Arthur, Prince of Wales

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This article is about the son of Henry VII of England. For the third son of Queen Victoria, see Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn.

English Royalty
House of Tudor

Henry VII
Arthur, Prince of Wales
Margaret, Queen of Scots
Henry VIII
Elizabeth Tudor
Mary, Queen of France
Edmund, Duke of Somerset

Arthur Tudor (20 September 1486 St Swithin's Priory, Winchester– 2 April 1502 Ludlow Castle) was the eldest son of Henry VII of England. Henry named his eldest son Arthur after the hero of Arthurian legend, partly as a sign of his hopes for a rebirth of English greatness and partly to emphasise the Tudor family's links to Wales.

Arthur was born to Henry and his queen, Elizabeth of York, at Winchester on 19 September or 20 September 1486, but was never a robust child. The hopes of the newly-established Tudor dynasty were nevertheless pinned on him. He was Duke of Cornwall from birth, and was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 29 November 1489.

The only original surviving portrait of Prince Arthur

At the age of two, a marriage was arranged for Arthur, to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon through the Treaty of Medina del Campo. They were married in November, 1501, and departed for Ludlow on the Welsh border, where Arthur normally resided in his capacity as Prince of Wales and President of the Council of Wales and the Marches. The following spring, he died of a fever, believed at the time to have been caused by the damp weather conditions. Modern speculation as to the cause of death has included tuberculosis, diabetes, and the mysterious English sweating sickness. Medical researchers have recently speculated that this last was due to an outbreak of hantavirus among rodents in Wales.

The question of whether his marriage to Catherine was ever consummated would have a powerful effect on the subsequent history of Britain.

Sir Griffith Ryce was a member of Arthur's household and one of the mourners at his funeral.

Arthur was buried in Worcester Cathedral; the memorial to him, "Prince Arthur's Chantry", was erected in the cathedral in 1504. His younger brother, Henry, inherited his titles, eventually acceding to the throne as King Henry VIII of England. In due course, a papal dispensation was obtained, enabling Henry to marry his brother's widow, Catherine. The grounds cited for their eventual divorce were the circumstances of her previous marriage to Arthur.

Arthur bore a marked resemblance to both his father and his brother, the future Henry VIII, with red hair, small eyes, and the Tudor high-bridged nose.

[edit] Additional reading

Fraser, Antonia, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, ISBN 0-7493-1409-5
"Royal Tutors in the Reign of Henry VII", David Carlson, Sixteenth Century Journal Vol. 22, No. 2 (Summer, 1991), pp. 253-279