What was the ‘reformation’?
It was the time when Henry VIII divided the Church of Rome (Roman Catholics), lead by The Pope, and Henry created the Church of England. BOTH are Christian groups.

What is to be ‘excommunicated’?
It means to be expelled (thrown out) of the Church. In those days, being excommunicated meant that you were no longer blessed by God and therefore would go to Hell.

As the daughter of Spanish monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, Catherine was a political catch - which means a good girl to marry - a joining of powerful families.

Betrothed at the age of three to Arthur, Henry’s older brother and the heir apparent to the English throne, her position became uncertain when, in 1502, her husband died just five months into their marriage.

What is to be ‘betrothed’?
It means promised to be married to someone.

Half of Catherine’s dowry had already been paid to Arthur’s father, Henry VII, so the English king faced the dilemma of how to pay it back.

What’s a dowry?
It is money paid to the parents of one of the marriage partners - usually paid to the father of the bride, but in Royal things, paid by the father of the bride to the father of the Groom.

Catherine was held almost like a prisoner with little money, while the problem was being debated. But in 1507, six years after Arthur’s death, she became the ambassador of the Aragonese Crown to England. Two years later, Catherine married Henry VIII – who was five years younger than she was – shortly after he had ascended the throne.

This marriage between a man and his brother’s widow required, and was granted, dispensation by the Catholic Church (The Pope).

‘Dispensation’ means special permission.

The couple’s nearly 25-year-long marriage was certainly eventful for Catherine.

In 1513, she served as regent (a person in place of an absent or too young monarch) for six months while Henry was away battling in France.

During this time she oversaw the English victory against Scotland at the Battle of Flodden (when King James IV of Scotland was killed), but she also gave birth to a stillborn child.

Catherine suffered multiple miscarriages and stillbirths. She bore the king’s first child, a boy, only to see him die 52 days later. Her only child to survive to adulthood was a daughter born in 1516, Mary; who went on to become queen.

One year after Catherine suffered another miscarriage in 1518, Henry had a son by another lady - Elizabeth Blount. The boy was named Henry Fitzroy, and is Henry’s only confirmed illegitimate child.

Blount was not Henry’s only mistress during his marriage to Catherine.

But it was Henry’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting, from 1526, which set into motion a chain of events that would not only see the end of Catherine and Henry’s marriage, but also lead to England’s Protestantisation.

What does ‘to be infatuated with’ mean?
It means to be so interested in someone that you sort of forget about other things.

Henry tried to have his marriage to Catherine annulled (cancelled) to marry Anne. He argued that their marriage had been invalid because of Catherine’s marriage to his brother. Devout Catherine rejected this, saying that she and Arthur’s relationship had never been consummated.

But The Pope refused to cancel the marriage, and basically that caused the Reformation - the split from the Church of Rome, and the creation of the Church of England.

Henry’s marriage to Catherine was eventually annulled in 1533 (by Henry - because he now was leader of the Church) and Catherine was banished from court as Dowager Princess of Wales.

She lived out the rest of her days at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire where she died in 1536. Her daughter Mary was forbidden for visiting her or to attend her funeral at Peterborough Cathedral.

She never accepted the end of her marriage to Henry as legitimate, always seeing herself as England’s rightful Queen and Henry’s wife.