'The Spanish Princess': Why the Story of Catherine of Aragon at Flodden Matters

The second episode of The Spanish Princess Season 2 showed viewers a little known but truly impressive aspect of Catherine of Aragon's reign: The moment she commanded an army.

With King Henry VIII off to fight the French, his wife Catherine is officially left as Regent of England. It is, according to all accounts, a role she apparently greatly enjoyed and was quite good at. But while Henry is away, King James IV of Scotland takes the opportunity to invade England's northern border, despite the fact that he had married English princess Margaret Tudor a decade earlier in the hopes of making lasting peace between the two nations.  And so it is Catherine who must ride north to meet him.

In The Spanish Princess' version of these events, a heavily pregnant Catherine dons armor that's been specially made to accommodate her childbearing figure and literally rides onto the battlefield to inspire and encourage her men. In real life, that didn't happen, but it is true that the queen played a substantial and key role in the defeat of the Scottish army at the Battle of Flodden.