(Cover image – © Unknown Artist – The National Portrait Gallery)
Today marks the anniversary of a very controversial day in history as today is the very day where, almost 600 years ago, the Pope in Rome declared that Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his second marriage to Anne Boleyn was null and void. It was the Pope's belief that Anne Boleyn was not the true Queen of England as well as the King’s wife, meaning he believed that Catherine of Aragon was still the rightful Queen of England and the true wife to the King. Sadly, the Pope waited too long to decree his official view on the marriage of Anne Boleyn to the King and whether Catherine of Aragon was rightfully dethroned as Queen and divorced by her royal husband, as the damage had already been done and it would not be long before poor Catherine of Aragon suffered the consequences of her husband’s apparent enchantment by Mistress Boleyn, tragically passing away on the 7th January 1536.
And it is exactly this that we will be talking about today; the tragic death of the once Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon.
Now, as mentioned in our last post for Catherine; ‘Tragic life after Henry and death’, you will remember us saying that Catherine was constantly ill and her health deteriorated slowly from between years of 1533 to her death in 1536. Whilst this might be attributed to many different factors such as her age, weight, other medical problems and the deterioration of her residences e.g. some were not fitting for that of a former Queen or Dowager Princess of Wales as she now was—many have long suspected that Catherine’s sudden death might be attributed to one simple thing; poison.
Not long after Catherine's death, in fact only a day or two following her death, an autopsy was performed on Catherine's body and the physicians were shocked to discover what they called a ‘black and hideous tumour’ which was growing on her heart. Immediately following this autopsy, the rumours of Catherine being poisoned were spread throughout the Kingdom and, soon after, the world.
But who was to blame for Catherine's apparent poisoning?
Well, it would be none over than her rival, the recently crowned Queen of England; Anne Boleyn.
But what truth is there in these rumours and can we, through examining the evidence laid before us, truly prove whether Catherine had indeed been poisoned whilst also suffering from other ailments or can we prove that Anne Boleyn was falsely accused of poisoning her former mistress and a Spanish Princess to preserve her rule as Queen?
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One of the first questions we have to ask ourselves before looking at any evidence to support or deny the validity of this theory is this; why would anyone have wanted to poison Catherine of Aragon? And who would have been behind this murder?
In the eyes of nobles and of those within the Kingdom it was simple; the King and Anne Boleyn.
False accusing the King of poisoning his ex-wife is a little preposterous, but the accusation against his second wife was all the more supported by the facts surrounding her.
It was no secret that Anne Boleyn, the King’s latest wife and the new Queen of England, held a deep distaste and hatred for the former Queen as well as her former mistress. And whilst Anne had managed to dethrone Catherine as Queen of England and send her into isolation in order to take the King for herself, Catherine still posed a threat to the new Queen as England supported her more than they did Anne. There was a high possibility that a rebellion might start against the Queen and try to dethrone Anne in favour of Catherine—therefore it would make sense as to why Anne felt she had to eliminate Catherine before she continued to be a threat against her future as Queen.
Just briefly, we will say that the reason we believe that the accusation of saying that the King had poisoned his former wife is preposterous is because Henry would not have been as much of a tyrant as he would become as of yet and he knew that, by killing Catherine, this would strike deep and hard with his alliance with Spain which had already ruptured because of his new marriage to Anne Boleyn. Henry could not afford to anger the Holy Roman Emperor as well as the Pope in Rome, both who still supported Catherine with all their hearts and wish to free her from her isolation by transporting her safely to Spain—something we will explore further in our upcoming third and final theory regarding Catherine of Aragon.
One of the main reasons why this theory continues to circulate about the possibility of Anne Boleyn poisoning Catherine of Aragon is, because at this point of time during Catherine's death, England held much distaste for their new Queen and were even spreading horrendous rumours about her, such as that she had a six finger and that her body was riddled with warts—these rumours, as we will come to learn, were the foundations of the charges of witchcraft brought against Anne Boleyn in her final days. Anne Boleyn is most famous for her witticism that Catherine ‘is my death and I am hers’, leading many to believe that this early witticism showed that Anne was willing to kill her former mistress in order to secure her position as Queen. Furthermore, this witticism would prove to be correct as just four months after Catherine's death, Anne herself would walk to the executioner's block and die a horrific death on the orders of her husband, the King.
A final reason behind why the theory of Catherine being murdered—more specifically poisoned— by the Queen or someone loyal to her was so fiercely believed is because the history books consisted of the royals being murderers, liars and power hungry people who would stop at nothing to gain more power and cared little for those who they hurt including other royals.
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But—would Anne Boleyn, a clever woman in her own right, take such a risk as to kill her former mistress and a Spanish Princess?
What would she gain from poisoning an older woman who had little to no power in England anymore and no longer had any sway over the king?
Perhaps, through Catherine's death, Anne Boleyn believed she would no longer feel any threat to her position as Queen of England and was secure in the fact that her daughter, Elizabeth, was still the rightful heir to the throne.
Even so, is there any evidence to suggest that Anne Boleyn did in fact poison Catherine of Aragon?
The answer is simple—no.
The fact of the matter is Catherine of Aragon had no enemies in her life— if you excuse her successor Anne Boleyn— and even then, there were rumours that the two women, although they had a deep distaste for each other because of their fight over the King, will respectful towards one another during their time together at court. You will remember us speaking about this in a previous post in which Catherine warned her ladies at court to not anger the King in regards to his new mistress Anne Boleyn.
If you think about this carefully, Catherine's death, although Anne and the King were said to have celebrated Catherine’s death as if her death was something to be celebrated and as if she wasn't a royal in her own right, might symbolise the beginning of the end for Anne Boleyn—her time as Queen was turning out similar to Catherine’s in the fact that in the three years she was Queen, she also suffered numerous miscarriages and only one daughter survived.
Yet, if you take a look at Catherine's funeral, although the King refused to spend anything more than what was deemed necessary, he still gave her a funeral better than any of his other wives (excluding his third wife Jane Seymour).
But was poisoning a Queen or the former Queen, as Catherine was, easier said than done?
Yes, indeed it was and some historians deem it extremely unlikely that Catherine would have been poisoned, especially by any of the royals.
Historians note that nobles and high-status members of court during the Tudor era were extremely paranoid about poison, meaning that most royals and nobles employed food tasters to taste for any poison in their food as it was often used as the excuse for sudden deaths that, to them, were unexplainable, especially if they believed that person had enemies who had a reason to plot against them.
Because of this, poison was viewed very seriously in the Tudor era, and another thing was that it was extremely difficult for one not only to make poison but to acquire poison. Poison was mostly derived from plants and it would take a specialist to understand the potency of these herbal concoctions and how to use it correctly. Herbologists or even physicians were often viewed controversially in society as witchcraft and potion making went hand in hand, making it sometimes dangerous to be working closely with plants that could be used in poisons.
Furthermore as we've also discussed, by this point in time, Catherine was so terrified of being poisoned that she only ate her food after her lady had tested it and no one was allowed inside of her chambers but her ladies and members of the Church, even though she barely had any visitors on the orders of the king, she was still worried about being murdered by poisoning.
And even if anyone had attempted to poison Catherine, it would have been highly suspicious if one of her ladies, after tasting her food, had suddenly become ill, despite reporting no illness beforehand. Catherine would have been prepared all her life for the possibility of being poisoned or any threats being made on her life, so we can rest assured that precautions would have been taken to ensure that her food was tested and that no suspicious substances had been added to her food.
But if this mysterious ‘black and hideous’ tumour on her heart was not of the result of poison, then what on earth had caused it?
And this is the question that has continued to baffle historians across the globe.
Some historians believe that this is a sign that cancer was what killed the once strong Queen of England, others believe it might have been a heart condition that, as Catherine grew older, slowly overwhelmed her too fragile body.
Whilst some close, personal friends and acquaintances of Catherine's had their own opinions; the Spanish ambassador to the English court; Chapuys, is said to have blamed some Welsh beer that Catherine had been drinking. He said that no one else in the household reported drinking it, meaning that Catherine herself was the only person to have drunk the substance, making it the perfect opportunity for her to be poisoned. Though this rumour was never truly investigated, this was not the only theory that Chapuys brought to light about the former Queen’s death. He also believed that Catherine's death might have been a result of her broken heart and that the King and the Queen were the ones to blame for her tragic death as he was still loyal to her even in death and was said to have been closely watching her daughter Princess Mary, later Mary I, to see if she would follow in her mother's footsteps as a good Catholic Queen of England.
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Whilst we may never know what truly caused the death of our beloved Spanish Princess; Catherine of Aragon, one thing we do know is that her death brought much sorrow and anger across the Kingdom of England as well as worldwide with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles, and Catherine's nephew, himself even threatened to declare war on England following the news of his beloved aunt’s death. Her death also brought more hate from the people of England upon Anne Boleyn whose sway over the King and the English court was already starting to fade by the time of Catherine’s death. In the end, Catherine's death symbolised the end of Henry VIII’s reign as a Catholic monarch and the start of his dictatorship over the Church, one that would only further allow the spoiled tyrant King to dictate everything in his Kingdom and do whatever he wanted.
It was truly a sad time for England after Catherine’s death, for she was the most beloved out of Henry’s wives by the people of England. Not even Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour, the King’s favourite wife, had such an impact.
What are your opinions over the death of Catherine of Aragon—do you believe that she was poisoned or do you think that there is some other aspects about her life that are not being taken into consideration in regards to her death?
Tell us your thoughts down in the comments below and, as always, until next time…
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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