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Authors: Jo Eldridge Carney
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miscarriage, stillbirths, and the early death of six-week-old Henry. Mary was the only one of Catherine’s children to survive.
Figure 1 Portrait of Queen Catherine of Aragon (MOU 275296)
Catherine’s first pregnancy progressed under dubious conditions. Henry and Catherine were married in June 1509 and four and a half months later Henry wrote to his father-in-law, Ferdinand of Spain, “Your daughter, her Serene Highness the queen, our dearest consort, has conceived in her womb a living child and is right heavy therewith.” 95 But by January 31 Catherine miscarried a daughter. The circumstances surrounding this first miscarriage demonstrate the degree to which royal pregnancy was performed for public spectacle and reassurance. Catherine’s confessor, Fray Diego, wrote later of the miscarriage, “No one knew about it...except the King...two Spanish women, a physician, and I.” 96 If there was jubilation at the official announcement of a royal pregnancy, there was also confusion, reticence or silence when a pregnancy did not come to fruition. Often a minimal announcement was made—more often, nothing at all, which left more room for speculation and rumor-mongering. After the miscarriage, the size of Catherine’s stomach did not diminish, presumably because of an infectious swelling, so the queen’s physician insisted, according to Diego, that “her Highness remained pregnant of another child, and it was believed and kept secret... Her Highness believed herself to be with child, although she had some doubts,” perhaps because her menstruation resumed.
Henry and Catherine presumably accepted the physician’s assurance that she was still carrying a child, for in the following months, they carried on with official functions, celebrating their expectant state, and all of the usual, elaborate preparations were made for her lying-in. In March, Catherine began her confinement in Greenwich. After a period of fruitless waiting, Fray Diego explained, elliptically, that “it has pleased our Lord to be her physician in such a way that the swelling decreased.” 97 Luiz Caroz, the new Spanish ambassador, was less forgiving, criticizing those willing to “affirm that a menstruating woman was pregnant and...make her withdraw publicly for her delivery.” Caroz added, “The privy councilors of the King are very vexed and angry at this mistake, as they have said to me, although from courtesy they give the blame to the bedchamber women who gave the Queen to understand that she was pregnant whilst she was not.” 98 Although it is impossible to know the extent and nature of the deception and self-deception about Catherine’s condition and to what degree the queen, her physician, or her female attendants were most to blame, this episode is again evidence that the premium placed on royal pregnancy was so extreme that many people, not only the queen, colluded in what might be called in fairy-tale parlance “wishful thinking.” 99 Catherine of Aragon spent most of her life as queen consort feeling much like the queen in d’Aulnoy’s “The Hind in the Woods”: “The queen felt sure that if she had a child the king would love her more.” 100
We conclude with a brief account of the fertility crisis of another early modern queen. Catherine of Braganza, whose father became the King of Portugal, came to England in 1662 at the age of 24 to become the queen consort of Charles II. Catherine’s inability to sustain a pregnancy plagued her entire reign, a situation exacerbated by the fact that Charles’s series of influential mistresses before and throughout his marriage bore him several children whom he publicly recognized. In spite of political pressure on Charles to divorce Catherine in favor of a fertile queen, he remained loyal to her and in the early years of their marriage, the couple continued to wish for an heir. Catherine repeatedly visited the waters of Tunbridge Wells and Bath hoping for a cure to her fertility problems
Figure 1 Portrait of Queen Catherine of Aragon (MOU 275296)
Catherine’s first pregnancy progressed under dubious conditions. Henry and Catherine were married in June 1509 and four and a half months later Henry wrote to his father-in-law, Ferdinand of Spain, “Your daughter, her Serene Highness the queen, our dearest consort, has conceived in her womb a living child and is right heavy therewith.” 95 But by January 31 Catherine miscarried a daughter. The circumstances surrounding this first miscarriage demonstrate the degree to which royal pregnancy was performed for public spectacle and reassurance. Catherine’s confessor, Fray Diego, wrote later of the miscarriage, “No one knew about it...except the King...two Spanish women, a physician, and I.” 96 If there was jubilation at the official announcement of a royal pregnancy, there was also confusion, reticence or silence when a pregnancy did not come to fruition. Often a minimal announcement was made—more often, nothing at all, which left more room for speculation and rumor-mongering. After the miscarriage, the size of Catherine’s stomach did not diminish, presumably because of an infectious swelling, so the queen’s physician insisted, according to Diego, that “her Highness remained pregnant of another child, and it was believed and kept secret... Her Highness believed herself to be with child, although she had some doubts,” perhaps because her menstruation resumed.
Henry and Catherine presumably accepted the physician’s assurance that she was still carrying a child, for in the following months, they carried on with official functions, celebrating their expectant state, and all of the usual, elaborate preparations were made for her lying-in. In March, Catherine began her confinement in Greenwich. After a period of fruitless waiting, Fray Diego explained, elliptically, that “it has pleased our Lord to be her physician in such a way that the swelling decreased.” 97 Luiz Caroz, the new Spanish ambassador, was less forgiving, criticizing those willing to “affirm that a menstruating woman was pregnant and...make her withdraw publicly for her delivery.” Caroz added, “The privy councilors of the King are very vexed and angry at this mistake, as they have said to me, although from courtesy they give the blame to the bedchamber women who gave the Queen to understand that she was pregnant whilst she was not.” 98 Although it is impossible to know the extent and nature of the deception and self-deception about Catherine’s condition and to what degree the queen, her physician, or her female attendants were most to blame, this episode is again evidence that the premium placed on royal pregnancy was so extreme that many people, not only the queen, colluded in what might be called in fairy-tale parlance “wishful thinking.” 99 Catherine of Aragon spent most of her life as queen consort feeling much like the queen in d’Aulnoy’s “The Hind in the Woods”: “The queen felt sure that if she had a child the king would love her more.” 100
We conclude with a brief account of the fertility crisis of another early modern queen. Catherine of Braganza, whose father became the King of Portugal, came to England in 1662 at the age of 24 to become the queen consort of Charles II. Catherine’s inability to sustain a pregnancy plagued her entire reign, a situation exacerbated by the fact that Charles’s series of influential mistresses before and throughout his marriage bore him several children whom he publicly recognized. In spite of political pressure on Charles to divorce Catherine in favor of a fertile queen, he remained loyal to her and in the early years of their marriage, the couple continued to wish for an heir. Catherine repeatedly visited the waters of Tunbridge Wells and Bath hoping for a cure to her fertility problems
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