The Spanish Princess, Catherine of Aragon, had been destined to rule as Queen of England from the age of 5. But the man she married in 1501 was not the future Henry VIII. It was his elder brother, Prince Arthur. He died after a few months of marriage, leaving to Catherine to endure 7 years of poverty-stricken widowhood. On the point of despair, she contemplated suicide. But the death of her father-in-law changed everything, and England’s new King, Henry VIII, asked Catherine to be his wife.

She was a much-loved Queen, and was responsible for one of the great military victories of the age. But her key role was to bear the King a son – and she never did. Pregnant 7 times in 10 years, only one of her children, Mary, survived. And while Catherine endured the miseries of repeated still births and infant deaths, the King began an affair with one of her ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn.

Henry decided to divorce his wife of 25 years, and even investigated whether she and Arthur had had sex or not. Catherine was fighting for survival, and her resistance forced Henry to bring the matter to court. Their public confrontation is one of the most remarkable episodes of the Tudor age. The case was abandoned, but what Henry did next changed England forever and deprived Catherine of everything that had given her life meaning.