Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hi, it's Susan. I think I must be too much of an optimist, because it always surprises me when life gets in the way of the best intentions.

We had intended this to be an episode where we're back and I talk about our summer vacation, where we talk about our trip to London, all the history we saw there,

and the people that we were able to see all those great places with, friends just like you from the other side of the mic.

However, in addition to some very lovely souvenirs, we brought COVID back with us.

Well, I have recuperated. Beckett is still in the throes of the worst of the COVID symptoms.

There's absolutely no way that she could sit and talk into a microphone for the amount of time it would take us to record that episode.

So we're putting that one on the shelf for next time and what we've done instead is taking all of our coverage of the wives of Henry VIII,

six women that we saw parts of their lives on our trip, we talked about a lot, we even saw six musical.

We took all of those episodes, cleaned up the audio as best we could. This is from way back in our early days,

and put them into this one mega episode. So Catherine of Ergonne, Anne Belin, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleaves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr,

all together on this one episode. It is kind of long, but if you think of it like an audiobook, we've broken it into chapters.

So it's actually a very short audiobook. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope that all of you are healthy.

And of course, I know that I speak for all of you when I say, pick it, please get well soon. Rest, do what you must and we'll be waiting.

And now on with the show, Chapter 1, Catherine of Ergonne.

And here's your 30-second summary.

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Or is it St. Witch, Lamy, Sister, Party, and Lucky?

Let's talk about Catherine of Ergonne.

Catherine was born in December 16th, 1485. Her parents were King Ferdinand of Ergonne and his wife Queen Isabella.

Wait, could he harder than before? They're best known for two things. Ferdinand and Isabella are known for backing Columbus's voyage to the New World,

and they're also known for the Spanish Inquisition.

But their story is actually kind of interesting. We'll just take a couple minutes before we get into the life of Catherine because it kind of sets the stage for how she was raised.

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