Average Katherine of Aragon Quiz | 10 Questions | People

Answer: Isabella and Ferdinand

They are also famous for driving the Moors out of Spain, the Spanish Inquisition and the voyages of Christopher Columbus.

Answer: Arthur

Katherine and Arthur both caught a virus while visiting Ludlow Castle. Katherine survived, although she was weak for a long time afterwards. Arthur, who probably also had tuberculosis, died very quickly of the illness.

Answer: True

This was during the reign of Henry VII.

Answer: Fifth

Katherine was pregnant at least six times. Most of her children died at birth or shortly after.

Answer: True

Henry was off fighting a fruitless war when the Scots crossed the border. Katherine reacted decisively and sent an army northward, resulting in the defeat of the Scottish army and the death of its king. She forwarded the dead king's bloody jacket to Henry, still in France.

Answer: All of these

Henry was in love by this time with Anne Boleyn, and that was the main reason he wanted a divorce, although Katherine was probably menopausal and her influence in diplomatic circles was nil since the death of her father Ferdinand.

What Henry pretended to the world was that he suspected that his marriage to his brother's widow was sinful in the eyes of God, and that was why it was childless (it wasn't, but he didn't consider the Princess Mary as being a real heir because she was female). His conscience was bothering him, and until it was molified, he would not co-habitate with the Queen, as much as it grieved him. He insisted that she was his sister-in-law, and Katherine insisted just as forcefully that she was his wife, making Henry and Anne extremely angry. Katherine claimed that her former marriage was never consumated, thus making her current one valid - and that was the story she stuck to until she died.

Suggestions that Katherine retire to a convent as Princess Dowager were treated with equal scorn, even though Mary would be partially protected (as heir after the children of Henry and Anne) if she had agreed to do so.

Answer: False

Katherine of Aragon was wildly popular - some have said the Princess Diana of her time - and in the eyes of her subjects she could do no wrong. When the general population learned about Henry's plan to replace Katherine with Anne Boyelyn they were incensed, and showed it in every way they could. For the first time Henry himself was not popular with his subjects and this enraged him enough to send Katherine into a series of homes away from court (which were really prisons).

He was also really worried about a possible invasion on Katherine's behalf by her nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor, but she refused to sanction it. Feeling vindictive because of her lack of co-operation, he made certain that Katherine and her daughter Mary never saw each other again from this point.

Answer: He would be punished as God had punished Ahab, and the dogs would lick his blood

When Henry died in 1547 his body was placed in a lead coffin and transported to Syon Abbey, where the casket burst open, and liquid matter from the corpse seeped onto the pavement. A dog was with the workmen who came to repair the coffin, and it was seen to lick up the blood from the floor while they were working.

Answer: Cancer of the heart

When Katherine died after a long illness an autopsy of sorts was done by a wax chandler and his assistant (her doctors were not allowed to examine her remains) and they found that all of her internal organs were normal, except for the heart, "which had a black growth all hideous to behold, which clung closely to the outside." When it was cut open, the heart was black inside. To Katherine's contemporaries this was considered conclusive evidence that she was poisoned, and the autopsy report was supressed for that reason.

However, modern medical opinion is that her symptoms prior to death were not consistent with poisoning, and the description of her heart (and symptoms) sounds like she suffered from one of the rarer forms of cancer.

Answer: It was the Spanish colour of mourning

He (and the rest of his court) wore yellow as a mark of respect for the King's "Sister-in-Law", the Dowager Princess of Wales, Katherine of Aragon.