EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT HENRY VIII AND HIS WIVES
Q: How happy were the early years of Henry’s first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon?
A: I would say was his happiest marriage, ironically, given what happened. But Catherine and Henry had many happy years together and appeared to be very much in love. Catherine was a sort of damsel in distress – his late brother Arthur’s abandoned widow – and Henry saw himself as the chivalrous knight who rescued her. And Catherine absolutely adored him. I think of all his wives, Catherine of Aragon was the one who really fitted Henry’s idea of what a queen should be. She was a princess of Spain – the daughter of the royal power couple Ferdinand and Isabella – and so she’d been brought up to be a queen. And she absolutely ticked all the boxes. Of course, sadly, the only box she didn’t tick was bearing a surviving son. And that was her downfall.
Q: Do you think Henry would have set Catherine aside and married Anne Boleyn if she had borne him a living son?
I think Henry would still have been unfaithful, frankly, because kings at that time just were – it was almost expected at the Tudor court. And we know that he had already strayed from the marriage a few times, even before Anne Boleyn appeared on the scene. But it would
