[The following takes place during the divorce of Henry VIII from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.]
What mirth there was at the More was only for the public. Chapuys [the Spanish ambassador to the English court] was shocked at the change grief had made in Catherine. Her letters to her nephew [the Emperor of Spain] take a sadder tone. She still urged Charles to try to get the Pope to act – if her case could be decided before Parliament met again, it might still not be too late; she still wrote tenderly of Henry, of the pity that a prince so good and virtuous should be daily deceived and misled, goaded by those about him like a bull in the arena; she still hoped that once freed from the toils he would acknowledge that God had restored his reason. But she confessed that only her fears for the peril to England and to all Christendom if she should falter, and her trust in God’s providence, sustained her in her present grief, and she signed herself pathetically, “from the More, separated from my husband without ever having offended him, Katharina, the unhappy Queen.”
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part III: The Divorce of Henry VIII (1527-1536); Chapter Three, Section iv” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 336-37. Print.
Further Reading:
Catalina de Aragón (Catherine of Aragon)
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