Catherine of Aragon by Alison Prince Page A

to win the favours of Emperor Maximilian, Philip’s father. No lucky storm will blow him into Henry’s court, so other means must be found. Henry is going to lend him 100,000 gold crowns.
    23rd October 1506
    A letter came from Mama today. She tells a terrible story about Juana. She would not leave Philip’s body, sitting beside it in the chapel day and night, not seeming to hear what anyone said to her. When at last she fell asleep, they took it out of her sight, but she woke in a frenzy and summoned her servants, and when she found the coffin she bade her men take it on their shoulders and follow her, and she set out across the hills in a strange, wild procession with her dead husband. Heaven knows what has happened now – Mama does not say.
    1st March 1507
    Harry’s elder sister, Margaret, gave birth to a son ten days ago. He is the first of a new generation of Tudors – that is, if they will think of him as a Tudor up there in Scotland. The boy is to be called James, after his father. I can hardly meet Catherine’s eye, knowing what everyone is saying. If only she had managed to give Arthur a son, we would have had a royal boy here in London. As it is, this newborn half-Scot stands next to Harry and even, at some time in the future, above him, for this new James could inherit the crowns of both England and Scotland.
    13th July 1507
    Catherine is triumphant. After all these years, her father has sent her 2,000 ducats, apparently justifying all her faith in him. Now that Philip is dead, Ferdinand is again secure as the ruler of Spain, and he needs to patch up his damaged friendship with England. Perhaps I am cynical, but I suspect that his sudden generosity is more to please Henry than his daughter – but I will not say so, of course.
    Catherine sat down at once to write a long letter of thanks to her father, and as she sealed it, she told me she had asked him to send a different ambassador. She made no explanation, just said we needed someone new. Did I not love her like a sister, I would feel deeply hurt.
    2nd August 1507
    I see now what Catherine was after. A fat package arrived from Spain this morning, and it contained the official papers which make Catherine herself Ferdinand’s ambassador. Uncle Rod was at the court, and when he heard this he put his fingers to his forehead and closed his eyes in despair.
    I, too, find it hard to believe Catherine can be a diplomat. She is clever, certainly, and tenacious, but her iron determination to marry young Prince Harry and be the Queen of England colours all her thinking, and I doubt whether she has it in her to learn the subtle arts of statesmanship. But I may be wrong. She learns fast.
    3rd September 1507
    Michel is here! A servant said this morning, with the curl of the lip I am used to, “There is a person in the kitchen wishing to see you.”
    And there he was, thinner than ever after long weeks of travel on foot. There was no place for him in the Spanish court once Philip had died, and he is going to make his way to the Netherlands, where Philip’s eight-year-old son Charles is being cared for until such time as he is old enough to marry Mary.
    If Michel secretly hoped he would be taken on as court jester here, he is out of luck, alas. Henry’s generosity on the previous occasion was, I’m afraid, more to impress Philip with his careless munificence than to reward Michel’s talent, and there are already a number of fools and entertainers here, some of them “innocents” whose drooling antics never make me smile.
    Michel is not a welcome guest. He sleeps in the hay-loft and, did I not take him bread and meat scrounged from the kitchen, he would have nothing.
    We walk together in the evenings and kiss, and I wish with all my heart that I could be with him always – but we can make no plans. Michel says he has no belief in plans, anyway. “Any wise man should lock them in a box and throw away the