A NOTICE OF THE LIFE OF KATHARINE OF ARRAGON, QUEEN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH. BY THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. THE subject of this notice was the fourth daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and first saw the light at Alcala di Finari1 on the 15th of December, 1485. She had only reached her fourth year when the conquest of Granada made the beautiful and romantic Alhambra her home, and the happy days of her childhood were passed in its exquisite halls. The education of the infanta was carefully attended to. The most learned men were called in to instruct her, and the queen her mother, acknowledged to be one of, if not the most highly educated women of her time, superintended her studies. At an early age Katharine had made a considerable proficiency in Latin, a language she never in after age neglected. Few princesses were ever born under more brilliant auspices. The offspring of two sovereigns in their separate rights, the purest blood of Castile and Arragon mingled in her veins. Katharine was only seven years old when Columbus, through the aid of her mother, sailed in quest of a western continent, and justified by his successful discoveries the encouragement afforded him by his liberal and enterprising protectress. 1 Speed, book ix. p. 758. 2 Life of Columbus, ch. xv. But as the brightest mornings are often followed by the darkest days, so was the early and brilliant youth of the infanta succeeded by the gloom which shrouded her life soon after she exchanged the sunshine of her natal clime of Granada for the cloudy and chilly one of England. In 1501, five months after she had completed her sixteenth year, the hand of Katharine was solicited by Henry VII. for his eldest son Arthur, a prince of great promise. The treaty of marriage was concluded, and the infanta, attended by a noble train, left Granada for Corunna, whence she was to embark for England, never more to behold the beautiful Alhambra. It might, in the superstitious age in which she was born, be deemed an unfavourable omen that contrary winds drove the vessel that contained her back to the shore of Castile. Fortunate would it have been for her had she never left her native land, or at least that she had not sought a home in England, for nowhere else could she have been exposed to the chagrin that here awaited her. Katharine arrived not until October, when she landed at Plymouth, where she was received with every demonstration of joy by all classes in that neighbourhood. The king despatched some of the highest of his nobility to attend on her, and set out in a few days after to meet her on the road, as did Prince Arthur. The first interview took place at Dogmersfield, and on the following day the royal procession set out for Chertsey, where they rested at the palace for one night, receiving as they progressed every possible mark of respect which the subjects of Henry could lavish on them. The third night the party stopped at Kingston, and reached Lambeth on the following day, travelling so slowly as to have taken as many days to accomplish a journey of two hundred and sixteen miles as might now suffice to traverse the whole kingdom. The personal appearance of Katharine seems to have pleased her future husband, as well as his parents. What she, accustomed to the sunny clime of Granada, must have thought of the murky one of an English November, we have no clue to discover, but all who have lived in a southern land, and entered ours in that dreary month, may imagine her feelings. On the 14th of November the nuptials were celebrated. The Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by nineteen bishops and "abbots mytered,"1 joined their hands, and performed all the religious rites on that occasion. Great was the splendour exhibited at the marriage, a detail of which may be found in Stow by those who take pleasure in such descriptions; nor were the fêtes and nuptial feast which followed it, given in the bishop's palace of St. Paul's, less gorgeous. A tilting match with quaint devices, in which the grotesque and magnificent were mingled, took place the succeeding week, and after this display of chivalry, an entertainment on a scale of right regal grandeur was given in Westminster Hall, at which the bride and bridegroom danced, as did others of the royal family. Prince Arthur and Katharine departed for Ludlow Castle, in Shropshire, where they were to hold a court, as Prince and Princess of Wales, attended by the lords and ladies comprising their suite, and so conducted themselves while there as to win the affections of all around them. Short-lived, however, was the happiness of the youthful pair, for in the April that followed his marriage Prince Arthur expired, leaving Katharine a lonely stranger in that distant castle, where he closed his life in the sixteenth year of his age. Melancholy was the state of the youthful widow, so soon bereft of her husband, and surrounded by persons whose language she understood not, and who could not address her in her own, to offer a word of consolation under the affliction in which she was plunged. Though little more than five months a wife, the noble qualities of Prince Arthur, so universally acknowledged, could not have failed to have greatly endeared him to his bride; and although ten months his senior-a difference in age greatly exaggerated by some historians-the prince had from his infancy so great an aptitude for learning, and had applied himself so diligently to his studies, that his mind was as fully 1 Speed, book ix. ch. xx. p. 757. M 2 Idem, chap. xxviii. p. 757. developed as those of most persons of twenty years old, which rendered him a suitable companion for her to whom he had been united. Unhappily this precocious mental developement was not accompanied by as robust a frame nor as vigorous health as could be wished. If we may credit Stow, this delicacy of health led to certain precautions on his marriage deemed prudent, which statement was afterwards borne out by the representations of Katharine herself. The young widow proceeded to the palace at Croydon, there to spend the sad hours of her mourning. Happy had it been for her had she returned to her native land, as her parents desired; but the wish to retain the portion of her fortune already received, and to secure the remaining one, as also to save the dower which as widow of the Prince of Wales she was entitled to claim from England, induced Henry VII. to propose a marriage between her and his second son, now heir to his crown. That the two persons most interested in this proposed union felt no desire for it, may readily be conceded when the youth of Henry is considered, he being too young to experience the tender passion, or to excite it; and although Katharine yielded obedience to the desire of her parents in contracting it, she nevertheless wrote to them that she had no inclination for a second marriage in England. When, however, all was arranged for the pair being affianced, Henry VII., with whom the measure originated, was guilty of an artifice which reflects eternal dishonour on his name, and which, in after years, involved in misery the life of his daughter-in-law. A dispensation had been obtained from Pope Julius II. for the marriage six years previous to its fulfilment, and this dispensation had been followed by a solemn contract between Henry and Katharine in June 1503. What, then, can be thought of the dishonourable conduct of Henry VII., who, two years after this solemn betrothment, on the day before. the prince completed the fourteenth year of his age, caused 1 Lingard, vol. v. p. 333. 2 Carte, book xv. p. 3. 4 Rapin, tom. vi. liv. xv. p. 7. |