00:03:35.080We have to accept that we wouldn't have got that prize specimen of manhood.
00:03:40.100oh my gosh this is the thing i hate so i'm listeners i'm using my i always have tea when
00:03:46.340i'm recording this podcast i have this mug it's like a color changing mug with the the six wives
00:03:50.700and then what i hate about the mug actually is there's this huge henry right in the middle of
00:03:55.700it like what's he doing there i don't need him on the mug i just want the wives so the six wives
00:04:00.080mug has a giant henry yeah who wants that that's not what anyway i always think about scratching
00:04:07.340it off as our beloved musical six says you don't need henry the eighth on stage you can just have
00:04:12.380the wives it's all you need honestly and that's quite a bit of what we're talking about today
00:04:16.840which is talking about catherine of aragon who was henry the eighth's first wife and kind of
00:04:21.740decoupling her from the six talking about just her and also let's try to it'll be hard but center her
00:04:29.320as much as possible and henry as little as possible he he does he does force his way into
00:04:34.320this narrative, but I think we can avoid him for as long as possible. Yes, let's make it her story.
00:04:40.300And he's just an unfortunate supporting character. So in your book, Regina, Regina.
00:04:47.060Let's say Regina. I love it. Regina. So Catherine of Aragon is one of many people you profile. Can
00:04:53.980you explain the premise of the book? Regina is really a book about women in power. And I write1.00
00:04:59.700about a lot of queen regnants, sole queens, and women who we would define as queen but wouldn't
00:05:04.840have used the title, such as Hatshepsut. We go right back to Hatshepsut. We've got Cleopatra.
00:05:09.280We go right up into the modern day. Even Grace Kelly, again, who wouldn't use the title as queen.
00:05:13.740She's princess, but she really acts in a role as queen consort in terms of Monaco.
00:05:18.940So I'm writing about all kinds of queens. And I've got the big ones. We've got Mary Antoinette.
00:05:22.920We've got Elizabeth I. We've got Mary I. We've got Catherine the Great. We've got some big,0.56
00:05:28.600meaty queens there, but also were really a revelation to me. Female rulers I didn't really1.00
00:05:34.480know very much about, especially some from the earlier periods of history that I really wasn't
00:05:39.220familiar, well, very familiar at all with, some of the early empresses of Japan and some of the
00:05:44.400early empresses of Cambodia. And also one of my favorites was the 13th century queen of the
00:05:48.780Maldives whose father left her the throne. He was determined she'd have the throne and first she
00:05:53.520had to bump off her brother to hang on to power. Then she got married as queens do. It's a perpetual1.00
00:05:57.680problem if you're a queen regnant who do you get married to because then does he have the right to1.00
00:06:03.160take the kingdom if we have a law by which women's property when you're married is your husband's
00:06:08.440property what does that mean when you're a queen which is a perennial problem really pretty much0.99
00:06:12.920until we have constitutional monarchy and the married women's property act and so then Khadija1.00
00:06:17.360gets married but she has to bump him off and then she has another husband has to bump him off and0.97
00:06:21.040decides after that she's not reeling with any husbands and not getting married ever again so
00:06:25.440She is the sort of virgin queen after that. She is certainly the single queen. She's one of my
00:06:32.980favourites as well. So I really wanted to look at if you put all these women in one narrative1.00
00:06:40.460together, going right back to ancient Mesopotamia and going right up to the modern day, how much
00:06:46.280do we see, even though these places are worlds apart and times apart, how much you see the same
00:06:54.080narratives repeating over and over again of vanity, of excess, of nasciviousness, of even
00:07:02.860madness. And that women in power, women getting the power of being a consort, there is a poison0.95
00:07:09.560chalice. Because on one hand, yes, you have huge amounts of power. But on the other hand,1.00
00:07:13.840if you're a queen regnant, often you are more vulnerable in a sense because you have that.
00:07:20.160And you might look at Mary, Queen of Scots, who's constantly under physical threat and then is
00:07:23.980forced, captured, raped, and in a way of forcing her to be married to the man who thinks he's
00:07:30.480going to get power from. This man, Bothwell, has actually done a deal with all the other
00:07:35.160aristocrats that if Bothwell manages to get Mary to marry him, then he'll share power with all the
00:07:40.040rest of them. So all the bros, every one of these men, pretty much in Mary's council, in Mary's
00:07:45.940court, had done this deal by which one of them gets to sexually assault her, gets to rape her,0.99
00:07:51.860And they all get to enjoy the spoils of power. So we do see women in this impossible position often. And when it comes to being a queen consort, it's fascinating, isn't it? Because a queen regnant, you have a son and you can be deposed for that son, even if he's a baby, a la Mary, Queen of Scots. With a queen consort, you need to have a son to save your life.1.00
00:08:16.680if you don't have a son you are very very vulnerable and that's all across the board
00:08:22.460Catherine of Aragon who of course we're talking about today but with Marie Antoinette until she
00:08:26.620has that child with Marie Antoinette until she has that child you know the marriage can be annulled
00:08:32.140it's not very clear when exactly Marie Antoinette consummated had sex with her husband it certainly
00:08:38.480wasn't immediate and we don't obviously have proof until the baby the baby was born the baby she was
00:08:43.340pregnant and the ring was born. But she is told over and over again, if you don't consummate
00:08:48.060the marriage, you can be sent back. And what is that in terms of the job of a princess
00:08:52.440on the marriage board? And really, I think what we see with Marie Antoinette is they're
00:08:56.020really saying with her, we don't really think you've consummated the marriage until you
00:08:59.600have a baby. You've got to have a baby. So, I mean, obviously the girl isn't what they
00:09:03.280want, but it's still a start. That's how they see it. So women are in this incredibly vulnerable
00:09:09.320position as Queen's consort, and I think particularly so, is that often they are the
00:09:16.080ones who are put in the royal shooting range, metaphorically, because people often don't
00:09:23.400really want to really attack the king because, well, he's got all the power and he could0.96
00:09:28.940up until, you know, reasonably, reasonably, reasonably, chop your head off. Also, on top0.98
00:09:34.520of that, maybe he's chosen by God and maybe God won't like it. But who can you attack? Who can you
00:09:42.040drag through the coals? Who can you say is spent through vain, lascivious, excessive? Who can you
00:09:48.400blame for all the country's ills? Yes, you can blame the wife. So you have that caught up in1.00
00:09:55.400the old trends of misogyny and objectification of women and all of it coincides on the queen
00:10:02.680consort. And also, there are all these conduct books about how a queen consort should behave.
00:10:08.940She should be supportive. She should be generous. She should be pious. And she also should try to0.99
00:10:16.440intervene for her people with the king, which is a tough ask, isn't it, if you're with a pretty
00:10:22.340tyrannical husband. But all that dissipates if the husband doesn't want you. All that dissipates
00:10:31.420if the husband locks you up, if the husband bullies you, if the husband excludes you.
00:10:36.640And pretty much they can do. Joanna of Castile, Catherine of Aragon's sister,
00:10:41.940is locked up, first father and husband, and then husband, and then son. And they can't say she's
00:10:50.440lascivious. I mean, she's a virtuous wife and mother. It wouldn't stick with that. But they0.85
00:10:54.060say she's mad. And when she was consort, no one ever said she was mad. No one ever said she was
00:10:59.040mad or excessive. I mean, she certainly wasn't as ruthless as her mother and she certainly wasn't0.98
00:11:03.860as intelligent, I say, as Catherine of Aragon. But I think she was a very competent woman and
00:11:08.520everyone thought she was a very competent consort. And she was a very, I think, you know, a very,
00:11:13.940we might say rather sort of efficient person. And yet she is castigated as mad because the men
00:11:21.240around her want her power and nothing is done. So, you know, queens are, I think, can be very
00:11:28.980vulnerable and you might be the most powerful woman in the land. You are still often subject0.69
00:11:36.420to male power. And that is why Mary Queen of Scots, who I've written a book on before,0.98
00:11:42.040she just seems, I mean, not just her story is so striking and important in itself. She just seems
00:11:47.260to me to epitomise this key point that you can be the most powerful woman in the land,
00:11:51.980but still a man will impose his power on you to seize power from you. And yes, male monarchs get
00:12:00.340captured and killed, but usually, I don't want to generalise too much here, but usually they have
00:12:06.520to be very, very unpopular or it's in war like the Wars of the Roses. You don't just find a male
00:12:11.460monarch, trundling along, riding his horse, and then suddenly one of his so-called friends
00:12:16.920captures him, beats him up, and says he has to be subject to him, and all the other men
00:12:22.620are going to be too. That would be a coup. That would be a coup, and then someone would
00:12:28.540be taking the throne. But with a woman, you can just say, no, I'm seizing her as a husband.1.00
00:12:33.440And because of the whole networks of marriage and the whole institution of marriage, you1.00
00:12:38.060are allowed to continue. So queens, I think, and that's quite a long answer, but queens I think
00:12:43.660just they are the most visible in our societies often. They are the most powerful women in our1.00
00:12:48.200societies. They are the ones that we know about in history. And yet so much of what is said about1.00
00:12:56.540them, the stories that are woven about them, usually by their enemies, usually by men,
00:13:00.460the stories that are woven about them, they actually impact and they reflect what is said
00:13:06.760about all women, whether it's not being able to manage money, whether it's vanity, whether it's
00:13:11.620spendthrowness, whether it's bloodthirstiness, whether it's sexual obsessions, whether it's0.97
00:13:16.260being led by your sexual passions. Men, no one ever says that Henry VIII was a poor king because
00:13:23.040he was obsessed by women, led by his heart or led by, well, that's another part of the board.
00:13:29.860No one ever says that. Yes, I don't think many people would say he's our most,
00:13:35.660He's our greatest king in terms of taxation and certainly his war efforts are totally hopeless
00:13:41.160against France. But he's not criticised as a weak king because he's weakened by his passion for
00:13:46.780women. And yet we see that being said about women over and over again. Mary Queen of Scots is
00:13:52.920weakened. Mary I is weakened by her passion for Philip of Spain. I mean, she just wanted her
00:13:58.200husband to be around really. Cleopatra is weakened by meetings with Julius Caesar and0.70
00:14:03.820the alliances she created with Caesar and Mark Antony was basically, she was protecting her
00:14:08.460country. So why do we say that about women and not about male monarchs? It's very rare to see0.99
00:14:16.160someone saying about a male monarch that they were weakened by their passion for women. Most
00:14:21.760monarchs, it's seen as, oh, well, Charles II had woman after woman. Absolutely fine.
00:14:29.000Yeah. What fun, Mary Monarch, mistress after mistress. Well, marvelous. I do actually like
00:14:35.440Charles II. I do think he's a great scientist, although I don't think his wife had such a great
00:14:39.480time. But I do think his fostering of science is very important. But I do find it fascinating that
00:14:46.500men get to have loves and mistresses and wives and seem to absorb their whole lives
00:14:54.100in this sexual round but for a woman any relationship undermines her and you don't
00:15:01.920get to be the merry queen in the same way that charles the second gets to be the merry monarch
00:15:07.720oh yeah i'm just imagining yeah some sort of queen who had that many
00:15:12.020um favorites would be quite shocking and probably would be deposed well that's it you have katherine
00:15:18.160the great who does we believe have lovers lots of queens are accused of having lovers basically every
00:15:22.780queen's advisors are accused of being her lovers no one just no one says that henry's having an
00:15:28.120affair with wolsey or cromwell i mean i mean yeah we've seen it it could be a new historical angle
00:15:33.480but with all every woman whether it's hapshepsut and cinnamat you know they're all accused of
00:15:38.260having affairs with these male advisors and so catherine but we do believe catherine the great
00:15:42.700did have some affairs but what's said about her this whole myth that we can't seem to shake off
00:15:48.500even though it was a total lie. She died in bed of a stroke, well, died peacefully in her bed,
00:15:53.240the way that most of us would like to go. And yet it's this myth that she died because the
00:15:57.320horse she was having sex with fell on her. So a woman, even if she does has favorites and perhaps0.99
00:16:02.760almost gets away with it in terms of it not undermining her queenship, because Catherine
00:16:06.680the Great is still seen so powerful, is then dogged by these insanely misogynist stories.
00:16:13.080Well, it's something about, and it comes up over and over. I was reading your book as like an ebook
00:16:17.020And I just kept taking screen captures. I'm just like, yeah, that's so well said. That's so well said because you're comparing. Well, because you have the you're talking about queens kind of throughout history in different contexts. But also, what does this mean about how women were seen in this culture and in this time and in this era? Like, we don't know a lot about women, the everyday woman, but we do know about a queen.
00:16:35.920And so so much of it is that culture trying to a very misogynist culture trying to square off like, well, this woman is important.
00:16:42.560This woman matters. But how they kind of wrap their head around it, it's like, oh, she matters because she is so virtuous.
00:16:49.100And then if she makes any slip up suddenly, it's like, oh, well, now she's terrible.
00:16:53.120Or like Mary Queen of Scots, just kind of so many men just couldn't accept a woman in charge.
00:16:57.100And so they they built up these conspiracies around her.
00:17:00.300So it's a history of queens, but it's also kind of a history of womanhood and kind of a history of misogyny.
00:17:06.600You're exactly right. And we can't know what life was like for the women around Boudicca.0.99
00:17:10.700We simply can't. And we can't. It's very hard to know what life was like for Egyptian women in Cleopatra's time.
00:17:16.400Although it seems very clear that they did have more freedom than most women across the ancient world.
00:17:21.540However, what is said about the queen is so impactful on all women.
00:17:26.320And as you say, they have to make excuses and stories about the woman who gained power.0.95
00:17:32.480Yes, she's different. She's totally different. Usually totally different because she's very bad,0.81
00:17:37.680but often she's totally different because she's just so virtuous. And often I think what's used
00:17:42.960to justify a woman having power, this anomaly, she's made into, as you say, this image of
00:17:49.600difference and not which would have been the reality. You can't get power in any culture,1.00
00:17:56.480even an ultimate tyranny, without the support of some level of the key people who are in control
00:18:05.040of power, whether it's the army, whether it's elites. Yes, it comes down in terms of blood,
00:18:10.880and that's different. But if you're getting power and you're not strictly there as a blood
00:18:16.960advantage, which every woman is going to be, even if she's the king's only daughter.
00:18:21.400You have to have these power of the elites around you. And I think we really see this
00:18:25.620with Hatshepsut, who is essentially the regent that catapults herself into power. There's no0.72
00:18:30.180way she could have done that without the support of those who create and sustain networks of power
00:18:37.140in ancient Egypt. And I think it's very clear that that's the priest class. She's had this
00:18:41.160role of great high priestess. She's been communicating with the god Arman. It's been
00:18:45.320a huge job for her, a very important job that goes to the king's daughter. By that, she
00:18:50.840has her own palace. She lives at the temple. By that, she gets real access to the priest
00:18:55.780class who control Egypt in so many ways. When there's a possibility of her coming into0.96
00:19:03.420I think this is what we see throughout all time. Yet these monarchs, whether it's at
00:19:08.980but the first they really are um seen as anomalies and totally different they have to be so sort of
00:19:16.480magical and different that no other queen could be ever be like that and i think that's a way of
00:19:20.960ensuring society isn't it say okay we've given this one woman power but honestly the rest of you
00:19:27.840don't get any ideas no no she's don't think about it yeah she is special and so often in this
00:19:37.220narrative she's special because she's endowed with masculine qualities whether or not it is
00:19:44.040Hatshepsut who does brilliantly create this myth of her being the she king of her being of her
00:19:51.080transforming of her wearing male dress this you know this move i mean i i think for me Hatshepsut
00:19:57.220moving between genders and she moves brilliantly between genders and she becomes this male she
00:20:04.880king. Or we might compare her to Elizabeth I, who's, I've got the body of a weak and feeble0.99
00:20:10.440woman and the heart of a stomach of a king. And that's comparable, I think, to Elizabeth I, who1.00
00:20:15.180says, Tilbury, I've got the body of a weak and feeble woman, but the heart and stomach of a king.
00:20:21.240Now, I've seen people saying that maybe the speech at Tilbury didn't happen, but whether it happened
00:20:26.080or not, that was clearly the speech that her society wanted from Elizabeth. And I do myself
00:20:32.380believe she said it but either way that was the speech people wanted her to say and it was making
00:20:37.160a separation between her appearance a woman and her spirit which was male and her father's spirit
00:20:46.380even though she didn't do anything like her father whatsoever was totally different to him in every
00:20:53.560way uh so but she claims that similarity so that's you know often women are sometimes cast as magical0.50
00:21:00.520But we actually see female monarchs, the idea is that they're transformed into a man when they get on the throne.0.99
00:21:08.020They are magically transformed into a man.
00:21:10.460They become male as a way of explaining this and justifying this anomaly that we have female power.0.62
00:21:19.800And I think that we even see that with the first female prime minister we had in the UK, who was Margaret Thatcher.0.65
00:21:27.920And so often, she was cast as this superhuman person who had four hours sleep a night and was not similar to any other woman ever, ever, and was totally different. And even though it was a certain look, it was a look that was sort of a look of steel.
00:21:46.940So I think that whatever political agenda it is that you have, these are the women whose society tends to accept.
00:21:56.400It does fascinate me that we have this similarity between the oldest possible female monarchs and even women in political power today must negotiate the female body, must negotiate being female.
00:22:13.420Because there is, even now, despite where we are in terms of equality, there is this alliance between, as Elizabeth I put it, the female body and the female self, really.0.84
00:23:06.260She was representing this ideal consort role.
00:23:09.720But then, like you mentioned at the beginning, she didn't have a son.0.58
00:23:14.880And that just kind of doomed her, even though she was doing exactly, exactly what a woman, a wife, should have been doing in that era.0.76
00:23:23.620Oh, Catherine of Aragon was the perfect consort. She could have written the book on being the best ever consort. She was superb. I mean, she was intelligent. She was diplomatic. She was devoted to Henry. I mean, he's a great big lummox and she was much 50 million times more intelligent than him.0.92
00:23:45.460She was so beloved. Everyone loved her. She was pious. She did all the things that queens are supposed to do. She did the charity. She was pious. She was diplomatic. She created good relationships between Henry and Europe. She was perfect. And I mean, I'm just going to say this now, but she was much, much better at military strategy than our Henry.
00:24:37.120I mean, even he is killed on the battlefield. James IV is killed on the battlefield. Very, very rare. Catherine presides over that victory. She sends Henry James IV's bloody coat.
00:24:49.340I love this detail. Yeah. She's just like, look what I did.
00:24:51.840Yeah. I mean, you know, you left me in charge and look what I did. Frankly, let's face it, Catherine of Aragon would be a much, much better queen regnant than Henry.
00:25:00.780If only he could have given her the job, said actually, she could have done a coup like the Empress Catherine the Great.
00:25:06.720She could have just pushed him off the throne and said he was rubbish and said, actually, I'm going to do it.
00:25:09.960Because after all, Catherine of Aragon could have said, I am also a royal descendant.0.98
00:25:14.480I have royal blood. All of Henry VIII's wives have English royal blood.
00:25:20.000And she could have said, well, I've got royal blood. You're just a Tudor.
00:25:23.780It's a bit random, really, isn't it? Catherine of Valois and Owen Tudor.
00:25:27.400So why don't you let me have the throne? It would have been so much better.
00:25:30.780So she's perfect in every way. But the only thing she doesn't do is have that son. If Catherine of
00:25:39.740Aragon had had only one boy, that's it. All of history would have been different. And yet,
00:25:47.340because she doesn't have that boy, which, well, looking at Henry's history, let's face it,
00:25:55.300it's more likely to be his fault. I mean, let's not say, okay, I shouldn't really say that.
00:26:02.100And if Catherine of Aragon had had that one boy, all of history would have been different.
00:26:08.440And she would have been Henry's wife forever and ever till death do us part. Henry would have had
00:26:16.040mistresses and affairs, of course he would, but they would have had no political impact. And yes,
00:26:21.320the Reformation would have come to England, but in a much more slow way. And we probably would1.00
00:26:27.420have a very different church now. It would be much more, I'd say, probably Lutheran now,
00:26:31.140as opposed to the sort of hodgepodge fudge that was the Church of England created initially by
00:26:36.660Henry VIII, in which he said, I just want the church to be pretty much exactly as it was,
00:26:40.420and yet we'll change a few things and I'll get all the money. Yes, thanks everyone. Thanks
00:26:44.040everyone that we have as the church. I think it's roughly to say, obviously I'm summarising
00:26:50.800very quickly here, but a church that essentially looked Catholic with all the accoutrements.
00:26:58.980And the Church of England, as it is settled by the Tudors, I don't want to stereotype
00:27:03.220too much and summarize too much, but it essentially looks Catholic in terms of the appearance of
00:27:08.340the church, in terms of the priests, in terms of the accoutrements.
00:27:11.620But there is the Bible, there's the services, it is Protestant in its soul.
00:27:16.400And I think it would have been a very different kind of church had the Reformation come gradually in the way that it did in the rest of Europe. So certainly, I mean, and who knows, Britain could still be a Catholic country. It could have been totally different. But Catherine, poor Catherine, didn't have that boy. And therefore, Henry gets rid of her.
00:27:40.520and I almost think I almost think Anne that the story that's often told isn't it is Catherine
00:27:46.320versus Anne. Anne was more vivacious, Catherine was dowdy but I think at heart of this is a story
00:27:55.100about the Queen Consort and how she had this much power because she had huge amounts of power
00:28:02.060because thanks to the increasing religiosity of society marriage is supposed to be a sacrament
00:28:08.140and you cannot simply put your wife aside.
00:28:11.020You can't just tire of her and put her aside.
00:28:13.160It would have been much better for Catherine of Aragon
00:28:14.540if he could have just said, okay, all right, see you, bye.
00:28:17.680It's been great, but no, it's impossible.
00:28:20.860It's almost impossible to put her aside.
00:28:36.300It would have been a kindness, wouldn't it,
00:28:37.820to Catherine of Aragon more so for her marriage to have been divorced, for Henry to have said,
00:28:44.020it was great. We've had good times, lovely daughter. It's been marvellous. I'm moving on.
00:28:50.280But instead, all of her identity is taken from her and it's annulled. And it said that it never,
00:28:56.120ever was a marriage, which is the ultimate cruelty. And this goes to the heart, I think,
00:29:01.500of henry's obsession henry was we're not centering him obviously but henry was obsessed
00:29:08.620with imposing his power on the world he failed on the country on the aristocrats on his children
00:29:16.780and also above all on his wives and they are going to be subservient to him katherine's going0.78
00:29:23.580to be set aside and going to be executed and anyone else is going to be set aside or executed
00:29:28.880Essentially, that's your life because he's not letting anyone have power, especially not a woman.
00:29:35.540Well, and I think the thing that you really spell out in a way that I hadn't thought about this very famous sequence of events in your book where you talk about Catherine was so she was so well connected.
00:29:46.480She was so powerful. And then when you look at his subsequent wives, the role of consort is less, has less and less power just because of who these women are.
00:29:54.560Catherine of Aragon. She's the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand. She's related to the
00:29:59.680Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor. Talk about allies. When Henry decides to try to dissolve this
00:30:06.440marriage, the reason that it is so hard for him is because she's so well-connected and she's so
00:30:10.580well-loved by the country. His later wives don't have those connections. And she was also the
00:30:17.860queen for something like 20 years. They were married for a very long time. The country was
00:30:22.760used to her being the queen so to get rid of her was so difficult for him and can you speak to how
00:30:28.880just her power as a person and how that led to the challenges yeah so i'll see that again i won't
00:30:35.400interrupt yeah no so if you could just speak to to the personal power that she had because of her
00:30:39.560family relationships and because she had been the queen for so long you're exactly right the other
00:30:44.820queens had nowhere near as much power and in fact they were told that jane seymour was told oh don't
00:30:50.360say anything don't meddle because if you do if you do you know what happened to the other one
00:30:55.200so even they're not allowed to take on that traditional role of a queen which is to supplicate
00:31:01.340and and you know put forward the case for mercy from the king for the people that's what queens
00:31:07.160are supposed to do that's what kings expect queens to do to come to them and say oh no don't be so
00:31:11.780mean to them you know really couldn't you couldn't you bring in mercy and henry won't even let jane0.98
00:31:16.800Seymour do that because she is totally under his thumb in terms of power. That's what he thinks.
00:31:22.800I mean, I think she would have, you know, soared more, especially with a son. She had a lot of
00:31:26.740power, but sadly she was taken from us. And Catherine, I mean, Henry is lucky to marry her.
00:31:35.600I mean, he really is. I know the story is that she was lucky to marry him because she'd been
00:31:40.160abandoned, widowed, lonely, and had no money in the English court. Just think about who she is.
00:31:47.780I mean, so she's the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who unite Spain,
00:31:54.100unite Aragon and Castile. And her mother, Isabella of Castile, I mean, she's what a figure
00:32:00.800in Spanish history. Her mother really has a very difficult start in life. She's pretty much been
00:32:06.280excluded from power. She manages to get Ferdinand to marry her and create this contract really by
00:32:13.360sneaking into marrying her because she needs to be married. She becomes queen. No one expects her
00:32:17.540in the family to become queen. She really has a pretty difficult childhood. And now she is queen
00:32:22.740and her husband, she's the only one who manages to solve this husband question that all the rest of
00:32:28.460them are lost under because she's so powerful. Castile is much, much more significant than
00:32:34.220Aragon. Ferdinand pretty much says, yes, okay, you're the queen. You can rule. The two of them
00:32:41.840are this powerhouse in Spain. They unite Spain. Isabella really sorts out inflation, the fact
00:32:50.340that the aristocrats have been doing what they please, lawlessness. If you're a Muslim or a Jew0.99
00:32:54.880under Isabella of Castile, there's great suffering. She, of course, fosters Christopher Columbus,1.00
00:32:59.640who goes out and there's horrific suffering for the people who were taken in the colonies.
00:33:06.920Isabella's reputation is one of this great and powerful queen and if she was Isabella
00:33:17.000the Catholic, Isabella the Catholic queen. So everyone I think who wasn't a minority
00:33:25.080saw their lives improve under Isabella. She was seen as this great, powerful woman. She0.80
00:33:33.080has a husband who pretty much obeys her. She has all these children. She has many heirs.0.77
00:33:38.840Catherine of Aragon, as her youngest daughter, she is really... Other places are far more
00:33:47.520important than England. I mean, really, there's Portugal. There's also more important places
00:33:52.160than this and Catherine of Aragon is sent to marry Prince Arthur Henry VIII's elder brother
00:33:58.620she's sent to marry him they marry in 1501 and then he dies of the sweating sickness we think
00:34:06.460five months after their wedding and her position is impossible but they are so Henry VII is so
00:34:14.580lucky to have Catherine of Aragon she's wealthy she's in this hugely powerful country far more
00:34:21.000powerful than England can ever be at that time. Henry VII is, let's say, maybe something of an
00:34:26.620Arab East. It's his wife, Elizabeth of York, who really, we might say, has the blood claimed to
00:34:31.400the throne, the sister of the princes in the tower. Henry VII gained the victory on the battlefield
00:34:35.940and goes around now telling everyone, the Tudors, it's Tudors, it's Tudors. And he gets his son
00:34:40.980married to this great, incredible woman who is really a prize on the marriage market, not just
00:34:47.780because of who her parents are and how wealthy she is, but she's also had everything that a
00:34:52.280consort could possibly want. Catherine has also had an incredible education. She's really been
00:34:59.960tutored in the most intellectual points. It's not just a bit of embroidery. Catherine studied law,
00:35:09.160literature, arithmetic. I mean, she studied everything. She can write in Spanish and Latin
00:35:35.560and all this literature she's learned,
00:35:37.620all this fine, great literature that she's been educated in,
00:35:39.980I think does give her a power of argument that she uses later.
00:35:43.400And she's, I mean, she is such a trail breaker. She's such a trail breaker that after Arthur dies and she's stranded in the English court because her parents don't want her back. They want basically her to marry the next prince down. That's the future Henry VIII. They want her to stay there. They don't want her back. And also Henry VII doesn't want to give any dowry back. So she's in limbo pretty much.
00:36:07.800she does get this role of being an ambassador, the first female ambassador.
00:36:13.780It's incredible that she is the ambassador.
00:36:16.400I mean, it's because the ambassador is partly driven by the fact that Henry VII
00:36:21.440is thinking that perhaps he might marry her sister, Joanna of Castile,
00:36:29.120after the death of Elizabeth of York, after his wife.
00:36:31.160So not during it, not during, but after.
00:36:35.040and there's some talk that even he might he might marry Catherine himself uh and Isabella of Castile
00:36:41.700I don't want I don't want him in the seventh marrying his daughter absolutely not but one
00:36:47.220rather wishes that perhaps Catherine of Aragon could have married Henry the seventh she would
00:36:51.860have had a marvelous time I think he would have been a doting much older husband she would have
00:36:56.760had Henry as a stepson not a husband and possibly had a child possibly not but either way
00:37:04.920she could have had a great life as a dowager queen and never been dumped in Kimbolton Castle
00:37:09.120ever. But her parents were bent on her marrying Henry VIII and the future Henry VIII. That's what
00:37:18.120they wanted. They wanted her to be queen of England. They'd raised her to be a queen, to be
00:37:23.460a queen of a foreign country, and they were determined. And they got their wish. When Henry
00:37:28.180comes to the throne, really the first thing he says he'll do pretty much is he'll marry Catherine
00:37:33.060of Aragon. And that is a great moment of triumph for everyone, Catherine included. She is now
00:37:40.180queen. She has everything. This is what she's been trained to do. The job she's been trained
00:37:45.260to do for all these years. She has this job and she's very popular. She's pious. She's beloved.
00:37:52.020She's adored. And she's also very fashionable. Catherine's Spanish fashions, her bold Spanish
00:37:59.760fashions and a very bold Spanish wedding dress she's seen as very fashionable she has everything
00:38:04.560but maybe Henry thinks she's got too much well and I do want to you mentioned this in your book too
00:38:11.400and I I had not encountered this piece of information or if I had I'd forgotten that
00:38:15.860she was very fashionable at the time because I think so many narratives about this era begin
00:38:21.000with Henry wanting to marry Anne Boleyn and so you've got often people are introduced to Catherine
00:38:26.400of Aragon as kind of having health problems. She's had so many miscarriages. She's always
00:38:32.520portrayed as this kind of like perpetually middle-aged, downtrodden, sad woman who is also0.72
00:38:40.660not glamorous at all to compare, to contrast. Because if you're having Anne Boleyn as your
00:38:44.920main character, you need to kind of show, well, she's young and she's fashionable. And Catherine
00:38:49.460is just kind of like old and washed up. But she, again, she was queen for 20 years. She was there
00:38:54.200for a long time and she was so glamorous you talk about in your book I love this detail when
00:38:59.100she was told to come to England with a small retinue and she shows up with how many people
00:39:03.560like and just carriages full of gowns and jewels like she's so glamorous and I think people
00:39:10.620people often don't know that about her yes she has this huge retinue she's not being told by
00:39:17.700Henry VII not to bring anyone and we also think that John Blanc one of the early Africans that
00:39:24.000we know in Britain comes over with Catherine of Aragon that he's her trumpeter and then is at the
00:39:28.960court. She has this gigantic retinue and she is very stylish, very glamorous. I mean, just look
00:39:36.760at her mother, Isabella of Castile. She had this portable jewel box she took round with her and
00:39:42.440she was told by the clerics this was vanity and she made it clear it wasn't. But this isn't vanity,
00:39:48.340me wearing my jewels essentially it's her armor this is a queen's armor she can't wear armor in0.56
00:39:54.680the same way but she can wear the jewels so Catherine had been trained very well in the use
00:39:59.400of dress and jewels as armor and she was yes pure glamour when she arrived she's only 23 when she0.80
00:40:07.920got married so you know you know prime age of Tudor beauty at the time and she you know this is
00:40:16.200And what happens, isn't it, Anne, when we set women against each other, when we say, oh, Anne was pretty and Catherine was dowdy and Catherine was old and washed up and Anne was young and vivacious, we do both of them a disservice defining them by their looks.
00:40:32.420when all of it is a political we do both of them a disservice defining them by their looks and we
00:40:41.320really are allying ourselves I would say with Henry's point of view by doing that by saying
00:40:48.400old washed up ex-wife don't want her oh young new glamorous mistress young sexy glamorous new
00:40:55.080mistress. And that disavows both of their intelligence and both of their position that1.00
00:41:03.680Catherine is this devoted wife who's given him everything. And Anne is a courtier who doesn't
00:41:10.520want to marry him, who really would rather make a good marriage with another Tudor aristocrat and
00:41:15.480live her life in that way and have a rather marvellous estate somewhere. She doesn't want
00:41:19.580to be constantly sexually harassed by Henry VIII because everyone will know about it and
00:41:25.060everyone will mock them. All the men at court think it's hilarious to see who the king's
00:41:29.060looking at and let's all mock her as well. We know what's going on. It's all the bros
00:41:32.400having a good old laugh. And to set them against each other like this really does, I think,
00:41:38.920encapsulate how these misogynist notions are so deep set that we still define women by
00:41:47.540their looks and we can't say that and and catherine in this paradigm can't be a beloved a graceful a
00:41:57.660queen we can't really say we can't say well catherine catherine of aragon was middle-aged
00:42:02.120and no longer having children but she was still attractive we can't possibly say that it's got to
00:42:06.960be well older and washed up and then anne was herself very vivacious and gorgeous and then
00:42:13.700And when Anne is still young and still verbatious and gorgeous,0.89
00:42:17.620she then has to be seen as mean and cruel and bitchy.1.00
00:42:20.800That's why she has her chopped off.0.97
00:42:23.180And Catherine, I think, was everything that Henry VIII could ever have wanted.
00:42:29.760And we do believe the marriage was very happy at the time.
00:43:33.120Like it's devastating the sequence of all she wants is to have a child.
00:43:38.000And the one surviving child is, of course, Mary, who later becomes Mary I, who you also talk about in your book.
00:43:45.320But in terms of her, what I see in her is that as the years go by and she's not having a son and these pregnancies keep not working out, she's already such a Catholic person.
00:43:59.240But I think she turns even more towards that faith.
00:44:01.380and that's what we often see in a portrayal of her is just practically a nun at the time that
00:44:06.760Henry falls in love with Anne Boleyn that she's just she's so turned inward she's so traumatized
00:44:12.140by all these the troubles with the pregnancies turning to her faith it's not working out like
00:44:18.160can you talk about what the toll that that might have caused on her having all these pregnancies
00:44:23.700It's horrific. It's devastating and horrific and devastating for any woman. But when your whole being, your whole justification depends on you having a son, when your husband's made that clear, it's horrific because she knows she's constantly being watched and tested.
00:44:45.500and we don't know this for sure. This is just my speculation. But we know that the tutor court was
00:44:51.480full of quacks and full of theorists and full of people claiming that they could do this or that.0.96
00:44:56.720And we've seen various doctors and healers through history getting their arm into the court because0.96
00:45:01.980they claim, oh, I can heal this. So you can guarantee that Catherine would have been dragged
00:45:07.580round and round and round every quack or every doctor or every this or that and prescribed to
00:45:14.280eat this or not eat this or lie in a cold bath or all these random theories that haven't been
00:45:21.360recorded. But I'm sure that they're imposed on her, that these snake oil salesmen who then
00:45:29.400were really exploiting desperate women to have a baby will carry on with the Queen.
00:45:37.640I know that my first book was on Emma Hamilton. And in her early days, she starts working for
00:45:44.060james graham at the temple of health i was thinking about that yeah the temple of health
00:45:48.300and he sort of creates this in this and uh all kinds of people go to this temple of electricity
00:45:56.900for electrical cures for all every disease can be cured by the electrical cure apparently
00:46:01.080rheumatism was great on the electrical throne but the electrical celestial bed is where you are told
00:46:06.260if you use this bed you can conceive and i think that you know that really shows he charges a
00:46:15.680fortune for it and compared to all the other horrific things that were imposed on women who
00:46:19.560couldn't have children at the time aristocratic women struggling to have their air the air i
00:46:23.660think the celestial bed was much better but it shows how much money there is and how much
00:46:29.020desperation there is and george only devonshire had to go to various baths to get the waters and
00:46:35.080was sent to various doctors saying you've got to have a child. We see this happening in this period
00:46:39.540where it has been documented. So I'm sure it was also happening to Catherine of Aragon that she
00:46:43.400was being subject to all these horrendous cures that won't cures and theories that won't theories
00:46:48.560and also constantly being judged and constantly being told it was your fault. And many women
00:46:54.920today and couples who go through the really hard times, the hard times, difficult times of
00:47:00.400facility feel judged and they feel as if people are mocking them or laughing at them. This is how
00:47:06.020people feel. And Catherine of Aragon would have felt the same. Marie Antoinette, it's very striking
00:47:13.320that when she isn't having a child and she's being told off constantly by her mother, the Empress in
00:47:18.920Austria, and being told off by the courtiers for not having a child, what's the point of view if
00:47:23.240you haven't had a child? There's this really heartbreaking moment when another woman at court
00:47:28.640has had a baby who was born dead and Marie Antoinette feels so envious of her. At least
00:47:34.000she had a baby even though the baby was born dead. I mean poor woman who went through that0.99
00:47:39.640awful suffering of the stillbirth but for Marie Antoinette to feel that way I think shows
00:47:43.600how judged and heartbroken she felt and she did have a child, she did have a son,
00:47:49.960eventually that happened for her. It did not for Catherine of Aragon and so Catherine of Aragon
00:47:55.600and I think must have gone through all of this.
00:47:57.020And this is why her faith becomes such a prop for her
00:48:11.240so many more things on the internet telling women about0.90
00:48:13.320do this or don't exercise or do exercise or eat this
00:48:16.360or don't eat this, much more so than it is for the men,0.59
00:48:19.400even though we know it's 50-50 making a baby.
00:48:22.380Henry, I think, would have been free as a bird
00:48:24.560and Catherine would have been stuck undergoing these cures in inverted commas. And none of
00:48:32.040them work. And she tries and she tries and she tries. In a very similar obstetric history
00:48:38.600to Anne Boleyn, which suggests there's a common denominator here, and it's Henry, that she
00:48:44.100can get pregnant. It's conceiving is not the problem. But for the pregnancy to continue,
00:48:50.140That just doesn't seem to work. But Catherine has Mary. She has her daughter. She has a child. And so she begins to invest all her hopes in Mary. She doesn't see why. Henry can't just see Mary as the future queen because look at Isabella of Castile. She was powerful.0.91
00:49:12.160Well, look at grandma. Look at grandma. Absolutely. And let's face it, Henry VIII, look at your mother. Elizabeth of York was the power behind the throne, made a lot of, I think, subtle decisions behind the throne. So why can't Mary do it? Why not?1.00
00:49:28.400And so this leads us to what's it called the King's Great Matter, where he decides that he would like to end the marriage with Catherine of Aragon so he can marry Anne Boleyn and he thinks have a son with her.
00:49:44.240And this means, I think it speaks to the power of Catherine of Aragon, as I sort of hinted at before, like her family connections, the depth of how loyal people are to her in England, that in order to end this marriage, he has to break with the Catholic Church.
00:50:06.480Like, she's somebody so powerful that to get rid of her requires getting the country practically to civil war.
00:50:12.740And in terms of Catherine's obstetric history, what we see is she does get pregnant frequently, but the babies die. We have babies who die and there's miscarriages. So Catherine does conceive, but they don't end in a live birth.
00:50:33.180and mary is incredible mary is fills everyone with hope she's mary is a tough little baby
00:50:41.520and already when she's a small child is being shown off to ambassadors because she is very
00:50:47.720healthy very intelligent couldn't be a more perfect little royal princess she's got one
00:50:53.760perfect princess but she tries and tries and tries and can't have this boy this precious precious
00:51:01.940boy which is all Henry wants and I do feel very sad about the little Henry that they have in 1511
00:51:10.180he's born on the 1st of January which I'm sure was felt to be a very auspicious day
00:51:15.120the first day of the new year but he dies on the 22nd of February we don't know why I
00:51:22.080just babies do die and there were joustings there were celebrations everything was there with this
00:51:30.660little henry who would have been well henry the ninth but but he's taken from her and it's it's
00:51:38.560heartbreaking and this is the lives of so many women in tudor england there's no obstetric care
00:51:44.580there's no scans there's no c-sections there's none of these things that we can use for children
00:51:50.000that perhaps should have been born earlier than than they are or children who are perhaps losing
00:51:56.840oxygen in the womb or all these medical issues that we can now we have all these solutions that
00:52:01.580mean that so many children can live and that's just not possible you either you have your baby
00:52:07.880or you don't and and that's it so Catherine is on this sad sad treadmill of pregnancies
00:52:17.360and miscarriages and stillbirths and I'm sure Henry isn't the type of person who lets her grieve
00:52:25.960oh, I'm sure she's not allowed to grieve. She has to immediately be back waving and smiling
00:52:31.980and immediately back in terms of trying to conceive again.
00:52:37.460And so she's in this, I think a lot of people can just put themselves in her shoes more or less and
00:52:43.260just imagine the ongoing trauma of this, like to be perpetually either pregnant or postpartum,
00:52:51.000whether the child survives or not. And then Henry decides to end the marriage. And how does that go
00:53:00.000down? The king's great matter is the greatest shock to Catherine of Aragon. Now, Catherine of
00:53:07.420Aragon knows that Henry has affairs. This happens. She turns a blind eye. Her father, I have to say,
00:53:14.900wasn't always faithful to Isabella, but did it discreetly. So Catherine herself, I think,
00:53:20.280is very aware that this is the life and that also he'll have affairs with her lady in waiting
00:53:25.600because at the court of the time there aren't many women outside of the queen's ladies in waiting
00:53:30.040there are a lot of men but most men leave their wives at home so really if you want to have an
00:53:35.560affair with someone you're having an affair with the people from your wife's household so it must
00:53:39.540be tough as a queen to appoint ladies who are attractive and clever and skilled and dancing
00:53:46.720and music because they reflect well on you. But also, you know, that maybe your husband might be
00:53:52.160peeking in and thinking, who can I have with him this lot? Because Catherine knows that Henry has
00:53:57.860affairs, but things do change. So the last time we believe that there is a sustained pregnancy
00:54:04.860that is recorded is in 1518. And Henry begins to realize that they're never going to have another
00:54:12.440child. And he starts to think, what is the answer? And Mary, for Catherine, is her great hope.
00:54:21.500She's convinced that Mary, their little girl born in 1516, who's a splendid little princess,
00:54:27.660healthy, intelligent, being talked about for great marriage alliances, absolutely marvellous.
00:54:32.980Why can't she be queen? Why can't she be queen, pregnant like Queen Isabella, like grandma?0.89
00:54:37.140why can't she be queen? Henry is in a lot of power. He's got a powerful position. His daughter bears
00:54:43.500his blood. His daughter bears Catherine of Aragon's blood. Put her in. But Henry's no. There's no way
00:54:49.580that Henry would agree to this. I think we can have some sympathy with Henry where we see perhaps
00:54:54.560in examples of the past, Empress Matilda, the barons immediately allowed Stephen, her cousins.
00:55:00.380Oh yeah, so you can be monarch instead. And it was the anarchy as Stephen and Matilda fought for
00:55:04.880power and then we have the Walls of the Roses which explode over perceived weakness of kings
00:55:09.340perhaps Henry V if he'd stayed around we wouldn't have had the Walls of the Roses in the same way
00:55:13.540so I think there's some sympathy with Henry VIII's desire for a child but also a lot of it is his
00:55:19.040belief that he must have this son and he deserves to have this son and he's a great great he's the
00:55:30.020male glory. He's everything. He's a marvellous and he must have a child. And this coincides
00:55:37.060with Anne Boleyn, the lady-in-waiting to Catherine, who's been in France. Anne Boleyn
00:55:43.860was at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, attending on the French Queen. Doesn't look like Henry
00:55:48.500even noticed her there at all. But around 1525, Henry is, as he puts it, struck by the dart of
00:55:56.320love. And he spots Anne Boleyn. And she says no. Now, most of the others have said yes.
00:56:03.680Her sister, who he's also had an affair with, Mary Boleyn, she said yes. But Anne says no.
00:56:11.380Now, Anne says no. She doesn't want to be Henry's mistress. You see what happened to his sister?
00:56:17.000She wants to make a good marriage for herself. That's why she's at court. And a good marriage0.86
00:56:22.220that she's actually been quite close to making have been blocked by Cardinal Wolsey and Anne
00:56:27.720also thought that Henry had blocked it as well. So she doesn't like Henry or Cardinal
00:56:31.920Wolsey very much. And now Henry's pushing her. She says no, because she doesn't want
00:56:39.160to have an affair with him. I think it's a misogynist way. People say, oh, Anne's playing0.90
00:56:42.480him. She's manipulating him. She just doesn't. She's saying no. So Henry becomes obsessed
00:56:48.980and has secret meetings. Because he's married his brother's wife, that means he's cursed and
00:56:58.840that's his justification. Now, it's a bit dubious, isn't it? Because Henry gets Leviticus out, which
00:57:04.860Henry uses the Bible to confirm him in his decision, saying, oh, what, Leviticus? Yes,
00:57:09.120yes, I can't. Henry at this point, 20 years, Henry thinks, oh, yeah, actually, I never should
00:57:15.400of marriage, a Catherine of Aragon, and the Bible says so. Now, another book of the Bible actually0.91
00:57:21.100says, you should marry your brother's wife. That's what you should do. If your brother dies,1.00
00:57:28.180then you must marry his wife and continue, protect her, continue the family name.
00:57:33.940So it's a bit contradictory. And now for a quick advertising break.
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01:22:51.740She's not allowed to see her beloved daughter.
01:22:54.620She's not allowed to see other alliances,
01:22:57.320other friends, people she might have political alliances with.
01:23:00.440She's locked away and she has to be addressed as Princess Dowager. That's what she says.
01:23:05.480And she does finally die in early 1536. And she's not even given the Queen's funeral.
01:23:13.300She's buried as Arthur's wife, as the Princess Dowager. It's so, so cruel. He can't even give
01:23:21.040her a funeral. And I think she would have known that as she was dying, which would have broken
01:23:25.180her heart that you're not even going to be buried as a wife. It would have been a kindness as we
01:23:30.420were saying to have said, okay, we were married. I don't want to marry you anymore, but we were
01:23:34.360married. No, Henry has to strip her of everything. Her daughter, her jewels, her lands, her manners,0.99
01:23:41.580her title, and what matters so much to a woman like her, her reputation, that she had been a
01:23:48.280devoted, virtuous, honest wife. He took that from her, took everything from her. And yet he could
01:23:55.600not reduce her she was powerful she was determined and she stood up to him until the end i'm sure
01:24:03.880and like perhaps if she had thought written to him and still henry i've changed my mind
01:24:08.040totally accepted i'm princess dowager absolutely marvelous you and amber lynn oh wish you all the
01:24:13.160happiness oh absolutely great hope you have a boy lots of love kiss kiss but maybe henry might have0.97
01:24:18.300said look she agrees now she had sex with arthur she agrees now and he might have had her back to1.00
01:24:24.720court. I know I'm speculating here, but that was the kind of submission that Henry wanted. Oh, yes,0.76
01:24:29.440we did have sex. You were right. I'm a bad person. You were totally right, Henry. Please forgive me.
01:24:34.620I think he probably would have said, come back to court, especially as he's getting more and more
01:24:39.280annoyed by Anne Boleyn by this point. He might have had Catherine of Aragon over to play mind
01:24:43.280games with Anne Boleyn. So she could have given that submission, but she never, never did. And
01:24:50.960she stood up for herself till the end. We might say was it a lost mission, was it a lost victory,
01:24:56.980because in the end everything was taken from her. Perhaps when Henry had come to her in 1527 and
01:25:02.580say, look, I think it wasn't a good marriage. You and I, would you mind if you could just go off to
01:25:07.720some house somewhere? You can choose, you can choose whatever you want, but perhaps she'd have
01:25:11.860got a better deal that way. She'd have been better treated, Mary would have been better treated,0.92
01:25:16.760and perhaps she might have been a bit in the position of Anne of Cleves, who did agree when
01:25:19.900Henry says you know what we were never married I don't think so all right okay bye and Anne does
01:25:26.780have this good relationship she does come back to court she's treated as the king's sister
01:25:30.800she gets all these estates but perhaps that might have been Catherine of Aragon's future Anne of0.98
01:25:36.980Cleves was very canny there she saw what had happened to the others I think she probably
01:25:40.140thought if I don't agree I'll get executed very wise she agreed and maybe that would have happened
01:25:45.580for Catherine of Aragon had she agreed straight away or even later on. But Catherine would never
01:25:50.460have done that because she was standing up for marriage, the sacrament of marriage,
01:25:54.640sanctity of marriage, and she was standing up for her daughter.
01:25:58.480She was buried, sort of kind of tucked away, the wife of Arthur. You know, Henry didn't want anyone
01:26:03.780to think about her. But today there's a different tomb people could visit, right?
01:26:07.440Catherine dies on 7th of January, 1536. And Henry wants her buried at Peterborough Abbey. So it's
01:26:12.340the nearest big house, religious house. He doesn't want her buried in London. Absolutely not. Because0.94
01:26:18.180London's going to come out. London's going to start cheering. London's going to start shouting
01:26:22.000Queen Catherine. They totally will. No. So he wants her buried in a very quick way. Now,
01:26:28.280it's quite a big funeral. You know, you've got four bishops and six abbots and there's 50 servants,
01:26:34.320but it's pretty small for a monarch. I mean, really. And it was a very small tomb at the
01:26:40.660time comparatively henry just wants her shoved away and the actual tomb itself gets vandalized
01:26:47.040by cromwell's troops in 1643 and what we have now is a slab that was installed in 1895 and this was
01:26:56.260a national campaign for every catherine in england to donate a penny to the cause and this was
01:27:03.740organized by the wife of one of the cathedral canons who was herself called catherine catherine
01:27:07.980Clayton. So she got every Catherine, and I'm sure various people who weren't even called Catherine,
01:27:12.320to donate to this queen. And I think it's no coincidence that Queen Victoria was on the throne
01:27:18.240at the time. Now, Queen Victoria actually reburied Catherine of Valois, who had been
01:27:22.400disturbed in Westminster Abbey, and her body had been out there, and it was awful. Her body had
01:27:27.100been exposed, and then it hadn't been buried until the 18th century. Queen Victoria put a proper
01:27:33.260plaque on there and remembered her as who she great was, a great queen, a great mother
01:27:38.520of a king. And I think that there's no coincidence that these Catherines all decided to get together
01:27:43.520and give Catherine of Aragon a good, proper tomb in 1895. And she's very beloved. And
01:27:50.360visitors come and bring her symbol. They come and bring pomegranates. She is still so loved.
01:27:55.320And when you go to Peterborough Cathedral, it is absolutely fantastic to see her grave.
01:28:00.480Now, it's almost a shame. It's a shame, isn't it, that Mary, Queen of Scots, who was also there after she was executed at Fothering Hay Castle, that she was disinterred by King James I to her son and put in Westminster Abbey.
01:28:13.700But I think they would have had quite a lot in conversation, quite a lot in common. These two ladies could have discussed the depredations of men.
01:28:21.640What it's like to have terrible husbands.1.00
01:28:23.520What it's like to have terrible husbands. They both had experience of the matter. So I think they could have a lot of conversation.
01:28:29.200But Catherine of Aragon, everything was taken from her, even her title in death, even her chance for a queen's funeral, and particularly her daughter, which was heartbreaking, heartbreaking for Mary.
01:28:44.200but she stood up for what was right and she stood up for herself and she stood up for her daughter
01:28:50.360and I do think that when Mary comes to the throne everyone expects Mary to come to the throne that's
01:28:57.220Henry VIII's will they expect her to come to the throne but it's Catherine's blood that runs through
01:29:03.580Mary's veins and Mary never never doubts the fact that she deserves to be on the throne she's the
01:29:09.960only warrior queen. She pretty much is going, she's the queen who fights for that throne. She's ready0.99
01:29:14.640to fight with this great army that are ready to fight back against the Dudleys and get that throne0.99
01:29:19.380back. And it's Catherine who's inspired her. So Catherine's fight meant a sad death for her.
01:29:28.460A sad death, even though she would have known that she was going to heaven for all her piety.
01:29:32.820But I think that it really did give so much to create her daughter's power and her daughter's power base and her daughter's strong, strong, undeniable belief in her own legitimacy.
01:29:46.540Well, and that leads us to, there's some little categories. After I do a biographical episode like this, I like to give people a score in various categories. And one of the categories is significance. And I think if you give her a score zero to 10 of significance, what you're just saying about how she inspired Mary, everything that Mary did, the fact that her fight, that she didn't back down, that the Anglican church was invented because of her.
01:30:15.380Where would you score Catherine of Aragon in terms of significance, 0 to 10?
01:30:19.280Oh, we've got to give her 10. We've got to give her 10.0.98
01:30:40.780And we often undermine and undervalue how much Mary the First's history, how much Mary the First's power, how much Mary the First's work and the groundwork she laid down laid the groundwork for Elizabeth the First.
01:30:54.700So not sure whether Catherine of Aragon will be delighted that Elizabeth the First is her legacy, but it is her legacy.
01:31:00.880well and that's part of the thing i find so interesting and we're in this tudor season now
01:31:05.680on this podcast is that henry the eighth was so intent on having a son and then it turns into
01:31:12.200the tudor era is known for its queens it's known for the women is known for the queens it's known
01:31:17.660for the great women and it's the ultimate irony henry the eighth turned the world upside down
01:31:23.480to have a son and who was the great tudor monarch it was his daughter it was elizabeth the first
01:31:30.100gloriana seen by many as the greatest queen in british history so there's another category i'm
01:31:37.020curious to know what you think of so when i'm giving scores to people on this podcast i call
01:31:42.060the category the sexism bonus so it's just how much did the patriarchy get in someone's way
01:31:47.860how much more might they have been able to accomplish if they hadn't had to spend so much0.85
01:31:52.520time fighting back against sexism and i feel like katherine varagon would if that's a zero to ten i
01:31:57.640think this is a 10 again i think she's got another 10 i think we're getting another 10 score here
01:32:02.980she epitomizes emblematizes what happens when the patriarchy comes for you and she fights
01:32:13.120and she fights but ultimately the patriarchy wins in every way everyone just ignores her
01:32:20.460forgets about her she's been the queen she's been the great queen of the court everyone told her
01:32:25.780they loved her and they talked to her. No one speaks to her again. They dump her in Kimbolton
01:32:30.780Castle. She pretty much dies of a broken heart and great misery. And no one even gives her a
01:32:37.480queen's funeral. You know, the Catherine of Aragon epitomizes how even the most powerful,
01:32:44.720virtuous, educated woman with the great family behind her, the man defines her. The husband
01:32:50.740defines her. He totally defines her. He tells her, you're not queen. I don't want you as queen
01:32:56.080anymore. And everyone falls in behind him. The most powerful woman of the age. And she's still,
01:33:03.160I wouldn't say easily dismissed. It took quite a bit for Henry to be, but she still gets just
01:33:08.220cast aside despite all her power. Oh yeah. I mean, you have to get the spanner out and really pull
01:33:12.740and pull and pull, but, but he does it. He eventually does. And I think also that her
01:33:17.900story creates stories for the others. After she's stood up so strongly, so resolutely for her rights
01:33:25.580and been a thorn in his side, he's not going to let Anne Boleyn live. Oh no, she is going to be
01:33:31.740executed and out. We know that Anne Boleyn thought that when she's being put aside, she's going to be
01:33:37.280sent to a nunnery or sent to an exile. No, no. After everything that's happened with Catherine,
01:34:39.180but there's not much she can do in terms of a plan she fights and she fights and she fights and she
01:34:45.700writes to her nephew but there's only so much scheming she can do because this juggernaut is
01:34:52.920in front of her and it's the juggernaut of what henry wants so i'll give her an eight yeah i think
01:34:57.860that's two as well she's also she's certainly capable but she's she's hemmed in a bit by how0.89
01:35:03.540much scheminess can she do and also I think her her piety her ethical sense would keep her from0.97
01:35:10.840really getting low and dirty yes her piety is what's driving her that's true she would she
01:35:17.480wouldn't have pulled some sort of trick I don't think no and then the final category is um0.98
01:35:23.880scandalousness how scandalous do you think she was and I don't think she was at all I don't think0.94
01:35:28.980anyone at the time would have she was faultless really in that way I mean in terms of scheming
01:35:35.440the ultimate trick that Catherine of Aragon could have done is is to have done something a bit like
01:35:40.580the warming pan baby much later in history claim she was pregnant or I don't know had an affair
01:35:45.800with some man who wasn't like Henry and uh got pregnant and then suddenly said look here's my
01:35:50.920baby or said I'm going or said I'm going away to retire for a long time to a nunnery I'm just going
01:35:55.720to think about my fertility and going to make my body better. Oh my goodness, came back, popped to
01:36:01.520see Henry, went back to the nunnery, nine months later, out popped the baby. So that would have
01:36:05.820been scheming and ruthless, but she was led by her piety and led by her determination to be a good
01:36:14.000subject to God. And that's what she was. So she wasn't outgunned because she was resolute and she
01:36:20.600was determined but scheming was not her bag and this was a scheming ruthless ruthless court in
01:36:26.780which she was living it would have been so what a different there's so we've had you've mentioned
01:36:31.740so many possible sliding doors of possible scenarios but but none of the none of them
01:36:36.740would have happened because she was such a consistent steadfast person and she was so just
01:36:41.260honest and pious and she was never going to do anything other than exactly what she did
01:36:47.420Catherine of Aragon was the epitome of reliable. So she's the type of person that if you invite
01:36:51.800them to your birthday party, she'll always show up. If you say, will you send me an email? And
01:36:56.180she says, yes, I'll send you an email. She would have sent you the email. That's Catherine of
01:36:59.040Aragon. Exactly. So yeah, so in terms of the category of scandalousness, I think that could
01:37:06.800even be a zero. I don't think anything she did shocked anybody. Well, I guess it shocked Henry
01:37:12.080that she didn't give in to him right away no she's not scandalous at all she's so pious she's
01:37:18.840so upright but also she's so unscandalous that's henry's problem he's trying to say oh we were0.92
01:37:25.800living in sin for these years she had sex with arthur oh yes charles brandon said she was arthur0.97
01:37:31.020was exhausted by all this sex she's saying no you're i'm not i'm absolutely not i came for you0.98
01:37:37.560as incorrupted, as intact as a baby. So she is the opposite of scandalous. And that's what makes0.84
01:37:44.420Henry's tribulations so great that not only will she not believe it, but no one believes it. I
01:37:51.620don't think anyone really in the court or the public really believed that Catherine of Aragon
01:37:56.140was pulling the wool over Henry's lot. I think most people in the public and in the court believed
01:38:02.660Catherine of Aragon they simply saw it as inevitable that she was going to be set aside
01:38:07.700so that gives her just for to to cement her status as a person I've talked about on this podcast
01:38:14.800her total score is a 28 possible 28 out of 40 which is a very respectable score I think it's
01:38:22.640interesting it's not often we have people who are a zero scandal but a 10 significance like but that's
01:38:29.680I mean, there may be some research out there finding some secrets of Catherine of Aragaming's secret scandals, but she was, and she prided herself on being this resolute, steadfast, pious queen.
01:38:47.780And that was her vision of herself. It was the public's vision of her. It was what she was trained to be. And she refused to let Henry tear it into pieces.
01:38:56.560Well, thank you so much for joining me for this discussion. I think that Catherine of Aragon is so often just kind of thought of as the first of six. But I think I want, it was important to me to speak about her as her own person. And I think you tell her story so well in your book. And can you tell everybody about your book and when and where it's available?
01:39:17.900Yes, my book, Regina, it is published already in the UK, already out in the UK and Australia.
01:39:23.600A New History of Women and Power is a subtitle. It's coming out in the US and Canada in November
01:39:28.120from Pegasus. And it's got all the queens in there, a hundred queens, lots of different queens
01:39:32.800from all over the world. I really think it is my magnum opus about queens, about women,
01:39:39.040about power, and about stories we tell about what happens when we give women a modicum of power.0.74
01:39:46.500And most of the time, the stories that occur over and over are, if you give women just a little bit of power, they will squander it.0.99
01:40:02.480I think, you know, it's fabulous that it's available in the UK and Australia right now.
01:40:07.320But coming out in November in North America, I think it's going to be a perfect like Christmas present type book.
01:40:12.000because at least for me it's not a book you can just sit down and read all in one because there's
01:40:16.100so much information and it's so interesting but I feel like that week between Christmas and New
01:40:20.000Year's where at least for me we all give each other books and my family we just sit there and
01:40:23.720read a book I feel like if you have a week to just like the best Christmas week ever I love it yeah
01:40:30.680it's so many interesting stories some of them I knew a lot of them I didn't know I love that
01:40:36.020you've got a global perspective in this that you're talking about queens from like you were
01:40:40.220I'm mentioning Cambodia and Japan and from the African continent and all these places.
01:40:45.300So to just show, and the similarities in stories, whether you're talking about Hatshepsut or Catherine of Aragon, or you get it into Diana, Princess of Wales, like the fact that women in positions of power so often face the same issues, no matter their culture.
01:41:01.500I think it's, it's a real eye opener, I think.
01:41:05.120And it's also just, just so listeners know, it's also very, very readable.
01:41:08.540it's very you explain everything very well oh well i'm so grateful i i i'm so grateful
01:41:15.920now i'm working on this book for seven years now so it is overwhelming for me to see it out
01:41:24.020in the world and for people to be enjoying it well thank you so much for taking the time to
01:41:28.100speak with me today and oh i just also want to say because you have a podcast as well and i'm
01:41:32.780sure you're going to be on tour so is there a website or social media where people can keep
01:41:36.860up with you and what you're doing yes i'm on i'm kate williams me on instagram i'm on tour in the
01:41:43.060uk throughout june and july uh so if you're in the uk that's i'm going to various places throughout
01:41:47.940june and july and i'll be at heaver castle amberlyn's childhood home in august i'm also going
01:41:53.500to the catherine of aragon festival next january in peterborough which is a wonderful festival so
01:41:57.220i'll be all the catherine's all the anne's and i'll be doing some events hopefully in north
01:42:02.940america in november as well so i'll be taking the queens hopefully across the atlantic that's
01:42:08.800fantastic and it's it's great do you have a website or places where people can see your
01:42:13.560itinerary and where you might be when no i don't i haven't done yet but yes so um i'm kate williams
01:42:20.460me on instagram on tiktok on threads and lots of information and queen facts and queen photos
01:42:26.940are all up on those those sites well exactly and i feel like if you're following people who are
01:42:31.700following you there. When you've got a new event coming up, you'll be talking about it there. And
01:42:34.900so people will know where they can come and see you and talk about Queens with you. Thank you so
01:42:39.300much for this wonderful conversation. It was so nice to meet you and best of luck with your book
01:42:44.520launch. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for having me. So Kate's new book, Regina, A New
01:42:53.260History of Women in Power is available right now in the UK and it will be available in North America
01:42:58.960in October. So if you're in the UK or Ireland, go pick up a copy. If you're in North America,
01:43:04.480make your pre-order. Go to your local bookstore or online and order a copy of this book so you
01:43:09.200can get it the first possible second you can. It's so good. It's so vital. I have a copy of
01:43:14.360this book and I know I'm going to keep looking at it when I need ideas of new people to talk
01:43:17.560about on the podcast or to learn about some queens that I thought I knew about. It's so good.
01:43:22.340She's going all the way from ancient world queens all the way up to Grace Kelly. She talks about
01:43:27.500princess diana it's such a good book and yeah regina by kate williams everybody should pick
01:43:33.640this up and another book you should pick up is i wrote a book it's called rebel of the regency
01:43:38.180the scandalous saga of carolina brunswick britain's queen without a crown and that's another
01:43:42.420story of another queen she was only technically queen for like a year but she's just got queen
01:43:47.960vibes she has a queen aura and her husband like henry the eighth was also like nowhere near good
01:43:53.220enough for her anyway you can pick up my book rebel of the regency anywhere you get books
01:43:57.940it's available all around the world all the english language speaking places you can get
01:44:01.360more information about it at my website rebel of the regency.com i also want to mention if you want
01:44:07.800to keep up with me and my work i have a patreon this is a website where you can get ad-free
01:44:13.600episodes of this podcast vulgar history for as low as one dollar a month and or if you want to
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01:44:25.920episodes featuring me and some of my friends talking about stuff that just doesn't fit into
01:44:29.740the main feed. So for instance, we have a recent episode talking about why I love the Shakespearean
01:44:34.680play Titus Andronicus. Coming up soon is going to be a discussion that I'm having with my friend
01:44:39.460Gina Berry about the new Odyssey movie. Looking at it from our perspectives as history fans,
01:44:45.600as feminists, it'll be interesting. And you can get all that if you join my Patreon at
01:44:49.620patreon.com slash ann foster writer also if you join at the six dollars a month or more level
01:44:55.600you get access to our discord chat which is where you can just like shit talk henner the eighth and
01:45:00.400whatever you want to talk about with other history fans as well patreons at that level get access to
01:45:04.920my live zoom events so again hit up patreon.com slash ann foster writer and honestly just try a
01:45:10.600seven-day trial you can just see if you like it see if it's for you see if you're getting some
01:45:14.520value out of that. And I really appreciate everyone who supports me on Patreon. I also
01:45:19.380want to mention our brand partner, Common Era Jewelry. So this is an American-based small
01:45:25.340business owned and run by a woman. Her name is Tori. She does the designing and then she oversees0.63
01:45:31.180all the production as well. And she creates beautiful jewelry inspired by women from history
01:45:36.060as well as from mythology. And so a lot of, most of their pieces are inspired from the classical
01:45:41.400world that's why they're called common era but they do have one more recent piece and that is
01:45:46.160not today's icon not Catherine of Aragon but another one of Henry's queens Anne Boleyn there's
01:45:52.060a beautiful Anne Boleyn pendant you can get from common era jewelry you can get this pendant in
01:45:56.780solid gold or in more affordable gold for May you can also get pieces from them inspired by women
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01:46:35.200so use that to get your discount a common era to pick up your Anne Boleyn pendant your Odyssey
01:46:40.380women pendant whatever you want to get from them anyway until next time keep your pants on0.93
01:46:47.260and your tits out and I can't wait to continue exploring the Tudor era with you all0.99
01:46:52.660vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by Anne Foster editor is Christina Lumagi0.99
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