Patience, Princess Catherine (9 page)

 

Arthur died on the second day of April
anno Domini
1502. What I remember of the next month I learned because it was told to me by others—Doña Elvira, Margaret Pole, and Padre Alessandro.

My husband's body lay in state in the Great Hall of Ludlow Castle for nearly three weeks, surrounded by blazing torches and dozens of candles. High-ranking noblemen journeyed from all over England to pay their final respects to the dead prince.

Maria de Salinas, her eyes swollen with tears, whispered to me that plans had been made to remove the body from Ludlow Castle to the parish church, where a requiem mass would be sung on the twenty-third of April, Saint George's Day, an occasion deeply observed in England. I was still very weak, but I had not yet said my private farewells to my dead husband. Knowing that Doña Elvira, in her ceaseless efforts to protect me, would do all in her power to prevent me, I asked Maria to arrange to have me carried into the Great Hall in secret, when the duenna was asleep. The loyal Maria promised to stay with me by Arthur's coffin while I bade him a last farewell.

Two servants, accompanied by Maria and Padre Alessandro, came for me sometime after midnight. For a little while I knelt by the coffin, my hand on the black velvet pall. "Until we meet again in heaven, dear husband," I whispered and bent forward to kiss the carved wooden lid.

Later, as once again I lay in my bed, gray dawn streaked the sky beyond my narrow window. Maria lay beside me, stroking my hand and softly murmuring words of comfort. Doña Elvira had already begun to stir on the other side of the bed curtains.

Several more days had passed when Padre Alessandro visited me and described the funeral. "The coffin was carried to the parish church in a procession lit by smoking torches. After the requiem mass, Arthur's heart was buried in the churchyard. I witnessed that myself."

Later still, Lady Margaret sat by my side as I lay there, still too weak to leave my bed, and continued the story. Her husband, Sir Richard, had accompanied the funeral cortege on its long journey through wind and rain to Worcester Cathedral; oxen were needed to pull the hearse along rutted roads deep with mud. On Saint Mark's Day, the twenty-fifth of April, Arthur's coffin was lowered into the grave. The officers of the household broke their rods of office and cast the broken pieces down upon the lid of the coffin, and the earth closed upon it forever.

Eltham Palace, April 1502

 

Buckingham is here" Henry, playing tennis with Brandon, recognized the duke's black and livery and laid aside his racquet. He wondered at the unusually small retinue—only half a dozen gentlemen. Buckingham never traveled so lightly.

The two waited as the group approached. Buckingham swung down from the saddle and dropped to his knees. "My lord," said the duke in a choked voice.

Henry frowned. "What is it, Buckingham?"

"Arthur is dead!" he cried. "My lord, your brother, the prince of Wales, has departed this mortal life. Your father and mother have given me the terrible duty of bringing you this dreadful news."

Numbly, Henry stared at him. "Arthur is dead?" he repeated. "My brother has died? But when? How?" His knees began to tremble so violently that he felt as though he might topple over.

Buckingham described what little he knew: Consumption, though it might have been the sweating sickness. Four days past, on the second of April. Henry struggled to absorb these facts, despite the roaring in his ears.

"Your father, the King, has ordered me to bring you to him at Richmond," Buckingham said.

The duke of York bis sisters had returned to Eltham just days earlier, after a quiet Easter spent at Greenwich. Arthur and Princess Catherine had not come from Ludlow after all, sending word that both were too ill to make the journey. The king and queen had worried—unlike Henry, Arthur always suffered from a weak constitution—but no one had been prepared for the arrival of the exhausted courier dispatched by Sir Richard Pole to inform King Henry and Queen Elizabeth of the death of their eldest child. Hours later, Buckingham had left for Eltham.

Slowly, the two walked toward the palace where Henry had spent most of his boyhood. Brandon trailed behind, lost in thought. At this moment the reality of Arthur's death found its way into Henry's heart, and he broke into sobs that shook bis body from crown to sole. Brandon stepped forward, wrapped his strong arms around the weeping boy, and held him against his great chest. For a time,
Henry allowed himself to be comforted, soothed by the steady drumbeat of Brandon's heart.

When he was calm again and orders had been given to prepare for his departure for Richmond, Henry thought to as\ about Catherine. Buckingham could tell him little, except that though the princess of Wales, too, was ill, she was, the last he heard, still alive.

Later, as the royal barge carried Henry and his company up the Thames toward Richmond, a thought—shameful but at the same time deeply thrilling—stole into Henry's mind:
Now, I shall become the prince of Wales. And someday I shall be king!

 

S
PRING CREPT OVER THE SORROWING LAND.
T
REES
leafed out nearly overnight, flowers bloomed everywhere in profuse defiance of our burden of grief, birds took up cheerful songs that were insults to our ears, and the month of May was half over when my physicians determined that I was well enough to undertake the long journey to London.

I said my good-byes to Lady Margaret, Sir Richard, and other members of Arthurs household and left Ludlow. Despite her woe, Queen Elizabeth had showed great consideration, sending me her own mourning litter draped in black velvet to ease my travel. Accompanied by the members of my own household, I slowly retraced the steps of the journey I had made six months earlier as Arthur's bride. When we stopped to rest in Bewdley where I had celebrated my sixteenth birthday in December, my heart ached with the bitterness of my unhappy situation.

"What does my future hold for me?" I wept despairingly to my ladies. "Where will I go? What will I do?"

"Whatever happens, we are with you, my lady," Maria assured me.

"You are our lady princess," said Inez, "and we shall not leave you."

I knew that I had no choice in the matter, nothing at all to say about my future. That would be decided by my parents and by King Henry, without consulting my wishes. I remembered when my oldest sister, Isabel, had been widowed. I was there when she was brought back from Portugal, grief-stricken after the death of her husband in a hunting accident. She was determined to spend the rest of her days in a convent.

My mother would not hear of it. "The duty of the daughter of the royal houses of Spain," she told my sister, "is to make a marriage that strengthens the bonds of those houses." At the end of her mourning period, Isabel was sent back to Portugal to marry the uncle of her dead husband. That was her duty. But what was mine?

In time my parents would choose a new husband for me. I had no idea who that person would be or what I was to do until that time arrived. Though I wanted nothing more than to return to Spain, for the present I must await word from my parents.

When I arrived in London after the slow, sorrowful journey from Ludlow, the king ordered me sent to Durham House, a vast London mansion. Handsome marble pillars lined the stately halls. Lovely gardens, filled with bountiful bloom, stretched down to the banks of the Thames. Durham House was much more to my liking than bleak Ludlow.

I had scarcely arrived in London when I discovered that I had not been named heir to my husbands worldly goods, as I had assumed I would be. All of Prince Arthur's jewels and plate and furs had become the property of his father, the king. I thought it odd, yet at the time this did not trouble me unduly. Eventually I would receive a portion of the revenues from Wales and other districts, as agreed upon in the marriage treaty signed years earlier, and I trusted that King Henry would assume responsibility for my support in the meantime. I put the matter out of my mind.

Nearly all of my English servants had resigned at the time of Arthur's death, and my retinue now numbered sixty Spaniards. Doña Elvira promptly took over the task of organizing my household, assigning chambers, and arranging my possessions, some of which had not been unpacked since my arrival in England. Among the items were several chests of gold and silver plate, as well as jewels, representing a portion of my dowry still owed to King Henry. Doña Elvira saw no reason not to use the platters, ewers, flagons, and goblets in my newly established lodgings. But when Juan de Cuero, my household treasurer, learned of her plans, he refused to allow it.

"These items are part of the princess's dowry," he insisted. "They are not for Princess Catalina's use."

"Nonsense," snapped Doña Elvira. "The prince is dead, and the rules no longer apply."

But Cuero was adamant, and the two argued about the matter, loudly and often. This was but the first of the feuds to break out in my household. Having no idea who was right, I begged them to forget their differences. In the end, Cuero kept the upper hand.

Whether or not I could use my plate was of less importance to me than what I soon discovered about Durham. Though elegant, the mansion was just as cold and damp as Ludlow. On the coldest, wettest days, a fire blazed in the Great Hall, but my own chambers had no hearth. Instead, a fire-pan was filled with hot coals and wheeled to where it was needed. Though it was now June—glorious springtime in Spain—my hands were sometimes so cold that I could scarcely hold a spoon.

 

My first official call after I reached London and had settled into Durham House was to my mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, at Richmond Palace. She was in deep mourning, as was I, and the two of us embraced and wept together. I had liked the queen from the first and believed her motto well suited her: "Humble and Reverent." To that I would have added "Kind."

The queen and I spoke together quietly. Then she said gently, "It would give us a measure of joy in the midst of our sorrow, dear lady princess, to learn that you are with child."

I lowered my eyes, feeling so abashed that I was unable to meet her expectant gaze. "No, madam," I replied, "I am not. It is not possible."

"Not possible?"

"Our marriage was not consummated," I whispered, my face hot with shame to be discussing such matters.

"Ah," she sighed, wiping away another tear, "I had hoped otherwise. It has been my greatest wish that Arthur left us an heir."

Sighing deeply, the queen beckoned me to stand by her side at a window overlooking a courtyard. As I joined her at the window, I caught sight of my husband's younger brother, whom I had not seen since Arthur and I left for the Welsh Marches in December. Henry was now nearly eleven, a strapping young lad who seemed from this vantage to have grown even taller.

"All hopes now rest upon the duke of York," said the queen. "We have lost three sons—Edmund died before he reached his second birthday, another babe did not live to his christening, and now Arthur. An infant daughter left us as well."

His mother and I watched, side by side, as Henry's friend, Charles Brandon, engaged him in a wrestling match. Brandon was several years older than Henry, closer to my age than to York's, yet the young duke nearly overpowered him. In a few years' time Brandon would doubtless find himself on the losing end of these matches.

"I Will share a secret with you, dear Catherine," the queen whispered so that her ladies would not hear, "and it is for your ears alone. Not a word to anyone, do you understand?"

I nodded. "I understand, madam."

"I believe that I am once again with child. I pray that it is so. But it is still too soon to be certain."

I must have looked startled, for Queen Elizabeth smiled. "I am thirty-five," she said, "not yet past my childbearing years. The king is but ten years older. We are both in good health. It would be a great blessing if I were to bear another son, for if something were to happen to Henry—" Her voice broke, and she stopped there, but I could complete her thought:...
there would be no male Tudor to inherit the throne.

My hand rested on the stone sill of the window, and the queen laid her hand over mine and laced our fingers. Thus we stood, watching the young giant in the courtyard below us. He may have felt that he was being observed, for he paused and looked up at his mother's window. He smiled when he saw the queen, and when he noticed me by her side, he smiled even more broadly and bowed low.

How nice it would be,
I thought, remembering the hours Henry and I spent together at the wedding,
if the duke and I could become friends.

"As long as you are with us, my lady princess," the queen said, "you are under my special protection. It will not be easy, for the king can be quite difficult. I will do all I can for you, for he does sometimes listen to me. Do you understand, Lady Catherine?"

"I do, madam. And I am most grateful to you."

Later, when I had left the queen's apartments, I felt more at ease than I had since Arthur's death.
All will be well,
I thought.

 

The days grew warm, though not so hot as a summer in Spain, and frequent rain showers kept Durham's gardens green and fragrant. In fair weather I strolled in those gardens, often sitting on a bench by the riverside and watching with my ladies as whole navies of majestic white swans drifted upstream or down, depending upon the tides. But, unless bidden by the queen, I seldom left the palace. I received no invitations from other English families, for I was officially in deep mourning, and I received few visitors.

Arthur's sisters, Princess Mary and Princess Margaret, were sometimes sent by their mother to call upon me. On several occasions the princesses were joined by their brother Henry, who never failed to amuse us with his wit and good humor and never left without teaching me another phrase or two of French. On one visit Henry and his sisters brought me the gift of a lively little black-and-white spaniel puppy.