“It was actually the fertility failure with Katherine of Aragon that led to the chaos.”
A woman who gets pregnant 9 times has no problem with fertility.
“According to J.J. Scarisbrick, Catherine of Aragon had “several miscarriages, three infants who were either stillborn or died immediately after birth (two of them males), two infants who died within a few weeks of birth (one of them a boy) and one girl, Princess Mary”. Dewhurst makes the point that “several” must mean three or more so Scarisbrick is crediting Catherine with a total of nine pregnancies, only one of which gave Henry a living heir and it was only a girl. Hester Chapman writes of Catherine having a total of seven pregnancies, Neville Williams writes of how Henry was “mindful of earlier miscarriages” in his second year of marriage to Catherine, John Bowle writes of six pregnancies and A.F. Pollard suggests a total of around ten pregnancies. If Catherine had nine unsuccessful pregnancies it is little wonder that Henry felt that their marriage was cursed!”
“A woman who gets pregnant 9 times has no problem with fertility.”
I know things were more difficult in those days, but the purpose of pregnancy is to produce children who make it out of the cradle, so I would still say that she AND HENRY had fertility problems.
In fact, as we now know but they did not, the failure to produce male offspring lies entirely with the father. Henry had a lot of wives and not too many children. I know he had a bastard son, don’t know how old he lived to be, but of his legit children only Elizabeth lived a full live. But of course, as I said above, things were a lot more difficult then.
While one can sympathize with Henry’s desire for a son it’s impossible to condone the lengths he went to to get one.
Divorcing Katherine was bad enough, but the rest of it, just awful.
They were really so violent in those days, and it’s amazing how many of the elites who had great power ended up being executed themselves.
I can’t imagine living at such a time, every day must have seemed fraught with peril.
Their marriage was probably “cursed” with an STD that Katherine picked up from the philandering Henry.
Did they found out that Catherine could bear the children but lack of hygiene in Tudor England with risk of infection there is history evidence that perhaps Henry VIII was carrier of Syphllis
Yes I have hear of Catherine had “nine pregnancies through 22 year of marriage