Touched on this earlier; definitely disagree.

Some of that was circumstantial (KOA having not had a living son, JS dying shortly after having one), and some of it was definitely due to his own like…issues (to say the least, lol), but I don’t think those issues were closely linked with “oh, my wife doesn’t remind me enough of my mother, we’re cancelling that right away”. 

And so many similarities are more likely incidental than anything else, imo? ‘Oh, EoY and KoA were both considered beauties by the standards of the day’, I mean…not entirely out of the ordinary for a king to wish to marry a beauty by the standards of his time? And they weren’t super similar beyond that; KOA was more politically involved (and had been an ambassador) than EoY I’d say. 

Anne Boleyn wasn’t considered a beauty by those standards; and the way she’s described makes her sound like she didn’t look much like EoY did, either: “of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised[…] eyes which are black and beautiful”. 

And idea put forth by Russell (not the EoY part, but kind of ties into this rhetoric sideways– JS was his ‘favorite’ because he reminded him the most of EoY’s model of queenship) that’s used to support this is pretty weak also. 

I.e., Henry didn’t want a politically involved wife, and “Anne becomes Catherine” (Tudors pushed this narrative also):

“A similar pattern had been played out with the King’s first marriage when, for the first four years, Henry had revelled in Katherine of Aragon’s role as Spain’s de facto ambassador to London, but then, after 1513 – perhaps upset at her success as Regent during his absence – he accused Katherine of duplicity and set about deliberately sidelining her from politics.”

What is the basis for this comment about ‘sidelining’? Or jealousy, for that matter? 

In 1520, a French ambassador said KOA had made more representation than he’d expect from a Queen Consort, “as one would not have supposed she would have dared to so, on this account she is held in greater esteem by the king and council than she ever was.”

In 1534, Anne Boleyn was described as “[having] the name to be as a mediatrix between your Grace and high justice.’ 

There weren’t ever, to my knowledge, similar comments made about EoY, and I think KOA likely serves as the best example against this idea because that was his longest marriage.