Yet, even if King Henry accepted this proposal, the marriage would not be a simple matter, as Don Rodrigo then explained.
"Life can become very complicated at times, can it not?" said Don Rodrigo with a sigh. "I speak to you now as one who has been trained in church law, and I will speak frankly, as I know your parents would wish. In the eyes of the church, you and Prince Arthur were married with all due ceremony. I and many others were witnesses to that. What only God has witnessed, however, is the consummation of that marriage—if indeed it was consummated?"
Don Rodrigo peered at me from beneath wild black brows arched like drawn bows. My face burning, I lowered my eyes and studied the tips of my ten fingers. I was unable to speak to him openly as I had to the queen.
The question hung unanswered. After a silence he continued unhurriedly, "If you were to be carrying Arthur's child, and if that child were to be a son, that is another matter. King Henry has refused to declare young Henry the new prince of Wales until he is absolutely certain that you will not provide an heir."
"I am not carrying a child," I replied. I had been asked that question by so many that, though it distressed me, I was able to answer forthrightly.
"Ah," said Don Rodrigo, stroking his greasy beard. "Then let me explain further: There is a biblical injunction that prohibits a man from marrying his brothers widow. A papal dispensation would have to be obtained in order for you to marry the duke of York."
I raised my eyes to meet his jet-black ones. "When my sister Isabel died, her widower married my other sister, Maria. Is it not a similar thing?" I asked.
Don Rodrigo smiled, exposing long, yellow teeth. "Very similar. And in either case, it is the pope's decision in the matter." He squinted narrowly at me. "Pardon my seeming indelicacy, my lady princess, but these are important matters that will determine your future. Doña Elvira insists that your union was unconsummated. But Padre Alessandro insists that you and Prince Arthur lived as man and wife and that your husband sought your bed on numerous occasions. Whom am I to believe? Only you know the truth of the matter, my lady."
"Padre Alessandro said that?" I stared at Don Rodrigo in dismay, my face flushed with shame. Gathering my skirts, I fled weeping from the chamber while the ambassador stammered apologies. In my flight I nearly collided with Doña Elvira.
"What is it, Catalina?" she cried. She half carried, half dragged me to a private alcove. "Now tell me!" she commanded, gripping my hands tightly.
Still sobbing, I repeated the questions Don Rodrigo had put to me. "He claims to have heard these things from Padre Alessandro, and he has already written to warn my parents that a marriage with the duke of York might require the pope to intervene. Doña Elvira, how could my confessor have said such things? Surely Padre Alessandro knows the truth of the matter, as do you! I am still a virgin!"
"¡Ese embustero!" snarled Doña Elvira, her rage building. "That liar! Padre Alessandro is not fit to hear the confessions of a maiden as pure as she was on the day of her birth into this sinful world! And as for that boot-licking ambassador, I have always despised Rodrigo Gonzales de Puebla." Un grosero malcriado, she called him—an ill-mannered churl.
My duenna led me to my chambers and left me in the care of my ladies while she hurried off to berate Don Rodrigo and to demand his apology and his promise to write the truth of the matter to my parents.
Weeks later, after the ambassador had offered more apologies and sent off the letter, I received a brief note from my mother. "You have been ill served by Padre Alessandro, and he is being ordered to return at once to Spain."
Though I was angry that the priest had made false claims, I was also desolate. Padre Alessandro had been my tutor when I was a young girl, and he had been my chaplain since my arrival in England. But why had my confessor, whom I trusted, twisted my words and found meaning in them that I had not intended—and then passed on this so-called information to others?
On the occasion of my last meeting with Padre Alessandro, we both wept. "I meant only to help you, Catalina," he explained in a breaking voice. "By making clear that you were Arthur's wife in more than name only, I sought to prove you deserving of the honor due his widow as well as the revenues to which you are entitled. Instead, it appears that I have done you harm."
That same day the priest was gone. I was left with the detestable ambassador, Don Rodrigo; and Doña Elvira, who now watched over me more fiercely than ever.
CHAPTER 9
Another Death, Another Betrothal
Eltham Palace, September 1502
There had been times when Henry envied his older brother, who was always the center of attention. There had been times when Henry longed to be in Arthur's place but had to be content with being a duke. Second place scarcely counted.
Now Arthur was dead, and the world had changed. Suddenly everyone—especially his father—was watching him, hovering over Henry in ways he found oppressive. Why could they not simply leave him alone? Especially his father!
"Because, my lord," Brandon reminded him, "everything possible must be done to assure the well-being of England's future king."
"Then why has my father not proclaimed me prince of Wales?" Henry asked. "Arthur has been dead for five months now." He picked up a stone and hurled it as far as he could. Brandon picked up a stone and hurled it even farther.
"The king believes it possible that your sister-in-law is carrying Arthur's child," Brandon explained. "That child would then become your brother's heir, not you."
"But I have heard that she is not," Henry argued.
"In these matters, one must be absolutely certain. The king believes that he must wait until your brother has been dead for ten months."
"Ten? I thought it was nine."
"To be sure, my lord."
And so they waited. Henry had always been restive, and waiting made him peevish.
Then came the startling revelation that Henry's mother, the queen, was herself carrying a child. In September, when it was announced that the infant had quickened in the queen's womb, the king ordered Te Deums to be sung in joyous thanksgiving in churches throughout England. Everyone prayed that the child would be a son.
While others rejoiced, Henry's older sister, Margaret, worried. "Our mother is too old to safely bear another child," she told Henry. That frightened him, for he adored his mother as much as he feared his father.
There was yet another revelation.
The king had taken Henry for a day of hunting in Buckingham's deer park. They had spoken little until they rode toward the lodge at sunset. Without prelude the king said, "You may soon become betrothed to the princess of Wales. The king and queen of Spain have informed me that they expect their widowed daughter to be betrothed to the heir to the English throne as soon as possible. I have not yet decided."
Betrothed to Catherine? Lately Henry had heard rumors—mostly from Brandon—that the king was considering any number of European princesses with whose families he wished to contract a useful alliance. The possibility of marrying his widowed sister-in-law had never been mentioned, but now that his father had put forth the plan, Henry decided that he liked it. The princess was certainly well favored, with a fine complexion and that wonderful mass of shining auburn hair that hung nearly to her waist. Besides, she seemed so intelligent—unlike the simpering, empty-headed ladies in his mother's court. Not that his father had asked his opinion.
He wondered what Arthur would think of his younger brother marrying his wife, besting him yet again.
Henry inclined his head. "As you wish, my lord."
The hunting party had reached the lodge, and nothing more was said. Later, though, Henry asked Brandon what he thought of the matter.
"My guess," Brandon ventured, "is that the king will betroth you to Princess Catherine. Otherwise, he might find that he has to return her and her dowry to Spain."
Whatever his father decided, Henry hoped the princess would remain in England. Whether they wed or not, he wanted Catherine as his friend. T
hat, he was certain, would have pleased Arthur as much as it pleased him.
THE PLEASANT EARLY DAYS OF AUTUMN 1502 GAVE WAY to blustering chill and dampness. My life was as bleakly gray as the weather. I was invited nowhere and saw no one but Doña Elvira and the members of my little Spanish court. King Henry seemed to have forgotten me, though the queen occasionally sent me small gifts—a book she thought I might enjoy, a collar for Payaso. Don Rodrigo informed me that the negotiations for my marriage to young Henry remained stalled over issues of my dowry.
My health worsened. One day, as I lay suffering from a derangement of the stomach, my page announced the arrival of an envoy from my parents, the duke of Estrada. The duke was from one of Spain's oldest noble families, known to be loyal and trustworthy, but puffed up with self-importance and pompous in the extreme. I was forced to rouse myself from my bed to receive him.
Stroking his luxuriant mustaches, the duke delivered a long speech, choked with flowery phrases, informing me that my father had ordered him to prepare a ship to carry me and my retinue back to Spain.
"The ship already lies at anchor in the River Thames, my esteemed princess. Their Catholic majesties desire that you and the members of your court begin packing."
"Is it true?" I cried, my physical discomfort suddenly disappearing. "Swear to me that it is true!"
"Alas, no, my lady, it is not true," the duke confessed, his mustaches drooping forlornly. "But it must appear to be true."
My eyes filled with tears of disappointment. "Please explain this," I said miserably. "And, I beg you, do not disappoint me like this again."
"It is meant as a threat, my lady. King Ferdinand has not paid the second portion of your dowry since Arthur's death. If King Henry expects to collect that second portion and keep the first, then he must agree to a betrothal between you and his second son."
Now I understood that the sight of a ship lying ready to take me back to Spain was intended to force King Henry's hand. I had been in England long enough to know that the king would not willingly let 200, 000 escudos escape from his treasury. And so, having no choice but to go through the pretense, I ordered my wooden chests to be brought from storage and a few items placed in them. Apparently the ploy was successful. Within days King Henry sent word that negotiations would begin on a new marriage contract. I quietly unpacked again, and the waiting ship disappeared from the Thames.
I consoled myself with the knowledge that, even if I had been allowed to return to Spain, it would have been for only a short time until my parents dispatched me to a new marriage. Perhaps, I thought, a future marriage to Henry could work out very well. I liked him. I believed we would be friends.
But still no money arrived for my household. Since Arthur's death my father had not sent any money for my expenses, and I had nothing with which to pay my servants or to support the members of my court. I learned from Don Rodrigo that Spain's engagement in a war in Italy had drained the royal treasury and that even he had not received his ambassador's salary in over a year.
Surely, I thought, my father would not allow me to live in penury. My ladies and I repaired our threadbare gowns as best we could, though there were few reasons to do so. I was not invited to any events at court—in part because I was still officially in mourning. My duenna believed it her duty to keep me in seclusion. My seventeenth birthday was a poor affair, for there was no money to order a banquet. My minstrels played and Santiago and Urraca performed new tricks, but nothing cheered me. With a heavy heart I remembered the previous year when I was Arthur's bride and every imaginable dish had been presented at our banquet table at Bewdley.
Yuletide also found little celebration at Durham. On the twenty-sixth of December, the feast of Saint Stephen, Arthur's sisters, Mary and Margaret, along with Henry, came to deliver Yuletide greetings. I had looked forward to their visit and had a small token for each of them: embroidered ribbons to mark the place in their missals. But their talk was all about the Yuletide merrymaking they had enjoyed at Richmond, the great feast that had taken place in observance of Margaret's thirteenth birthday, and the plans being made for Twelfth Night. I had no part in any of it. In the end their visit left me feeling more disconsolate than ever.
There was another reason for my gloom: Henry was now a half year short of his twelfth birthday. Because a betrothal seemed likely, I did hope that we could become better acquainted. But Doña Elvira refused to allow it, insisting that we must not spend time together at all, even in the company of his sisters and all of my ladies. "I permitted it at Dogmersfield. I shall not permit it again. We cannot allow even a hint of impropriety to besmirch your spotless reputation."
One day we received word that the young Tudors were on their way to Durham. When Doña Elvira saw that I meant to defy her and welcome them, she took the precaution of locking me in my chamber and sent word that I was unable to receive visitors. Francesca found a key and unlocked the door, but it was too late. The Tudors had gone. I was so distressed and angry that I refused to speak to my duenna for more than a week.
My anger deepened at Doña Elvira's ironfisted rule, but I believed I had no way to loosen her grip without help. Everyone feared her. All I could do, for now, was to observe this boy, with his increasing good looks and high spirits, and to steal glances at him out of the corner of my eye whenever we happened to be at mass or some large public occasion. And I wondered what he might be thinking about me.
In January the court moved to the Tower of London, and there, on the second of February, Queen Elizabeth was delivered of her eighth child—not the hoped-for son, but another daughter. Nine days later, on her thirty-sixth birthday, the queen was dead of childbed fever. Her infant daughter, christened Catherine in honor of the queen's sister, lived only a few days more. Once again the royal family was plunged into deepest sorrow, and I with them, for I had lost my protector and friend.
The death watch over the queen's body had not yet ended when King Henry summoned me to his chambers. I knelt three times as I approached him, and when the king raised me up I saw that he had become an old man. It was as though he had shrunken to a poor copy of the vigorous man I had first met at Dogmersfield only sixteen months earlier. His shrewd eyes swept over me, as they had at that first meeting, but now they seemed haunted, nearly lifeless.
He wasted no time with an exchange of polite phrases. "Ten months have passed since the death of Prince Arthur. Is it true then, madam, as you claim, that you are not carrying Arthur's child, and that you will not provide the kingdom with his heir?"
"What you say is true, my lord," I answered.
He made no reply, merely sighing deeply and dismissing me with a wave of his bony hand before he turned away.
A few days later on the eighteenth of February, 1503, I attended a grimly formal ceremony in which Henry, duke of York, was created prince of Wales. Befitting the occasion Henry was more serious and subdued than I had ever seen him. Only once in the course of the long ritual did he glance in my direction, but I was heavily veiled in black, and he could not read the message my eyes held for him: I shall be your friend.
Scarcely a month after that somber occasion, Maria de Salinas flew into my chambers with the latest court rumor. Maria was being courted by the duke of Derby, a grandson of the king's stepfather, and so was privy to much gossip. "Catalina, imagine this," she whispered excitedly. "King Henry is in search of a new wife!"
I was mending some table linens that had fallen into disrepair. "So soon?" I bit off the end of a thread. "The good queen has been dead for little more than a month."
"The king believes that he must tend to this matter immediately. He fears that some disaster might befall the new prince of Wales, as it did Arthur, and he will be left with only daughters. A new wife might produce yet another son for him."
I was not much surprised that King Henry wished to marry. I understood his concerns, for the death of my brother had left my parents without a male heir. But I gave no further thought to the king's predicament until
the duke of Estrada strutted into my chambers puffed and preening with his own importance.
"What now, good sir," I gibed, "another order to begin imaginary packing for yet another phantom ship?"
But the duke saw no humor in my little jest and began one of his lengthy speeches. At last he reached his point: "King Henry the Seventh has informed me that he wishes to marry you, my lady princess."
I was shocked speechless. A look of horror must have crossed my face. I could not imagine myself wed to a man thirty years older than I, his teeth already blackened, his eyes rheumy, his skin like old parchment. I, marry King Henry ?
"Does my mother, the queen, know?" I asked in a voice quavering with distress when I was again able to speak.
"She knows, madam. And she has refused to entertain his suit. The queen has said she would rather return you to Spain than allow such a marriage."
I nearly fainted with relief.
But it was the ambassador, Don Rodrigo, who supplied the practical details that the more refined duke had omitted: "The marriage would not be useful to Spain. Your sons would be in line for the throne after the new prince of Wales. You would have little power or influence over either the present or the future king. That power and influence is naturally what your parents require of your marriage."
I sat with bowed head, listening to his blunt but honest words. Whatever my mother's reasons, I was deeply grateful.
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