Catherine of Aragon, first wife of King Henry VIII, died on 7th January 1536. In her dying days, it was said that she wrote a letter to Henry VIII, a man she believed was still her true husband.
But what did this letter say and did Catherine of Aragon really write it?
I explore this in my latest video…
Transcript:
My last video looked at research regarding the From the Lady in the Tower letter said to have been written by Anne Boleyn in 1536, but did you know that there’s also a letter linked to Catherine of Aragon that is surrounded by controversy?
The letter is said to have been written by Catherine when she was dying in January 1536. It reads:
My most dear lord, king and husband,
The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles. For my part I pardon you everything and I wish to devoutly pray to God that He will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants, I solicit the wages due to them, and a year or more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.
It is surrounded by controversy because the original is lost and we only have alleged transcripts of it in works such as Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia, which were then copied by later writers such as Lord Herbert of Cherbury. It is also not mentioned in any of the primary sources from 1536, and Catherine’s friend, the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, makes no mention of her writing a letter to the king in her dying days. But he left on 6th January, when he thought she’d rallied, and she could have dictated it during her final hours before dying on 7th January.
Giles Tremlett, who wrote “Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen”, believes that the letter “”is almost certainly fictitious” and Amy Licence, author of “Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII’s True Wife”, writes that “it is by no means certain that this is a genuine letter, surviving in a later document rather than the State Papers and Letters.” However, Linda Porter, who wrote a biography of Catherine’s daughter, Mary, believes that Catherine had it dictated and that “In its dignified pathos and remembrance of a great and, for the writer, enduring love, it is one of the most moving farewells in the English language”. Julia Fox, author of “Sister Queens”, a dual biography of Catherine and her sister, Juana, notes that Vergil is “largely reliable and he has not inserted other fictitious letters into the Tudor sections of his Anglica Historia” so “on balance, therefore, Katherine’s letter may be genuine”, and Patrick Williams, Margaret Sanders and Anna Whitelock quote it in their books on without any comment on its veracity.
In my opinion, this letter rings true with how we know Catherine felt about her husband, and her fears for his soul because he set aside a valid wife and pursued the break with Rome. We also know how concerned she was about Mary and the breakdown of her daughter’s relationship with her father. And, if it was fictitious, would the forger really have added the details about Catherine’s servants? I also feel that it rings true to the Catherine who appeared at the Blackfriars Legatine Court in 1529 and made that wonderful impassioned speech on her knees in front of her husband.
Catherine never doubted that she was Henry VIII’s true wife and never stopped loving him. I think that in her dying days, she was consumed with fear for his soul, as well as being haunted by what had happened to England because of the Great Matter, her husband’s quest to annul their marriage. It had not only led to the break with Rome, her beloved Rome, but also the executions of people who had supported her. It had had a huge impact on England and its people. Catherine feared the man she still loved would go to hell for what he had done, and she wanted to take one last opportunity to try and get him back on the right path.
If it was genuine, did Henry VIII ever read it? It’s impossible to know. Although he celebrated publicly on hearing news of Catherine’s death, I wonder if he wept in private? I hope so. Catherine had been his friend, lover, confidante, advisor, counsellor and wife for many years. They’d grieved for lost children together. He’d trusted her as regent when he was away. She had been a huge part of his life. He’d treated her appallingly in her last years, and I hope that was something that haunted him.
What do you think about this letter? Do you think it’s a work of fiction or the true words of a dying woman?
