Arthur, Prince of Wales (September 19/20, 1486 – April 2, 1502), was the eldest son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and an older brother to the future King Henry VIII.
He was Duke of Cornwall from birth, and he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in 1489. As the heir apparent of his father, 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 the Yorkist king, Edward IV, and his birth cemented the union between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
Henry VII became King of England and Lord of Ireland upon defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. In an effort to strengthen the Tudor claim to the throne, Henry decided on naming his firstborn son “Arthur” and having him born in Winchester – where the Legend of King Arthur originated – in order to emphasise the Welsh origin of the Tudors.
On this occasion, Camelot was identified as present-day Winchester, and his wife, Elizabeth of York, was sent to Saint Swithun’s Priory (today Winchester Cathedral Priory) in order to give birth there. Born at Saint Swithun’s Priory on the night of 19/20 September 1486 at about 1 am, Arthur was Henry and Elizabeth’s eldest child.
Young Arthur was viewed as “a living symbol” of not only the union between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, to which his mother belonged as the daughter of Edward IV, but also of the end of the Wars of the Roses. In the opinion of contemporaries, Arthur was the great hope of the newly established House of Tudor.
Henry VII planned to marry Arthur to a daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Fernando II of Aragon, in order to forge an Anglo-Spanish alliance against France.
It was suggested that the choice of marrying Arthur to Fernando and Isabella’s youngest daughter, Catherine (b. 1485), would be appropriate.
Thanks to negotiations by the Spanish ambassador Rodrigo González de la Puebla, the Treaty of Medina del Campo (March 27, 1489) provided that Arthur and Catherine would be married as soon as they reached canonical age; it also settled Catherine’s dowry at 200,000 crowns (the equivalent of £5 million in 2007).
Since Arthur, not yet 14, was below the age of consent, a papal dispensation (i.e., waiver) allowing the marriage was issued in February 1497, and the pair were betrothed by proxy on August 25, 1497. Two years later, a marriage by proxy took place at Arthur’s Tickenhill Manor in Bewdley, near Worcester.
The young couple exchanged letters in Latin until September 20 , 1501, when Arthur, having attained the age of 15, was deemed old enough to be married. Catherine landed in England about two weeks later, on October 2, 1501, at Plymouth.
The next month, on November 4, 1501, the couple met for the first time at Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Arthur wrote to Catherine’s parents that he would be “a true and loving husband”; the couple soon discovered that they had mastered different pronunciations of Latin and so were unable to easily communicate. Five days later, on November 9, 1501, Catherine arrived in London.
On November 14, 1501, the marriage ceremony finally took place at Saint Paul’s Cathedral; both Arthur and Catherine wore white satin. The ceremony was conducted by Henry Deane, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was assisted by William Warham, Bishop of London.
Following the ceremony, Arthur and Catherine left the Cathedral and headed for Baynard’s Castle, where they were entertained by “the best voiced children of the King’s chapel, who sang right sweetly with quaint harmony”.
What followed was a bedding ceremony laid down by Arthur’s grandmother Lady Margaret Beaufort: the bed was sprinkled with holy water, after which Catherine was led away from the wedding feast by her ladies-in-waiting.
She was undressed, veiled and “reverently” laid in bed, while Arthur, “in his shirt, with a gown cast about him,” was escorted by his gentlemen into the bedchamber as viols and tabors played.
The Bishop of London blessed the bed, and prayed for the marriage to be fruitful, after which the couple were left alone. This is the only public bedding of a royal couple recorded in Britain in the 16th century.
Death
After residing at Tickenhill Manor for a month, Arthur and Catherine headed for the Welsh Marches, where they established their household at Ludlow Castle. Arthur had been growing weaker since his wedding, and Henry VII thus seemed reluctant to allow Catherine to follow him, until ultimately ordering her to join her husband.
Arthur found it easy to govern Wales, as the border had become quiet after many centuries of warfare. In March 1502, Arthur and Catherine were afflicted by an unknown illness, “a malign vapour which proceeded from the air.”
It has been suggested that this illness was the mysterious English sweating sickness, tuberculosis (“consumption”), plague or influenza. While Catherine recovered, Arthur died on April 2, 1502 at Ludlow, six months short of his sixteenth birthday.
News of Arthur’s death reached Henry VII’s court late on April 4th. The King was awoken from his sleep by his confessor, who quoted Job by asking Henry “If we receive good things at the hands of God, why may we not endure evil things?”
He then told the king that “[his] dearest son hath departed to God,” and Henry burst into tears. “Grief-stricken and emotional,” he then had his wife brought into his chambers, so that they might “take the painful news together”.
Elizabeth reminded Henry that God had helped him become king and “had ever preserved him,” adding that they had been left with “yet a fair Prince and two fair princesses and that God is where he was, and [they were] both young enough.” Soon after leaving Henry’s bedchamber, Elizabeth collapsed and began to cry, while the ladies sent for the King, who hurriedly came and “relieved her.”
On April 8, a general procession took place for the salvation of Arthur’s soul. That night, a dirge was sung in St Paul’s Cathedral and every parish church in London. On April 23rd Arthur’s body, which had previously been embalmed, sprinkled with holy water and sheltered with a canopy, was carried out of Ludlow Castle and into the Parish Church of Ludlow by various noblemen and gentlemen.
On April 25, Arthur’s body was taken to Worcester Cathedral via the River Severn, in a “special wagon upholstered in black and drawn by six horses, also caparisoned in black.” As was customary, Catherine did not attend the funeral. The Earl of Surrey acted as chief mourner.
At the end of the ceremony, Sir William Uvedale, Sir Richard Croft and Arthur’s household ushers broke their staves of office and threw them into the Prince’s grave. During the funeral, Arthur’s own arms were shown alongside those of Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd and Brutus of Troy. Two years later, a chantry was erected over Arthur’s grave.
During their brief marriage Catherine later firmly stated that the marriage had not been consummated.
One year after Arthur’s death, Henry VII renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance with Spain by arranging for Catherine to marry Arthur’s younger brother Henry, who would ascend to the throne in 1509 as King Henry VIII.
The question over whether Arthur and Catherine had consummated their marriage was much later, and in a completely different political context, exploited by Henry VIII and his court.
This strategy was employed in order to cast doubt upon the validity of Catherine’s union with Henry VIII, eventually leading to the separation between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.