Patience, Princess Catherine (15 page)

At first I was pleased by this change, thinking it would give me opportunities to be with members of the English court and to see Prince Henry. I had only Puebla's word that the betrothal had been secretly renounced. Though he had been right about Doña Elvira, I still did not entirely trust the ambassador. If the betrothal had been broken, why had the king not told me? And if Henry and I were still betrothed, then why were marriage plans not going forward? I both hoped and dreaded that I might learn the answers if I lived under the king's roof.

Once ensconced at Richmond, though, I found that my freedom was more sharply curtailed than ever. I felt that members of the English court were watching me, whispering about me, speculating on my future. I was an outsider, a foreigner living in their midst, largely unwelcome. And I still spoke little English, barely enough to make my wishes known to the servants.

During those long, dreary days I thought often of my family. There were no letters from my father, and no money. My plan to meet with my sister, Juana, had come to nothing.

Then, seemingly by an act of God, my sister was brought to me, swept in by a great storm at sea.

In January of 1506, Juana's husband, Archduke Philip, made the foolhardy decision to sail from the Netherlands to Spain during a time of year known for its dangerous storms. Soon after their ships passed Calais, a violent gale battered them, scattering damaged vessels and terrified passengers along the southern coast of England.

Fortunately, my sister and brother-in-law and most of the others were rescued and brought ashore at Weymouth. When the news first reached me of the shipwreck and their narrow escape, the archduke was already being conducted to Windsor Castle, where King Henry planned to welcome them with great pomp and ceremony. I was invited to join them there.

Eager to spend time with my sister and to find out, if I could, what she might know of her husband's plans to seize power from our father, I made my way to Windsor, accompanied by my ladies and gentlemen. There I learned that Juana had been left behind in Weymouth, "to recover from the frights of the voyage." Juana would join Philip when she felt well again.

Though I was disappointed that my sister was not present, I took part in the revelry, the tournaments and banquets, and the pageantry, determined to enjoy myself. I unpacked the gown I had ordered for Prince Henry's birthday celebration the summer before, and I dined and danced with my ladies in the Great Hall. Prince Henry was present, tall and very well made and increasingly handsome, his red-gold hair cut and combed straight in the French fashion. He thrilled the assembled company with his prowess in jousting and dancing. On two or three occasions when we were in sight of one another, I swept the prince a deep curtsy, and he bowed and smiled. But we did not exchange any words.

Despite my pleasure I also felt uneasy. King Henry and Archduke Philip disappeared together for long periods. Each time I saw them deep in conversation, my suspicions were aroused. What were they discussing in these private talks? Were they plotting the overthrow of my father while I danced?

On the day I was to return to Richmond with Princess Mary, my sister arrived at Windsor just as Philip announced that the ships were ready and they must prepare to sail while the weather held. In the end, Juana and I had only two hours together, long enough for me to realize that this was not the sister I remembered. In place of the high-spirited and beautiful girl who had once laughed easily and loved to dance, I found a wan, silent woman, her lovely brown eyes brooding and fearful.

When I tried to embrace her, she shrank away from me. She strode about the chamber, wringing her hands, collapsing onto cushions, weeping, then struggling to her feet again to resume her pacing. I tried to distract her, but she would speak of nothing but her husband, Philip.

"I love him more than life itself, Catalina," she murmured. "But he loves me little. He has other women. He has not been faithful to his vows." Her voice rising, she began to rant about those who took her beloved Philip away from her—not only his numerous mistresses, but also his gentlemen with whom he liked to drink and hunt and disport himself. She was jealous of them all, even his hunting dogs—jealous to the point of madness.

"I am certain that Philip loves you, Juana," I said soothingly, though I was anything but certain.

Had we two sisters been able to spend more time together, perhaps we might have eventually found ourselves at ease with one another. I might have ventured to discuss my worries about our father and my own plight. Under the circumstances, I said nothing.

Our brief visit at an end, I kissed my sister, promising that we would surely meet again. I was disconsolate when she and her faithless husband left to sail away from the English port, for I feared that the archduke and the discontented Castilian noblemen would succeed in wresting control of the kingdom from my father, and I knew no way to prevent it.

 

The twenty-ninth of June, 1506, the day after Prince Henry's fifteenth birthday, by all rights should have been my wedding day, according to the terms of the marriage contract. Yet I had no idea when—or if!—the wedding would ever take place.

I did not even see Prince Henry on his birthday. In fact, I saw him rarely, though we lived in the same palace. My Spanish suite had been assigned to the poorest apartments, overlooking the courtyard where beggars congregated for handouts. That day I stood at my narrow window, gazing down at them in their rags and filth, women carrying hungry, wailing children on their bony hips, men kicking the starving dogs away from the meager portions thrown to the beggars from the royal kitchens. I felt like one of those ill-fed beggars, waiting for the king to toss me a crust. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the palace, Prince Henry's family and friends and the highest ranks of the nobility were celebrating the royal birthday.

I turned away from the window and looked to my ladies, observing their listless eyes and downcast expressions. They gazed at me impassively, awaiting my orders.

"Come with me," I told them, suddenly roused to anger. I picked up my skirts and hurried down the long gallery to the chamber of my household treasurer, Francesca, Inez, and Maria at my heels. Juan de Cuero looked up from his account books, startled to see us. It had been his custom to bring these records to my chamber each fortnight to show me the latest figures. Each time, my debts had increased.

"Don Juan," I said, "I am today ordering you to sell sufficient of my plate to give ten gold crowns to each member of my suite, to be spent as they wish."

The treasurer looked at me with eyes as wide and astonished as though I had ordered him to cut off his hand. "But, my lady princess, you know that I, as keeper of the plate, cannot—"

I slammed my fist on the account book. "Look at us, Don Juan! My ladies and I stand before you in rags and tatters, no better than the beggars in the courtyard! I order you to do so, do you understand, sir?"

He licked his lips and whispered, "It is a part of your dowry, madam."

"What good is my dowry to me? Tomorrow should be my wedding day. Perhaps the marriage contract no longer exists! In the meantime, we must eat, we must clothe ourselves, we must somehow continue to live! Now do as I have told you, good sir, with no further argument."

Cuero bowed his head. "As you wish, madam."

Piece by piece in the months that followed, one flagon, one ewer, one charger at a time, my dowry passed into the hands of the goldsmiths of London, who took advantage of my plight and offered only the most meager of returns for them.

 

Months passed with no change in my situation. Ambassador Puebla counseled patience once too often, until I lost not only my patience but my temper. "Don Rodrigo, do me a kindness: Do not return unless it is to bring me real news, and not merely idle gossip." I regretted my harsh words after I had dismissed him, but I did not call him back, and for some weeks he did not return.

Then, on a day in late November of 1506 when I had been brooding on the fact that I had now been in England for five years, Ambassador Puebla burst into my chambers. "I have news from Spain, and it is scarcely to be believed!" he exclaimed. "Archduke Philip is dead!"

Six months earlier, Philip and Juana had arrived in Spain. In October he fell ill, and in a matter of days he was dead.

"There is more," continued Don Rodrigo. "Queen Juana was profoundly shocked by the suddenness of the archdukes death. She grieved so deeply that she slept upon her knees by her husband's coffin and would not allow the corpse to be buried. She persuaded her loyal servants to seize the coffin from the monastery where it was being kept and to transport corpse and coffin all the way to Granada. The queen has said that at last she has her husband all to herself and will never again be parted from him."

She is mad,
I thought.
My sister has truly gone mad.

"But what of King Ferdinand?" I asked Puebla. "Cannot our father reason with her?"

"The king has her confined at the castle at Tordesillas," Puebla said. "He intends to rule Castilla in her stead."

I closed my eyes and murmured a brief prayer of thanks: Castilla and Aragon were still united, and my father held power. For that I was grateful, but naturally I added a prayer for the comfort of my poor, unfortunate sister.

The ambassador presented one more piece of news for which I was utterly unprepared: My father had married the niece of King Louis XII of France.

I gaped at Puebla. Had they all gone mad? "I knew nothing of this," I whispered.

"Her name is Germaine de Foix," said Puebla. "Your stepmother is just sixteen, of an age to bear him a male heir, if God wills it."

Richmond Palace, April 1307

 

On the Feast of Saint George, Prince Henry rode into the lists upon a magnificent white gelding and easily unhorsed each of his opponents. Only Brandon presented a real challenge. At the banquets Henry played upon the virginals and accompanied himself with the lute as he sang songs of his own composition in a fine tenor voice. The ladies of the court blushed when he claimed them one by one as dancing partners. He could have had any of these ladies, he was well aware. The world was at his feet, his for the taking.

Or so it seemed. But in truth the prince still could not come and go as he pleased. To leave his apartments, he was forced to pass through his father's bedchamber. He took his meals alone but for two servitors and spent most of his time
alone or with a few carefully selected companions—Brandon chief among them—or with his father, who was increasingly irrational and often violent.

In recent days King Henry's fury seemed blunted. He was less the wrathful warrior and more a weak and querulous old man. He had not found the elixir of youth after all, and he often spoke of the approaching end of his life and of the splendid burial he planned. He had begun collecting relics—fragments of the leg bone of Saint George, splinters from the True Cross—to be made into part of the altar by his tomb. He paid frequent visits to shrines around the countryside and pledged to donate jeweled statues of himself, kneeling in prayer.

Yet even as the king contemplated his own death, he was also weighing marriage to the newly widowed Queen Juana of Castilla. "A fine wife she would make, the beauty!" cackled the old king in Prince Henry's presence, though court gossips whispered that she was quite mad. "Whether or not she accepts my suit, I shall seek the betrothal of Princess Mary to Queen Juana's son, Charles. And of
you,
Wales, to her daughter, Eleanor."

The king had mentioned other possible brides for the prince of Wales: Marguerite d'Alençon of France was one; the daughter of Duke Albert of Bavaria, another.

"What of Catherine of Aragon, my lord?" Henry asked.

"Not a possibility," said his father. "The political value of the princess of Aragon has declined greatly since the death of her mother. And her father's miserliness is intolerable."

Henry wondered if Catherine—Catalina, she once as^ed him to call her—was ever told that her betrothal had been broken nearly two years earlier. Surely the gossip had reached her. It was no secret that his father was considering other matches.

Henry had discussed the matter with Brandon. Now nearly sixteen, Prince Henry listened raptly to Brandons tales of his amorous adventures. Brandon had somehow found a way out of his contract with Anne Browne, with whom he had a child, and was about to marry Anne's aunt, Lady Margaret Mortimer, a rich widow more than twice his age. "Marry for wealth and for advantage, my lord," Brandon advised. "Find love and take your pleasure where you will."

Henry pondered this advice. Was it not possible to do both—to marry for wealth and advantage, as his father insisted and Brandon agreed—and for love as well?

Henry pictured the fair-skinned Spanish girl with the intelligent gray eyes and the cascade of auburn hair. Months earlier the king had ordered Henry to have nothing to do with Princess Catherine. But the more his father forbade him to see Catherine or to speak to her, the more she was in his thoughts. He remembered the times they had spent together in the past, her lively mind, her gentle good humor. As he listened to Brandon's bragging tales of romantic conquest and of ladies who swooned for his attention, Henry thought always of Catherine. But he resolved that no matter what his father insisted, when the time came he would marry whom he pleased, whether his father was alive or dead.

 

B
Y THE SPRING OF
1507 I
WAS DESPERATE
. U
NABLE TO
think of any other solution, I determined to see King Henry. One day when our larder was nearly empty, I dressed in a gown many times patched and mended, made my way through the palace to the royal apartments, and asked to speak with the king. Forced to wait for a lengthy time in his presence chamber, I endured the discomfiting stares of the courtiers who lounged about outside the king's chambers. No one spoke to me, and I imagined they were laughing behind my back.