While Queen Mary of Teck officially ordered that the royal banners of a queen consort be hung above the tomb, it was actually a Victorian woman named Katharine Clayton who raised the funds to add the gilded “Katharine Queen of England” lettering.
Held annually from late January to early February at Peterborough Cathedral and the Peterborough Museum, the Katharine of Aragon Festival honours the queen’s legacy through a mix of remembrance services, expert historical lectures, and immersive Tudor-themed reenactments.
Henry VIII completely ignored his own initial choice to marry Catherine of Aragon, the Pope’s affirmation of their marriage, and her twenty-four years of flawless service as his queen and regent, just to use her brief past marriage to his brother Arthur as a hypocritical theological excuse for an annulment.
Kneeling directly at Henry VIII’s feet at the Blackfriars court on 21 June 1529, Catherine of Aragon delivered a powerful speech appealing to his conscience, declaring her lifelong loyalty, love, and obedience as his true wife, and steadfastly maintaining that she had entered their marriage a virgin bride.
After finishing her historic speech, Catherine of Aragon rose, made a low bow to the King, and immediately walked out of the courtroom on the arm of her servant.
To control the damage caused by Catherine’s dramatic exit, Henry VIII immediately addressed the silent, stunned courtroom by praising his departed wife’s virtues, stating that she was a perfectly dutiful, loving, and obedient queen, while quickly adding that his pursuit of an annulment was not driven by any dislike for her, but rather by a deeply troubled religious conscience regarding his succession.
Cardinal Wolsey reacted to Catherine’s defiance with profound panic and public self-defence, immediately begging King Henry VIII to declare openly that he had never suggested or engineered the annulment.
Because the Blackfriars trial collapsed without granting the annulment, Henry VIII completely lost faith in Cardinal Wolsey’s diplomatic influence, allowing Anne Boleyn’s faction to convince the King that his chief minister was intentionally stalling, which triggered Wolsey’s stripped titles, the seizure of his properties, and his eventual arrest for high treason.
Cardinal Campeggio was bound by explicit, secret written instructions from Pope Clement VII to protract and delay the Blackfriars trial as long as possible under no pretext of rendering a final sentence, because the Pope was effectively held hostage by Catherine of Aragon’s nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Following the collapse of the Blackfriars trial, Anne Boleyn’s faction—led by her father Thomas Boleyn and her uncle the Duke of Norfolk—systematically isolated Cardinal Wolsey from King Henry VIII by feeding the King intercepted correspondence to frame Wolsey as a papal spy, ultimately convincing Henry to charge him with high treason.
