Thread by @History_Lauren

I'm really glad that @STARZ #SpanishPrincess has brought #Catalina, Catherine of Aragon's Moorish attendant, into popular awareness, But in the service of this fascinating story, it has melded *two* different historical women.
So here's the truth about Catalina...

The woman responsible for "secret services" in Catherine of Aragon's bedchamber, who was reported to be "well informed" of whether Catherine's marriage to Arthur #Tudor was consummated or not was #Catalina of Motril, an enslaved woman from Granada...

Catalina was in Catherine's service by 1501 at the latest, but may have been there earlier as there is a payment for an (unnamed) 'esclava' in the princess's household ten years before.
'Catalina' may not have been her original name...

The woman we now know as Catalina was born in Motril, almost certainly during the time it was a Mulsim emirate. It is likely she was enslaved during the 'Reconquista' of Granada by Catherine of Aragon's parents, 'the Catholic Monarchs - and then rebaptised Christian.

Catalina was probably a similar age to her mistress #SpanishPrincess Catherine of Aragon because in 1501 Thomas More referred to 'pygmy Ethiopians' in the princess's entourage - this unpleasant rhetorical flourish in fact referring to Catalina, a young black woman.

That being so, Catalina was probably given her mistress's name (Catherine of Aragon was called 'la infanta Catlina' in Spanish accounts) when she was baptised and brought into the Spanish royal household.

Catalina's tasks as Princess Catherine's servant included ‘making the bed & attend[ing] to other secret services of Her Highness’s chamber’. She thus had direct contact with the linens & would have seen evidence of whether Catherine's marriage to Arthur was consummated...

Not only did Catalina attend Catherine on her marriage to Prince Arthur - she was ALSO there in 1509 when Catherine remarried Henry VIII!
(A Spanish account claimed that Catalina was "present the first
time the Queen and Henry were united as one". Ooh er...)

At some point before 1529, Catalina left England and returned to Granada - she married a Moorish crossbowman called Oviedo and had two daughters before her husband's death. She lived for some time in Malaga, then went home to Motril...

In 1531, as the divorce proceedings of Catherine & Henry consumed Europe & the question of Catherine's virginity in 1509 became pivotal, Spanish authorities sought out #Catalina, who was said to be "well-informed on that score"...

I have found no evidence that Catalina ever gave testimony. Did the Spanish inquisitors find her? Did she refuse to answer? Was she already dead? Or do her words lurk somewhere concealed in a Spanish archive...?

In the C19th a Spanish author confused *this* Catalina with 'Catalina de Cardenas', a highborn Spanish (NOT Granadan) attendant of Catherine of Aragon's. His mistake has been repeated ever since...

But in fact the REAL #Catalina of Motril is way more interesting.

Read more here: historytoday.com/history-matter…

Or in my forthcoming @odnb entry.

Or in #SoGreatAPrince, my history of 1509 (inc. Catalina & other migrants living in England in #Tudor times):
amazon.co.uk/So-Great-Princ…