The first is Catherine of Aragon. The youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the pre-eminent badasses of their time, was raised in the intense heat, sunshine and Catholicism of Spain, following her parents around the country on their campaign to drive the Muslim occupiers out of their country. Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York, contracted for her marriage to their oldest son Arthur. Arthur was well educated, handsome, and according to legend, prepared to be the finest, most benevolent leader England had ever seen. But you don’t remember ever hearing about a real King Arthur? That’s because a few short months after their marriage, he died of a mysterious illness. So now Catherine is a widow, barely 16 years old, stranded in England, and what’s a girl to do? In her case, it’s to go to your nearest member of the clergy, insist that your marriage was never consummated (insert raised eyebrow here), and suggest that you would make a suitable bride for your dead husband’s younger brother, who is about eight years your junior, and possibly the most spoiled brat in all of Christendom. And it worked, mostly. She languished in obscurity, essentially held hostage for her dowry, for several years, while her in-laws hemmed and hawed, but then her father in law died and Henry VIII had the throne and he wanted her. At least for the first 20-ish years. And then, unfortunately, up popped Anne Boleyn. Catherine spent 24 years married to Henry VIII, but only had the one child, Mary, who would become Queen briefly as an adult. She had several miscarriages and stillbirths, which suggest to modern experts that she and Henry had an Rh (blood type) incompatibility. Catherine was a deeply devout Catholic, even for her time, and Henry’s attack on the Catholic Church hurt her in many ways. She refused to accept Henry’s ultimate judgment on their divorce, and eventually died at age 50, having not seen her daughter in over a decade, and still insisting that she was Henry’s rightful wife and the rightful Queen of England.
Of course, history tells us that Henry based his request for divorce on the fact that God had punished him for marrying his brother’s bride by refusing to grant them children. Clearly Catherine’s inability to successfully bear sons was a curse from above. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time believing that Henry was as concerned with his immortal soul as he was with getting out of a marriage to an older woman, possibly one in the decline of her beauty and health. As a young man, his older brother’s adult, alluring older widow must have been incredibly attractive to him, conferring status and worldliness and making him seem like a serious Man. But the appeal of the eight year age advantage that she had likely diminished as he closed in on his forties, until, like many men of a certain age, his best chance to reclaim his youth lay in claiming a youthful woman. Anne Boleyn was everything Catherine wasn’t, flirtatious, frivolous, youthful, radiant, and possibly fertile. She didn’t pan out that well either, but Henry had refined his process for dealing with errant wives by then, and she was dispatched with greater speed, if slightly more mess.
I feel bad for Catherine, her first marriage and young adulthood was full of promise and possibility. And it ended so poorly for her. You have to wonder if she ever regretted her course after Arthur’s death? Would life have been better if she lived it in obscurity as the Dowager Princess of Wales? We’ll never know of course, but she had a pivotal role in the English Reformation, and our whole world would no doubt be different if she had.
The second fiancé is Princess Mary of Teck. Princess Mary, or May as she was known growing up, was a princess in her own right, born Her Serene Highness of the Kingdom of Wurttemburg, a small kingdom in the south of what is now Germany, though because of her father‘s marriage into a minor branch of the British royal family, she was brought up in the UK. She was selected as being the most suitable bride for the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. The ruler at the time was Queen Victoria, her son Bertie, who would become Edward VII was Prince of Wales, and his eldest son, May’s intended, was Prince Albert Victor, named for his redoubtable grandfather. May was the perfect Victorian bride, sweet, well educated (in the proper subjects, only, of course, so lots of French and embroidery, no calculus or typing), and most importantly, of good breeding (being related to the British Royal family through her mother, and a distant cousin of the groom) and verifiable virtue. But Albert Victor contracted pneumonia and died. So now we have a Princess with no prince. Queen Victoria was reportedly very fond of Princess May, and still believed her to be a fitting bride for the future king of England, so after a suitable mourning period she married the second son instead. He went on to become King George V, and by all accounts they were very much in love.
Queen Mary (this is the Queen Mary after which they named the ship) was another formidable Queen. The pictures of her in middle age especially do suggest something vaguely ocean liner-y about her.
She sat on the throne alongside that second son for 26 years, and lived an additional 17 after his death as the formidable grandmother and eventually great grandmother of the House of Windsor. In fact, it is during her tenure as Queen that the Royal Family officially changes it’s surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gothe, a thoroughly German name inherited from Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, to the much more properly British Windsor, chosen for their favorite palace and family home. George V didn’t think that Saxe Coburg Gothe struck quite the right tone whilst trying to defeat Der Kaiser. That Der Kaiser was his cousin didn't seem to factor.
Mary had six children, two of whom were King of England. She was crowned Queen Consort at the coronation of her husband in Westminster Abbey in 1911. The following year George and Mary traveled to India for what was known as “The Delhi Durbar”. They were crowned Emperor and Empress of India while there. I have only seen a few vaguely blurry pictures of this event, but I imagine it had to be just about the most jewel encrusted, hoity toity celebration of the oppression of an entire subcontinent you’ve ever seen.
The Durbar was held to celebrate the coronation of a new monarch, and George and Mary were the only monarch’s ever to attend their’s in person. The Durbar only happened three times, once in 1877 for Victoria at the time the British government assumed control in India from the British East India Company. The second one was held for Edward VII’s ascension in 1903, and this was the third and final occurrence. George V’s son Edward VIII was never officially crowned, and by the time his brother George VI was crowned, political feeling in India precluded any such show boating. Elizabeth II ascended the throne after India gained independence, so no Durbar for her either.
Mary’s story has a much happier end than Catherine’s does. She did suffer tragedy in her life, her youngest son, John, suffered epilepsy and was sent to live a quiet life in the country. Her eldest son, known familiarly as David, became King Edward VIII upon her husband’s death, but was never crowned as he fled his obligation to family and state to marry Wallis Simpson, and Bertie, or more properly, George VI, took the throne (insert events of “The King’s Speech” here). Queen Mary lived to be 86 years old, lending her genes to the cause of the current Queen’s longevity, no doubt. Genes are not the only thing she gave her granddaughter. Elizabeth II’s ideas about duty and honor to the state and her family come, in large part, from her Grandmother and her observations of that great lady’s example.
I wonder if either of these women ever contemplated just going home and finding some nice domestically bred nobleman to marry? And if they did, would they even have been allowed to? Neither of the original marriages were a love match. The women fit a set of criteria and their families contracted their futures as political pawns. They surely made the best of a bad situation, trying to be true to themselves while finding the silver lining, and really, being Queen of England is pretty good lining.
A short note about Catherine of Aragon’s assertion of her virginity after Arthur died. Legend has it that upon departing her chamber after the wedding night Arthur remarked to his courtiers that he was famished, having just “spent the night in Spain”. Now, this might be showboating from a young man wanting to impress his peers, and if they really failed to consummate their marriage he certainly wouldn’t want to admit that to a bunch of other young men, because surely packs of twenty something guys haven’t changed that much since then, but it does cast doubt on Catherine’s story. Also, doesn’t the phrase “spent the night in Spain” sum up Catherine’s purpose pretty succinctly? If ever there was a better description of a political marriage, I haven’t heard it.
A.H.
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