He was the hope of England, born to bring the country to a new Golden Age.
Arthur Tudor was the Prince of Wales, and the oldest son of King Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York. Henry hoped to strengthen his claim to England by tying his lineage back to the ancient British Kings, and his genealogists had traced his ancestors back to King Arthur. Winchester was identified as being the site of the ancient Camelot. Of course, when the birth Henry’s first son was imminent, he moved his entire court there.
It was a gamble. Henry didn’t know that the child would be male; in fact, he didn’t even know that he would be born alive. But all worked out: the baby was a boy, and apparently a healthy one. That alone was cause enough for great rejoicing in a country that had suffered enough from civil wars. The boy was named Arthur, in memory of his legendary ancestor.
According to all the reports of the time, Arthur was a healthy child. At the age of two, he was betrothed to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. At the age of three, he was created the Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the English throne. He was carefully educated for the role, and apparently was a studious and thoughtful student.
When Arthur was 15, he finally met his wife-to-be, although the pair had corresponded by letters for years. On November 14th, 1501, the couple was married, and put to bed by the entire court. What happened on the marriage night has been a subject of conjecture for centuries.
The following March, Arthur fell ill. By all contemporary reports, he had contracted the dread “sweating sickness” that plagued Europe in those days. Catherine also fell ill, but she recovered. Arthur died on April 2nd, 1502.
The matter of the disease that killed Arthur is a fascinating subject. In modern times, the disease has been variously identified as tuberculosis, pneumonia, or the plague. Physicians at that time were aware of all those diseases, however, and contemporary records indicate that the “Sweate Sickness” came suddenly to England, in about 1485, and vanished entirely after its last outbreak in 1551.
Some believe that the disease may have come to England with Henry VII’s French mercenary soldiers, but the spread of the disease argues that it traveled to continental Europe from England. In most cases, the stricken would die within hours. Those few who survived would be ill for about 24 hours, and then recover over the course of a week.
The afflicted would shiver violently, sweat profusely, and have severe headaches, body pain, and delirium. During the later stages they would want to sleep; if sleep was indulged, it was believed that they would die. The disease was unusual in that it showed a tendency to take strong, healthy young men, between the ages of 15 and 45, and, unlike most diseases, showed a preference for the wealthy.
Even today, we don’t know what caused sweating sickness. The usual culprits — poor hygiene, sewage, and contaminated drinking water — may have played a part. Relapsing fever, a disease spread by ticks and lice, has been suggested, since the disease was most prevalent during the summer months. However, relapsing fever is marked by a black scab at the place where the victim was bitten, and no reports of sweating sickness indicate such a scab. Some modern researchers believe that it may have been a hantavirus.
After a suitable interval — to make sure that Catherine was not pregnant — Arthur’s younger brother, Henry, was made Prince of Wales and heir to the throne. Henry, who had been educated for the Church and not for the Throne, certainly made his own mark on history as King Henry VIII. He took, for his first wife, his brother’s widow. The question of whether or not Arthur and Catherine had ever consummated their marriage would become a vital one, first, when Henry wanted a papal dispensation to marry her, and later, when he wished a divorce.
Sources: Chase’s Calendar of Events, 2011 Edition: The Ultimate Go-To Guide for Special Days, Weeks, and Months, Editors of Chase’s Calendar of Events; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September 20; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur,_Prince_of_Wales; http://englishhistory.net/tudor/darthur.html; http://tudorhistory.org/people/arthur/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hantavirus; http://www.pbs.org/opb/intimatestrangers/friends/sweate.html; http://www.csuchico.edu/geop/Flash%20Gallery/Pittman.swf; http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3874/is_200101/ai_n8939673/?tag=mantle_skin;content; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1043971/?page=1.