Catherine of Aragon: Facial Reconstructions & History Documentary

hello everyone and welcome back to royalty now studios where we recreate famous figures from the past and talk about their history today's subject is catherine of aragon who lived a fascinating life between her childhood as the daughter of the catholic monarchs in spain and her marriages to two princes of england including the infamous king henry viii we'll first explore her life and her history and then we'll jump into her portraits and what she may have looked like i'll reveal multiple new recreations of katherine at the end so let's go ahead and get started [Music] catalina de aragon was born in what is now madrid spain on december 16th of 1485. as a child in spain she was called catalina but it was later anglicized in england to catherine and that's what i'm going to use throughout the video now catherine is born into this really really high-powered royal family she is the youngest daughter of ferdinand ii of aragon and isabella the first of castile her parents known as the catholic monarchs and widely considered to be spain's greatest monarchs they effectively united spain with their marriage and made it one of the most powerful countries in europe an alliance with spain would be massively beneficial to any country so from a young age catherine was considered this very valuable bargaining chip on the marriage market of europe in fact she was promised at only three years old to the english heir prince arthur [Music] catherine was chosen as the future queen of england for a few specific reasons first was her sweet nature her intelligence and obviously her great education she was essentially raised to be a queen the second is far more interesting you see catherine of aragon technically had a stronger claim to the throne of england than the king of england himself henry vii she was a descendant of john of gaunt's second wife while king henry vii was a descendant of his third wife catherine swinford and their children were born out of wedlock and barred from succession to the english throne even though henry vii won his throne in battle being the last english monarch to do so the tudor monarchy was not accepted by all european kingdoms catherine comes from the house of trestamata and that is one of the most powerful houses in europe at this time marriage into this house means safety for the tudor dynasty any air that was born from catherine and arthur would have an indisputable claim to the english throne and finally the partnership between england and spain could quiet this ongoing french hostility that the english had been dealing with for years catherine and arthur are married by proxy in 1499 and then officially married in england in november of 1501 when both were just 15 years old little is known about their first impressions of each other but arthur did write to his parents-in-law telling them that he would be a true and loving husband sadly the two would only be married for four short months in early 1502 both of them came down with a quote malign vapor the english sweating sickness while catherine recovered arthur did not this was a massive blow to everyone the master plan that the family had for an alliance with spain was just shattered and the ten-year-old quote spare the future henry viii was not expecting to be the next king of england very quickly a shuffling occurs and young henry immediately becomes the new prince of wales his studies have to pivot very quickly from general education to training to become the next king the next question is what to do with catherine the newly widowed king henry vii still needing this spanish alliance and the dowry that catherine offered which by the way was one of the largest ever offered by a princess of europe even began negotiations to marry catherine himself but queen isabella refused she did not want her daughter to be the wife of an aging king of england so then the idea is obviously come up with that catherine should just stay in england and she should marry the next heir to the throne the young henry who is only about 12 years old at this time so on the 25th of june 1503 they were betrothed and the plan to keep catherine in england was back on for the most part but in 1504 catherine's mother queen isabella dies queen isabella was a strong supporter of henry and catherine as a match ferdinand her father was not ferdinand really wanted his daughter back in spain with him and he procrastinated paying the rest of the dowry but it actually wouldn't be easy for henry and catherine to marry based on the fact that she had once been married to his brother they would require a special dispensation from the pope years of uncertainty pass in 1507 catherine actually ends up serving as the spanish ambassador to england and she becomes the first female ambassador in european history she would show everyone her worth and her intelligence and she manages this tense relationship between ferdinand and england which allowed the countries to sign at the treaty of westminster together an alliance of both countries against france king henry vii dies on april 21st of 1509 seven years after catherine had first touched english soil the 18 year old new king henry viii decides to make catherine who he had very much in common with his bride on june 11th of 1509 they are married in a lavish ceremony now in the early years of their marriage the couple is very happy and in love there is a lot of trust between them a trust that just isn't seen in henry's subsequent marriages catherine was smart and she matched her husband in diplomatic strength she even served as regent while henry was campaigning in france in 1513. in this really dramatic twist king james iv of scotland uses this vulnerability as a time to declare war on england despite being heavily pregnant catherine rides north in full armor to rally the troops against him the english win the battle of floden and catherine sends home a piece of the bloody coat of king james who died during the battle [Music] while the pair enjoyed a close relationship for the beginning of their marriage the deterioration of their relationship comes down to their bad luck with having healthy children during tutor times the women were actually considered responsible for the gender and health of the babies and of course a queen's purpose was to have male heirs and make the dynasty secure it's not known exactly how many pregnancies catherine of aragon had but scholars estimate it to be between six and nine according to claire ridgway's blog on the topic catherine's documented pregnancies and babies are as follows first was a stillborn daughter born 33 weeks after their marriage in early 1510. second was the birth of a son henry in 1511 who died tragically at only 52 days old in 1513 the sun that she was carrying as she rode north in full armor died as a newborn in 1514 a stillborn son in 1516 the birth of a daughter who would be their only surviving child mary and in 1518 the birth of a stillborn daughter now i think we have the tendency to look at these tragedies through a more modern lens pretending that they couldn't have been so devastating at the time because tudor babies often died young the chance of living into adulthood as a tudor child was only about 50 but these losses were devastating both for katherine and for her marriage to henry they slowly fall out of love catherine is aging and she will soon have a hard time getting pregnant again henry is becoming restless without an heir and he believes that catherine is at fault and that this is god's punishment for taking his brother's wife so we've talked about the series of events that occurs over the next seven years or so in much more detail in our recent video about anne boleyn so go make sure to check that out but let's go ahead and summarize the rest of these events and the rest of catherine's life in 1525 henry becomes enamored with catherine's lady in waiting and belin in 1527 he seeks an annulment through the pope going public with his desire to divorce her and she vehemently rejects his plea for divorce and he failed in persuading the pope at this time in 1530 after 21 years of marriage and steadfast loyalty catherine is banished from the english court forever after this henry breaks with rome and becomes the head of the church of england and he's declared legally married to anne boleyn and she's crowned queen from then on catherine would withdraw completely spending the rest of her days at kimbolton castle confining herself to one room and only leaving to attend mass through it all catherine would continue to refer to herself as henry's only lawful wedded wife and england's only rightful queen in late december of 1535 catherine wrote one final letter to henry in the letter she asked henry to remember her kindly she urges him to begin to think of the health and protection of his soul over everything else in the world which has caused her so much sorrow and caused him so much trouble she forgives henry for everything only asking him to be a good father to their daughter mary as she has always wanted in her final words she writes lastly do i vow that mine eyes desire you above all things on the 7th of january 1536 catherine of aragon dies presumably of cancer at the age of 50. [Music] her death set off tremendous mourning now henry viii ann and bolin are seen celebrating the news making a great show of their newborn daughter elizabeth but later that day when the king was finally alone it's rumored that he wept bitterly during her time as queen catherine truly gained the love of the people they adored her she provided massive relief to the poor and was a patron of humanist scholars even her rivals at court admired her strength and her generosity thomas cromwell once remarked that if not for her sex she could have defied all the heroes of history her daughter mary goes on to be a steadfast catholic queen reigning from 1553 to 1558 as england's first female monarch catherine of aragon was truly one of the great queens of england [Music] so let's go ahead and talk about what she looked like as for physical descriptions we have of catherine she was known to be plump and fair-skinned with blue eyes and beautiful red gold hair she was also considered quite short for the time and had a round face with large eyes in her youth she was described as a true beauty so while we have a solid physical description there's actually a lot of dispute regarding images of her the portraits that are attributed to being a young catherine don't really look anything like the portraits of her as an older woman leading to quite a bit of confusion about what her true face really was in what's presumed to be the youngest image of catherine we have this image labeled portrait of a girl but it's currently unconfirmed but for comparison we do have this portrait of her sister wanna and it's made by the same artist they do look very much alike and it's not a leap to believe that these two girls are sisters and that that actually is a portrait of catherine and then we have a few more portraits of what is said to be a teenaged catherine this one is really beautiful and i think it lives in many of our imaginations when it comes to her i've based one of my recreations off of this one but some scholars believe that this is not catherine they believe that it's actually her future sister-in-law mary rose tudor that's depicted in this image there's actually enough evidence for this that the museum that displays this artwork actually labeled it as mary tudor so there's another great article by claire ridgway that i'm going to link here if you're interested in reading more about the misidentification and the arguments of both sides for identifying this portrait unfortunately it hasn't been settled fully either way the first confirmed image that we have of catherine is from around 1520 when catherine would have been about 35 years old this was initially thought to be a portrait of catherine parr but was later re-identified to be catherine of aragon this portrait shows catherine with a strong chin small eyes and a rather plain face and to me it doesn't quite trap with those earlier portraits of her and in fact it's actually a little difficult to find any similarity at all we also have a couple of confirmed hornbolt miniatures from around 1525. however even looking at these two portraits painted by the same person they don't 100 look like the same woman i do think this one miniature looks more similar to the painting of the young catherine than others do but she just has a really hard face to pin down there are also some posthumous portraits of catherine that kind of match this style but they were painted long after her death so we do end up with kind of these opposing views of catherine first on one hand we have this young beautiful girl with a plump face large eyes everything that matches the description of the young catherine then of course we have these older portraits of catherine that are quite at odds with this image but these are the images that are confirmed to be catherine so i do think we need to trust them over a potentially unconfirmed image i have a big soft spot in my heart for catherine and so even these older portraits i really love them i think they show how determined and strong a woman she really was so without further ado let's go ahead and take a look at my recreations of catherine of aragon now [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] all right i'm so interested to hear your thoughts do you think these are both portraits of catherine of aragon or did i accidentally just give you guys a bonus recreation of mary rose tudor let me know what you think in the comments below don't forget to like and subscribe to help us continue to bring history back to life and don't forget the portraits and prints of these recreations can be found in the etsy store the link is here and in the description we will see you guys for the next subject [Music] you

Channel: Royalty Now Studios

Views: 670,198

Keywords: real face of, what historical figures would look like, true face of, true faces of, real faces of historical figures, true faces of historical figures, what historical figures would look like today, royalty now, roylaty now, Catherine of aragon, katherine of aragon, six wives, six wives of henry viii, what did catherine of aragon look like, was catherine of aragon pretty, was catherine of aragon ugly, was catherine of aragon beautiful, henry viii, catherine of aragon facts

Id: 31QjRM-VQq8

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 03 2022