Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England 9780271091938

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Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon Infanta of Spain, Queen of England

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Theresa Earenfight

The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Earenfight, Theresa, 1954– author. Title: Catherine of Aragon : infanta of Spain, queen of England / Theresa Earenfight. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Examines the life of Catherine of Aragon, focusing on her personal possessions and the items she bequeathed to those she left behind, to better understand her as a daughter, wife, widow, mother, and friend; a collector of art and books; a devout Catholic; and a patron of writers and universities”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021027721 | ISBN 9780271091648 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Catherine, of Aragon, Queen, consort of Henry VIII, King of England, 1485–1536. | Queens—England—Biography. | Great Britain—History—Henry VIII, 1509–1547. Classification: LCC DA333.A6 E27 2021 | DDC 942.05/2092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov /2021027721 Parts of chapter 2 are based on “The Shoes of an Infanta: Bringing the Sensuous, Not Sensible, ‘Spanish Style’ of Catherine of Aragon to Tudor England,” in Moving Women Moving Objects (400–1500), ed. Tracy Chapman Hamilton and Mariah Proctor-Tiffany (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 293–317; parts of chapter 4 are based on “Two Bodies, One Spirit: Isabel and Fernando’s

Construction of Monarchical Partnership,” in Queen Isabel I of Castile: Power, Patronage, Persona, ed. Barbara Weissberger (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 2008), 3–18; parts of chapter 5 are based on “Regarding Catherine of Aragon,” in Scholars and Poets Talk About Queens, ed. Carole Levin and Christine Stewart-Nuñez (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 137–57; parts of chapter 7 are based on “A Lifetime of Power: Beyond Binaries of Gender,” in Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400: Moving Beyond the Exceptionalist Debate, ed. Heather J. Tanner (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 271–93. Copyright © 2021 Theresa Earenfight All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

Contents

vii | List of Illustrations ix | Acknowledgments xii | Maps

1 | 1. Who’s That Girl?

26 | 2. An Infanta at the Court of Castile, 1485–1501

50 Time Line: An Infanta at the Court of Castile, 1485–1501

53 | 3. One Wedding and Four Funerals 86 Time Line: One Wedding and Four Funerals, 1501–1509

88 | 4. Bride Again, Queen Finally, and Mother at Last 122 Time Line:Bride Again, Queen Finally, and Mother at Last, 1509–1519

125 | 5. A “Humble and Loyal” Queen 164 Time Line: A “Humble and Loyal” Queen, 1520–1529

167 | 6. Resistance, Mortality, and the Power of Memory 196 Time Line: Resistance, Mortality, and the Power of Memory, 1530–1536

199 | 7. Who Was That Queen? 211 | Notes 227 | Bibliography 245 | Index

Illustrations

1. Unknown artisan, chapine, 1550–1650 3 2. Michel Sittow, Catherine of Aragon, ca. 1514 (or Mary Rose Tudor, date uncertain) 9 3. Michel Sittow, Catherine of Aragon as the Magdalene, ca. 1500  12 4. Alhambra, Mirador de Lindaraja, interior, ca. 1360s  42 5. Unknown artisan, livery badge, Tudor rose and pomegranate, early sixteenth century 43 6. Master of the Catholic Monarchs, The Virgin of the Catholic Monarchs, ca. 1490 45 7. Juan de Flandes, A Spanish Princess, ca. 1496 47 8. Pere Garcia de Benavarri, Banquet d’Herodes, fifteenth century  68 9. Unknown embroiderer, napkin, ca. 1500s 79 10. Unknown tailor and embroiderer, shirt, ca. 1540  80 11. Unknown artist, illumination of Thomas More, “Coronation Ode,” 1509 92

12. Unknown artisan, Our Lady of Walsingham pilgrim badge, late fourteenth–early fifteenth century 108 13. Henry VIII jousting before Catherine of Aragon, 1511  111 14. Unknown artist, Catherine of Aragon, ca. 1520  126 15. Decade rosary of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, ca. 1509–26 136 16. Detail of Chatsworth decade rosary, the paternoster bead (opened)  136 17. Sheet music for motets  139 18. Lucas Horenbout (attrib.), Princess Mary, ca. 1525  146 19. Writing box, ca. 1525  150 20. Lucas Horenbout (attrib.), Catherine of Aragon, ca. 1525  159 21. Portrait of Queen Catherine of Aragon, early 1530s  162 22. Signature of Catherine  179 23. The Howard Grace Cup  187 24. Mawley Hall (Catherine of Aragon) chasuble, sixteenth century  190

Acknowledgments

Where to begin? With Nicki Vedo, because it all began with her independent study project over a decade ago. Our frustration at Catherine’s neglect by scholars led to her paper and to this book. Countless colleagues at conferences heard this book take shape and generously critiqued my ideas in the Q&A, at the conference banquet, and in many pubs, bars, and coffee shops—Michelle Armstrong-Partida, Charles Beem, Janna Bianchini, Simon Doubleday, Irina Dumistrescu, and colleagues at the workshop on charisma at the University of Bonn, Christine Merie Fox, Tracy Chapman Hamilton, Marie Kelleher, Beth Kunz, Carole Levin, Amy Livingstone, Sara McDougall, Susan McDonough, Allison Machlis Meyer, Lucy Pick, Mariah Proctor-Tiffany, Miriam Shadis, Núria Silleras-Fernández, Zita Rohr, and Ellie Woodacre. Many thanks to my colleagues at Seattle University and the University of Puget Sound. All of chapter 2 owes a debt to the NEH Mediterranean Seminar in 2008 organized by Brian Catlos and Sharon Kinoshita, and the section on Catherine’s pregnancies in chapter 4 could not have been written without Monica Green, Rachel Scott, and my colleagues at the NEH summer seminar at the Wellcome Institute in London in 2012. Thank you, Gordon Thompson, for creating beautiful maps of the places Catherine inhabited. Dev McCauley’s careful reading of the still rough but nearly final draft and her superb design talents helped me sort out the images and inspired the final stages of this project. And thanks to Ellie Goodman, editor at Penn State University Press, and the two anonymous readers for the Press,

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Acknowledgments

whose sharp eyes and intellect guided final revisions and made the book so much stronger. To family and friends, you listened as I brainstormed and were my first audience for all the ideas in this book. To Warren Wilkins, who has been part of this project since Catherine first took hold of my imagination, boundless love for sharing the journey. Key research took place beyond libraries, archives, and museums. Heartfelt thanks go to Chiyo Ishikawa, former Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at the Seattle Art Museum, for her keen eye and insights into art at the courts of Isabel of Castile and Marguerite of Austria. Ana Cabrera LaFuente of the Museo del Traje in Madrid and the curators at the Clothworkers Centre of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London generously shared their expertise on early modern Spanish blackstitch embroidery. I am indebted to countless other museum curators and conservators who have tended carefully and expertly the objects and portraits of Catherine in the United Kingdom at British Library, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Museum of London, Shropshire Museums, and the National Trust; and in Madrid at the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, and the Museo Arqueológico Nacional. My travels in England and Spain for this book were enlivened and enriched by two sisters, Anne and Susan Webb, dear friends and fellow travelers with a sense of adventure and a love of laughter. Like Catherine of Aragon, they bear traces of both Spain and England. Both were born and raised in Barcelona. Anne now lives in England, and with her keen eye on the road, we drove across England and Wales, to some of the most beautiful landscapes imaginable, in search of traces of Catherine. It was Anne who said, when we were in Ludlow, “Look, that local museum is only a pound. Let’s pop in.” That spontaneous, casual act led me to an important remnant of Catherine. Susan, in Barcelona, has been my guide to life in Spain since 1981. This book began to take shape from her flat up near Tibidabo over hundreds of wide-ranging and often raucous conversations over dinner on a balcony with a view of the city. Their mother, Joan Webb, sheltered me when I came to Barcelona for an undergraduate study abroad trip and welcomed me into her life like an adopted child. She was my other mother, who taught me more than I can

Acknowledgments

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possibly recount. An Englishwoman who grew up in France and spent part of World War II in England, she moved to Spain just because she wanted to learn Spanish. She stayed, of course, and the expansive worldview of her and her children is not unlike that of Catherine—shaped by landscapes and language, culturally rich, and emotionally resonant. Without Joan, Susan, and Anne this book could not have been possible, and it is to them that it is dedicated.

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