ABSTRACT
Neither Catherine of Aragon nor Mary Tudor needs much introduction to scholars of early modern England. Born in 1485 to Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, and later an official Spanish ambassador to the court of Henry VII, Catherine of Aragon’s stubborn and principled refusal to accept any dissolution or diminution of her marriage to Henry VIII was in some sense responsible for the Reformation in England. Catherine’s ill health provided a convenient excuse for Henry VII to curry her favour by offering her ‘the Fulham house reserved for the Flemish ambassador or any other place she needed to recover from illness’. Catherine’s resistance and protest also took advantage of the symbolic and practical opportunities afforded by significance of food. The physical language of Catherine’s letter illustrates the importance of the body in both healing and communication: her physical iconography signals her desperation.
