Some dust has
been raised with ill-intended speech on Raja Raja Cholan (Arul Mozhi Varman) –
a great Chola Emperor. Tinseldom has
changed – in 1973 came the first Cinemascope movie with Sivaji Ganesan in lead
role on ‘King Raja Raja Cholan’. Kunnakudi
Vaidhyanathan composed the music for the film.
It was reported that the prints of the movie were
taken to theatres atop an elephant. In Tiruchirappalli, fans hired a helicopter
and showered flower petals on the print, The Hindu said. In schools, we read more of British history .. here is
something on a British King, his
marriage and more .. ..
In good olden
days, marriage proposals floated between Kingdoms, ensuring peace and harmony
amongst them and expansion of territory.
The Treaty of Medina del Campo was an agreement developed in 1489
between England and the nascent Spain. The treaty was made up of twenty-six
clauses. The first sixteen dealt with military, economic, and political
relations between England and Spain.The seventeenth clause consisted on
the marriage between Catherine and Arthur, while the next
ten clauses covered the financial settlement, succession, and Catherine's journey
arrangements to England. Its provisions
accomplished three goals: the establishment of a common policy for the two
countries regarding France, the reduction of tariffs between the two countries,
and, most centrally, the arrangement of a marriage contract between Arthur
Tudor, eldest son of Henry VII of England, and Catherine of Aragon, daughter of
Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon.
Arthur Tudor (1486 – 1502)
was Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester and Duke of Cornwall. As the eldest son
and heir-apparent of Henry VII of England, Arthur was viewed by contemporaries
as the great hope of the newly established House of Tudor. His mother,
Elizabeth of York, was the daughter of Edward IV, and his birth cemented the
union between the House of Tudor and the House of York.Plans
for Arthur's marriage began before his third birthday; he was installed as
Prince of Wales two years later. At the age of eleven, he was formally
betrothed to Catherine of Aragon, a daughter of the powerful Catholic
Monarchs in Spain, in an effort to forge an Anglo-Spanish alliance against
France. Soon after his marriage to Catherine in 1501,
the couple took up residence at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, where Arthur died
six months later of an unknown ailment. Catherine would later firmly state that
the marriage had not been consummated.
An year after Arthur's death,
Henry VII renewed his efforts of sealing a marital alliance with Spain by
arranging for Catherine to marry Arthur's younger brother Henry, who had by
then become Prince of Wales. Arthur's untimely death paved the way for Henry's
accession as Henry VIII in 1509. The question as to
the potential consummation of Arthur and Catherine's marriage was much later
(and in a completely different political context) exploited by Henry and his
court to cast doubt on the validity of Catherine's union with Henry, eventually
leading to the separation between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic
Church.
Catherine of
Aragon (Spanish: Catalina; 1485 – 1536) was Queen of England from June 1509
until May 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII; she was previously
Princess of Wales as the wife of Henry's elder brother Arthur. Her betrothal with Arthur, Prince of Wales
took place when she was 3 years of age !the marriage was to happen in her 16 –For that marriage,
a dowry of 200,000 ducats had been agreed, and half was paid shortly after the
marriage. Immediately after marriage whilst their stay at Castle Lodge, both became ill, possibly with
the sweating sickness, which was sweeping the area. Arthur died leaving
Catherine, a widow. At this point, Henry VII faced the challenge of avoiding
the obligation to return her 200,000 ducat dowry, half of which he had not yet
received, to her father, as required by her marriage contract should she return
home. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1503, King Henry VII initially
considered marrying Catherine himself, but the opposition of her father and
potential questions over the legitimacy of the couple's issue ended the idea.
To settle the matter, it was agreed that Catherine would marry Henry VII's
second son, Henry, Duke of York, who was five years younger than she was. She
held the position of ambassador of the Aragonese Crown to England in 1507, the
first female ambassador in European history.
At 24, she subsequently married Arthur's younger brother, the recently
ascended Henry VIII, in 1509. For six months in 1513, she served as regent of
England while Henry VIII was in France. During that time the English won the
Battle of Flodden, an event in which Catherine played an important part with an
emotional speech about English courage !
She was to see more turns in
life .. .. ..as by 1525, Henry VIII
infatuated with Anne Boleyn and dissatisfied that his marriage to
Catherine had produced no surviving sons, leaving their daughter, the future
Mary I of England, as heir presumptive at a time when there was no established
precedent for a woman on the throne. He sought to have their marriage annulled,
setting in motion a chain of events that led to England's schism with the
Catholic Church. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul the marriage, Henry
defied him by assuming supremacy over religious matters. In 1533 their marriage
was consequently declared invalid and Henry married Anne on the judgement of
clergy in England, without reference to the Pope. Catherine refused to accept
Henry as Supreme Head of the Church in England and considered herself the
King's rightful wife and queen, attracting much popular sympathy. Despite this,
she was acknowledged only as Dowager Princess of Wales by Henry. After being
banished from court, she lived out the remainder of her life at Kimbolton
Castle, and died there on 7 January 1536. English people held Catherine in high
esteem, and her death set off tremendous mourning.
The controversial book The
Education of a Christian Woman by Juan Luis Vives, which claimed women have the
right to an education, was commissioned by and dedicated to her. Written in 1523, the book was originally
published in Latin with the title of De InstitutioneFeminaeChristianae and was
dedicated to Catherine of Aragon. The work was translated into English by
Richard Hyrde around 1529.
King Henry was to
marry many a times more .. .. .. a mnemonic device to remember the names of
Henry’s consorts was “Arrogant Boys Seem
Clever, Howard Particularly”; a mnemonic for their fates is "Divorced,
beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived". King Henry VIII,To six
wives he was wedded.One died, one survived,Two divorced, two beheaded.In common
parlance, the wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort wedded to Henry
between 1509 and his death in 1547.In legal terms, King Henry VIII of England
had only three wives, because three of his putative marriages were annulled.
Unlike a divorce, where a married couple chooses to end their union, annulments
essentially declare that a true marriage never took place.
History makes more
interesting reading that fiction books and movies !!
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
12th June 2019.
