Sunday, December 4, 2011

Catherine of Aragon

Since I wrote my post about which historical figures I'd like to meet, I've been thinking a lot about Catherine of Aragon. Like I said before, I want to know if she did consummate her marriage with Arthur and if so, did she feel she did right by lying to everybody all those years. Or if she did tell the truth, does she think it was worth it in the end?
Because of my never ending quest for knowledge, I decided to read about her. Most of the reading I have done has been on some website and some historical fiction. The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory is probably my favorite historical book I've read about the time period but again, it's fiction. Naturally, I started out my research by googling Catherine of Aragon and started with the wikipedia page. While wikipedia is not the most reliable source, it is a good place to start research because it can send you to other links. Because they are trying to make wikipedia more scholarly, it is better than when it initially started. That being said, I would never recommend it being used as a source in a paper. Again, it is a good place to start. After looking over the wiki site, I went to some other websites where I was able to read some of her actual words. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to be there in the 1500s when this was all taking place. To be a fly on that wall... The website I found to to be most interesting was PBS' website called "The Six Wives of Henry VIII." This website give information about each of his six wives. While I primarily focused my reading on Catherine of Aragon, I took a quiz to see what kind of Queen material I would make. The website works in conjunction with a mini-series of four episodes that aired on PBS. According to IMDb, the miniseries is from 2001 but from PBS' website it appear that it may have not aired in America until 2003. The website is extremely detailed and gave me more information than I had previously known.
Although I found PBS' website to be fascinating, I wanted to learn more. Naturally I logged on to my local library website to look for some books. Many of the books I encountered were about all Henry VIII's six wives. I found it to be a bit disheartening since she was the first wife but I had only just begun my investigation. One of my friend's had read my blog about meeting historical figures and recommend I read the book Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII by Giles Tremlett. This book is written from a Spaniard's perspective. I was excited about that because most history books I read are from American or British perspective's. I'm not very far by I'm really enjoying what I've read so far.
Are there any books about this time period that you feel is important to read? Have you ever become so enthralled in a subject or person that you decided to research them on your own? If so, what made you interested in the subject or person and how did you go about your research? And again, if you could meet any historical figure(s), who would it be and why? I love hearing other people's opinions because then it can lead me to other books or people to research.

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