Catherine of Aragon (2 page)

If Catherine is aware of these things, she never mentions them. We talk about the coming wedding, of course, but only in terms of dresses and flowers and whether she will really wear her hair loose as the English insist. She is the centre of all attention and loves every moment of it, but people only flock round her because she is the Princess of Aragon. They do not know Catherine as a real person and I suspect that they don't want to. It's not their concern.

This afternoon there was a great argument about hoops. The Spanish style is to wear a hoop under one's skirt so it stands out from the body, but the English don't do this. They let the dress fall about one's natural form, and we are enchanted with the idea. Fancy being able to move freely instead of being encased in a framework that makes you look like a hand-bell! And what a chance to show off the charms of a slim figure! Doña Elvira, needless to say, is all disapproval. She thinks the English style is indecent, and goes around muttering about “hussies looking as if they're wearing their night clothes.” In her case, concealment is kind, but I don't see why those of us with less bulk to hide should go on being so restricted. Admittedly, it would be an immense amount of work to reshape all those skirts to hang properly without a hoop underneath, and we couldn't do it before the wedding. But afterwards – now, that's a different thing.

13th November 1501

Uncle Rod seems to take little pleasure in all the excitement and festivity. He shook his head this afternoon when I spoke to him about it, and said Queen Isabella would not approve of such gaudy extravagance. In her last letter to him, she remarked that money would be better spent in taking care of Catherine's long-term welfare – but that is not the Tudor way. Uncle Rod says their main aim is to impress the foreign royal families, because – and he glanced round to make sure nobody was listening – compared with those old ruling dynasties, the Tudors are an upstart lot with only a very slender claim to being royal at all. King Henry's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, is of royal stock, but on his father's side he comes of unruly Welsh landowners with a taste for fighting and good living. The crown was put on his head in all the blood and confusion of a battle fought at Bosworth Field, and they say it was retrieved from a thorn bush, where it had rolled from the head of the dead Richard III. Since then, Henry has tried throughout his reign to keep the peace, and he has succeeded in this – but his real battle is to win the respect of Europe's ancient royal families and he goes about that with the energy and determination of a soldier.

14th November 1501

The wedding. And what a day it's been! A whirlwind of colour and pageantry and feasting and wine – heavens, how these English drink! They are said to be the most truculent, law-resistant people in Europe, united among themselves only when fighting a common enemy, but their appetite for revelry is almost frightening. The King had caused the fountains to flow with burgundy wine after the marriage was celebrated, and the crowds were gulping it from their cupped hands, yelling and cheering, surging to and fro, careless of those who had fallen insensible and were being trampled over.

Catherine remained serene throughout it all. She looked lovely – as fresh and young as a girl making her First Communion – in her gown of white satin and with her long hair held by a circlet of gold and pearls. Those of us who had sat for so long stitching pierced seed pearls on to her veil with fine gold thread were rewarded when we saw her standing in that shimmer of delicate brightness. I wish Mama could have seen it – she would have been so proud.

Arthur, too, looked beautiful in his white clothes, and in the cathedral the pair of them stood out like two white swans against the deep, rich scarlet of the draperies and the massed gorgeousness of the courtiers. Margaret was gowned in cloth of gold as befits the future Queen of Scotland, and little Mary wore a dress of crimson velvet. Harry was in a richly embroidered tunic and a fur-trimmed cloak, and when the ceremony ended, it was he who escorted Catherine down the aisle to the waiting people massed outside. His face was proud and unsmiling, and I had the feeling that he was impatient with his youth, cursing it for casting him as the second son and not the elder.

We came in grand procession to Baynard's Castle, and feasted throughout the afternoon and evening. Gold platters gleamed in the light of hundreds of candles, and servants came in with course after course of soups and pies and roast meats (venison, rabbit, goose, swan and suckling pig) and then great cheeses and sweets (jellies and trifles and brandy-soaked cakes) – all served with an abundance of wine.

And then – I still blush a little when I think of this – the time came for the last part of the ceremony. Arthur and Catherine were escorted upstairs in a rather drunken procession headed by the Earl of Oxford. There were several bishops as well, and boys swinging censers, and I don't know how many noblemen (most of them friends of Arthur's), laughing and making ribald jokes. Doña Elvira went as well, and so did I, together with Catherine's maid Maria and quite a lot of Spanish courtiers. I knew what was to happen. Doña Elvira had explained that it was a religious ceremony, and I watched while we all stood round the damask-curtained bed with the royal coat of arms embroidered at its head. The covers had been turned down to expose the undersheet and pillows, and amid the chanting of prayers, the Earl of Oxford laid himself down, first on Arthur's side of the bed then on Catherine's, and holy water was sprinkled on the bed. I thought it would make it dreadfully damp, but Doña Elvira was crossing herself fervently and so was everyone else, so I joined in. Arthur was being slapped on the back by his friends. His face looked very pale, and he took another long draught of wine, but one of the bishops frowned and removed the goblet from his hand, speaking to him in a stern whisper.

After that the crowd was shepherded out, though not without the shouting of some final bawdy jokes. I was not sure of their meaning – it's something men laugh about between themselves – but I felt terribly embarrassed for Catherine, who throughout all this had stood with clasped hands and lowered eyes. Doña Elvira kissed her and said she must be of good courage. Then she, too, went out. Maria and I stayed as Catherine had asked us, and we went into a small adjoining room to help her undress. Two men-servants were doing the same for Arthur.

Catherine was shivering although a fire burned in the bedroom. We slipped the fine lawn nightdress over her head (I had banded it with Italian reticella work at the neck and sleeves) and Maria offered her a silk shawl to put about her shoulders. Catherine shook her head. Her hands were clasped at her mouth, and I could not tell whether she was praying or blowing on her fingers. “You must go now,” she said. I hugged her, and could feel her body trembling, but she would never admit to being afraid.

I am writing this in the small room which I share with Maria, who is asleep. I wonder what has happened to Catherine this night. We used to giggle so often about the things grown-ups did when they went to bed together, but neither of us could do more than guess what they got up to. We knew it resulted in the birth of a baby, but exactly how the baby was started remained a mystery to us. When I was twelve and one day found I was bleeding, my mother gave me cloths to use and said it showed I was now a woman – but I didn't want to be a woman, I wanted to go on playing under the olive trees and having no cares.

Tomorrow, the mystery will be explained, for Catherine will surely tell me.

15th November 1501

I have learned nothing. Arthur came from the bedchamber late this morning, baggy-eyed and looking as any boy will look who has drunk far too much wine on the night before, but he managed to grin for his back-slapping friends. “This night I have been in the midst of Spain,” he said, and they all cheered.

I went in to Catherine, who was still in bed. She looked very tired. I sat down beside her and took her hand, and she shrugged in answer to my unspoken question. “He snores,” she said. “But he kissed me a lot.” And that was all she told me. It's very disappointing.

24th November 1501

Uncle Rod was right about the Tudor determination to lay on a good show. The tournaments and jousting have been glorious to watch and the sumptuous banqueting has gone on and on. Every evening has been filled with music and dancing, and with astonishing theatrical events. Ingenious moving platforms brought in pageant after pageant – great structures peopled with choristers and actors, with gold and silver wolves that were really men and, amazingly, a ship in full sail that moved as though floating on water. Such artistry! And when the displays were over, musicians played for dancing. Catherine and I performed a Spanish seguidilla and everyone clapped and cheered us, then young Prince Harry danced with his sister Margaret. He is a great expert for one so young, quick and neat – but he was soon too hot in the many layers of his embroidered clothes (beautiful the way the fine-worked shirt sleeves are allowed to show through the slashed doublet), so he simply stripped off his overgown and tossed it aside, never breaking the rhythm as he danced on.

The last celebration was the best. After a banquet in the Parliament Chamber, they brought on what looked like a giant lantern as big as a bedchamber, with light glowing from inside its translucent panels – and within it were twelve beautiful ladies. It was as if we looked into a private fairyland. After this there arrived a towering, fantastic chapel of many layers and compartments, with children singing at its upper windows while doors below opened to release a whole colony of baby rabbits that ran everywhere. Then eight ladies appeared at other doors in the intricately painted structure, and opened basketfuls of white doves that flew round the vast hall and settled on the high beams above us. Glorious, glorious.

But yesterday the festivities ended, and the Spanish nobles and their ladies who came only for the wedding are preparing to leave. Everything seems very flat.

26th November 1501

The King had one more trick up his sleeve. This morning he asked Catherine and her ladies to come to his library, and while he was showing us the books with their beautifully painted pictures and their tooled and gilded covers, a man suddenly came out from behind the shelves, holding a great casket. He opened it at the King's instruction, and we all gasped, for it was full of magnificent jewellery – diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds set into necklaces, coronets, rings, brooches and bracelets, all with intricate gold and silver work. The King told Catherine to take what she wanted, and she dipped her hand into the sparkling mass, lifting out one beautiful thing after another and exclaiming with delight at each one.

When she had made her choices, King Henry turned to us and said we, too, might select a gift. Doña Elvira took a large brooch set with rubies and garnets, and Maria had a delicate necklace of pearls and filigree silver. And I have an opal ring. The stone seems to glow with fire and blue sky, and it is the most wonderful thing I have ever owned.

29th November 1501

A bustle of packing is going on, for the court is soon to move from Baynard's Castle to Windsor. Catherine and what remains of her Spanish entourage will not be going with them. We are to move to a manor owned by Prince Arthur in a place called Bewdley, in Worcestershire.

There has been much debate, Uncle Rod confided to me, about whether Catherine and Arthur are old enough to live yet as man and wife. I couldn't see why not – what is the point of being married if your lives are not shared? But he looked reserved, as he often does, and reminded me that Catherine's brother, Juan, had died in the early months of his marriage to the Princess of Portugal – a terrible tragedy for Isabella and Ferdinand to lose their only son. The doctors thought, he said, that his death might have been caused by over-exertion. I do not see why marriage should be considered an exertion. At worst, it seems likely to be merely tiresome.

 

10th December 1501

There is hardly room for us all in this house, a cold place although Arthur has had glass put in the windows. We will move again to Ludlow Castle, on the borders of Wales, they say.

I am hurrying to finish embroidering a kerchief for Catherine's birthday in six days' time. It is a design of two birds and a twining of vine leaves, done in our Spanish blackwork, a style much admired here by the English ladies.

The weather is turning very cold.

15th January 1502

Today, Margaret will be officially betrothed to James IV of Scotland, though we will not be there to see it. Everyone says we are not missing much – a betrothal is not the same as a full-blown wedding – but any diversion would be welcome. This castle is dank and forbidding, and the misted mountains of Wales loom in a constant shroud of rain.

The procedures of royal weddings are very strange. Tomorrow there will be a proxy marriage, which is not the real thing but an exchange of vows made by stand-ins. Uncle Rod stood in for Catherine at her proxy wedding years ago, and I can't imagine anyone who looks less like a bride. Or even, for that matter, like a groom. Poor Uncle Rod – his wife died when Gonsalvo was born, and he has never replaced her, or even seemed to want to.

The court ladies here eye Catherine constantly – looking, I suppose, for that swelling of the waistline which means a baby is on its way. She remains as slim as ever, and spends much of her time praying in the strange, circular chapel (where every sound echoes in such a ghostly way). Praying for what? For a child, perhaps. Every royal family prays earnestly and constantly for sons, so that a supply of future kings may never be in doubt.

Maria whispers to me that in Arthur and Catherine's case there is doubt. One of the English chambermaids told her there was no blood on the royal sheets after their wedding night, and it seems there should have been if, as the woman put it, “they was properly married”. This, too, I do not understand. Maria suggests that we are just the same as dogs and cats and horses – but surely human beings must be different? But the more I think of it, the more I fear she may be right.