I Find It Weird When Katherine Of Aragon Biographers Try To Shoehorn In Her Being Machiavellian, Like...I

I find it weird when Katherine of Aragon biographers try to shoehorn in her being ‘Machiavellian’, like...I think she was politically gifted, I think she used her networks well, I think she knew when to be discreet, I think she knew how to utilize her public moments for public sympathy/approval (famously, like Blackfriars) but sometimes I feel like biographers apply this...weirdly, to private moments?

Princess Amelia (1783-1810)

Josiah Slater

The example that came to mind for this was actually Julia Fox, because when she talks about the first time Henry told KoA he was seeking an annulment, and that “all would be for the best”, and how she cried when he told her this, she was like “oh she was probably using tears to manipulate him” and I was like.......uhm....that seems...decidedly unkind?

I find it weird when Katherine of Aragon biographers try to shoehorn in her being ‘Machiavellian’, like…I think she was politically gifted, I think she used her networks well, I think she knew how to utilize her public moments for public sympathy/approval (famously, like Blackfriars) but sometimes I feel like biographers apply this…weirdly, to private moments?

The Tudors vs History: 21/?

“She was still holding out in the second week of June [1536], but becoming increasingly disturbed that she had received no reply to her letters to her father. On the first day of the month she had written to the king desiring his blessing and asking forgiveness ‘for all the offences that I have done to your grace, since I had first discretion to offend’. She was, she said, ‘as sorry as any living creature.’ […] She also congratulated him on his marriage and asked to be allowed to see the new queen.”

– The Myth of ‘Bloody Mary’, Linda Porter

“ Rejoices to hear of the marriage between his Grace and the Queen now being. Desires leave to wait upon the latter and do her Grace service. Prays God to send him a prince. Hounsdon, 1 June.”

– Princess Mary to [Henry VIII].  

“Henry VIII: June 1536, 1-5.” Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, January-June 1536. Ed.  James Gairdner. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1887. 424-440.     

Beautiful artwork of Katheryn Howard and Jane Seymour by J. W. Wright and engraved by B Eyles.

I wish there was some of the other four wives, there’s an Anne Boleyn one, but it’s black and white.