Upon the untimely death of Henry VII’s 15-year-old son and heir Prince Arthur in 1502, his second son, Henry, became next in line for the throne. Arthur had been married to the 17-year-old Catherine of Aragon for only five months when he died. The young couple was assumed to have consummated the marriage and did live together immediately afterwards. Henry VII himself suggested the marriage of Arthur’s widow Catherine to England’s next king, likely seeking diplomatic and financial advantage from keeping Catherine in England.
In 1503, the future Henry VIII and Catherine were betrothed, but as Prince Henry was still too young to consummate the marriage (he was only 12), Catherine could not officially take her place as his wife. At the age of 14, Henry rejected the marriage. Only when Henry VII died in 1509 did the new King Henry VIII agreed to honor the wishes of his father and marry Catherine, who had remained in England.
Once the couple was married, Catherine began to regularly bear children, although, like many mothers of the time, she was sadly and frequently bereaved.
During the early years of their marriage, Henry VIII began an affair with Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, Mary Boleyn. As he became more irritable towards Catherine’s inability to produce a male heir, by 1525 he began to romantically pursue Mary’s sister, Anne Boleyn. At the age of 34, Henry VIII longed to annul his marriage with Catherine, who was now 40 and presumably unlikely to bear children, and pursue Anne as his wife.
As Catherine could not produce a male heir, Henry VIII came to believe his marriage to be unlawful in the eyes of God. He believed that because he had married his brother’s wife, God was punishing her by not granting them a healthy son. The urge for an annulment became the king’s
By 1527, Henry VIII was convinced that his union with Catherine was immoral and unnatural due to the biblical text from Leviticus 20:21: If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an impurity. He hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless
. Henry VIII beseeched Pope Clement VII for an annulment of the marriage but was rejected. Pope Clement VII did not wish to override Pope Julius II’s decision in confirming the union between Henry and Catherine that was permitted only by special dispensation in 1509.
Catherine claimed her marriage to Henry VIII was valid because she and Prince Arthur had not consummated their marriage prior to his death in 1502. At the time of her marriage to Henry in 1509, her chief lady-in-waiting and King Ferdinand of Spain both attested to Catherine being a virgin.
Historians believe Henry VIII also wished for the monetary gains that parting from the Church of Rome would allow, particularly the income and lands from the monasteries. When Parliament passed the first Act of Succession in 1533, Henry VIII claimed Papal Authority for himself and no longer recognized the authority of Pope Clement. The Act annulled his marriage to Catherine, allowing him to marry Anne Boleyn immediately in 1533. This Act confirmed England’s separation from the Church of Rome and the founding of the Church of England.
Shakespeare’s late play,
Shakespeare and Fletcher compress historical events to focus on the fall of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who fell from favor in part due to his failure to convince Pope Clement to grant the divorce from Catherine that Henry so desperately wanted. The play offers Catherine an extensive speech in which she defends herself and the validity of her marriage at a trial in Act 2, Scene 4. In addition to the fall of Wolsey and Catherine, the play features Anne Boleyn’s coronation and the birth and baptism of Princess Elizabeth, carefully omitting Anne’s imminent fall.
