Katharine of Aragon

The tragic story of Henry VIII's first unfortunate wife. Katharine of Aragon was a central figure in one of the most dramatic and formative events of Tudor history - England's breach with Rome after a thousand years of fidelity. She lived through traumatic and revolutionary times and her personal drama was played out against dramas of global significance. The heroic and dignified first wife of Henry VIII who was cast aside for reasons of dynastic ambition, but who resolutely and unbendingly stuck to her principles and her dignity at enormous cost to herself. Katharine's story tells so much about the exercise of power, and about being married to a lover who became - slowly but perceptibly - a tyrant in public life and a monster in his private affairs. Professor Patrick Williams has been immersed in Spanish history for over thirty years and his monumental new biography - the first to make full use of the Spanish Royal Archives - is the result, and presents a very different portrait of Catherine.