Person of the Month

Katharine of Aragon is one of the most famous of all England’s Queens Consort. Her battle to preserve her marriage has become the stuff of legend. But there was more to Katharine than the last ten years of her life. She was an exceptionally intelligent and learned woman, who played an influential role in the politics of the first part of Henry VIII’s reign.

In Katharine’s youth, she travelled extensively in Spain, but once in England most of her life was lived in the castles and palaces of the south-east, until she was banished from court in 1531.

Katharine’s story is, in many ways, a tragic one – her destiny was to act as a living symbol of the alliance between Spain and England and to provide an heir for England, which was only partially fulfilled. But for many years she was at the centre of European politics, Henry’s loved and honoured wife. Read more about her European network, and what her contemporaries thought of her.

The magisterial biography by Mattingley written in the 1940s has not been challenged until recently, but two new biographies, by Giles Tremlett and Patrick Williams, have given a whole new insight into Katharine, and the politics and diplomacy that surrounded her.