June 12 - Catherine of Aragon gets cross with Henry VIII

Hi, welcome to today's On This Day in Tudor History video. I'm Claire Ridgeway, I'm the writer of several Tudor history books, including On This Day in Tudor History, which has served as the inspiration for these daily videos, which just bring you Tudor events, whether they're marriages, deaths, executions, battles, annulments, baptisms, whatever, I've got them for you every day. Now yesterday I talked about the marriage of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, which was a private marriage which took place on the 11th of June 1509. Well today I'm fast forwarding 21 years to Sunday the 12th of June 1530, when the king was actually receiving a good telling off from his first wife Catherine. Now by this time Henry was involved romantically with Catherine's former maid of honour, Anne Boleyn, and he was trying desperately to get out of his marriage to Catherine, he was trying to get his marriage to her annulled. Now although Henry was continuing to treat his first wife with respect, and he was appearing with her in public as man and wife and king and queen, Anne Boleyn was on the rise, she was rising in prominence, and that was a real threat to Catherine and her status. Six months earlier the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuis had described a grand fate in this city to which several ladies of the court were invited, and he wrote about how Anne Boleyn took precedence over all the other ladies who included Queen Blanche and the two duchesses of Norfolk, the dowager and the young one, and that she sat by the king occupying the very place allotted to a crowned queen. This was scandalous in Chapuis's eyes and probably to those that were present. Chapuis went on to report after dinner there was dancing and carousing so that it seemed as if nothing were wanting but the priest to give away the nuptial ring and pronounce the blessing. All the time and whilst the carousal was going on poor Queen Catherine was seven miles away from this place holding her own fate of sorrow and weeping. So poor Catherine had Anne sort of beginning to take her place. But what exactly did Catherine say to her husband on this day in 1530? Well according to Chapuis once again Catherine exhorted her husband to be again to her a good prince and husband and to quit the evil life he was leading and the bad example he was setting. Catherine went on to tell him that even if he did not respect her, his true and lawful wife, that he should at least respect God and his conscience and that he should not ignore the brief issued by the Pope. Catherine had applied to the Pope for this brief for to the effect that nobody shall under pain of excommunication judge, allege, counsel, procure, solicit or otherwise speak a complacentia or gratia of this matter of the dissolution of matrimony between the king and queen unless it be as God and his conscience may dictate. Oh that was a mouthful. Unfortunately the Pope's brief and Catherine's words on this day, Catherine telling the king off, had absolutely no effect on King Henry VIII. Henry VIII argued that the Pope's brief which was urging the king to practice restraint was of very little consequence and that there were plenty of people who were on the king's side. The king was then reported as having left the room abruptly without saying another word. Poor, poor Catherine. There was obviously worse to come. She was trying to tackle the situation, she was trying to point out to the king his faults, but it just didn't work. Henry was convinced that his first marriage was over and he was focused on marrying Anne Boleyn. So that's what happened on this day in 1530, an argument between Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Thank you for watching. You can subscribe to the video by clicking round about there. You can give me a like if you've enjoyed this video. You can of course hit the bell to be notified as videos go live, but I'll be here every day with more Tudor history events for you. Take care. Bye bye.