A place for images, links, and discussion relevant to the Tudor period. The Tudor period is defined as from the beginning of Henry VII's reign in 1485 to the end of Elizabeth I's reign in 1603. All history (economic, social, religious etc) and discussion of all types of people (monarchs, nobles, commoners) welcome. Submissions pertaining to the Wars of the Roses may be accepted or removed at the discretion of the mods.
Question
...On the condition that she marry a man of her own choosing, how do you guys think that would've gone down?
(Especially if the man was handsome, affluent, and while not royalty, a prominent nobleman?)
Edit: ...And what if she birthed a male heir for her second spouse? đ
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
Iâm by no means an expert, still learning a lot about this time period and the history. But my opinion is thereâs no way she would have been allowed to remarry period. She would have been sent to a nunnery or sent to live an excluded life on the countryside, with only her daughter to visit and her servants that tended to her.
This is my thought. They wouldn't risk any future children she might have making a claim to the throne on behalf of Catholicism. It would be unlikely, but possible. And her aligning with anyone means his family is then in the running for potential power.
Not to mention, she never would have agreed to remarry in the first place. She would still be a daughter of Spain, and a former Queen. She wouldn't have agreed to marry beneath her, and I honestly think she would have been baffled at the idea of marrying for choice at all, certainly not for love. Monarchs simply didn't do that.
I think youâre absolutely right. From what Iâve gathered when reading about her, she held herself to a very high standard and carried herself with nothing short of grace and dignity, very befitting of the queen she was. She certainly wouldnât have married anyone below her former station, and until her death she still considered herself the queen of England and Henryâs wife. Remarrying would not have aligned with her religion and beliefs.
Well said
If Henry were permitted to remarry England wouldâve stayed CatholicâŚ.
To his dying day Henry still considered himself Catholic. While mad at the pope, he didnât want to be severed from the Church.
I think you're right. I wish Catherine had pushed for that, and played her hand in a different way. Knowing Henry's vanity, he probably would've been threatened and perhaps questioned things. If Catherine had managed to birth a male heir for her new spouse? I don't even want to imagine Henry's meltdown
Honestly I support her decision and admire her restraint for not giving in to Henry. If she had agreed, she would be publicly condemning her daughter Mary as a bastard with no right to the throne. I believe that was her driving force behind not giving in to Henry, to ensure her daughter still had a chance to inherit the throne if Henry couldnât produce a male heir after she was sent away. But I do like to day dream about the what ifs when it comes to Tudor history. Imagine Catherine producing a son for her next husband, Henryâs ego would have been HURT haha
Iirc she could have decided to "retire to a convent life", and the pope would have allowed Henry to remarry. Given how pious she was known to be, it would have been believable.
Mary would have kept her status, but of course she would have been pushed down the line of succession by any sons Henry would have later.
No that was the whole point. Divorce didnât exist back then. Only Annulments â I.e. the marriage never happened. Thatâs why Anne of Cleaves was lovingly referred to as Henryâs sister following their annulment â she wasnât an ex-wife. The only way he could be rid of Catherine was by annulling their marriage, and by extension making Mary a bastard. A recognized and honored bastard, similar to Henry Fitzroy, but nonetheless a bastard who had no right to inherit a title. It would have been incredibly embarrassing and shameful for Mary regardless. Catherine was caught between a rock and a hard place â either she concedes and her daughter is a bastard who receives better treatment, or she doesnât concede and her daughterâs legitimacy remains ambiguous while being punished by Henry. It must have been so awful for Catherine and Mary both :(
I DO want to imagine Henryâs meltdown if Catherine married someone else and bore him a son. The thought of it just actually made my night. Gave me a good chuckle.
How would it benefit Catherine to be accused of adultery? Henry was looking for reasons to divorce her, and the best he could come up with was that she'd married his brother first - an issue that was settled as irrelevant decades earlier. If she'd suggested she wanted to marry someone else, she was playing right into his hands and giving him a better reason to divorce her.
i bet youâre fun at parties
I feel for her. Who could equal this woman? She had attained as much as a woman could as in the kingdom she was living in.
Poor Catherine
I think it was Wolsey who said of her that had she been born a man she would have defied all the heroes of history.Â
I know it wouldâve never likely happened but I always wondered what if Charles V had arranged to have Catherine marry Francis I in order to end their war and to have Catherine still have the status of Queen. Kinda like a reverse Eleanor of Aquitaine.
It couldâve hypothetically worked. It also wouldâve been very funny if Catherine turned out to be in false menopause and ended up birthing sons for Francis.
Francis treated Eleanor terribly. He'd have done the same with Catherine; remember he was also known for keeping and even flaunting mistresses in open court
True, but besides maybe just Henry VII I donât think many kings of that era treated their queens respectfully. At best, the queens were tolerated for dutyâs sake and not much more.
Charles V, John of Portugal, Ferdinand the emperor were some others who were faithful in their marriages and also sometimes gave their queens the regency
Marriages in that period in that class were for political and financial gain. Love matches were rare.
True, but marrying an affluent and influential and well-connected nobleman would not be the suffering some are making it out to be. Many queens and high ranking women were sent to nunneries, and kept under perpetual house arrest (Catherine too, of some extent). Not to even speak of the non-noble everyday woman, who had none of the protections wealth or connection
What affluent and influential nobleman is going to go up against the king in a divorce proceeding? Look what happened to the men who were accused of adultery with Anne Boleyn. No man was going to admit he was interested in being with the King's wife... except maybe while being tortured like Mark Smeaton.
Why would the nobleman go up against Henry in a divorce proceeding/annulment? His intention would be to marry Catherine, not dispute Henry's goal of separating from her.
You are saying that Catherine should have negotiated for the freedom to remarry. Henry's first response would be "Why? Who do you want to marry?" Even if she said she had nobody in mind, Henry still has the suspicion, and from a political point of view, it is much better to end the marriage over her adultery (which is treason because it impacts the succession) rather than endlessly debate with Rome over her previous marriage. Henry's problem was that he didn't have any realistic grounds to end his marriage, so he had to manufacture a reason and fight for it to be taken seriously. You've just given him a better reason!
If you look at the trial of Anne Boleyn, it wasn't necessary to prove that adultery had taken place, it was enough to suggest it was possible. Catherine saying that she wanted to remarry would have been far more incriminating from a Tudor perspective than anything Anne did.
Once Henry had asked himself the question "Who does Catherine want to marry?" his ministers would have been very quick to provide some plausible answers, and those suspects would have been put to death. And Catherine would have been banished and dishonoured.
She would never, ever have agreed to a divorce. She was raised to be queen of England and even in her dying moments still wrote to Henry, "I make this vow, mine eyes desire you above all things." Any other man, no matter how handsome, would be a downgrade because she would no longer be a queen.Â
 However, assuming she did agree to this, her choice of husband would have been highly controlled by the king and council, and possibly completely blocked because if Mary came to the throne her stepfather could have great influence and even potentially take the throne off her.
Oh of course. I mean what IF she was allowed to remarry and chose to marry an influential nobleman. Knowing how vain Henry could be, I wonder how that would've played out, especially as he got further along in his marriage to Anne with no male heirs.
I think Katherine is so thoroughly Catholic, I agree with u/Alexandaer_the_Great: it would never cross her mind. You would be equally successful if you presented her with the hypothetical, "What if the Pope wasn't the head of the Church in Rome."
That's why remarriage wasn't an option for Anne of Cleves when Henry divorced her. He didn't want another man enjoying marriage with her and having children with her when he knew in his heart Anne had been unattracted to him.
Henry VIII wasn't someone you teased to see how his ego would react.
She had been at betrothed to someone else first.
I think you misunderstand how these marriages worked in that era. Who would marry her? What value would she bring?
She would never have remarried. Sheâd have gone to a convent and lived the rest of her life in prayer. She was much too proud of her ancestry to marry beneath her and anyone besides a sitting king would have been beneath her in status. I think she may have considered going to a convent if it hadnât been for Anne Boleyn. She was already practically a nun before the divorce was ever brought up but she really truly felt Anne had cast a spell on Henry and would never havenât given him up for her.
Henry would have never permitted her to remarry and I don't think she would have been keen on doing it either. But agreeing to an annulment, with reasonable negotiations about Mary's legitimacy and position, would have provided her with a comfortable life not unlike that of Anne of Cleves. There was a chance that Henry might have been more generous to her. If not that, then she could have most likely entered a convent.
Or, Catherine and Mary could have fled England for Spain and remained under the protection of Charles V who would have arranged a suitable marriage for Mary.
That would be truly unfortunate. Being forced to divorce yet forbidden to marry.
Essentially, the life of Anne of Cleves.
With the exception of dying far too young, I think Anne of Cleves did alright! She was wealthy and as independent as a woman of her period could ever hope to be. I don't doubt she was embarrassed initially, but can you imagine what must have gone through her mind when the girl who replaced her walked to the scaffold?
Anne of Cleves dying so young makes me so sad, she really had the perfect setup.
From what we know of Catherine there would have been no scenario where Catherine wouldâve agreed to a divorce .
She was the queen of England, ordained by god, she wouldâve never given up that position for anything , not even if Henry had threatened to kill Mary and we know this because there were threats made towards Marys safety at this time and Catherine still refused to accept the divorce .
Not only this but all sources agree she was in love with Henry , deeply in love , completely devoted . She wouldâve never allowed the divorce under any circumstances not just because she would loose her status or because Mary would be declared a bastard , but because she was so completely devoted to her husband and genuinely believed their union was what god wanted .
Nothing would have changed her mind on this , even the promise she could Marry another or live out her days with her daughter .
In fact she was told she could have her daughter back if she only accept the divorce, but she refused, and she never saw her daughter again .
She was just gonna go be a nun and obsess over God instead.
This feels like the most accurate answer
She would never had agreed to divorce for many reasons: she was super catholic and it was against her religion to be divorced; she was raised to be queen all her life and loved being queen; it would be seen as confirmation that she lied about being a virgin when she wed Henry (shame factor and it would disinherit and bastardize her daughter); and it would (in their minds) put all the blame for the deaths of their children on her head due to Henry's crazy biblical logic that a man that marries his brothers widow will never have kids (he decided to interpret this as sons because they already had a daughter).
In an alternate universe where she would be different enough of a person to agree to a divorce, it would only possibly end with her in a convent. If she remarried, her husband could raise his banners for Mary and put her and his choice of a husband for her on the throne over a future son of Henry. Royals tended to take no risks in this regard, we can even see with Henry's later wife Anne of Cleves, letting the ex of the king remarry and possibly have a child was too much risk. She didn't have to join a convent because the marriage was annulled and thus not a divorce, but she could never marry.
In an alternate universe where she agrees to divorce and Henry would for some reason let her remarry, she would never be permitted to pick her own husband. At that point she would be his ex sister-in-law and he would have the power to choose her next husband. Women of high rank had no choice unless they wanted to risk the wrath of the king. He would choose someone extremely loyal to him, probably not a catholic, and someone who could not be much of a threat. Little likelihood that Catherine would enjoy being knocked down a peg to marry someone who did not share her faith or that would not support the rights of her daughter. If she hadn't hit menopause by then and she had a son with this man, I can see Henry being both jealous and angry, probably doubling down on his theory that she didn't give him a son because she lied to him before they wed. He would probably be pissed that she wasted so many years with him and he might treat her and Mary even worse.
It seems a lot of people misunderstand noble and royal marriages in this era and the chess game around them.
I think the question itself ignores the Catholic Churchâs stance on Divorce, and aside from being a Princess in her own right, Catherine was a devout Catholic and couldnât have agreed to a divorce from the King. She possibly could have agreed to an Annulment, but the ramifications of that would have been awful for her and made Mary and the souls of all the children she lost, illegitimate.
Marriage is a sacrament in the Church, meaning is is ordained by God and a covenant between the two people joined, for this life and eternity. For Catherine to agree with Henryâs request to the Pope, she would have effectively been going against Godâs will and grace and I cannot see her doing that, which is why I think she fought so hard against Henry for the divorce or annulment.
Granted, there was a dispensation from the Pope to allow Henry and Catherine to wed based on her sworn statement that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, which would have been grounds for an annulment, but I have always believed she was truthful about that.
We use the word divorce even so it is technically wrong. It would have been an annulment. Mary would have been illegitimate and out of the line of succession. So Katherine would have looked for a match that could minimize harm to her and her daughter. Charles Brandon was available for a short period of time during these years. IMO he would have been the best husband for everyone involved. Close enough to court, being able to find a good match for Mary and willing to talk back to Henry.
But as the others already wrote: this is a fanfictionesque question. Katherine wanted to be queen or die as a martyr. There was nothing else for her
If she had agreed to the annulment they would have declared Mary Legitimate. Same example as what happened to Eleanor of aquitaine daughters by her French husband.
The church would have released Henry from his marriage vows if Catherine had agreed to enter a Convent . She refused to do it.
She believed divorce was a mortal sin AND her daughter would have been declared illegitimat. Fear of eterna damnation was real
Same problem with Anne of Cleves. If Catherine agrees to a divorce, sheâs kind of admitting she was Arthurâs wife and it was wrong of the pope to grant an annulment in the first place. That issue would prevent her from another marriage-just like Anneâs âpre-contractâ with the Duke of Lorraine prevented her from marrying again.
I might be wrong though.
Her having sex with Arthur would have just made her a normal widow and capable of remarrying most men. Just not Henry as he was Arthur's brother. However that admittance would have meant she had knowingly lived as Henry's mistress (not wife) for years and knowingly give birth to his daughter. That she had lied to the King and before God. Both very serious things.
He granted a dispensation because she was Henryâs sister in law. Widows were allowed to marry, but her argument was always the marriage wasnât consummated.
Anne of Cleves was a Protestant and had the experience of seeing what happened to Henryâs prior two wives
Catherine likely wouldnât have remarried. She believed that Henry was her husband until her death. I donât think any agreement they may have made would have altered her thought on that.
As for future children, by the time the annulment came about, I donât think Catherine would have been able to get pregnant. And if she did, probably not able to carry to term.
In answer to your edit, it seems very probable that the final trigger for Henry's divorce of Katherine was that she had passed the menopause and could have no more children. She was 47 years old when Henry married Anne Boleyn and divorced Katherine - there is, as far as I know, no official information about when Katherine stopped having her period, but it would have been known in her household and therefore to the King.
But in answer to your question: Henry VIII would not have permitted Katherine to marry. He did not envisage Anne of Cleves remarrying either. Henry VIII's official view was that Katherine was his brother's widow, and he would have regarded with lethal suspicion any man who wanted to marry Katherine.
As a devout (and married) Catholic myself I can see where she was coming from.
If she did not consummate her brief marriage to Henryâs brother, which I believe her that she never did, then there was absolutely no basis whatsoever for an annulment of her marriage to Henry. Even if she had, it was dicey because Arthur died, and a Catholic widow can remarry, but the issue of consent comes into play because the marriage would not have been entered into consensually on Henryâs part if he had known her marriage to his brother had been consummated. Plus itâs his brother. Henry might have been able to get an annulment if it could be proven that she did in fact consummate her marriage, but that couldnât be proven and IMO she never did.
There was and is no divorce in the Catholic Church. An annulment is essentially saying the marriage never really existed and was invalid from the start due to some previously unknown information that is then brought to light. Catherine knew full well that there was absolutely no basis for any kind of annulment, as did Rome. And Catholic marriage is a sacrament, not just a governmental or civil union. It is spiritually unbreakable. Its obligations cannot be abdicated. She was his wife until her death (side note, it always bothered me how in The Tudors, her ghost tells him she was always his rightful wife âand still amâ because that is a decidedly not Catholic position that Catherine would not have held from the grave lol).
In the Churchâs eyes Henry was rightly always still married to Catherine and his marriage to Anne was never valid, even after Catherine died since it was done before that point. It was purely adultery.
Given all of this, there is no way she would ever have agreed to remarry because she would have seen it as adulterous as she knew the truth that she did not consummate her marriage to Arthur. Even if the Church had granted the annulment say for political purposes, she still wouldnât have done it because she knew the truth.
If by some uncharacteristic and bizarre turn of circumstances she had, I think it would have been more trouble than it was worth. Henry would not have taken that lying down.
Personally I believe that woman deserves to be canonized a Saint.
Very interesting perspective. Are there any examples of justified divorces in Catholicism?
âDivorceâ as a concept doesnât exist in the Catholic Church. Like at all. The only option for dissolving a marriage is annulment, which as I mentioned, is the Church essentially determining that a marriage was never valid and never existed in the first place. This can happen under a few circumstances, because basically there are a 4 requirements for a marriage to be valid (A valid Catholic marriage results from four elements: (1) the spouses are free to marry; (2) they freely exchange their consent (this is more complicated than it sounds); (3) in consenting to marry, they have the intention to marry for life, to be faithful to one another and be open to children; and (4) their consent is given in the canonical form, i.e., in the presence of two witnesses and before a properly authorized church minister. Exceptions to the last requirement must be approved by church authority) and if any of those were not met before the marriage took place (this can include ignorance of certain things that were kept a secret by one spouse from another, hindering their full ability to consent to the marriage), then itâs like it never happened. Annulments are handled by tribunals in each diocese that essentially investigate the circumstances in question (this can include documentation, interviews, etc) and then your Bishop either issues the declaration or does not. In Henryâs case the answer was obviously no, lol, and rightly so.
The easiest and most common form of annulment today is if someone who is Catholic married outside the Church (like in a secular, Protestant, or non-Christian wedding) without permission from their Bishop. Itâs called âlack of formâ (see requirement 4) and itâs very easy to prove. It happens a lot when people have left the Church and married in a âregularâ wedding and then wind up divorced but then later return to the Church and/or want to marry a Catholic in the Church. They then have to get their first invalid marriage officially annulled. You can literally download the form online and submit it with the relevant paperwork and it should be handled more quickly than other circumstances.
That being said, legal separation and divorce are a separate thing. If someone is in an abusive marriage, for example, they can and should absolutely leave it, and can likely get an annulment (probably under the consent requirement) and be allowed to remarry in the Church. If someone civilly divorces but does not get an annulment, they will not be allowed to remarry in the Church and will still be considered married as far as the Church is concerned. Remarrying outside the Church under such circumstances (as Henry married Anne) is considered adultery.
In Henryâs case, he was never going to get an annulment from Catherine. The Tudors had him calling it a âdivorceâ a lot but in reality he was seeking an annulment. His marriage to Anne could never be considered valid by the Church. His marriage to Jane was his next valid marriage, since all the priests back then were basically ordained by the Catholic Church and the full split was somewhat murky still.
She would have never remarried if she had a living husband.
If she agreed to an annulment, Henry would no longer be her husband.
She may have agreed to an annulment for political reasons, but CoA was sincerely, deeply religious. She never considered Henry anything but a true husband. She would have considered remarriage while Henry was still alive to be adultery.
She would never have remarried, but even if she had, I believe Katharine was already menopausal by the time Henry fell for Anne Boleyn. So the chances of her conceiving any child again were slim to none.
Cardinal Campeggio (who presided over the initial catholic trial in England and threw it to the Roman Papal Court) suggested that Catherine, as a devout woman, take the veil and be given all due honors in a nunnery that hosted many unwell "spinster" noblewomen. (Many noble women past childbearing age without surviving kids were similarly pushed into such nunneries).
Had she agreed, Catherine's marriage with Henry would have been honorably dissolved by the Church as she became a Bride of Christ, and Henry would've been free to remarry without concern or taint to his second marriage and Mary wouldn't have been declared illegitimate, being second in line only to male heirs as the eldest legitimate daughter. Catherine would have been allowed to see her daughter as often as she wanted and may have even been allowconsideration. Holy days as a guest of honor.
If she wouldn't agree to that, divorce wouldn't even be a consideration.
But she would have to say that she originally lied about being a virgin when she married Henry
No she wouldn't. They would have avoided a divorce based on the validity of the marriage all together by her choosing to "take the veil."
It would have been seen as an honorable retirement of a wife too old to bear children, and all children born of the marriage would have been considered legitimate, as the parents entered the marriage in good faith and the marriage ended due to one being "called by God" to a higher calling than that of ruler of a country. (Henry's advisors even contemplated an argument for divorce that would preserve Mary as legitimate by leaving both Henry and Catherine blameless for entering the marriage in good faith that they were allowed to do so with the papal dispensation, but Catherine's refusal to consider anything but staying married as queen destroyed that option).
The real question is what would Catherine's life had been had Henry's brother lived.
Indeed and not just her life, but the entire country and legacies. Very interesting point đ
Have you read the Remarried Empress?
I haven't! Is it any good??
Its this exact thing except add magic.
I looked it up. Is it a Manga?
Yup its also a novel
Probably a similar agreement to what Anne of Cleves got. A fine settlement and property unless she remarried.
Catherine was a devout Catholic and would not remarry as long as Henry was alive. The Pope would have had to annul the marriage for her to find remarrying acceptable, disinheriting Mary, and he wasn't going to do that because he was being politely held hostage by one of Catherine's relatives. I think better leverage would have been to find Mary a suitable match. If Catherine at least accepts the divorce, Mary gets to be a Queen elsewhere (and perhaps have her mother live with her at her court, rather than the lonely English court post-Anne Boleyn).
I wonder if Henry VIII would have let even Mary get married? I thought a part of the reason for her being married late was due to Henry's unwillingness due to political reasons?
Letting her remarry would bolster his claim, though, that their divorce was valid.
Remarriage wasn't even an option for Anne of Cleves, and even if it was an option, there's no way any prominent nobleman is going to humiliate his monarch by marrying the ex-Queen. Just the idea of her having healthy male babies from another man would be infuriating for Henry. Plus in the long-term, she's creating siblings for a future monarch, which could lead to some confusion in the line of succession in a generation or two.
If Catherine had suggested this as an option, she would have opened the door for Henry to accuse her of adultery and declare Mary genuinely illegitimate, as in the daughter of Catherine's lover.
Under the circumstances you propose? No. Catherine was raised from the time she was in leading strings that she was going to be Queen of England. There was never any circumstance under which she would have acquiesced to a divorce from Henry.
She was a devout Catholic who firmly believed that their marriage was sanctified by the Pope himself. Henry's argument of annulling on the basis of consanguinity was null and void even if Catherine had consummated her union with Arthur (which I don't believe she did). Her mother and Henry VII had sort out and been granted a papal dispensation. The only people who called the dispensation into question were Henry VIII and his brown-nosing lap dogs.
In short, there was no plausible situation that they could have presented to Catherine that would have had her step down, ever.
And we have to also remember the political ramifications of this.
Lots of pitfalls in this idea, but one that I'll highlight: at this time it was treason to imagine the death of the sovereign. So can you imagine a quicker way to the scaffold than to covet the King's wife? Just because Henry isn't interested in bedding a woman anymore sure doesn't mean that he would be OK with someone else coupling with them. It was damned easy to lose your head when the King was in his cups.
Considering one of Anne of Cleavesâ divorce conditions was that she would not be allowed to marry again and to live forever as the kings âsisterâ, I HIGHLY doubt that ever wouldâve been an option. After all, canât cuck the king even if youâre not married anymore. Also she was staunchly catholic and would never have considered divorce as itâs an excommunicated offense meaning she wouldnât be allowed to attend mass.
Arguably, Anne of Cleaves got the best ending of all of them. She got her own titles, estates, and a very nice allowance for her concession to the divorce, AND she didnât have to sleep with him and became known as the kings âsisterâ if I remember correctly, she was also a good friend and motherly figure to Mary and Elizabeth even after the divorce.
Overall, what Henry did to Katherine of Aragon was abominable to both her and their daughter and I sincerely hope that what he did to Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boelyn and Catherine Parr haunted him in his final days.
I was randomly thinking about this a couple of days ago... it'd be if got remarried and had son. I'd be like, 'what's up, Henry?! Meet my son!'
Lol he would be gobsmacked. She might as well just have threw water in his face.
I understand Anne of Cleeves enjoyed a happy life after agreeing to divorce Hank8.
Well she was under her brotherâs control in Cleves and would have been again if sheâd returned. AsHenryâs âbeloved sisterâ she had status, property, wealth and more control over her life than most women of the era
she was a totally devoted catholic ,that would never have happened
As a staunch Catholic, no way she would have agreed. Plus - even after all he did to her, she continued to be in love with Henry - so she says in her letters (and as circumstantial evidence, the way she kept making Henryâs shirts, which irked Ann Boleyn when she found out).
Given that she was (if I recall the math) well into her 40âs, a male heir would probably be out of the question. And I canât imagine her viewing marriage as being anything other than obligatory.
She could have spared herself and her daughter a lot of pain if she had agreed to take the veil. But a divorce and remarry was not ever possible for her
Not in the next life. She would be facing damnation for lying to Henry and the court about her virginity when she married Henry.