Andalucia, to prepare for Catherine’s birth.
Picture: Photo of the Palacio arzobispal de Alcalá de Henares, Wikipedia.
I recently read a book by Amy License called Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII’s True Wife. This book is very detailed and even looks at the Spanish inquiry into whether or not Arthur and Catherine consummated their marriage. This book was recommended by Banditqueen who I would like to thank most heartily. Another book I would recommend is Katherine of Aragon: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII’s First Unfortunate Wife by Patrick Williams. This book puts her birth life and death in the political context of Europe at the time. Something I’ve really discovered from reading these is how much I have learned to love and respect this woman. People at the time and even now say she was stubborn. I don’t believe it was stubbornness. She was very pious and very much believed that God judged our actions. ( this is my belief) and knew that if she did what she was asked to do it was wrong and would condemn herself. I also realized that a lot of this had to do with her trying to save Henry’s soul. This is a woman we should all admire. I feel if she had been able to give Henry a living son and kept him placated she probably would have been one of England’s greatest Queens. It’s too bad she’s primarily seen as a tragic figure in someone else’s life. With all this said it makes me smile to see the words above Catherines tomb at Peterborough saying “Katherine Queen of England”.
Yes she was a woman who aroused deep feelings in the people of her own time and still today, she was deeply pious and was capable of extreme loyalty and this loyalty towards her second husband never wavered even throughout the sad days of her cruel treatment at his hands, another good book I’d like to recommend to you is Katherine, Henrys Spanish Queen by Giles Tremlett, it is also very detailed and includes the Spanish inquiry into her consummation or not of her marriage to Arthur, her last wish was to be buried in the Priory Of The Observant Friars but Henry had begun his ruthless dissolution of the monasteries and it was not possible, her epithet above her tomb proclaiming her Queen Of England is just and fitting to a woman who was loved very deeply by her subjects, from the minute she arrived in England amid a fanfare of cheering crowds to her lonely death in an isolated castle, she had borne numerous princes and princesses and had seen them all die tragically, had her first born Prince Henry lived, history would have been very different, happy birthday Queen Katherine.
Thank you for the recommendation.
Your welcome.
Happy Birthday to Katherine of Aragon, a woman, Queen and Princess of courage. Katherine was the warrior soul of a warrior Queen. For her Queenship was a devotion, a true calling, which is why retirement was not an option. She certainly wouldn’t step aside for a woman who was her servant.