Rummage in a royal womb

Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen

In his biography of the Spanish-born queen, Giles Tremlett sets out to show that there was a great deal more to this woman than the dispute about her virginity which rocked Europe and set the Reformation in England on its gory tracks. He shows also that while, in a country ruled by an increasingly manic king, where the five queens who succeeded her were used by the men around them as pawns in fight for religious and political supremacy, Catherine decided on her own role herself.

The learned and devout Catherine — played by Maria Doyle Kennedy in The Tudors — was the daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain and almost from her cradle was betrothed to Arthur, heir to England’s Henry VII (Arthur was nine months younger and also in his cradle at the time).