How to treat your wife - flower Friday -

"In this world I will confess myself to be the king’s true wife, and in the next they will know how unreasonably I am afflicted" - Katharine of Aragon, 1532

The youngest surviving child of the ‘Catholic Kings’ of Spain, Katharine was born on 16 December 1485, the same year that Henry VII established the Tudor dynasty. At the age of three, she was betrothed to his infant son, Prince Arthur.

In 1501, shortly before her sixteenth birthday, Katharine sailed to England. But her marriage to Arthur lasted less than six months and was supposedly never consummated.

(Pity that)

Katharine was then betrothed to Arthur’s younger brother, Prince Henry. When he became king in 1509, at the age of eighteen, he promptly married Katharine and they lived together happily for many years.

(Ahhhh, young love)

But their marriage produced just one living child, a daughter called Mary, and Henry was desperate for a male heir. He also fell deeply in love with another woman.

(The 'cad')

Cast aside, Katharine fought against great odds to deny Henry an annulment. But the king would not be denied and when the Catholic church would not grant the annulment, he declared himself head of a new English church.

Katharine was - subsequently - banished from Henry's court and died on 7 January 1536, broken-hearted but still defiant.

"My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the king’s wicked intention, the surprises which the king gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine"

And now (whether you wanted to or not) you know!

- this being 'Flower Friday' here is my contribution to same, the "saddest" flower of all: Katharine of Aragon -

Moving on

"Her Lewis" arrived in Montreal yesterday, aboard "the most fabulous shade of red" private plane She has ever laid eyes on! After which he greeted and intermingled with the invited (£3,000 per) guests at a reception held in the team's hospitality suite.

- including the most delicate "English Rose" I know -

To say She was "thrilled" would be doing the word an injustice!!