her parents in their grand entry, when the seat of Moorish empire succumbed to their arms, and from that moment Granada was her home. She was then four years old, and thus early the education of the young Katharine commenced. The first objects which greeted her awakening intellect were the wonders of the Alhambra, and the exquisite bowers of the Generaliffe; for in those royal seats of the Moorish dynasty Katharine of Arragon was reared. Queen Isabel, herself the

most learned princess in Europe, devoted every moment she could spare from the business of government to the personal instruction of her four daughters, who were besides provided with tutors of great literary attainments. Katharine was able to read and write Latin in her childhood, and she was through life desirous of improvement in that language. She chiefly employed her knowledge of Latin in the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, a fact which Erasmus affirms, adding, “that she was imbued with learning, by the care of her illustrious mother, from her infant years."

It was from Granada, the bright home of her childhood, that Katharine of Arragon derived her device of the pomegranate, so well known to the readers of the Tudor chroniclers.' That fruit was at once the production of the beautiful province with which its name is connected, and the armorial bearings of the conquered Moorish kings. How oft must Katharine have remembered the glorious Alhambra, with its shades of pomegranate and myrtle, when drooping with ill health and unkind. treatment under the grey skies of the island to which she was transferred! Her betrothment to the eldest son of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII. took place in the year 1497, as mentioned in the formal state-letter written in the name of the English queen to queen Isabel of Castile.

The young spouses were allowed to correspond together, for the double purpose of cultivating mutual affection and the improvement of their Latinity,-for in Latin the love-letters

1 This device is still to be seen among the ornaments of the well of St. Winifred, to which building Katharine of Arragon was a benefactress.-Pennant. It is likewise frequent in the ancient part of Hampton-Court, particularly in the richly ornamented ceiling of cardinal Wolsey's oratory, now in private occupabut shown to the author through the kindness of Mr. Wilson, surveyor of palace.

were composed which passed between the Alhambra and Ludlow-castle. Of course they were subjected to the surveillance of the two armies of tutors, preceptors, confessors, bishops, lady-governesses, and lord-governors, who were on guard and on duty at the said seats of royal education; therefore the Latin letters of Arthur and Katharine no more develope character than any other school epistles. This extract is a fair specimen :-" I have read the sweet letters of your highness lately given to me," says prince Arthur in his Latin epistle, dated Ludlow-castle, 1499, "from which I easily perceived your most entire love to me. Truly those letters, traced by your own hand, have so delighted me, and made me so cheerful and jocund, that I fancied I beheld your highness, and conversed with and embraced my dearest wife. I cannot tell you what an earnest desire I feel to see your highness, and how vexatious to me is this procrastination about your coming." Arthur endorses his letter," To the most illustrious and excellent princess the Lady Katharine, princess of Wales, duchess of Cornwall, and my most entirely beloved spouse."

Dr. Puebla was then the resident minister in England from the united crowns of Spain; according to poor Katharine's subsequent experience, he proved the evil genius of her young days. At this period he was very active in penning despatches in praise of Arthur, urging that he would soon be fourteen, and that it was time that the "señora princess" should come to England: nevertheless, a twelvemonth's further delay took place. "Donna Catalina," (Katharine of Arragon,) says the manuscript of her native chronicler, Bernaldes, "being at Granada with the king and queen, there came ambassadors from the king of England to demand her for the prince of England, his son, called Arthur. The union was agreed upon, and she set off from Granada to England, parting from the Alhambra on the 21st of May, in the year 1501. There were at the treaty the archbishops of St. Jago, Osma, and Salamanca, the count de Cabra, and the countess his wife, the commander-mayor Cardenas, and donna Elvira

1 Wood's Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies.

Manuel, chief lady of honour. The princess-infanta had likewise four young ladies as attendants. She embarked at Corunna, August 17. Contrary winds forced her vessel back on the coast of Old Castile, which occasioned great illness to donna Catalina. After she was convalescent, she embarked more prosperously on the 26th of September in the best ship they had, of 300 tons, and after a good voyage landed at a port called Salamonte,' on the 2nd of October, where the señora princess Catalina was grandly received, with much feasting and rejoicing." This was whilst she staid at Ply. mouth, where the nobility and gentry of the neighbouring counties crowded to do honour to their future queen, and entertained her from the time of her arrival with west-country sports and pastimes. The steward of the royal palace, lord Broke, was sent forward by Henry VII. directly the news was known of the infanta's arrival, in order "to purvey and provide" for her. The duchess of Norfolk and the earl of Surrey likewise came to attend on her. The duchess was immediately admitted into her presence, and remained with her as her companion.

King Henry himself, November 4th, set forward from his palace of Shene on his progress to meet his daughter-in-law; the weather was so very rainy, and the roads so execrably bad, that the royal party were thoroughly knocked up when they had proceeded no farther than Chertsey, where they were forced to "purvey and herbage" for their reposing that night. "Next morning, however," continues our journalist, "the king's grace and all his company rose betimes, and strook the sides of their coursers with their spurs, and began to extend their progress towards East Hampstead, when they pleasantly encountered the pure and proper presence of prince Arthur, who had set out to salute his sage father." It does not appear that the prince knew that his wife had arrived.

1 The port was Plymouth.

* Leland's Collectanea, vol. v. pp. 352–355. The information of these court movements has been drawn from the narrative of a herald who witnessed the whole. He has so little command of the English language in prose narrative, as to be in places scarcely intelligible; but English prose was at this time in a crude state, as all such memorials were, till this cra, metrical or in Latin.

1

Certainly royal travellers moved slowly in those days, for Henry never thought of proceeding farther than his seat at East Hampstead, "but full pleasantly passed over that nightseason" in the company of his son. Next morning the royal personages set forth again on a journey which was truly performed at a snail's gallop, and proceeded to the plains (perhaps the downs), when the prothonotary of Spain and a party of Spanish cavaliers were seen pacing over them, bound on a most solemn errand: this was no other than to forbid the approach of the royal bridegroom and his father to the presence of the infanta, who, in the true Moorish fashion, was not to be looked upon by her betrothed till she stood at the altar,-nay, it seems doubtful if the veil of the princess was to be raised, or the eye of man to look upon her, till she was a wife. This truly Asiatic injunction of king Ferdinand threw the whole royal party into consternation, and brought them to a dead halt. King Henry was formal and ceremonious enough in all reason, but such a mode of proceeding was wholly repugnant to him as an English-born prince. Therefore, after some minutes' musing, he called round him, in the open fields, those nobles who were of his privy council, and propounded to them this odd dilemma. Although the pitiless rains of November were be-pelting them, the council delivered their opinions in very wordy harangues. The result was, "that the Spanish infanta being now in the heart of this realm, of which king Henry was master, he might look at her if he liked."

This advice Henry VII. took to the very letter; for, leaving the prince his son upon the downs, he made the best of his way forthwith to Dogmersfield, the next town, where the infanta had arrived two or three hours previously. The king's demand of seeing Katharine put all her Spanish retinue into a terrible perplexity. She seems to have been attended by the same train of prelates and nobles enumerated by Bernaldes; for a Spanish archbishop, a bishop, and a count opposed the king's entrance to her apartments, saying, "the lady infanta had retired to her chamber." But king Henry, whose curiosity seems to have been thoroughly excited by

the prohibition, protested that "if she were even in her bed, he meant to see and speak with her, for that was his mind, and the whole intent of his coming." Finding the English monarch thus determined, the infanta rose and dressed herself, and gave the king audience in her third chamber. Neither the king nor his intended daughter-in-law could address each other in an intelligible dialect; "but," pursues our informant, who was evidently an eye-witness of the scene, "there were the most goodly words uttered to each other in the language of both parties, to as great joy and gladness as any persons conveniently might have. ..... After the which welcomes ended, the king's grace deposed his riding garments and changed them, and within half an hour the prince was an nounced as present,”—Arthur being, as it may be supposed, tired of waiting in a November evening on the downs. "Then the king made his second entry with the prince into the next chamber of the infanta, and there, through the interpretation of the bishops, the speeches of both countries, by the means of Latin, were understood." Prince Arthur and the infanta had been previously betrothed by proxy; the king now caused them to pledge their troth in person, which ceremony over, he withdrew with the prince to supper. After the meal, "he with his son most courteously visited the infanta in her own chamber,' when she and her ladies called for their minstrels, and with great goodly behaviour and manner solaced themselves with dancing." It seems that prince Arthur could not join in the Spanish dances, but, to show that he was not without skill in the accomplishment, "he in like demeanour took the lady Guildford, (his sister's governess,) and danced right pleasantly and honourably."

"Upon the morrow, being the 7th of November, the infanta set out for Chertsey, and lodged all night at the royal palace situated there, and the next day she set forth with the intention of reaching Lambeth; but before ever she came fully to that town, this noble lady met, beyond a village called

1 The royal party are now, after the betrothment, admitted into the infanta's own bed-room: the approaches seem gradual, the first interview taking place in the third chamber