in November to incriminate the queen in
connexion with Elizabeth Barton failed. She passed her life now in
religious devotions, taking strict precautions against the possibility
of being poisoned. On the 23rd of March 1534 the pope pronounced her
marriage valid, but by this time England had thrown off the papal
jurisdiction, the parliament had transferred Catherine's jointure to
Anne Boleyn, and the decree had no effect on Catherine's fortunes. She
refused to swear to the new act of succession, which declared her
marriage null and Anne's infant the heir to the throne, and soon
afterwards she was removed to Kimbolton, where she was well treated. On
the 21st of May she was visited by the archbishop of York and Tunstall,
bishop of Durham, who threatened her with death if she persisted in her
refusal, but only succeeded in confirming her resolution. She was kept
in strict seclusion, separated from Mary and from all outside
communications, and in December 1535 her health gave way, her death
taking place on the 8th of January 1536, not without suspicions of
poison, which, however, may be dismissed. She was buried by the king's
order in Peterborough cathedral. Before her death she dictated a last
letter to Henry, according to Polydore Vergil, expressing her
forgiveness, begging his good offices for Mary, and concluding with the
astounding assurance--"I vow that mine eyes desire you above all
things." The king himself affected no sorrow at her death, and thanked
God there was now no fear of war.

Catherine is described as "rather ugly than otherwise; of low stature
and rather stout; very good and very religious; speaks Spanish, French,
Flemish, English; more beloved by the islanders than any queen that has
ever reigned." She was a woman of considerable education and culture,
her scholarship and knowledge of the Bible being noted by Erasmus, who
dedicated to her his book on _Christian Matrimony_ in 1526. She endured
her bitter and undeserved misfortunes with extraordinary courage and
resolution, and at the same time with great womanly forbearance, of
which a striking instance was the compassion shown by her for the fallen
Wolsey.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See the article in _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ by J.
Gairdner, and those on Henry VIII. and Wolsey, where the case is
summed up very adversely to Henry, and _The Divorce of Catherine of
Aragon_, by J.A. Froude (1891), where it is regarded from the contrary
aspect; _Henry VIII._, by