Did they or didn't they? The brief marriage of Katherine of Aragon and Arthur, Prince of Wales

“Willoughby, bring me a cup of ale, for I have been this night in the midst of Spain.”

~Arthur, Prince of Wales, to his steward on the morning of November 15, 1501.

“. . . as intact and uncorrupt as when [she] emerged from [her] mother’s womb.”
~Katherine of Aragon’s assertion regarding the non-consummation of her marriage to Arthur

After two years of negotiations, by the treaty of Medina del Campo, ratified by Henry VII on September 23, 1490, his four-year-old son Arthur, the Prince of Wales and heir to England’s throne (1486-1502) was contracted in marriage to Catalina, or Katherine (1485-1536), the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.

Katherine of Aragon (1485-1536)

Finally, on May 14, 1499, Arthur married Katherine by proxy at Tickhill Manor. But further international wrangling over Katherine’s dowry delayed her departure for England, and she did not arrive there until October 2, 1501.

On November 14, Katherine and Arthur, clad all in white, were united at St. Paul’s Cathedral in a three-hour ceremony, which followed the reading of the appropriate papal dispensations and the formal terms of the marriage, as well as the exchange of the first installment of Katherine’s dowry.

A raised, six-hundred-foot runway, covered in red cloth trimmed with gilt nails had been erected from the west doors of the church all the way to the chancel, where the nuptial mass was conducted on a raised stage. The musicians were stationed in the soaring vaults, which gave the illusion that their resounding melodies emanated from on high.

The bride was considered a beauty, blessed with abundant auburn hair, gray eyes, dainty hands and feet, and the damasked pink-and-white complexion that was so prized in England. But the English had never seen an ensemble quite like her wedding attire. With her skirts stretched over her Spanish farthingale—a horizontal cage tied about her hips—Katherine resembled a ship of state as she sailed along the walkway, high above the crowd. Her white silk veil, or mantilla, fluttered to her waist, weighed down by a jeweled border two fingers’ wide.

Arthur, Prince of Wales (1486-1502)

Outside the cathedral the wine flowed freely from a conduit—royal largesse to the cheering throngs—as the bells of London pealed. After the ceremony the teenage newlyweds, “both lusty and amorous,” were conveyed to Baynard’s castle in a grand procession where a sumptuous feast awaited them, as did a public, though strictly ceremonial, bridal bed.

Preparing the actual bed of state was a production number involving several participants who were honored to get the assignment, including the yeoman of the guard whose job it was to roll “up and down” the litter of straw that formed the bed’s base layer. This brave soul was not merely matting the rushes; he was searching for hidden weapons.

After what amounted to a stag night, replete with bawdy songs to get the groom in the proper frame of mind to perform his conjugal duty, Arthur was escorted to the great bed where Katherine was already waiting for him. The bishops blessed the couple and wished them many years of fruitful life together, then departed and left the newlywed teens to nature.

Or not—depending on whom you asked. And depending on the circumstances in which you asked and how many days, weeks, or years it was from the wedding night itself.

Arthur’s steward recalled his fifteen-year-old master boasting of his sexual prowess on the morning after the wedding night, “Willoughby, bring me a cup of ale, for I have been this night in the midst of Spain.” Other witnesses heard this remark as well as Arthur’s exhortation, “Masters, it is good pastime to have a wife.” It could have been no more than macho swagger—but why? Those who saw the young couple together noticed a genuine attraction between them.

And Katherine had a rock-solid sense of duty. Her marriage negotiations had been long in the making; now that she was wed to the future king of England, her job was only half-accomplished. To permanently cement Spain’s alliance with England and fulfill her parents’ diplomatic aims, she had to get pregnant and deliver an heir. Katherine spent the day after the wedding in solitude, receiving only the king’s messenger who delivered the sovereign’s heartiest felicitations—on the consummation of the union, one assumes. And the following day, she went to St. Paul’s to see her husband and father-in-law give thanks to God “that so prosperously His Goodness had suffered everything of this laudable [marriage] to be brought to its most laudable conclusion [the getting of children].” True, she could have just been playing along, knowing it was expected of her, and if there had been a problem in the bedroom she dared not disclose a word of it.

Katherine’s duenna Doña Elvira, a woman with her own political agenda, insisted—and Katherine reiterated as much years later—that the conjugal visits remained chaste. However, it’s also possible that everything went just fine in the boudoir. William Thomas, Arthur’s Groom of the Privy Chamber and one of his most intimate body servants, was in charge of preparing the prince for his visits to the marriage bed. Thomas “made [Arthur] ready to bed . . . and conducted him clad in his night gown unto the Princess’s bedchamber door often and sundry times . . . and that at the morning he received him at the said doors . . . and waited upon him to his own privy chamber.”

And at the end of November Arthur wrote to his in-laws, informing them that “he had never felt such joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet face of his bride. No woman in the world could be more agreeable to him. [He] promises to be a good husband.”

Yet the royal wedding still didn’t mean that all was settled between Spain and England. Initially, Henry had not been keen to have the young couple set up their household and assume full marital relations. Doña Elvira, Katherine’s duenna, agreed with him. But for Katherine, who had inherited her mother’s iron will, time was of the essence and it was she who had managed to change the king’s mind. Additionally, Katherine’s tutor and confessor Alessandro Geraldini persuaded Henry that “on no condition in the world should [he] separate them, but send her with her husband.” Otherwise, Isabella and Ferdinand would be highly displeased and Katherine herself “would be in despair.” So Arthur and Katherine set off for Ludlow, arriving on December 21, 1501.

In the spring of 1502 Arthur became ill, his ailment described by a herald as “the most pitiful disease and sickness that with so sore and great violence had battled and driven, in the singular parts of him inward, [so] that cruel and fervent enemy of nature, the deadly corruption, did utterly vanquish and overcome the pure and friendful blood.” Many modern historians believe that the herald refers to the Sweating Sickness that was sweeping the West Country, or else to a bronchial or pulmonary infection, such as pneumonia or consumption. However, the phrase “the singular parts of him inward” may allude to testicular cancer.

An unknown witness recalled hearing one of Arthur’s servants dating the onset of his illness to Shrovetide, February 8, 1502: “He had lain with the Lady Katherine, and was never so lusty in body and courage until his death, which [he] said was because he lay with the Lady Katherine.” Arthur died on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1502.

The servants’ accounts suggest that the Waleses enjoyed frequent conjugal visits. Katherine’s confessor and tutor, Alessandro Geraldini—who was recalled to Spain not too long after Arthur’s death—concurred. But according to Katherine, between their arrival in Ludlow and Arthur’s death, the newlyweds had spent only seven nights together. Nearly thirty years later, during the hearings regarding the validity of her marriage to Henry VIII the same contradiction would emerge. Arthur’s steward repeated his young master’s boast on the morning after his wedding, to the effect that he “had spent the night in Spain,” although Katherine would testify that she had remained “as intact and uncorrupt as when she emerged from her mother’s womb.”
Arthur’s body lay in state for three weeks before it was buried at Worcester Cathedral. Katherine, sixteen years old, nearly alone and friendless in a foreign kingdom, would remain in England for the next seven years in a state of political limbo. She was retired to Durham House to await whatever fate Henry VII and her parents decided for her. Her debts mounted and when she had to pawn her jewels and plate—a contested element of her dowry—to pay her retinue, she was accused of spending Henry VII’s property.

Henry VII (1457-1509)

Eventually, a marriage was brokered between Katherine and Henry’s surviving son, the future Henry VIII, but her marriage to Arthur and the issue of its consummation would remain the elephant in the parlor—rearing its trunk and smashing breakables—for years. It was the subject of the papal dispensations required for her union with young Henry—a brief and a bull that either contradict or complement each other, depending on one’s interpretation of the wording. The argument over whether Katherine’s union with Arthur was a “true” marriage would be fought again when Henry chose to put her aside in order to wed Anne Boleyn. Katherine continued to insist that she had come to Henry’s bed a twenty-three-year-old virgin. But by the time Henry’s Great Matter was under debate in the late 1520s, Katherine’s keen understanding of dynasty and diplomacy had made her more than a loving wife and devoted mother. She was Spain to Henry’s England, an alliance that possibly overrode any qualms of conscience.

Perhaps Arthur had spent his wedding “night in the midst of Spain” after all.

Do you think the marriage between Katherine and Arthur was consummated? Why or why not?