Queen Katherine Of Aragon – Old And Deformed Wife Of Henry VIII?

Queen Katherine Of Aragon – Old And Deformed Wife Of Henry VIII?

In 1519, the French King Francis I quipped that Henry VIII had “an old deformed wife, while he himself is young and handsome”. It is generally assumed that the French King was referring to Katharine’s corpulent figure - several years later one eyewitness described her as “of low stature” and “rather stout”. Yet there is evidence that King Francis was referring not only to Katharine’s bulky figure but also to a deformity of her jaw—a deformity th…