Theresa Earenfight's engagingly written and impressively researched book, Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England (2022), participates in a radical shift in writing about Catherine of Aragon. If the twentieth century saw only one significant biography of Catherine, Garrett Mattingly's 1941 Catherine of Aragon, the twenty-first century has witnessed at least seven—by David Starkey (2003); Luis Ulargui (2004); Julia Fox (2011); Patrick Williams (2013); Amy Licence (2013); Giles Tremlett (2016); and Michelle L. Beer (2018). This list does not include combined biographies of Henry VIII's six wives. Such extensive biographical interest raises the question of what Earenfight's biography might have to offer. Quite a lot, as it turns out. Earenfight states that the book is “neither a conventional biography nor an event-based history” (18); instead, she uses a multidisciplinary lens to identify and analyze the many material objects and geographical spaces associated with Catherine, along with information that they convey about the people with whom she exchanged material objects and letters. Earenfight focuses her chapters on what she calls “portraits” of Catherine during significant periods of her life. Each chapter begins with an overview of the main events during the period, then considers Catherine's state of mind, her community of acquaintances, and material goods and spaces associated with her. Although earlier biographers—particularly Tremlett and Williams—have called attention to some of these objects, none has undertaken such thoroughgoing archival work on them.
The introductory chapter presents Earenfight's focus on material objects, with emphasis on the ways in which Catherine's Spanish legacy was reflected in the luxury goods and clothing that she brought with her to England. Earenfight also discusses attempts to erase material evidence of Catherine after the annulment of her marriage in 1532. In chapter 2, Earenfight discusses Catherine's girlhood in Spain from 1485 to 1501, with emphasis on the geographical spaces that she occupied, including traces of the Islamic legacy in Spain. Earenfight pauses as well at descriptions of royal celebrations. Throughout the chapter, she discusses the influence of Catherine's family and attendants on her. In chapter 3, which covers the period of 1500 to 1509, Earenfight brings the reader to Catherine's voyage from Spain to England, along with the ceremonies attending her short-lived marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Earenfight gives far more detail to the five-month travel from Granada to London than have previous biographies. Earenfight goes on to trace familiar discussions about the deterioration of Catherine's wealth and mental health after the death of Arthur, adding to this discussion the significance of Catherine's material goods, which attest to her frequent walks, musical communities, and her turn to needlework.
In chapter 4, Earenfight focuses on what one might call the triumphant years of Catherine's reign as queen consort to Henry VIII from 1509 to 1520. She attends more than previous biographers to the semiotic significance of such lavish spectacles and pageants as those at her coronation procession and at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. She also notes that the marital affection between Catherine and Henry is reflected in the intimate nature of some of the gifts that they exchanged. Equally significant are the material traces of Catherine's many miscarriages, stillbirths, and infant deaths, along with the birth of Mary in 1516; these are reflected not only in accounts of frequent pilgrimages that she undertook to pray for the safe birth of a child but also in embroidered sheets, bed valances, and clothing used for her lyings in.
In chapter 5, Earenfight covers the period from 1520 to 1529, when Catherine was still fully accepted as queen consort but had lost influence over Henry. Material traces that Earenfight touches on include her analysis of a portrait from this period, which she reads as presenting a more “tight-lipped” Catherine (128). Perhaps more than most biographers, Earenfight notes how Catherine focused increasingly on motherhood and on interactions with friends, attendants, and intellectuals during this period. Earenfight also pauses to discuss religious objects associated with Catherine. While much of Earenfight's ensuing discussion of the annulment trial is, inevitably, familiar, she adds a detailed reading of an account of the trial, of three portraits of Catherine painted around this time, and of the under-discussed Interlude of Godly Queen Hester, which is an allegory for Catherine during this period.
In chapter 6, Earenfight covers the years 1530–1536, when Catherine was stripped of her identity as queen. As have other biographers, but with added attention to resistance as a form of power, Earenfight focuses on how Catherine turned to letter writing as a means of gaining agency. While few traces of Catherine's material life survive from this period, the last section of the chapter—in which Earenfight describes Catherine's burial and funeral—is an important reading of the materialities associated with her death. In the final chapter, Earenfight recaps her central argument, contextualizing it with relatively recent scholarly emphasis on the political agency of queens consort.
As with any significant scholarly book, there are areas that could have been clearer or more comprehensive. It would have been helpful to clarify the overall arc of each chapter with an initial overview of the main events, materialities, and people to be covered. Surprisingly, Earenfight does not provide any description and analysis of materialities inherent in Catherine's letters, such as her handwriting and use of significant spacing. Finally, Earenfight often tends to present only one source per footnote, even if multiple scholars have commented on this same event.
But these areas of weakness are more than counterbalanced by Earenfight's engaging writing style, significant research, multidisciplinary scholarly readings, and invaluable attention to the large number of material objects associated with Catherine that have not previously been fully researched and discussed. The many illustrations included in the volume, along with a detailed timeline at the end of each chapter, add even more depth and persuasiveness to an important scholarly contribution to Tudor history, gender studies, and studies of material culture—appealing equally to scholars, students, and general readers.
