MS817/2/30
Henry VIII was anxious for a male heir to secure the Tudor dynasty, begun just one generation earlier with his father’s victory over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth (1485). Following her marriage to Henry in 1509, Katherine of Aragon fell pregnant seven times, but was beset by misfortune: miscarriage, still-birth (including the couple’s oldest child, a daughter born in 1510), and early deaths, such that only Mary Tudor (b. 1516) survived to adulthood. This roll commemorates celebrations following the birth of their oldest son, Prince Henry, Duke of Cornwall, on 1 January 1511: bonfires, processions, and the distribution of free wine in the City of London preceded a great tournament at Westminster in Katherine‘s honour. Henry as ‘Cueur Loyal’ (‘Sir Loyal Heart’) participated as a challenger, watched by Katherine. Celebrations terminated abruptly with the baby’s death on 22 February, aged 52 days. Katherine’s ultimate failure to produce the desired son resulted in Henry‘s wish to annul what had begun as a very loving marriage and ultimately to join the Reformation. This is a nineteenth-century reduced copy of the roll held by the College of Arms, which measures about sixty feet by 14 ¾ inches (37 cm).