Can I just express my annoyance with historians who like, love to point out that Katherine of Aragon had put on weight later in the marriage?? As if they’re saying “she’d gotten so F A T how could Henry be expected to love her now”??? I mean most of them mention how she went through numerous pregnancies and a lot of stress, but idk it tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth…

Oh for sure… I mean, even if she hadn’t had several pregnancies, that like…still happens? Our metabolisms slow as we age, so people tend to put on weight later in life. The same thing happened to Henry, too, even before the significant leg injuries; we can tell by the increasing measurements of his armour. 

There’s a lot of fatphobic…tones, at the very least, by a lot of historians, if not an outright fatphobic rhetoric/commentary. Starkey’s speech for the five-hundred-year mark of Henry VIII’s included fatphobic remarks about COA (comparing her to Queen Victoria and making snide remarks about her weight as well) that I particularly did not care for.  

Tbh, they can all spare me with the ‘he had totally fell out of love/devotion with her’ when they mark it as far earlier than it realistically was. He literally nearly caused an international incident that ambassadors had to smooth over (#Beardgate) in 1520 because she told him to shave. If he was ~repulsed~ by the inevitable weight gain of six previous pregnancies, then how exactly was she pregnant in 1518? Magic?