THE WRONGED QUEEN
Early morning, 1501. A golden-haired Spanish princess leans against the rails of a ship’s deck nervously viewing a landscape of church spires, stone houses and distant hills. As the vessel nears the Plymouth quayside, local dignitaries and excited throngs of well-wishers assemble to greet their honoured guest. She is Katherine of Aragon, daughter of the powerful Spanish Catholic monarchs King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The future of the Tudor dynasty rests on her youthful shoulders.
Had fate been kinder it’s possible that Katherine’s marriage to Arthur Prince of Wales might have been long, happy, and fruitful. Yet after his premature death she was married off to his younger brother Henry, who would ultimately discard her in a humiliating divorce.
In this first of six novelised biographies of Henry V111’s wives, acclaimed historian Alison Weir has written an emotionally engaging book that presents Katherine not as a pitiful victim, but as a woman of intelligence and formidable courage. Written from the Queen’s perspective, the Katherine who arrived in England that fateful day knew her marriage wasn’t about love but about geo-politics and the preservation of a royal house. The Tudors needed an alliance with Spain and a brood of healthy heirs to protect the family from the rival Plantagenet line. Sixteen year old Katherine had much to deliver.
The royal household heaved with intrigue and shifting alliances and Katherine had no time to learn its ropes. Weir’s colourful, lively descriptions evoke a backdrop of secrecy, uncertain friendships, whispered conversations and shadows lurking in every corridor. This was a world where men controlled the power, women did as they were told, and wives looked the other way if their husbands strayed into a lover’s bed. Through a twenty first century lens it is unacceptable, but that was the order of things which is why Katherine’s fight to save her marriage and protect the inheritance rights of her daughter Mary was remarkable. Yet it would be wrong to frame her as a feminist icon since her behaviour was underpinned by a strict religious devotion and the sanctity she attached to her marriage vows. Faith may have blunted the pain of Henry’s infidelities, but it also blinded Katherine to his character flaws. She was convinced that if he abandoned his mistress Anne Boleyn, who she accused of morally corrupting him, he would go back to being the kind, loving man she had married. How else could it explain her willingness to forgive his cruelty, even when he stripped away her royal privileges and reduced her to penury?
Katherine of Aragon’s life is a story of love, tragedy, and courage, all the right ingredients for good fiction and Alison Weir has brought the facts together in an intelligent and gripping narrative. Katherine’s voice rings loud and clear and the author has done an excellent job in presenting her as a woman for whom honesty and decency meant everything. It’s no wonder that Thomas Cromwell, the architect of Henry’s divorce, said of Katherine:
“Nature wronged her in not making her a man. But for her sex she would have surpassed all the heroes of history.”
Reviewed by Juliette Foster
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