Catherine Of Aragon

Born 1485
Married 1509
Divorced 1509
Died 1536  

She was Spanish, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella King and Queen of Spain. Came to England in 1301 to marry Arthur Tudor Prince of Wales, less than six months later Arthur died of what was assumed to be sweating sickness. Fourteen months later Catherine and Henry get betrothed. Henry VII was keen to get this wedding on it's way because he wanted the dowry.

In 1505 when Henry was old enough to wed, Henry VII was not as keen on a Spanish alliance and young Henry was forced to repudiate the betrothal. Catherine's future was uncertain for the next four years. When Henry VII died in 1509 one of the new young Kings first actions was to marry Catherine.
They are belived to have five children of which only one survived, Mary.

By the time Catherine was forty two years old and could not conceive any more children, Henry became involved with Anne Boleyn. Henry was frustrated he did not have a male heir to the throne and started reading texts from Heriticus which says that if a man takes his brothers wife that they shall be childless even though they have had many children and one still alive, a daughter Henry did not see them or her to count and started to petition to the Pope for an annulment.

Catherine still believed she was Queen of England even after the annulment and that the new Queen was just an impostor and she carried on believing this until she passed away.

They got divorced in 1533 when Anne Boleyn became pregnant. Henry had to act, and his solution was to reject the power of the Pope in England and to have Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury grant the annulment. Catherine was to renounce the title of Queen and would be known as the Princess Dowager of Wales, something she refused to acknowledge through to the end of her life.
She died at Kimbolton Castle and was burried at Peterborough Abbey.