(Cover image – © Unknown Artist – The National Portrait Gallery)
Throughout history, women have always been held at fault for their apparent inability a produce health male heirs for their husbands and Queens have no exception to this cruel treatment. For thousands of years, Queens of old have been scrutinised and famed for their inability to perform their ‘womanly’, ‘wifely’ and ‘Queenly’ duties to their husband by conceiving and giving birth to a healthy male—yes, very important to highlight the ‘male’ part—children that would grow up to inherit estates, family fortunes and continue the family line.
Not like that could also be successfully done by a woman also, no, of course not. It’s not like women have the physical ability to produce children, intelligence and willpower to govern a family like a man does—not when they already have command of the household, oh no.
A woman simply is not as ‘good’ as a man, or so the Tudors believed.
Queens who did not give their husbands and Kings the male heir they wanted were often isolated, mocked and sometimes discarded by their husband and court. Often, when a Queen cannot produce an heir, the King, although bound to her through marriage, will lose interest in her and turn his attentions to another woman, who he would take as a mistress. Naturally, because most mistresses were visited frequently by their royal lovers, some of them would fall pregnant and produce their own children with the King, which some Kings would parade in front of their wives and even bestow high honours on, just to prove a point to their wives.
This does not mean that Queens were indeed at fault for their ‘failure’ at producing children; take a look at Queen Maria of Castile (yes, an ancestor of Catherine’s on her mother’s side) who was deemed infertile because of her delicate health; she suffered many ailments such as epilepsy and a delayed period (most likely due to a genetic condition) which might have left her infertile at a very young age. During her marriage, she conceived (it is believed) zero times and her husband was often separated from her, taking many mistresses—one of which would later in his reign demanded that he divorce his infertile wife for her, but he never did, staying with his wife out of convenience for the realm.
Some Queens were not at fault for their inability to produce a child and merely suffered as a result of their husband’s proven inability; one such Queen is the infamous Queen Catherine de Medici, whose husband, Henry II, was known for his deformity; Henry II was born with hypospadias and chordee {1}. What this meant was that ‘in chordee, the penis usually curves downward. The urinary opening may be on the underside of the penis (hypospadias). Surgery can usually correct chordee’ {2}. Unfortunately, because of this deformity, it meant that Henry II was physically unable to impregnate his wife during the first 10 years of their marriage, and it was only through medieval ‘magic’ that the couple were later able to have so many children—comment down below if you would like us to do a unique post documenting some royal couples who also struggled with infertility!
Humph! We’re going off on a tangent.
Uh, back on track.
So, we’re here to decide—not that we can officially ‘decide’ what the truth is on this matter—whether Catherine of Aragon had issues that had a negative impact on her pregnancies or if, like the other Catherine, it was at the fault of her husband that she was only able to produce a sole living female heir for her husband during their twenty-four year marriage.
Let’s us explore the facts, shall we?
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Things that MIGHT have caused Catherine of Aragon's stillbirths/miscarriages:
One of the probably unknown and less ‘believable’ reasons behind why Catherine of Aragon had so many miscarriages might have been—her unhealthy habit for fasting.
Now, for those of you who are unaware, the definition of fasting is ‘the wilful refrainment from eating and sometimes drinking. From a purely physiological context, "fasting" may refer to the metabolic status of a person who has not eaten overnight, or to the metabolic state achieved after complete digestion and absorption of a meal’ {3}.
Today, it is considered something that is done within certain religions, done by those who are trying to lose weight, etc, and some medical professionals argue the benefits and the risks of fasting on a regular basis.
Whereas, in the medieval times, it was not recommended for pregnant women to fast and they were often exempted, by high powers of the Church, from the obligatory days of fasting associated with religious routine. Therefore, it was quite strange that Catherine of Aragon, a woman whose claim to her power as Queen rested on her ability to produce a child, would willingly defy the orders of the Church to fast during her pregnancies.
Though there is research to show that fasting during pregnancy does not affect the baby’s size at birth, there is quite a significant amount of research that shows that fasting during the second trimester of pregnancy can be highly dangerous for the baby as it could lead to a drop in blood sugar levels and, if the woman fasts very passionately, lower the woman’s weight to a level that would make it dangerous for her to give birth without medical assistance.
That being said, we cannot know for certain that her constant fasting both outside and during pregnancy might have impacted the health of her unborn babies or certainly have caused miscarriages.
Another reason why Catherine might have ‘caused’, in a sense, her miscarriages/stillbirths is the theory that she might have had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) which is a hormonal imbalance that affects how a woman’s ovaries work, causing difficulty in becoming pregnant. This condition is one of the biggest causes for women who suffer from infertility, in fact, it is believed that 1 in 10 women in the world suffer from PCOS, making it a very common condition that (fortunately) is treatable but not curable. It is believed that this might have been something that Catherine was suffering with this condition as actress Charlotte Hope, who plays the Spanish Queen in the hit tv show ‘The Spanish Princess’, suffers with herself (as she was diagnosed with at the age of eighteen) and says that she feels connects her with Catherine; ‘All of the fears that Catherine has about not being able to have children, or not being able to produce a male heir are anxieties that I've lived day in day out’ {4}.
Whilst PCOS makes it difficult to get pregnant and can lead to miscarriages due to hormonal imbalance, it has been proven that women can have healthy pregnancies and produce fully healthy babies within their lifetime, meaning that if Catherine did suffer with it, it would explain why she was able to give birth to two health babies (Mary and her son who died around a month after birth) but also why she suffered so many miscarriages and stillbirths.
Whether or not this might be the cause of Catherine’s miscarriages is unknown, sadly, there is no way of knowing whether the Spanish Queen was born with this debilitating condition or whether her risky decision to fast during pregnancy was why she was unable to produce the living male heirs that her husband and her desperately wanted.
. . .
Reasons why Catherine of Aragon was NOT be at fault for her stillbirths/miscarriages:
With all of the theories surrounding why Henry VIII was so unsuccessful in having the ‘male heir’ he desired until his long-term mistress Bessie Blount and third wife Jane Seymour both provided him with one—although Bessie’s was illegitimate and Jane’s went on to become King of England--, researchers have become more and more curious and determined to find out the definitive answer behind what caused Henry’s lack of a male heir.
And in the early 2000s, researchers believed they had found the answer and might have proven that it was in fact HENRY who was at fault, not Catherine or any of his other wives by claiming that the English King suffered from a rare blood disorder that was not only responsible for his infertility but his ‘unstable’ changes in behaviour later along the line—that he had a rare blood type called Kell positive, a ‘rate blood type that can cause serious health and fertility problems’ and can also be passed down generations (might be the reason why his daughter Mary was also childless during her own reign) {5}.
Basically, what research shows is that;
‘If a man with the disorder conceives a child with a Kell negative partner, each child has a 50-50 chance of inheriting the condition. When a baby is conceived with same rare blood group as its father, then the mother would have difficulties with further pregnancies. The antibodies she produces during that first pregnancy will attack future Kell positive babies she carries—triggering miscarriages’ {5}.
If this is true, this could explain the reason behind why both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn suffered miscarriage after miscarriage and also why only one child from each marriage survived, they might have had the same rare blood group as Henry VIII, meaning that it was either equally or entirely Henry’s fault as his blood in the foetus was what caused the mother’s blood to essentially attack the baby and cause a miscarriage.
A second theory is that Catherine’s miscarriages were born out of a result of his constant infidelity; research has shown that Henry displayed several symptoms of syphilis; one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (STIs or STDs) of the 16th century and this was most likely as a result of him constantly sleeping around with other women behind his wives back. And, naturally, Catherine herself might have suffered from syphilis after catching it from her husband during one of their ‘duty-bound’ intimate sessions. Which might explain why it was difficult for the couple to reproduce as ‘untreated syphilis can cause infertility in both women and men’ and in those days, it would have been impossible to diagnose or cure syphilis {6}.
We must also take into consideration that factors such as stress, poor hygiene and health, environmental factors and other genetic/reproductive conditions might be at fault for Catherine’s miscarriages.
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Well, all of these theories have a very strong ground for validity in the reason behind why Catherine was unable to produce male heirs during her marriage to Henry VIII, and whilst we may never know the truth behind the mystery, we can definitely say for certain that it is no longer acceptable for history to simply blame women for their infertility or inability to produce children just because it is ‘what they were born to do’ or ‘it’s their sole purpose in life’.
What do you think about these theories?
Do you agree with them?
Are there any factors you think might be behind Catherine’s numerous miscarriages?
Drop your opinions down in the comments below and join us next time when we look at another theory about Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
Until then…
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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