Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England

by Theresa Earenfight

Catherine of Aragon is an elusive subject. Despite her status as a Spanish infanta , Princess of Wales, and Queen of England, few of her personal letters have survived, and she is obscured in the contemporary royal histories. In this evocative biography, Theresa Earenfight presents an intimate and engaging portrait of Catherine told through the objects that she left behind. A pair of shoes, a painting, a rosary, a fur-trimmed baby blanket―each of these things took meaning from the ways Catherine experienced and perceived them. Through an examination of the inventories listing the few possessions Catherine owned at her death, Earenfight follows the arc of Catherine’s first as a coddled child in Castile, then as a young adult alone in England after the death of her first husband, a devoted wife and doting mother, a patron of the arts and of universities, and, finally, a dear friend to the women and men who stood by her after Henry VIII set her aside in favor of another woman. Based on traces and fragments, these portraits of Catherine are interpretations of a life lived five centuries ago. Earenfight creates a compelling picture of a multifaceted, intelligent woman and a queen of England. Engagingly written, this cultural and emotional biography of Catherine brings us closer to understanding her life from her own perspective.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Tudor Period, Renaissance

251 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Juliew. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really what I was expecting but in general I was happy with it.I guess I was looking for more of a itemized list of possessions with maybe some photos and captions with back stories of the items.Short and sweet kinda stuff.Ultimately though I ended up with items set within the context of Catherine's story.There were photos but unfortunately not many items have survived.My absolute favorite of these were the chapines which were cork embellished shoes brought from Spain.Also discussed here was Catherine's relationship to power and how it related to Catherine herself as well as to her favorite items.Well researched and easy to read I would definitely recommend it to Catherine of Aragon fans

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing biography of Catherine of Aragon!

Earenfight approaches the subject matter more as an archeologist than a historian, searching out both references to items in the record to Catherine's things, as well as hunting down what still survives today.

The best find was, miracle of miracles, she found there is a chasuble - a type of vestment priests wear for certain special masses - on display today in a museum in Wales, made from a dress that was 99.9% likely made and worn by Catherine herself!

She draws a lot of information on Catherine from her things, arguing strongly that she was not the pathetic, tragic figure so many make her out to be, but a resourceful, strong woman, and a powerful queen.

An excellent new examination of Catherine's life, firmly putting her in the main spotlight rather than dismissing her as in the periphery of the men in her life.

LOVED IT!

[Rachael Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earenfight brings her remarkable knowledge of gender and power in the Iberian Middle Ages to the life of Catherine of Aragon in this biography. She uses traditional political sources, but the real innovation in her methodology is her use of material objects (shoes, scraps of linens, garments, portraits) to investigate the world in which Catherine moved and what these objects can tell us about how the princess/queen consort viewed that world and her shifting place within it. I do think this book could have benefited from a more careful editing. There were several dating errors and strange shifts/unqualified contradictions in numerous paragraphs. It is nearly impossible to get a book through without a couple of these kinds of issues, but the number of them detracted from the reading experience and, at times, from Earenfight's nuanced arguments.

[Gail Orgelfinger · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a frustrating book. The approach and methodology are fresh and illuminating. But it reads as if it were an uncorrected draft: paragraphs that meander; endless redundancy; consecutive sentences that sound like alternate versions of each other. It's as if the author didn't accept any of the copywriter's suggestions. Or someone uploaded the wrong draft. And this is a shame, because as I said, it does contain a lot of archival scholarship. I will finish it because of the subject matter, and I will try very, very hard not to mar it with my red pen, because it goes straight into the donation pile.

[Eva · Rating 2 out of 5]

whew boy this one....not good

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tudor books I read as a kid (mostly fiction, some non) focused on Elizabeth as a child - the Royal Diaries series, Carolyn Myer's Young Royals books, etc. They all shared a common theme - Elizabeth was a better person and queen than her sister because she had had the better education, using new Protestant books and thought. This was a very wide-spread opinion - even books sympathetic to Mary still set her up as ignorant and misled.

This line of thought is being challenged in recent years, as historians go back and rethink the biases of their sources. And, again, looking at other surviving artifacts to consider a person from - the portraits and gifts given and received. Earenfight focuses her biography on the material facts of Catherine of Aragon's life to reconsider the conventional view of her. She also refuses to consider her from the perspective of her ending, looking at the facts as they come, without hindsight.

Earenfight focuses on how Catherine fit into her world. Her fashion choices influenced the Tudor court, her books are still included in the libraries, her badges still stand on walls. She was much more than conventional history sees her as, and by looking at her more clearly the whole world of the Tudor court gains richness instead of the flat picture of yesterday.