Noble Blood - Divorced (From the Archive)

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Catherine of Aragon was the first wife of King Henry VIII. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Noble Blood merch — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. This is Dana Schwartz, host of Noble Blood. I am off taking a brief maternity leave, and so this week I am so excited to show you. share one of my absolute favorite early episodes of the show from the archives, an episode about Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine. Though most people only associate her with the end of her life and Henry's attempts to divorce her, this episode focuses mainly on Catherine's early life. Back before

she married Henry the 8th, when she was trapped in limbo as a bargaining chip in England after the death of her first husband. I hope you enjoy. After a long and treacherous journey from her cloistered life in Spain, Princess Catherine finally made it safely to English shores. Catherine, the daughter of the illustrious Ferdinand and Isabella, was devoutly religious, and so as soon as her ship had landed on the English coast, she insisted on going immediately to church.

Though she was only 15, Catherine already felt like a woman. technically she was already married to Arthur the Prince of Wales heir to the English throne they had been married by proxy the year before and they had been betrothed since she was three and so the teenager knew how to carry herself like a woman to carry herself as a representative of her parents

and of her nation because she was she had never met her husband although they had exchanged flowery letters in their mutual language, Latin. They wrote like teenagers pretending to be adults. Their tutors had handily supplied them with phrases, promises of love and devotion and the long-awaited pleasure of gazing upon one another's faces.

Even after making it to England, it would still be days before Catherine met the man with whom she had promised to spend the rest of her life. From the coast, Catherine and her party, Spanish servants and ladies and ambassadors and chaperones, rode to Berkshire and then to a bishop's house in Dogsmerfield. Even through a full day of sweaty travel along roads pockmarked with dust and holes, Catherine embodied propriety above all else.

She wore a long velvet gown in the demure Spanish style and a veil over her face. And she rode in a carriage with the curtains drawn. even when the summer heat forced its way through them and made the skin underneath the fabric of Catherine's dress prickle with sweat. When they made it to the bishop's house, it was already dark, and Catherine's ladies politely demurred the bishop's offer of dinner, and they swept their princess to bed. But word had already made it to the king of England, Henry the 7th, that his future daughter-in-law had arrived. He rode out immediately to inspect the goods, as it were. And so he was furious when he arrived, only to be told by Catherine's chaperone, that the princess had had an exhausting travel day,

and that she had retired to her bedroom for the night. King Henry the 7th was outraged. Was the princess deformed? Was the portrait they had sent just a cunning lie on the part of the Spanish monarchy to trick them and make them appear the fool? Were they sending his son damaged goods? He was the king, and he demanded to see Princess Catherine. After a few moments, Catherine and her ladies emerged from her bedchamber.

Catherine wore a heavy black veil over her face. Henry the 7th was sure they were hiding something. And so he strode over, and without even a word of introduction, flung the veil back. He was surprised in spite of himself. She was exactly as her portrait had presented her, a beautiful 15-year-old girl with clear, creamy skin and thick red hair. Her blue eyes were bleary, but light and intelligent. Very well, the king said, and he bid her good night. That interaction would represent Catherine's tenuous position in England for the next 35 years, the rest of her life.

She was more a symbol than a woman, both a bargaining chip and an obstacle. For the rest of Catherine's life, she would be fighting an increasingly challenging battle to maintain her dignity. She was a player in an unwinnable game, a hostage first of Henry the 7th, and then, ultimately, of Henry the 8th.

Her brother-in-law, who first became her husband, and then became her enemy. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Catherine didn't know it, but blood had already been shed to pave the way for her journey to England. In the course of her marriage negotiations, back when she was still a toddler crawling on her mother's lap,

her father had demanded that if their princess was to be wed to Arthur, the heir to the throne of England, then King Henry the 7th would need to kill a prisoner. not just any prisoner, he would need to kill the young Earl of Warwick, a boy who had been in isolation in the Tower of London for nearly 15 years. The Earl of Warwick, still only in his early 20s, was the nephew and heir of the former King Richard III. England's new king, Henry the 7th, had beat Richard III in battle and made an advantageous marriage to Elizabeth of York afterward, but no one really believed that he had any worthwhile blood claim to the English throne.

Someone like the Earl of Warwick did have that blood claim. Sure, the Earl was no real threat while he was imprisoned, half mad from loneliness, but he was still a threat. And Ferdinand of Aragon did not want any threats if his daughter was to come to England. She was an incredibly eligible princess, the youngest daughter of a United Spain, of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Catherine's bloodline was impeccable. Technically, on her mother's side,

she even had a better blood claim to the English throne than Henry the 7th. That was most of the reason that Henry the 7th wanted her for his son. Catherine represented old European royalty, everything that he aspired for the brand new House of Tudor to be. And so, King Henry the 7th trumped up charges of an escape attempt and had Warwick executed. Princess Catherine would be marrying the future king of England. Henry the 7th guaranteed it.

And so Spain agreed on a dowry of 200,000 crowns, and when young Prince Arthur turned 14, old enough to consummate a marriage, Catherine was shipped to England for a wedding that would make all of Europe pay attention. Catherine came to London two days before her wedding, in a gown with bell-shaped sleeves and a hooped petticoat that made her as wide as she was high. The look was unlike anything anyone was wearing in England.

It was unmistakably Spanish. Catherine also wore a jaunty little cap on her head with gold lace to tie it beneath her chin in the Venetian style. Escorted by the Lord Mayor of London, Catherine came through the city to watch the elaborate pageants that people had set up for her. tabloos with sets and costumes on the street. In one tableau, a paper-welsed dragon and green

represented her husband to be, Arthur, the Prince of Wales. In another tableau, the Archangel Gabriel came down to a figure meant to represent Catherine, reminding her that her chief duty was for the procreation of children. A God character then came down and declared, Blessed be the fruit of your belly, your subsubstern. and fruits I shall increase and multiply. England was coming out of civil war between the Yorks and the Lancaster's.

The dynasty wasn't entirely secure yet, but Henry V. 7th and his heir Arthur represented a stable future. And now they had this young, beautiful Spanish princess who was ready to continue the Tudor line. When Arthur and Catherine finally met in person, they smiled and blushed, still teenagers, even as they were play-acting adults. They tried to converse in Latin,

but they found that they couldn't quite understand each other. They had been taught different pronunciations. A Spanish ambassador assured Arthur that Catherine would learn English soon enough. Arthur's little brother, Henry, then just 10 years old, peeked out at the princess who had arrived from a distant land. He whispered into his brother's coat that she was beautiful. Arthur smiled and he kissed Catherine on the child.

cheek. The wedding was a spectacle, with Arthur and Catherine both in heavy crowns and in velvet robes trimmed with ermine. When they completed their vows, doves and rabbits were released outside St. Paul's Cathedral in a moment of delicious chaos. A children's choir sang them out and into their marriage bed. Though Arthur was at this point only 15 years old, and of a particularly sickly constitution, the morning after his wedding, he strolled out of his bedchamber and bodily told his friends to pour him an ale. Marriage is thirsty work, he said, poking a friend in the ribs. Gentlemen, he announced when he had his mead to hold high,

I have spent the night in Spain. Catherine privately told her ladies that they hadn't done anything but sleep side by side and offer each other a chaste kiss goodnight. The day after the wedding, King Henry V. 7th, to most of Catherine's Spanish entourage home, leaving Catherine more isolated than she had ever been in her entire life, in a strange country and in bed with a stranger. King Henry tried to distract her that day. He showed her his library, and he let her choose a new ring for herself. But Catherine couldn't stop looking out the window, looking back towards the land she had left, and to which

she would now never return. Though Arthur's health seemed to decline in the weeks following his wedding, the pale, weedy boy becoming even paler and weadier, he was still the Prince of Wales, and so the newlywed couple set off to Ludlow Castle in the Welsh marshes, so Arthur could gain some experience in governance. As Arthur's color continued to fade, courtiers joked that the boy was just over-exerting himself in the marriage bed. When both Catherine and Arthur fell sick with the sweating sickness, drenching their clothes, leaving them delirious with fever. People stopped making jokes. On April 3rd, a confessor woke King Henry the 7th in the middle of the night in his palace in Surrey. The king, still bleary-eyed, just stared at his confessor, who recited, stuttering,

If we receive good things at the hand of God, why may we not endure evil things? The king didn't respond, and so the confessor lowered his eyes, and he was forced to continue. Your dearest son, he said, hath departed to God. Arthur, Prince of Wales, an heir to the English throne, was dead. When Catherine recovered from the sweating sickness, she woke to a new life as a widow alone in a foreign land. she had been married for only six months. As tradition dictated, Catherine did not attend her husband's funeral. Shrouded in black, in heavy veils, she returned to London to see what her future would entail.

Catherine's father, King Ferdinand, demanded that England repay her dowry. It was negotiation tactic to frighten Henry the 7th into agreeing to a new betrothal, to his next son, the new heir, Henry. There were a few obstacles that would prevent Catherine from becoming engaged to the very young Henry Tudor. First, that Catherine was over five years older than him. The new widow was 16, the young prince was 11. But that age difference wouldn't matter much as Henry aged. By the time he was 14, able to consummate a marriage,

it wouldn't raise too many eyebrows for him to be going to bed with an older woman. But the much bigger barrier was the Bible, which forbade a man to marry his brother's widow. To be fair, the Bible wasn't entirely clear on the matter. Leviticus explicitly forbade marriage between a man and his brother's wife, declaring outright that such a union would be cursed with childlessness. But then again, in Deuteronomy, it's basically encouraged for a man to marry his brother's widow if the couple was childless. It's painted as an act of charity. But that religious complication could be brushed aside if the marriage between Catherine and Arthur was never consummated.

Impatient with the hemming and hawing of advisors and ambassadors, King Henry V. 7th summoned Catherine and explicitly asked her if she and Arthur had slept together. Catherine shook her head. She and Arthur had laid together for six nights, but never as a man and wife. There, Henry the 7th said, do you see, simple. We shall keep the dowry and Henry shall marry Spain. So it was agreed. The marriage was set to take place in 1505 when Prince Henry was 14 years old.

Spain would send a delegation to the Pope for special dispensation in order to settle any lingering doubts about the marriage's legality. And so Catherine and Henry were formally betrothed. in a ceremony in which Catherine wore white, looking as virginal as she possibly could, with her hair unbound in loose waves down past her shoulder to signify her purity. But until Henry turned 14,

Catherine remained in England. Not quite a guest, but not quite a member of the royal family either. She was given a minimal household and an allowance, but not much else. But then Catherine's mother died in Spain. the illustrious Isabella of Castile. That would be devastating under any circumstance, but with her mother's death,

Catherine lost her dynastic importance. Technically, Castile went to Catherine's older sister, Hwana, but everyone knew that Hwana was volatile, verging on unhinged. And so the real power was Juana's husband, Philip the handsome, the son of the Holy Roman Emperor. But all that just meant that with Isabella dead,

Catherine was no longer a princess of a united Spain. She was instead just the princess now of the smaller, less important region of Argonne, her father's kingdom. Henry Tudor was going to be the king of England someday. He could probably find a much better marriage. Abruptly, King Henry the 7th stopped Catherine's allowance. The king began treating her with cool disdain when he didn't outright ignore. her. Catherine wasn't sent back to Spain. Of course not. That would mean having to give back her dowry. But Catherine was kept more like a hostage, temporarily kept safe and confined until a better marriage

match for Henry Tudor could be made. Henry's 14th birthday came and went, and there was no mention of any upcoming wedding. Catherine became aware with a sinking feeling that there may be no wedding coming at all. She didn't know that King Henry the 7th had already brought his son to the Bishop of Winchester to have him formally revoke the promise of betrothal he made. The two kept it a secret in case Henry would need to marry Catherine after all. All the while, Catherine's circumstances became more and more desperate. From the house she had been staying at in London, Catherine was brought to court so that the king could save on the cost of maintaining. a separate household for her. But living in court meant that she was in a constant

fishbowl of gossip and speculation and pity. With no allowance, Catherine had no way to pay her staff or pay the dowries of her loyal ladies-in-waiting who had come with her all the way from Spain in the hopes that they would be making an advantageous marriage while they were in England. Now Catherine was in the humiliating position of having to tell them that there were no dowries available. Her sister's servants were working for nothing but loyalty. The few gowns that Catherine had brought with her from Spain were growing thin and threadbare and inches too short on the growing teenage girl. She was heavily in debt to London merchants for the few necessities that she couldn't borrow

or construct from her meager belongings. Catherine continued to send frantic letters to her father, begging him for some financial support, but Ferdinand refused. Catherine was under the supervision of King Henry the 7th, and her upkeep was his responsibility. It was four torturous years of limbo, confusion, loneliness, and humiliation. But then there was one bright spot. In January of 1506, Catherine's sister Hwana and her husband, Philip, were sailing from the low countries to Spain when they were shipwrecked off the coast of England, and the pair were coming. to visit the English court.

Catherine had not seen her sister for ten years, and she was thrilled at the prospect of her reunion. When Hwana and Philip arrived at court, Catherine was surprised to see that she was invited to sit at the top table. Catherine was treated with a kindness that was now so unfamiliar to her that it made her uneasy. King Henry the 7th clearly did not want Hwana and Philip

to see how poorly their kin was being treated. But Catherine didn't mind, She was seeing her sister again, and when she got her alone, she could beg Juana to put in a good word for her with King Henry. Maybe if Juana asked him, Henry would finally set the marriage between Catherine and the prince. When their meeting finally came, Catherine was only permitted half an hour of alone time with Juana. Before Catherine even had a moment to ask Juana for help, Juanah began in a panic, telling her sister how miserable she was with Philip and his philandering. how she knew that he was cheating on her, but how she was too madly in love with him to confront him about it.

And before she knew it, the meeting was over. Catherine had never had a chance to ask her for help. But while the two women were speaking, Philip was meeting with King Henry the 7th and secretly trying to arrange negotiations for his and Juana's daughter, Eleanor, to be the one to marry Prince Henry. The visit that was supposed to be Catherine's salvation was actually a betrayal. trail. Catherine never saw her sister again. And just six months after the meeting in England, Philip died, only 28 years old. They say that his death left Juana unhinged, that she refused to let

him be buried, and that she kept his corpse in an open coffin, continually kissing and embracing the decaying body of her former husband, until it was pulled away while she sobbed. Catherine had no allies left. She was deeply in debt from supplying her staff with clothing and food, left without even enough money to buy herself a new nightgown. She was pawning her possessions, her last relics of home, one by one, in order to maintain a semblance of the proper appearance required for her station. Prince Henry, who had once been a cherubic, 10-year-old, had grown into a young man. But when Henry showed even a fraction of affection towards Catherine, a woman he had known for almost all of his formative years, the king forced them apart and then banished Catherine to Fulham. Affection would have

no place in the negotiations of who an heir would marry. Catherine, now an old maid at 21 years old, returned to court only for the tournaments of Prince Henry's 16th birthday celebrations. The two exchanged shy smiles and flirtatious glances, but they knew enough not to make their affections public. But then a struggle of luck for Catherine. Her captor, Henry V. D. Seventh, died of tuberculosis, and Prince Henry became Henry VIII.

It seemed a foregone conclusion who the golden new teenage king would be choosing for his new bride. He had seen Catherine of Aragon from both, back when she was a beautiful girl. He had seen her grow through hardship and suffering into a beautiful young woman. She was his first crush, the face he always pictured when he imagined his queen, and he was the king now. Henry V. 8th was her savior, her knight in shining armor. King Henry VIII was in charge, and he would marry whoever he wanted. That's the story of how Catherine of Aragon married King Henry the Eighth.

But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear about how their story ended. Everyone, I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent.

He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar. of, you know, the cat, just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big

Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day. And I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent.

He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. And he goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.

Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. They were married for 24 years, but what had once been a light with youth and promise, eventually became sour and hard. One miscarriage became two, became seven.

Although Catherine bore a daughter, Mary, there was no legitimate tutor son, no one to carry on the precarious dynasty that had been the reason for securing Catherine of Aragon in marriage in the first place. Most people know the story from then, how Henry became besotted with Anne Boleyn and attempted to force Catherine into a divorce. claiming that since she had been married to his brother, their marriage was never legitimate to begin with. Catherine could have agreed.

She could have bit her tongue and allowed the marriage to be annulled, to just agree with whatever Henry said and let herself settle into a position of well-loved sister of the king. But Catherine never wavered from her story. Her wedding with Arthur was never consummated. Her marriage with Henry was true, and her daughter Mary was legitimate. Catherine's devout Catholic faith

would never allow her to agree to a divorce. And so, prideful, stubborn, righteous Catherine once again became a hostage in England. She was moved from palace to palace, each one bleaker and colder and more isolated than the last. More and more of her servants and friends were stripped away from her.

She was forbidden from seeing her daughter Mary, though Catherine pled for her, and Mary begged to see her mother. They would be allowed to see each other, Henry said, only if Catherine agreed for the marriage to be annulled. She refused. Catherine of Aragon died, maintaining that she was the rightful queen of England, and Henry VIII's only true wife. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Rating. and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston,

Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima Il Kali, and executive producers Aaron Manky, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, You know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.