I think Gregory has no idea of the strength of religious doctrines in the sixteenth century. She projects twenty-first century lack of morality on people who lived five-hundred years ago. She professes to admire Catherine but is happy to portray her as a liar and cheat who put her own pride and desire to be queen above her religious morality. Maybe she did, but if so then Catherine was a hypocrite, which makes sense really because it gives her something in common with Gregory.

At the Blackfriars trial COA certainly created a sensation, when instead of pleading her case to Wolsey and Campagio she appealed directly to Henry, and that swung the whole case in her favour. By appealing to Henry directly she showed him up. I must admit I feel a great deal of admiration for her on that score, Henry was detirmined to have his way and before her direct appeal to him he would have got it too.
Showing him up in the legatine court in front of Campagio was a case of “Prove it lard boy, prove to Campagio and the Pope if you can I wasn’t a virgin when we married” which of course he couldn’t. I wonder if Henry had actually known the difference between a maid and a woman anyway? Nearly all his conquest were married or had had at least one sexual relationship before he decided it was his turn for a bit of fun, the only exception to that would be Bessie Blount, who I believe was around 12 or 13 when she took his fancy, so there is a real possiblity that she was of all his woman a virgin when he bedded her. I don’t doubt either that Anne too was a virgin as well.
Remember in those days men weren’t exactly gentle when it came to sex, I wouldn’t say they were brutal in the way they went about things but neither did they take their time and consider the feelings of the female they were about to have sex with. It was a case the woman was there to have their way with. I’m not sure but I don’t think there were such things as foreplay, it was a case of get your knickers off and lay down followed by a quick 5 minute fumble.

Agreed Anyanka, but was that petting heavy enough to actually attempt to consumate their union?
As you rightly say woman were aware of what the birds and bees did. (The size difference has always foxed me there and what would happen if the bird got stung half way through? LOL) They would have had that drummed into them from a fairly early age I would have thought. More especially since she COA had older sisters who were married and had children themselves.
Which in some ways makes a mockery of Anne of Cleves marriage to Henry as she gave the impression at least to her ladies in waiting she believed that kissing someone would be enough to get a girl pregnant.
Also K.H wasn’t a novice where sex was concerned either, which again makes me wonder if Henry could tell the difference between a maid and a woman as he certainly belived without a shadow of a doubt that K.H was a virgin on her wedding night with him.
Prime example of where woman/girls were clued up on what the actual word of sexual intercourse actually was, is Isabella of Angoulume, she was married to King John at the age of 12, but even before John cast his eye apon her, she had a interest in sex and used to watch the stable boys with the maids having sex and preferred to have woman around her who were sexually active and liked to hear all about the boys they had had a fumble with.
Sharon makes a point which is one I hadn’t heard before about Dona Elvira it would indeed make sence for her to command for want of a better word COA to say she was still a virgin, COA was comming to the age where a duenna wouldn’t really be neccessary anymore, and Dona Elvira’s role was to protect COA’s virginity and virtue, If Arthur did consumate his marriage with COA her job would effectively be over, she would no longer be required as a second mother if that makes sence. By getting COA to lie she would safe guard her job for the next few years at least until Henry came of age, by which time of course she would perhaps be able to wangle a better position in COA’s household maybe even a governess to COA’s children or something. Certainly I think Dona Elvira was a bit of a snake in the grass or should that be a snake in the pomegranet.

Thinking about this one I think you are right Sharon. If COA had lied she would know from the minute she said nothing happened, her soul was forever damned, so yes in hindsight it is extremely possible that COA was still a virgin when she married Henry. Henry lets face it treated her like dirt when he made up his mind to get rid of her, and his cruelty towards her, I don’t mean in the physical sence I mean mentally, was all done to break her down. All Henry needed was just one word from her to allow him to twist the knife and her words into something that made his behaviour towards her justified.
Sending Mary away and not allowing them to see each other again except for one very breif and supervised visit in the 5 years before her death was a terrible blow to COA but she was determined not to give in under enormous pressure and in fact if my lousy memory serves the few letters that Mary was allowed from her mother always said “Obey the King your Father in all matters”, she never once said “Go kick him hard where it hurts” I also believe that the Spanish Ambassador was trying to urge COA to get her nephew to to involved somewhere along the line and each time she said “no way this is my husband and my people I will never hurt him or them” Even on her death bed she wrote Henry a love letter of sorts.
I supose looking at it from that point of view COA’s mind was as strong and razor sharp against Henry as it was from the time of Arthur’s death she overcame tremendous odd to become and Queen and she was damned determined to die as Queen too. Good on her.

There was a similar thread some time ago. I said then, and I still believe it now, that KOA was not just a princess and a catholic, but she was also something of a politician. It was important to Spain to have a marriage link with England. After Arthur’s death, KOA was in an awkward position. She had (I guess) three choices. 1. Return to Spain and face another royal marriage somewhere. 2. Retire to a convent. 3. Marry another English prince.

I think she and Ferdinand wanted a marriage with Henry. To that end, it was necessary to say her first marriage had not been consumated. So she did.

I don’t necessarily believe that.

Remember, young Arthur calling for wine the day after his wedding, because it was hot and he ‘….had been in Spain all night…..’

It was in Henry VII’s interest for the marriage to be consumated as it would be more difficult to break and Henry needed the alliance with Spain. Remember he had executed Perkin Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick as part of preliminaries. Arthur would have been told what was expected of him and so would Katherine. Imagine the consternation if the next morning, the sheets didn’t show ‘something’ had happened. Royal marriages between 15/16 year olds were quite common and the expectation was they would be consummated. It was different where the bride was, say, 12 or 13, but at 16 Katherine would have been regarded as a woman.

I believe some attempt at consumation between Arthur and COA was made, but was unsuccessful. Arthur’s statement about “hot work being in Spain”
was perhaps nothing more than a lie to spare his embarrassment about his failure with COA. No young buck who has just married a beautiful woman (and COA was quite beautiful when she was younger) is going to admit that he couldn’t perform. In that sence COA was tactful and said nothing, so it was assumed by Arthur’s lackeys that he had indeed done what was expected.
Poor Arthur must have felt devestated by this fact so how to spare his failure, he bragged he had done the job.
Henry was much the same we know that he was having problems sexually when he married AOC he said that he wasn’t able to perform his duties with her, but he had, had many nocturnal polutions (wet dreams) which he used as part as his divorce proceedings. The same could be said with K.H although there are records that they had loud and noisy sex, is that actually true? or was it just said by Henry and perhaps K.H to prevent blushes and embarrassment. Did he and K.P actually have sex?
I suppose that Bothe Arthur and older Henry should be grateful that the practise for having people around the bed watching whilst you perform for the first time was abolished or at least not practised in England anymore, as that must have been the ultimate in floppy failure, not to mention once the deed was done you would have the crowd clapping and cheering.
If I have remembered this rightly (I don’t understand the Catholic Doctorine too well) Catholics are more concerned about their spirital life rather than their earthly life, and what they do with their earthly life reflects on how God will judge them when they are called from this life. COA may have lied about her marriage with Arthur, but I don’t think so, her soul was too precious to her to lie.

I always think they little more than kids and on the wedding night and Arthur being small and slight in build for his age just might not have been able to take his drink and was a little worse for wear, a few clumsy fumbles and kisses and he may well have rolled over in a drunken stupor, Catherine being a young lady of her time may well have been lying there and thinking of Spain waiting for him to do what must be done. There was an old way people would try and proove a bride was a virgin and that was to show the wedding night sheet with blood, when a girl’s hymen breaks she usually bleeds these days with girls and women riding bike, doing sports, using tampons it’s likely to break before first sex. I tend to think along the lines of two fumbly teens and one of them a drunken boy after a lavish Tudor wedding, it’s highly likely she was a Virgin still when she was with Henry. I do have a right soft spot for Arthur though, rather taken with a delicate red haired boy whose bookish and precocious, rather like Edward 6th.

I’d always thought he was like Edward 6th and small and delicate from what I have read or seen on documentaries, Henry was the robust one, Arthur more bookish like Edward, I think in their short marriage they didn’t get alot of time to spend together. I still go with Katherine’s insistance that she was a virgin, she was a very devout Christian so I doubt she’d lie as that’s breaking one of the ten commandments and not in keeping with such a devout lady.

I think Edward despite his difficult birth (Poor Jane did go through it a bit) was actually quite robust, his Ilness when Henry went up to York to meet his nephew (A meeting that never actually took place because James V was scared) did perhaps weaken him a little, but like all kids in those days it was a case of whatever didn’t kill him may him stronger. I think it’s much more likely that the medicines they gave him when he fell ill with what was to be his final illness was probably what finished him off. I’m not too sure about this but I believe one of the medicines they gave him was arsenic, and possibly laudeum? Mercury was also used in some medicines, but Whether he was given it I don’t know. Either way poor little Eddy was badly nursed if he had had the benfits of modern medcine (I.e by today’s standards) I think he could have perhaps been as mighty as Richard the first, who if memory serves was quite sickly as a child.