46

WHEN WE REACHED THE bishop’s palace in Hampshire, we were greeted by the queen’s Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Ormond, but not with much enthusiasm. ‘I fear this may not be a convenient time to see the princess, my lord king,’ he said regretfully. ‘She stopped here for a rest and has not been rising before midday. She always attends Mass immediately after dressing and then breaks her fast. She does not receive anyone but her duenna and ladies until mid-afternoon.’

The king’s brow darkened. ‘Just inform her that we are here, Ormond, eager to greet her and introduce her to her bridegroom.’

Lord Ormond ushered the royal party into a reception chamber and departed to do the king’s bidding but within a few minutes he had returned, looking crestfallen. ‘The duenna says, regretfully the princess is unable to meet your graces at this time.’

Prince Arthur wasn’t satisfied. ‘Are you sure she has asked her, Lord Ormond? I really thought Princess Katherine would be eager to see me,’ he said and began studying the rings on his fingers, as if seeking solace from them. The ride to Dogmersfield had brought colour to his cheeks and in his deep red sable-trimmed Italian brocade doublet and polished riding boots, he looked every inch the royal prince. ‘After all, we are as good as married.’

King Henry drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘I knew they had something to hide!’ he muttered.

‘Give me pen, ink and paper,’ demanded the prince. ‘I will write a personal note to Katherine.’

Disappearing again briefly, Lord Ormond fulfilled his request and took the resulting note.

‘Make sure it is given to the princess herself, Ormond,’ ordered the king.

Some time later, when the drumming of the king’s fingers on the arm of his chair had reached fever pitch, the door of the reception chamber was suddenly thrown open and a dark-skinned guard in a gilt-edged black helmet, gold-tasselled black jacket and carrying a fierce-looking pole-arm, stamped into the room and shouted something in Spanish.

The attendant yeomen guards standing behind the two royals sprang to attention and the king and Prince Arthur stood up. Through the door came a bejewelled figure dressed almost entirely in gold satin, lavishly embroidered in red silk, but the most striking feature of her apparel was a black lace veil arranged to completely obscure her face. It was impossible to know if this was the Princess Katherine but at least the curtsy she made was graceful and fluid, certainly worthy of a princess.

The middle-aged lady beside her spoke in French. ‘I am the princess’s duenna, Doña Elvira, appointed by Queen Isabella. Because of the respect she owes the prince, she has consented to meet with your graces.’

I looked at Prince Arthur and sympathised with the frustration that was written all over his face. Perhaps he did not fully understand the duenna’s heavily accented French and it was hard for a putative bridegroom, so keen to see his bride, to have ridden all the way from the Welsh March, only to be confronted by a black lace veil.

His father spoke up for him, using his perfect French. ‘Does the princess have a condition that prevents her showing us her face, Madame?’

The duenna gave a nervous tinkling laugh. ‘He! He! No, your highness; Spanish protocol says that she must remain veiled until she is married.’

I translated for the prince who gave a smothered exclamation of disbelief. ‘Then how does a man know exactly who, or even what, he is marrying? She is not very tall. She could be an ape, for all I know.’ He said this to his father in English.

Doña Elvira looked puzzled, not understanding. She shook her head stubbornly. ‘This is the rule, it is protocol, messires.’

‘It is not English protocol, Madame,’ King Henry said, again in French. ‘I expect the princess does not wear a veil in bed. If she prefers we will wait until she retires and come to her bedchamber to see her.’ When the duenna gave another nervous laugh he added sternly, ‘I am not joking, Madame.’

Prince Arthur frowned. He sensed his father’s anger and perhaps feared that it would frighten the princess. To my surprise, and probably to that of everyone in the room, he moved purposefully forward to stand before his betrothed.

‘Thank you for coming to England, Katherine,’ he said gently and earnestly in Latin. ‘It must have been a weary journey for you and I have waited so long to see the face of my bride.’ He stretched out his hands and touched the edge of the lace veil, saying softly, ‘May I?’

We all held our breath and Doña Elvira made an exclamation, ‘She will not understand you!’ and stepped protectively towards her charge but the princess raised her hand to halt her. Then she inclined her head forward and said very quietly, ‘Si.’

Arthur slowly lifted the veil, moving closer in order to fold it over the high-backed comb that held it in place. There was an audible sigh as everyone released the breath they had been holding and Princess Katherine’s sweet, still childishly round face was revealed, framed by two smooth wings of bright gold hair. Softly curved lips held the hint of a smile and her cheeks and brow were smooth and fair, like pale pink marble, clearly well protected from the burning Spanish sun. Her eyes were cast demurely down until she lifted them to gaze upon her bridegroom’s face, when they were disclosed as intriguing pools of deep blue-green, like the seas she had crossed to reach him.

‘You are beautiful, Katherine,’ Arthur said, in a voice filled with awe. ‘I am so happy you are to be my wife.’

I wrote of this touching scene to the queen as promised, including the general difficulty over communication, and this led to her agreeing to temporarily assign me to the bride’s household for the days leading up to and following the wedding. Days in which my grasp of Spanish improved considerably and I tried to encourage Katherine to increase her regrettably neglected understanding of English.

The princess’s party was housed in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Palace and I found myself translating between the palace staff, the princess’s entourage, the Spanish ambassador and the king’s Lord Chamberlain about the extensive arrangements already in place for the wedding celebrations. It was a task I found extremely taxing, given the differing attitudes and expectations of the two courts and countries, not to mention the need to translate everything into written Latin, so that the princess could approve the plans. Each night I went to bed with my head spinning, my mind a blur of languages, personalities and protocols and my cheeks aching from smiling.

Later, the incident I remembered most vividly of that exhausting few days was a comical dispute over Princess Katherine’s mode of travel for her formal entry procession into London. Queen Elizabeth had ordered a chariot upholstered in cloth of gold and bedecked with red and white silk roses but the Spanish officials flatly refused this arrangement, maintaining that until she was married the princess remained a Spanish noblewoman and therefore would make her first public appearance in the mode and livery of her country of birth. For this very purpose special robes and accessories had been brought from Spain and her royal highness’s favourite mount had been transported all the way to England at vast cost and at the particular insistence of Queen Isabella. She had insisted that the princess should not be introduced to the people of London sitting low in a chariot but riding high on a velvet-covered saddle, brilliant with sparkling jewels and girthed on a mount trapped flamboyantly in the Spanish fashion. When the queen’s Master of Horse heard this he was delighted by the novelty and spectacle of it, until he was shown the mount involved, which was not as he had imagined, a high-stepping and spirited Spanish stallion, but a great thick-headed, long-eared Spanish mule.

‘She will be a laughing stock,’ he confided to me, after his cautious protests had been dismissed by his Spanish counterpart with much hand-flapping and finger-snapping. ‘The English regard mules as beasts of burden, not noble processional steeds.’

I, too, had seen the animal in question. ‘But it is a beautiful beast, is it not? It is certainly tall and I thought that pale gold coat and the way it carried its head were distinctive. The princess is happy to ride it and the crowds will certainly see her up there above all the horses in the procession. But most importantly the mule is calm and steady. It will not tip her off at the first rousing cheer.’

After he heard the outcome of this difference of opinion the king made a suggestion to his Master of Horse. So when the procession made its slow way across London Bridge, up the length of Gracechurch Street and down Cornhill to Cheapside, the princess was cheered ecstatically by the crowds, which thrilled to the music of her lively minstrel band and her spectacular Spanish apparel, capped by a wide-brimmed, pink cardinal-style hat, worn over a pearl-trimmed white coif with her bright hair caught in gold netting hanging loose down her back. Many also applauded the way she rode astride on the distinctive long-eared mule with its red and gold trappings, ignoring the spare chestnut palfrey, caparisoned in Tudor green and white and equipped with a modest side-saddle, which was led some way behind her in case of need.

The procession ended at St Paul’s Cathedral where Princess Katherine made an offering and heard Mass. The alternative palfrey was led, unused, back to the king’s stables in the Tower of London.