Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History — Katharine's Widowhood, Part 1

KATHARINE'S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND

The arrival of Katharine in England as his son's affianced wife meant very much for Henry VII.

and his house.

He had already, by a master-stroke of diplomacy, betrothed his eldest daughter to the King of Scots, and was thus safe from French intrigue on his vulnerable northern border, whilst the new King of France was far too apprehensive of Ferdinand's coalition to arouse the active enmity of England.

The presence of Ferdinand's daughter on English soil completed the security against attack upon Henry from abroad.

It is true that the Yorkists and their friends were still plotting: "Solicited, allured and provoked, by that old venomous serpent, the Duchess of Burgundy, ever the sower of sedition and beginner of rebellion against the King of England;"[3] but Henry knew well that with Katharine at his Court he could strike a death-blow, as he soon did, at his domestic enemies, without fear of reprisals from her brother-in-law Philip, the present sovereign of Burgundy and Flanders.

Messengers were sent galloping to London to carry to the King the great news of Katharine's arrival at Plymouth; but the roads were bad, and it was not Henry's way to spoil his market by a show of over-eagerness, and though he sent forward the Duchess of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey to attend upon the Princess on her way towards London, the royal party did not set out from Shene Palace to meet her until the 4th November.

Travelling through a drenching rain by short stages from one seat to another, Henry VII.

and his daughter-in-law gradually approached each other with their splendid troops of followers, all muffled up, we are told, in heavy rain cloaks to shield their finery from the inclemency of an English winter.

Young Arthur, coming from the seat of his government in Wales, met his father near Chertsey, and together they continued their journey towards the west.

On the third day, as they rode over the Hampshire downs, they saw approaching them a group of horsemen, the leader of which dismounted and saluted the King in Latin with a message from Ferdinand and Isabel.

Ladies in Spain were kept in strict seclusion until their marriage, and the messenger, who was the Protonotary Canazares, sent with Katharine to England to see that Spanish etiquette was not violated, prayed in the name of his sovereigns that the Infanta should not be seen by the King, and especially by the bridegroom, until the public marriage was performed.

This was a part of the bargain that the cautious Puebla had not mentioned, and Henry was puzzled at such a request in his own realm, where no such oriental regard for women was known.

Hastily taking counsel of the nobles on horseback about him, he decided that, as the Infanta was in England, she must abide by English customs.

Indeed the demand for seclusion seems to have aroused the King's curiosity, for, putting spurs to his horse, with but a small following, and leaving the boy bridegroom behind, he galloped on to Dogmersfield, at no great distance away, where the Infanta was awaiting his arrival.

When he came to the house in which she lodged, he found a little group of horrified Spanish prelates and nobles, the Archbishop of Santiago, the Bishop of Majorca, and Count Cabra, at the door of the Infanta's apartments, barring entrance.

The Princess had, they said, retired to her chamber and ought not to be disturbed.

There was no restraining a king in his own realm, however, and Henry brushed the group aside.

"Even if she were in bed," he said, "he meant to see and speak with her, for that was the whole intent of his coming."

Finding that Spanish etiquette would not be observed in England, Katharine made the best of matters and received Henry graciously, though evidently her Latin and French were different from his; for they were hardly intelligible to one another.

Then, after the King had changed his travelling garb, he sent word that he had a present for the Princess; and led in the blushing Prince Arthur to the presence of his bride.

The conversation now was more easily conducted, for the Latin-speaking bishops were close by to interpret.

Once more, and for the fourth time, the young couple formally pledged their troth; and then after supper the Spanish minstrels played, and the ladies and gentlemen of Katharine's suite danced: young Arthur, though unable to dance in the Spanish way, trod an English measure with Lady Guildford to show that he was not unversed in courtly graces.

[4] Arthur appears to have been a slight, fair, delicate lad, amiable and gentle, and not so tall as his bride, who was within a month of sixteen years, Arthur being just over fifteen.

Katharine must have had at this time at least the grace of girlhood, though she never can have been a great beauty.

Like most of her mother's house she had pale, rather hard, statuesque features and ruddy hair.

As we trace her history we shall see that most of her mistakes in England, and she made many, were the natural result of the uncompromising rigidity of principle arising from the conviction of divine appointment which formed her mother's system.

She had been brought up in the midst of a crusading war, in which the victors drew their inspiration, and ascribed their triumph, to the special intervention of the Almighty in their favour; and already Katharine's house had assumed as a basis of its family faith that the cause of God was indissolubly linked with that of the sovereigns of Castile and Leon.

It was impossible that a woman brought up in such a school could be opportunist, or would bend to the petty subterfuges and small complaisances by which men are successfully managed; and Katharine suffered through life from the inflexibility born of self-conscious rectitude.

Slowly through the rain the united cavalcades travelled back by Chertsey;

and the Spanish half then rode to Kingston, where the Duke of Buckingham, with four hundred retainers in black and scarlet, met the bride, and so to the palace at Kennington hard by Lambeth, where Katharine was lodged until the sumptuous preparations for the public marriage at St. Paul's were completed.

To give a list of all the splendours that preceded the wedding would be as tedious as it is unnecessary; but a general impression of the festivities as they struck a contemporary will give us a far better idea than a close catalogue of the wonderful things the Princess saw as she rode her white palfrey on the 12th November through Southwark, over London Bridge, and by Cheapside to the Bishop of London's house adjoining St. Paul's. "And, because I will not be tedious to you, I pass over the wise devices, the prudent speeches, the costly works, the cunning portraitures, practised and set forth in seven beautiful pageants erected and set up in divers places of the city.

I leave also the goodaly ballds, the sweet harmony, the musical instruments, which sounded with heavenly noise in every side of the street.

I omit the costly apparel, both of goldsmith's work and embroidery, the rich jewels, the massy chains, the stirring horses, the beautiful bards, and the glittering trappers, both with bells and spangles of gold.

I pretermit also the rich apparel of the Princess, the strange fashion of the Spanish nation, the beauty of the English ladies, the goodly demeanour of the young damosels, the amorous countenance of the lusty bachelors.

I pass over the fine engrained clothes, the costly furs of the citizens, standing upon scaffolds, railed from Gracechurch to St. Paul's. What should I speak of the odoriferous scarlets, and fine velvet and pleasant furs, and rich chains, which the Mayor of London with the Senate, sitting on horseback at the little conduit in Chepe, ware upon their bodies and about their necks.

I will not molest you with rehearsing the rich arras, the costly tapestry, the fine cloths of silver and of gold, the curious velvets and satins, the pleasant silks, which did hang in every street where she passed; the wine that ran out of the conduits, the gravelling and railing of the streets, and all else that needeth not remembring."

[5] In short, we may conclude that Katharine's passage through London before her wedding was as triumphal as the citizens could make it.

Even the common people knew that her presence in England made for security and peace, and her Lancastrian descent from John of Gaunt seemed to add promise of legitimacy to future heirs to the crown.

A long raised gangway of timber handsomely draped ran from the great west door of St. Paul's to the entrance to the choir.

Near the end of the gangway there was erected upon it a high platform, reached by steps on each side, with room on the top for eight persons to stand.

On the north side of the platform sat the King and Queen incognito in a tribune supposed to be private; whilst the corporation of London were ranged on the opposite side.

The day of the ceremony was the 14th November 1501, Sunday and the day of St. Erkenwald, and all London was agog to see the show.

Nobles and knights from every corner of the realm, glittering and flashing in their new finery, had come to do honour to the heir of England and his bride.

Both bride and bridegroom were dressed in white satin, and they stood together, a comely young pair, upon the high scarlet stage to be married for the fifth time, on this occasion by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Then, after mass had been celebrated at the high altar with Archbishops, and mitred prelates by the dozen, a procession was formed to lead the newly married couple to the Bishop of London's palace across the churchyard.

The stately bride, looking older than her years, came first, followed by a hundred ladies; and whilst on her left hand there hobbled the disreputable, crippled old ambassador, Dr. Puebla, the greatest day of whose life this was, on the other side the Princess was led by the most engaging figure in all that vast assembly.

It was that of a graceful little boy of ten years in white velvet and gold; his bearing so gallant and sturdy, his skin so dazzlingly fair, his golden hair so shining, his smile so frank, that a rain of blessings showered upon him as he passed.

This was the bridegroom's brother, Henry, Duke of York, who in gay unconsciousness was leading his own fate by the hand.

Again the details of crowds of lords and ladies in their sumptuous garments, of banquets and dancing, of chivalric jousts and puerile maskings, may be left to the imagination of the reader.

When magnificence at last grew palling, the young bride and bridegroom were escorted to their chamber in the Bishop of London's palace, with the broad suggestiveness then considered proper in all well-conducted weddings, and duly recorded in this case by the courtly chroniclers of the times.

In the morning Arthur called at the door of the nuptial chamber to his attendants for a draught of liquor.

To the bantering question of the chamberlain as to the cause of his unaccustomed thirst, it was not unnatural, considering the free manners of the day, that the Prince should reply in a vein of boyish boastfulness, with a suggestion which was probably untrue regarding the aridity of the Spanish climate and his own prowess as being the causes of his droughtiness.

In any case this indelicate bit of youthful swagger of Arthur's was made, nearly thirty years afterwards, one of the principal pieces of evidence gravely brought forward to prove the illegality of Katharine's marriage with Henry.

On the day following the marriage the King and Queen came in full state to congratulate the newly married pair, and led them to the abode that had been elaborately prepared for them at Baynard's Castle, whose ancient keep frowned over the Thames, below Blackfriars.

On the Thursday following the feast was continued at Westminster with greater magnificence than ever.

In a splendid tribune extending from Westminster Hall right across what is now Parliament Square sat Katharine with all the royal family and the Court, whilst the citizens crowded the stands on the other side of the great space reserved for the tilters.

Invention was exhausted by the greater nobles in the contrivances by which they sought to make their respective entries effective.

One had borne over him a green erection representing a wooded mount, crowded with allegorical animals; another rode under a tent of cloth of gold, and yet another pranced into the lists mounted upon a stage dragon led by a fearsome giant; and so the pageantry that seems to us so trite, and was then considered so exquisite, unrolled itself before the enraptured eyes of the lieges who paid for it all.

How gold plate beyond valuation was piled upon the sideboards at the great banquet after the tilt in Westminster Hall, how Katharine and one of her ladies danced Spanish dances and Arthur led out his aunt Cicely, how masques and devices innumerable were paraded before the hosts and guests, and, above all, how the debonair little Duke of York charmed all hearts by his dancing with his elder sister; and, warming to his work, cast off his coat and footed it in his doublet, cannot be told here, nor the ceremony in which Katharine distributed rich prizes a few days afterwards to the successful tilters.

There was more feasting and mumming at Shene to follow, but at last the celebration wore itself out, and Arthur and his wife settled down for a time to married life in their palace at Baynard's Castle.

King Henry in his letter to the bride's parents, expresses himself as delighted with her "beauty and agreeable and dignified manners," and promises to be to her "a second father, who will ever watch over her, and never allow her to lack anything that he can procure for her."

How he kept his promise we shall see later; but there is no doubt that her marriage with his son was a great relief to him, and enabled him, first to cast his net awide and sweep into its meshes all the gentry of England who might be presumed to wish him ill, and secondly to send Empson and Dudley abroad to wring from the well-to-do classes the last ducat that could be squeezed in order that he might buttress his throne with wealth.

Probably Arthur's letter to Ferdinand and Isabel written at the same time (November 30, 1501) was drafted by other hands than his own, but the terms in which he expresses his satisfaction with his wife are so warm that they doubtless reflect the fact that he really found her pleasant.

"He had never," he assured them, "felt so much joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet face of his bride, and no woman in the world could be more agreeable to him."

[6] The honeymoon was a short, and could hardly have been a merry, one; for Arthur was obviously a weakling, consumptive some chroniclers aver; and the grim old castle by the river was not a lively abode.

Before the marriage feast were well over, Henry's avarice began to make things unpleasant for Katharine.

We have seen how persistent he had been in his demands that the dowry should be paid to him in gold, and how the bride's parents had pressed that the jewels and plate she took with her should be considered as part of the dowry.

On Katharine's wedding the first instalment of 100,000 crowns had been handed to Henry by the Archbishop of Santiago, and there is no doubt that in the negotiations Puebla had, as usual with him, thought to smooth matters by concealing from both sovereigns the inconvenient conditions insisted by each of them.

Henry therefore imagined--he said that he was led to believe it by Puebla--that the jewels and plate were to be surrendered to him on a valuation as part of the second instalment; whereas the bride's parents were allowed to suppose that Katharine would still have the enjoyment of them.

In the middle of December, therefore, Henry sent for Juan de Cuero, Katharine's chamberlain, and demanded the valuables as an instalment of the remaining 100,000 crowns of the dowry.

Cuero, astounded at such a request, replied that it would be his duty to have them weighed and valued and a list given to the King in exchange for a receipt for their value, but that he had not to give them up.

The King, highly irate at what he considered an evasion of his due, pressed his demand, but without avail, and afterwards saw Katharine herself at Baynard's Castle in the presence of Dona Elvira Manuel, her principal lady in waiting.

What was the meaning of it, he asked, as he told her of Cuero's refusal to surrender her valuables in fulfilment of the promise, and further exposed Puebla's double-dealing.

Puebla, it appears, had gone to the King, and had suggested that if his advice was followed the jewels would remain in England, whilst their value would be paid to Henry in money as well.

He had, he assured the King, already gained over Katharine to the plan, which briefly was to allow the Princess to use the jewels and plate for the present, so that when the time came for demanding their surrender her father and mother would be ashamed of her being deprived of them, and would pay their value in money.

Henry explained to Katharine that he was quite shocked at such a dishonest suggestion, which he refused, he said, to entertain.

He had therefore asked for the valuables at once as he saw that there was craft at work, and he would be no party to it.

He acknowledged, however, that the jewels were not due to be delivered until the last payment on account of the dowry had to be made.

It was all Puebla's fault, he assured his daughter-in-law, which was probably true, though it will be observed that the course pursued allowed Henry to assert his eventual claim to the surrender of the jewels, and his many professions of disinterestedness cloaked the crudeness of his demand.

The next day Henry sent for Bishop Ayala, who was Puebla's colleague and bitter enemy, and told him that Prince Arthur must be sent to Wales soon, and that much difference of opinion existed as to whether Katharine should accompany him.

What did Ayala advise?

The Spaniard thought that the Princess should remain with the King and Queen in London for the present, rather than go to Wales where the Prince must necessarily be absent from her a good deal, and she would be lonely.

When Katharine herself was consulted by Henry she would express no decided opinion; and Arthur was worked upon by his father to persuade her to say that she wished to go to Wales.

Finding that Katharine still avoided the expression of an opinion, Henry, with a great show of sorrow, decided that she should accompany Arthur.

Then came the question of the maintenance of the Princess's household.

Puebla had again tried to please every one by saying that Henry would provide a handsome dotation for the purpose, but when Dona Elvira Manuel, on the eve of the journey to Wales, asked the King what provision he was going to make, he feigned the utmost surprise at the question.

He knew nothing about it, he said.

The Prince would of course maintain his wife and her necessary servants, but no special separate grant could be made to the Princess.

When Puebla was brought to book he threw the blame upon the members of Katharine's household, and was publicly rebuked by Henry for his shiftiness.

But the Spaniards believed, probably with reason, that the whole comedy was agreed upon between the King and Puebla to obtain possession of the plate and jewels or their value: the sending of the Princess to Wales being for the purpose of making it necessary that she should use the objects, and so give good grounds for a demand for their value in money on the part of Henry.

In any case Katharine found herself, only five weeks after her marriage, with an unpaid and inharmonious household, dependent entirely upon her husband for her needs, and conscious that an artful trick was in full execution with the object of either depriving her of her personal jewels, and everything of value, with which she had furnished her husband's table as well as her own, or else of extorting a large sum of money from her parents.

Embittered already with such knowledge as this, Katharine rode by her husband's side out of Baynard's Castle on the 21st December 1501 to continue on the long journey to Wales,[7] after passing their Christmas at Oxford.

The plague was rife throughout England, and on the 2nd April 1502 Arthur, Prince of Wales, fell a victim to it at Ludlow.

Here was an unforeseen blow that threatened to deprive both Henry and Ferdinand of the result of their diplomacy.

For Ferdinand the matter was of the utmost importance;

for an approachment of England and Scotland to France would upset the balance of power he had so laboriously constructed, already threatened, as it was, by the prospect that his Flemish son-in-law Philip and his wife would wear the crowns of the Empire, Flanders, and Burgundy, as well as those of Spain and its possessions; in which case, he thought, Spanish interests would be the last considered.

The news of the unexpected catastrophe was greeted in London with real sorrow, for Arthur was promising and popular, and both Henry and his queen were naturally attached to their elder son, just approaching manhood, upon whose training they had lavished so much care.

Though Henry's grief at his loss may have been as sincere as that of Elizabeth of York certainly was, his natural inclinations soon asserted themselves.

Ludlow was unhealthy, and after the pompous funeral of Arthur at Worcester, Katharine and her household prayed earnestly to be allowed to approach London, but for some weeks without success, and by the time she arrived at her new abode at Croydon, the political intrigues of which she was the tool were in full swing again.