CATHERINE OF ARAGON, QUEEN CONSORT OF HENRY VIII.
Arms.—Impaled.
Dexter: Quarterly.
1st and 4th, France. 2nd and 3rd, England. All as used by Henry VIII. (q.v.).
Sinister: Quartered.
1st and 4th grand quarters, quarterly.
1 and 4. Gu., a castle or. Castile.
2 and 3. Arg., a lion rampant gu. Leon.
2nd and 3rd grand quarters, per pale.
Dexter: Or, paly of 4 gu. Aragon.
Sinister: Per saltire arg., 2 eagles displayed sa. and or, paly of 4 gu. Sicily.
In the base point, arg., a pomegranate or. Grenada.
Ensigned with a Royal Crown and supported by two angels.
[Holkot. Opus revera insignissimum in librum Sapietie Salomonis editum. Parisius, 1518.]
Catherine of Aragon (born 15th December 1485, died 6th January 1536) was the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and in 1501 she married Arthur, Prince of Wales, who died in 1502.
In 1509, Catherine married Henry VIII., and they had several children, of whom only Mary, afterwards Queen, survived her infancy. Henry VIII. divorced Queen Catherine in 1533, on the plea that the marriage was illegal as she was his brother's widow, and in the same year he married Anne Bullen, who was one of the Queen's Maids of Honour.
Queen Catherine died at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, in 1536, and was buried at Peterborough. A few of her books came with the old Royal Library to the British Museum in 1757. She was fond of literature and a patron to learning of all sorts, and a friend of Erasmus. She appointed Ludovicus Vives, a well-known Spanish savant and author, to be tutor to her daughter Mary.
