KIMBOLTON CASTLE & KATHARINE OF ARAGON
On the night of 6th January 1536, Katharine of Aragon prepared herself for bed.
Without help, she combed and tied her hair, and dressed her head, for sleeping.
When she woke the following morning, she was clearly dying.
When dawn broke, Katharine took the sacrament.
She then prayed, and asked those around her to pray with her for her soul, and that of Henry’s.
She then received the last rites.
Reportedly, Katharine died in the arms of Maria de Salinas, who had come over with her from Spain.
Maria had forced her way into Kimbolton castle, when she heard Katharine was dying.
Katharine passed away a little before 2 P.M. on 7th January 1536, she was 50 years old.
Katharine had spent the final years of her eventful life in exile, abandoned by her husband Henry VIII, on account of the king’s quest for a legitimate son and heir.
Her former home, is now Kimbolton School.
At the time, rumors ran rampant that either Anne Boleyn, or the king himself, had poisoned his former wife.
An autopsy performed on her body, however, found a “completely black and hideous” tumor grown around her heart.
Today, this is believed to be related to the cancer, melanotic sarcoma.
According to Chapuys, writing to Charles V two days after her death~
“the ‘Queen’s’ final illness, began about five weeks ago, as I then wrote to your Majesty, and the attack was renewed on the morrow of Christmas day.
It was a pain in the stomach, so violent that she could retain no food’, and that being unable to eat or sleep, except so little that it might be called nothing.
She was so wasted that she could not support herself either on her feet or sitting in bed”
The king refused to spend more than “was requisite or needful” on Katharine’s funeral, and had her buried at Peterborough Abbey (now Cathedral), not far from Kimbolton Castle.
Apart from the king’s niece, Lady Eleanor Brandon, no representative from the royal family was present.
