Born to privilege and power, Catherine changed the course of English history. She was betrothed aged six to a prince of a royal household. When she came of age she was married to English Prince Arthur, the elder brother of the future king Henry VIII. The union was a happy one, but tragedy struck. In the first year, on a journey to a castle in the north of England, the couple were beset by atrocious weather Arthur contracted pneumonia and died.

It was arranged that Catherine would wed the deceased Arthur’s younger sibling Henry. Special dispensation had to be obtained from the Pope because they were brothers. At first Henry was enamoured of Catherine. He was young, lean and handsome, not the bloated, disease-ridden figure he would become in later life.

Henry desperately longed for a son to continue the royal Tudor line. When Catherine became pregnant he was overjoyed, but doom was to beset Catherine of Aragon. Three times she was with child and unfortunately each time she miscarried.

Henry grew tired of Catherine’s failure to provide an heir and sought an annulment. This had to be brought before the Papal council. Henry had by this time become smitten with the fiery, tempestuous Anne Boleyn, who was, ironically, one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting.

A strictly devoted Roman Catholic, Catherine wouldn’t ever contemplate annulment or divorce. Henry made a personal plea to the Pontiff to give him a divorce on the grounds that Catherine was barren. After a protracted amount of time, the Pope refused.

Henry set himself up as the head of the Church of England and got his Archbishop Crammer to grant him a divorce from Catherine. The Pontiff excommunicated Henry and from being one of the strongest supporters of the papacy in his youth, Henry turned England into a Protestant Nation.

Catherine, a broken woman, returned the Spain where she outlived Henry by some twenty years.