A Woman's Place? Learning and the Wives of Henry VIII
Maria Dowling considers the contribution of Henry VIII's queens in promoting new learning and religion at the Tudor court.
The wives of Henry VIII have rarely been considered as Renaissance princesses or as active participants (on either side) in the Reformation debate. Yet two of them were prominent as patrons of education, scholarship and religion, while a third, though not so eminent, is significant in terms of feminine culture and the Reformation.
Catherine of Aragon, Henry's first queen, was a patron of the humanist movement – which was challenging the traditional and scholastic outlook, not just in intellectual, but in court circles around 1500 – and of women's learning in particular. She was herself learned, having received a Renaissance education under the aegis of her mother, Isabel the Catholic. With her sisters she was taught by the Italian poet, Antonio Geraldini, and his brother, Alessandro. While acquiring courtly and housewifely accomplishments the infantas also studied Roman orators and poets, the Latin Church fathers, and Christian poets. Besides being literate in her native tongue, Catherine learned Latin, French, and later English.
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