[Kenny Bunk]

Nana, Henry VIII sired Henry FitzRoy, The Duke of Richmond with Betsey Blount. The boy was hale and hearty until an epidemic of some sort (The Sweats) carried him off. He also sired a fine strong male child with Mary Carey, sister of Anne Boleyn, and a fine healthy daughter, too. (The Careys are still hot stuff in Olde Blighty.) In fact, Mary was a royal mistress before, and apparently during and after the Ann Boleyn deal went down.

So, Since H8 was capable of fathering boy-children who lived, hje actually had some pretty good dynastic reason to dump Catherine of Aragon, or vice versa. One problem was that he had had to get a Papal Dispensation to marry her in the first place. And your Pope, he no lika change-a the deal once-a he gotta da money, capisce? Especially with a bunch of crazy Spaniards trying to burn Rome-town down! He did offer Queen Catherine a way out ... go to a nunnery! IMHO, she shoulda.

These annulments for big-time guys with heir problems were the norm, rather than the exception. I personally think that had H8 not been trying to prove what a brilliant theologian he was, the deal could have been done on the QT ... except for trying to swipe all that monastic property.

Ah well, it all worked out for the best. Those Anglicans have the best Church Jumble Sales! And their service can have enough ceremony, vestments, song, smells, and bells to satisfy any wandering Papist.

[kabumpo]

If Catherine had accepted annulment and gone to a nunnery, her daughter Mary would have been declared a bastard and lost her opportunity to ever marry, and, of course, lost her right to inherit the throne. Catherine was protecting her only child, as any mother of that time would have done.