Patience, Princess Catherine

by Carolyn Meyer

  "Quite weary, my lord."

  "Perhaps, then, it would be wise to delay the conjugal act until another time?"

  His question startled me, for I thought that decision had already been made. I was also not certain I understood him, for his Latin words were still strange to my ears. "As you wish, my lord," I replied.

  Arthur shifted restlessly in the bed. "But it is the custom to show evidence of the act to the noblemen."

  "I have the evidence here. My duenna gave it to me."

  "You do?" Arthur rolled over onto his stomach. "What sort of evidence?"

  "A vial of sheep's blood."

  Arthur laughed with relief. "Splendid!" He patted my shoulder. "Then good night, dearest wife," he said. "Sleep well." Arthur turned away from me and curled up on his side.

  I whispered, "Good night, beloved husband. God grant you a peaceful rest."

  I tucked the glass vial between the mattresses, intending to follow Doña Elvira's instructions first thing in the morning. Soon Arthur was breathing deeply. Exhausted though I was, I could not sleep—not while this boy, this stranger, lay in the bed beside me, close enough to touch.

  Arthur was still sleeping when a great clamor erupted outside our chamber the next morning. Doña Elvira's voice registered loud protest on the other side of the door, with even louder shouts and much boisterous laughter in reply.

  "What can it be?" I asked Arthur, who was now fully awake and running his fingers through his thick blond curls.

  "The lords of the bedchamber have come to greet us," he explained.

  "This is an outrage!" my duenna shouted as the door burst open.

  They paid her no attention. In a moment a dozen strangers had pulled back the bed curtains and gaped at us rudely. Behind them came musicians making all sorts of insufferable noises. There was much laughter and rough joking, and Arthur's fool pranced about, making comments that I was glad not to understand. So distressed was I by this intrusion that I burst into tears of shame. Under the coverlet Arthur squeezed my hand to comfort me and tried to explain that such was the custom here. I retorted that in my country such an invasion would be considered an insult.

  This racket continued for some minutes. Arthur whispered to me, "Watch now. Here is my great pretense." He threw back the bedcovers, calling out in Latin in a great, boastful voice, "My friends, I believe that it is indeed a good pastime to have a wife!"

  This remark was greeted with more laughter and all sorts of ill-mannered whistles and hoots. Stunned, I peered around for my duenna to come to my aid, but I soon found that she had swooned dead away and only halfhearted efforts were being made to revive her.

  At the last moment I remembered the glass vial of sheep's blood hidden between the mattresses. While Arthur roistered with the gentlemen who laughed and joked with him, I pulled the cork stopper and, following my duenna's instructions, sprinkled a few drops of blood upon the spotless white linen sheet.

  For a fortnight the celebrations continued—pageants and tournaments, feasting and dancing, masquing and disguising, gambling at cards and at dice—and so did the debate about whether I should accompany my husband to Ludlow and begin to share his life or whether I should remain with the royal court in London. On the thirtieth of November the celebrations came to an end; I learned that the first portion of my dowry—100, 000 escudos—had been handed over by the ambassador to King Henry, and my household and I were moved to Richmond Palace, the king's favorite.

  I understood that Arthur needed to return to Ludlow to resume his duties as prince of Wales. I also understood that I was too young and possibly too delicate to take up life in that wild, rough country. Doña Elvira insisted that I must not go, that she had given her word to my mother I would not. "Perhaps in a year," she said.

  But my chaplain, Padre Alessandro, insisted just as strongly that I must go now.

  I felt myself pulled first one way and then the other and sometimes wept with perplexity and bafflement. It was not my choice to make, and just as well, for I would not have known how to make it. "The king will decide," I reminded my duenna and my chaplain. "Neither you nor I have a voice."

  At last Arthur sent me a message: King Henry had decided that the prince of Wales must return to Ludlow before the start of Yuletide and that I was to accompany him. Padre Alessandro smiled benevolently while Doña Elvira raged, but she could not defy the orders of the English king. Early in December, I prepared to make another journey, this time with my husband to my new home in Wales.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Longest Season

  Eltham Palace, January 1502

  Henry watched as the great procession—Arthur's knights and priests and henchmen and the princess's Spanish retinue, carts and mules laden with their belongings, the princess closed in her litter and Arthur on horseback—set off from Richmond Palace, wound through the hills, and finally disappeared into the forest.

  After the excitement of the wedding, he was sorry to see them leave. He had grown fond of the princess and of his role as her escort and the attention it brought him. If Catherine had remained at court, he believed there was much he could have taught her: to speak French fluently; to dance in the English manner; to play upon the lute, if she did not know how; and to sing some pretty songs. Perhaps he could have taught her to speak English as well.

  "Why do you not stay at Richmond for Yuletide?" Henry had asked Arthur, who shrugged and replied, "Father, the king, wishes me to be in the Welsh Marches by Christmas." And that was that.

  After Twelfth Night the duke and his sisters returned by royal barge to Eltham Palace near Greenwich with its great hunting park, fine banqueting halls, and puppet theater. Henry had spent the past ten years at Eltham under the care of various nursemaids, governors, and tutors. He resumed his studies under the direction of his principal tutor, John Skelton, who had been chosen by Lady Margaret.

  His days began long before the sun rose. Henry shivered sleepily through matins sung by his chaplain, and at six o'clock stumbled to the chapel royal to hear daily mass. He was always ravenous by the first meal of the day, gulping down a flagon of ale and devouring the bread and meat set out for him in his chambers.

  The intellectually rigorous mornings ground by: Latin and Greek, followed by French and penmanship lessons, and later, under Skelton's demanding eye, on to mathematics, logic, and law. His tutors agreed that Henry was a gifted student, and Erasmus, the renowned humanist scholar who came from Amsterdam to visit the Tudor court that winter, pronounced him "brilliant."

  By dinnertime, after the morning lessons, Henry was again famished. Liveried servants presented the dishes and Skelton presided at table with a stout stick, whacking Henry's knuckles when the duke forgot himself and wiped his greasy hands on his doublet.

  Once dinner was finished, Henry could scarcely wait to be away from his books and out into the park. Brandon often waited for him, challenging him to a sword fight, a footrace, a contest of some kind. He could run faster than the cousins who often joined them. He leaped easily over ditches and fences, leaving the others far behind, except for Brandon who always won.

  By four o'clock darkness was closing in, and even Henry was ready to leave the park for the warmth of a blazing fire. Supper, taken with good appetite, was followed by evening prayers, in which he never failed to mention the members of the royal family by name, beginning with his grandmother, Lady Margaret, and now including Catherine, princess of Wales. Arthur was so fortunate to have married such an appealing wife—and intelligent as well! Henry thought often of the Spanish princess— Catalina, a pretty name— wondering how she fared at Ludlow with dear, dull Arthur. She would have a merrier time of it if he, Henry, were there.

  Weary at last, he retired to his bedchamber, bade Brandon a good night, and fell into a deep and untroubled sleep.

  EARLY IN DECEMBER WE MADE OUR FAREWELLS TO King Henry and Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the family and set out from Richmond. The duke of York put on a great show of his good-bye, telling m
e that I must say au revoir, thus adding another French phrase to my small vocabulary.

  Days before our departure, many of my countrymen prepared to return to Spain—not only the bishops and tided gentlemen, but also the trumpeters, cooks, servers, and others who had been sent to assist with the wedding. How it saddened me to see them leave! A part of my heart went with them.

  Some sixty Spaniards remained with me in England. Doña Elvira hovered close by, murmuring words of encouragement when I needed them, or relendessly enforcing rules she insisted had been laid down by my mother, which I could not disprove. How much she annoyed me! But I could not argue with her, for though I had been well schooled in obedience, I had not yet learned to assert myself.

  Doña Elvira's husband, Don Pedro Manrique, served as my majordomo, in charge of my household. Their son, Iñigo, tall and gaunt as his mother, silent as his father, was my equerry, charged with the care of our horses and mules. Padre Alessandro heard my confessions and said mass for us. My fools, Santiago and Urraca, did their best to amuse me, and the minstrels, however downcast they may have felt, were ready to strum us a merry tune whenever we stopped to rest. And my ladies! I could not have done without Maria, Inez, and Francesca, always present to soothe and encourage me, no matter how much they suffered from the strange food and foul weather.

  The air had turned sharply colder since my arrival in England, and I traveled inside the royal litter, bundled in furs, sometimes cupping my hands over my nose to warm it. My ladies, who took turns riding in the litter with me, and our maidservants all complained of the icy winds. The English appeared undisturbed by the cold that found its way into our very bones. Even Arthur, who was not robust, seemed not to mind spending the day on horseback, regardless of the elements. Francesca shivered and wept, crying that her tears turned to ice on her cheeks. I wondered myself how I would endure the long winter, but I tried to put on a cheerful face for my new husband, to hide from him my discomfort.

  The farther we traveled to the north and west, the wilder the countryside became. We were bound for the Marches, the borderland between England and Wales. Centuries before, a line of heavily fortified castles had been built along that border as a defense against the barbarian hordes to the west. Now one of these ancient castles would be my home.

  I understood little of what was expected of Arthur, except that this was the far edge of England, that the Welsh were an unruly lot, and Arthur's presence was expected to help maintain peace and order. Perhaps, I thought, I might be of help to him in this, for I was accustomed to the way my parents always worked together as a team to unite the peoples of Aragón and Castilla.

  Along our route the good country people turned out to cheer us, skin reddened and noses dripping. We made stops at several great manor houses, property of the prince of Wales, and I passed my sixteenth birthday at Bewdley, where a special feast had been prepared in my honor.

  To the table that night servitors carried one of the strangest dishes I had ever seen. The forward half of a suckling pig had been stitched to the rear half of a capon, the remaining back half of the piglet stitched to the front end of the capon, both creatures then stuffed with a mixture of bread and eggs and roasted upon a spit. Gilded with gold foil and accompanied by blaring trumpets, this creation, called a cockentrice, was presented upon silver platters, as though it were the most marvelous dish in the world.

  I stole a glance at Doña Elvira, who looked as though she might faint at the sight of it. "¡Qué horror!" she muttered. Even the hardy Padre Alessandro looked a little squeamish.

  The cockentrice aside, I wished we could have stayed on at Bewdley, set in the midst of a lovely park close by the gentle Severn River. Knowing that was impossible, I hoped Ludlow's castle would turn out to be as charming as the Bewdley manor.

  When we arrived at Ludlow, I was most disappointed. Surrounded by a deep moat, the ancient castle loomed forbiddingly over the village. Arthur proudly led me through a gate in the curtain wall, thicker than the height of a man, across an open space to an inner wall, and through yet another portal to the inner bailey. Though I thought the castle grim from the outside, I found the inside to be more cheerful. Fires blazed in enormous hearths, colorful tapestries warmed the rough stone walls, and candles brightened the dark chambers. Arthur and his gentlemen escorted me to my apartments with great ceremony. When he had left me for his own apartments in another part of the castle, I inspected the bed with its several mattresses stuffed with wool and the rich tapestries that enclosed it and pronounced it satisfactory. Doña Elvira sniffed, glaring her general disapproval, but ordered our goods unpacked.

  "I shall be able to sleep well enough here, I suppose," she said.

  I could not conceal my surprise. "In my chamber, Doña Elvira?"

  "As your esteemed parents, the kings of Spain, have instructed," she said in a tone that allowed no argument.

  Once more I chose to keep silent rather than challenge my duenna. When I think back upon it now, I wonder at how meekly I accepted her assertion that my parents had ordered it. Had they really told her that she must sleep with me even after I became a wife? Whether they had or not, I decided that surely it was my husband's obligation to tell her otherwise. But, to be truthful, I felt more relief than disappointment, for I was not eager for Arthur to begin visits to my bed that must inevitably end in "the conjugal act," as he called it.

  We had arrived at Ludlow the week before the feast of the Nativity. My first Yuletide spent away from home in a strange land was part heartache and part enchantment for me. The wild-haired, bearded Welsh chieftains came to our banquets dressed in leather and sheepskin rather than silk and velvet, to pay their respects to their young prince and to me, his bride. They brought with them harpists and other musicians, and after the feasting ended they would stay until the small hours of the morning, drinking great flagons of ale, singing their dirgelike tunes, and reciting the story of their misty past in long poems. Though I understood not a single word of their language, which sounded even more strange to my ears than did English, I loved the rolling cadences of their voices.

  Often, I called upon my minstrels to entertain our guests with songs from Spain that gladdened my heart but at the same time filled it with longing. On the eve of Christmas Francesca reminded me of the tiny oil lamps that were lighted in the windows of every home, from castle to cottage, to welcome the Christ child. And then Maria began to speak of the delicious cakes made of almonds and honey and scented with lemons. I could almost taste them. Nothing is so wrenching as thoughts of one's old life at Yuletide, and these tender memories set us to weeping.

  Then Inez, always practical, scolded us. "That was our old life," she said. "This is our new one."

  "Indulge us a little, dear Inez," I begged her. "You are right, but that does not lessen our yearning."

  During this tranquil season, Arthur sometimes conducted me to various parts of the rambling old castle, so that I might become familiar with my home and its long history. During our walks he described to me life at his father's court, sometimes adding, "When I am king and you are my queen, we shall do the same."

  Each New Year's morning, Arthur told me, he and his brother and sisters were summoned to the king's bedchamber, where they watched silently as their father received gifts from every member of his court according to rank, from highest to lowest. Next, his mother entered the chamber and received her gifts in the same manner.

  "I was third," Arthur said. "And then York. After that, my sisters. Little Mary was always the last to see her gifts, and by then the poor thing was so exhausted she could scarcely mumble thanks. Perhaps that is a custom we could change."

  "Gifts on New Year's Day?" I asked, explaining that in Spain we exchanged gifts on the Feast of the Three Kings, the sixth of January.

  "The sixth of January is known as Twelfth Night," Arthur said, "an occasion for merrymaking. Sometimes the revelers drink too much ale. You may not find it to your liking, Catherine."

  Catherine. No
t Catalina. Members of my Spanish retinue continued to call me Catalina, but to my husband I had a different name. Slowly my ear was growing accustomed to the way Arthur spoke Latin, and his to mine, so that our conversations flowed more easily. But I was still not used to being called Catherine.

  Twelfth Night arrived. Sir Richard Pole, the prince's chamberlain, carried a brimming bowl of spiced ale into the Great Hall of the castle, crying "Wassail! Wassail!" (I learned that it means "Good health!") A little band of minstrels and choristers played and sang, the ale was drunk—I merely pretended—and the feasting began. "Shield of brawn" was served, boar meat steeped in vinegar. The English consumed it with gusto, but it proved too strong for my stomach. I felt quite ill afterwards and retired early to my chambers. Thus I was not present when the feasting turned to drunkenness, though I heard whispers for days afterward of mildly improper behavior.

  Twelfth Night marked the end of Yuletide, and Arthur returned to his regular duties, meeting with the council that the king had appointed to help him govern. I saw little of him during those busy days, but I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Lady Margaret Pole, wife of Sir Richard. Lady Margaret was several years older than I, a handsome woman, both elegant and dignified. She was also pious, which I appreciated greatly, and interested in books and literature.

  I passed my days in conversation with Lady Margaret, with whom I spoke Latin, or with my ladies as we sat with our needlework in our laps. My mother had insisted that my sisters and I learn to sew a fine seam. She had always stitched my father's shirts, and it seemed fitting that I would do the same for my husband. I had my fools to amuse me, and through the long, dark evenings the minstrels played for us. When the Welshmen came, as they often did, we listened to the music of their poetry.