the first wife of Henry VIII of England to whom she was married in 1509. She bore him a daughter, the future Mary I, but no male heir survived; the importance of the Spanish alliance diminished, and by 1527 Henry, infatuated with Anne Boleyn, sought a papal annulment, claiming that Catherine’s marriage in 1501 to his elder brother Arthur rendered his own marriage invalid. The pope was uncooperative, so Cranmer annulled the king’s marriage in 1533. Thereafter Catherine lived in seclusion in England.