Name: Arthur Tudor
Date of Birth/Date of Death: 20 September 1486 - 31 December 1536
Title(s): Prince of Wales (20 September 1490 - 21 April 1509) | King of England (21 April 1509 - 31 December 1536)
Parents: Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York
Spouse (if any): Katherine of Aragon
Children (if any): Mary (18 January 1505 - 22 September 1508), Arthur (24 June 1506 - 7 October 1508), Henry VIII of England (3 November 1507 - 15 May 1571), Isabella (12 February 1510 - 19 March 1567), Joan (27 July 1515 - 4 April 1577)
Biography: The firstborn son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Arthur was raised from birth as the living embodiment of the union between the houses of York and Lancaster, and the heir to a united England. With the Cousins' War still within living memory, Arthur was a very popular figure just by existing. No one had any desire to return to the horrors of civil war. In 1501, Arthur married Katherine of Aragon, the daughter of the Catholic Kings. They spent the remaining years of Henry VII's reign at Ludlow, and besides a scare in late March 1502, when Arthur contracted a high fever, their time there passed peacefully enough. Their first two children, Mary (b. 18 January 1505) and Arthur (b. 24 June 1506), were also born at Ludlow. Unfortunately, this happy period came to an abrupt end when both children died there in late 1508 while Arthur and Katherine were in London with the royal court. Their third child, Henry (b. 3 November 1507), had been born in England and was residing in a separate nursery, and thus survived the illness that killed his older siblings.
Henry VII died in 1509, catapaulting Arthur to the throne at the age of twenty-three. Before his acension, he and his wife, Katherine, were often remarked to be quite close to one another, acting like young lovers together. However, when Arthur became king, they seemed to hit a series of disagreements. As much as Katherine had come to love her new country, she still saw herself very much as an ambassador for the country of her birth, and for her father, Ferdinand II of Aragon. However, she found herself now taking an opposing view from her husband when she urged him to ally with her father in going to war against France, something Arthur had little desire to do. Much like his father, Arthur viewed an offensive against France to attempt to regain the lost territories taken by such worthies as Henry V as a waste of resources, and much as he cared for his wife, he had little trust for her father, who still had yet to pay the remainder of Katherine's dowry. To add to that, he not only argued with Katherine on the subject, but also his younger brother, Henry, Duke of York, who, given that he was falling increasingly further down the succession with every child Arthur and Katherine had, wished to gain fame and fortune by winning his spurs on the field of battle. Nonetheless, Arthur held his ground, and the English armies remained within their own territories, though he did much to bolster the defenses of Calais. It was only the first in a long line of disagreements that would follow.
Arthur's reign also saw the rise of Protestantism in Europe. Arthur himself was a devoted Catholic, if not as fanatic as his wife, but he also disapproved of the rampant corruption that ran through the Church hierarchy, as pointed out by Martin Luther and his followers. As a result, when many monarchs were persecuting the Protestants, Arthur chose instead to open a dialogue with them. He even authorized the investigation of the doings of the English churches and monasteries, seeking to root out corruption. This earned him repeated rebukes from the Pope, but Arthur maintained a tight grip on the investigations, and was careful only to censure those who were not adhering to their vows of chastity and poverty, and used their position against the best interests of their flock. Several men involved in the investigations were also reprimanded and removed by Arthur when they attempted to lie in their reports and confiscate the churches' treasures. In the end, England remained a nominally Catholic nation, but was also home to many Protestants. Arthur's successor, his son, Henry VIII, would go still further in his father's work.
The later years of Arthur's reign were consumed by familial issues. His younger brother, who had never entered the Church as their father and grandmother had intended for him, had passed his time with a variety of mistresses, but in 1523, Henry fell into conflict with young Henry Percy, the son of the Earl of Northumberland, over the affections of a young courtier in the Queen's service, Mistress Anne Boleyn. The young woman preferred the attentions of young Percy, and made no secret of her lack of interest in the Duke of York, who had previously kept her sister as a mistress. Percy's father, however, refused to support the match between his son and the daughter of a mere knight and ambassador, having already arranged a marriage for his heir and the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The conflict was quickly broken up and Percy married to the woman his father intended for him, while Mistress Anne was married to her cousin, the Earl of Ormonde. Contemporary sources all indicate that words were had between the Duke of York and the King, ranging from the Duke shouting that the King was determined to ruin his life wherever he could to the King threatening the Duke with Tower, the latter being thought of as the more unlikely of the two given Arthur's more subtle nature. In any case, Arthur eventually married his brother to Mary of Guise in 1530, who bore him two legitimate children to go with the half-dozen bastards Henry had had with his various mistresses.
By the 1530s, Arthur was as busy as ever. The investigation of the church officials continued, and he was becoming a grandfather, having married his three surviving children, Henry, Isabella, and Joan, to various royal houses throughout Europe. His son he had married to the eldest surviving daughter of Francis I of France, the Princess Charlotte, while Isabella was married to Christian III of Denmark and Joan to Sigismund II Augustus of Poland. By 1536, he had six grandchildren, two from Henry, three from Isabella, and one from Joan. These marriages had either placed those of Tudor blood on other thrones in Europe or had gathered valuable royal blood to add to the throne of England.
Arthur died 31 December 1536, less than a year after Katherine. He was survived by all three of his children, as well as his younger brother, Henry, Duke of York, and two of his sisters, Margaret and Mary.
