athousandtales:She was the child who survived. The midwinter baby born in the small hours of Monday,
athousandtales:She was the child who survived. The midwinter baby born in the small hours of Monday, 18 February 1516, was bonny enough to dispel any immediate fears for her survival. After a difficult labour, Katherine of Aragon, queen consort of England, must have dared to hope that her prayers for a healthy child had, at last, been answered. In the seven years preceding the arrival of this daughter, Katherine had not produced the heir that either her father, Ferdinand of Aragon, or her husband expected of her. She had endured four miscarriages, one stillbirth and the death of an infant son who was not quite two months old. Seven years was a long time for England, a country so notoriously plagued by political upheaval and civil war, to be without an heir. This catalogue of failure had hit hard at the pride of Henry VIII’s Spanish wife. But in 1516 all the suffering of the past evaporated, at least temporarily, in the joyful realisation that she and Henry were, at last, parents. The king’s undoubted relief was evident. And any regrets about the baby’s sex were disguised as optimism for the future. ‘We are still young’, Henry told the Venetian ambassador. He expressed his confidence that, with God’s will, sons would follow. But, at 31, Katherine was nearly six years older than her husband, and her gynaecological history was discouraging. What she privately thought of her chances we do not know but it was evident from the outset that she saw her daughter as England’s heir. (x) -- source link
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