1509

And then, I waited. Incredibly, I waited for a total of six years. Six years when I went from a bride of seventeen to a woman of twenty-three. I knew then that King Henry’s rage against me was bitter, and effective, and long-lasting. No princess in the world had ever been made to wait so long, or treated so harshly, or left in such despair. I am not exaggerating this, as a troubadour might do to make a better story – as I might have told you, beloved, in the dark hours of the night. No, it was not like a story, it was not even like a life. It was like a prison sentence, it was like being a hostage with no chance of redemption, it was loneliness, and the slow realisation that I had failed.

I failed my mother and failed to bring to her the alliance with England that I had been born and bred to do. I was ashamed of my failure. Without the dowry payment from Spain I could not force the English to honour the betrothal. With the king’s enmity I could force them to do nothing. Harry was a child of thirteen, I hardly ever saw him. I could not appeal to him to make his promise good. I was powerless, neglected by the court and falling into shameful poverty.

Then Harry was fourteen years of age and our betrothal was still not made marriage, and that marriage not celebrated. I waited a year, he reached fifteen years, and nobody came for me. So Harry reached his sixteenth and then his seventeenth birthday, and still nobody came for me. Those years turned. I grew older. I waited. I was constant. It was all I could be.

I turned the panels on my gowns and sold my jewels for food. I had to sell my precious plate, one gold piece at a time. I knew it was the property of the king as I sent for the goldsmiths. I knew that each time I pawned a piece I put my wedding back another day. But I had to eat, my household had to eat. I could pay them no wages, I could hardly ask them to beg for me as well as go hungry on their own account.

I was friendless. I discovered that Dona Elvira was plotting against my father in favour of Juana and her husband Philip and I dismissed her, in a rage, and sent her away. I did not care if she spoke against me, if she named me as a liar. I did not care even if she declared that Arthur and I had been lovers. I had caught her in treason against my father; did she truly think I would ally with my sister against the King of Aragon? I was so angry that I did not care what her enmity cost me.

Also, since I am not a fool, I calculated rightly that no-one would believe her word against mine. She fled to Philip and Juana in the Netherlands, and I never heard from her again, and I never complained of my loss.

I lost my ambassador, Dr de Puebla. I had often complained to my father of his divided loyalties, of his disrespect, of his concessions to the English court. But when he was recalled to Spain I found that he had known more than I had realised, he had used his friendship with the king to my advantage, he had understood his way around this most difficult court. He had been a better friend than I had known, and I was the poorer without him. I lost a friend and an ally, through my own arrogance; and I was sorry for his absence. His replacement: the emissary who had come to take me home, Don Gutierre Gomez de Fuensalida, was a pompous fool who thought the English were honoured by his presence. They sneered at his face and laughed behind his back and I was a ragged princess with an ambassador entranced by his own self-importance.

I lost my dear father in Christ, the confessor I trusted, appointed by my mother to guide me, and I had to find another for myself. I lost the ladies of my little court, who would not live in hardship and poverty, and I could not pay anyone else to serve me. Maria de Salinas stood by me, through all these long years of endurance, for love; but the other ladies wanted to leave. Then, finally, I lost my house, my lovely house on the Strand, which had been my home, a little safe place in this most foreign land.

The king promised me rooms at court and I thought that he had at last forgiven me. I thought he was offering me to come to court, to live in the rooms of a princess and to see Harry. But when I moved my household there I found that I was given the worst rooms, allocated the poorest service, unable to see the prince, except on the most formal of state occasions. One dreadful day, the court left on progress without telling us and we had to dash after them, finding our way down the unmarked country lanes, as unwanted and as irrelevant as a wagon filled with old goods. When we caught up, no-one had noticed that we were missing and I had to take the only rooms left: over the stables, like a servant.

The king stopped paying my allowance, his mother did not press my case. I had no money of my own at all. I lived despised on the fringe of the court, with Spaniards who served me only because they could not leave. They were trapped like me, watching the years slide by, getting older and more resentful till I felt like the sleeping princess of the fairy tale and thought that I would never wake.

I lost my vanity – my proud sense that I could be cleverer than that old fox who was my father-in-law, and that sharp vixen his mother. I learned that he had betrothed me to his son Prince Harry, not because he loved and forgave me, but because it was the cleverest and cruellest way to punish me. If he could not have me, then he could make sure that no-one had me. It was a bitter day when I realised that.

And then, Philip died and my sister Juana was a widow like me, and King Henry came up with a plan to marry her, my poor sister – driven from her wits by the loss of her husband – and put her over me, on the throne of England, where everyone would see that she was crazed, where everyone could see the bad blood which I share, where everyone would know that he had made her queen and thrown me down to nothing. It was a wicked plan, certain to shame and distress both me and Juana. He would have done it if he could, and he made me his pander as well – he forced me to recommend him to my father. Under my father’s orders I spoke to the king of Juana’s beauty; under the king’s orders I urged my father to accept his suit, all the time knowing that I was betraying my very soul. I lost my ability to refuse King Henry my persecutor, my father-in-law, my would-be seducer. I was afraid to say ‘no’ to him. I was very much reduced, that day.

I lost my vanity in my allure, I lost my confidence in my intelligence and skills; but I never lost my will to live. I was not like my mother, I was not like Juana, I did not turn my face to the wall and long for my pain to be over. I did not slide into the wailing grief of madness nor into the gentle darkness of sloth. I gritted my teeth, I am the constant princess, I don’t stop when everyone else stops. I carried on. I waited. Even when I could do nothing else, I could still wait. So I waited.

These were not the years of my defeat; these were the years when I grew up, and it was a bitter maturing. I grew from a girl of sixteen ready for love to a half-orphaned, lonely widow of twenty-three. These were the years when I drew on the happiness of my childhood in the Alhambra and my love for my husband to sustain me, and swore that whatever the obstacles before me, I should be Queen of England. These were the years when, though my mother was dead, she lived again through me. I found her determination inside me, I found her courage inside me, I found Arthur’s love and optimism inside me. These were the years when although I had nothing left: no husband, no mother, no friends, no fortune and no prospects; I swore that however disregarded, however poor, however unlikely a prospect, I would still be Queen of England.

News, always slow to reach the bedraggled Spaniards on the fringe of the royal court, filtered through that Harry’s sister the Princess Mary was to be married, gloriously, to Prince Charles, son of King Philip and Queen Juana, grandson to both the Emperor Maximilian and King Ferdinand. Amazingly, at this of all moments, King Ferdinand at last found the money for Catalina’s dowry, and packed it off to London.

‘My God, we are freed. There can be a double wedding. I can marry him,’ Catalina said, heartfelt, to the Spanish emissary, Don Gutierre Gomez de Fuensalida.

He was pale with worry, his yellow teeth nipping at his lips. ‘Oh, Infanta, I hardly know how to tell you. Even with this alliance, even with the dowry money – dear God, I fear it comes too late. I fear it will not help us at all.’

‘How can it be? Princess Mary’s betrothal only deepens the alliance with my family.’

‘What if…’ He started and broke off. He could hardly speak of the danger that he foresaw. ‘Princess, all the English know that the dowry money is coming, but they do not speak of your marriage. Oh, Princess, what if they plan an alliance that does not include Spain? What if they plan an alliance between the emperor and King Henry? What if the alliance is for them to go to war against Spain?’

She turned her head. ‘It cannot be.’

‘What if it is?’

‘Against the boy’s own grandfather?’ she demanded.

‘It would only be one grandfather, the emperor, against another, your father.’

‘They would not,’ she said determinedly.

‘They could.’

‘King Henry would not be so dishonest.’

‘Princess, you know that he would.’

She hesitated. ‘What is it?’ she suddenly demanded, sharp with irritation. ‘There is something else. Something you are not telling me. What is it?’

He paused, a lie in his mouth; then he told her the truth. ‘I am afraid, I am very afraid, that they will betroth Prince Harry to Princess Eleanor, the sister of Charles.’

‘They cannot, he is betrothed to me.’

‘They may plan it as part of a great treaty. Your sister Juana to marry the king, your nephew Charles for Princess Mary, and your niece Eleanor for Prince Harry.’

‘But what about me? Now that my dowry money is on its way at last?’

He was silent. It was painfully apparent that Catalina was excluded by these alliances, and no provision made for her.

‘A true prince has to honour his promise,’ she said passionately. ‘We were betrothed by a bishop before witnesses, it is a solemn oath.’

The ambassador shrugged, hesitated. He could hardly make himself tell her the worst news of all. ‘Your Grace, Princess, be brave. I am afraid he may withdraw his oath.’

‘He cannot.’

Fuensalida went further. ‘Indeed, I am afraid it is already withdrawn. He may have withdrawn it years ago.’

‘What?’ she asked sharply. ‘How?’

‘A rumour, I cannot be sure of it. But I am afraid…’ He broke off.

‘Afraid of what?’

‘I am afraid that the prince may be already released from his betrothal to you.’ He hesitated at the sudden darkening of her face. ‘It will not have been his choice,’ he said quickly. ‘His father is determined against us.’

‘How could he? How can such a thing be done?’

‘He could have sworn an oath that he was too young, that he was under duress. He may have declared that he did not want to marry you. Indeed, I think that is what he has done.’

‘He was not under duress!’ Catalina exclaimed. ‘He was utterly delighted. He has been in love with me for years, I am sure he still is. He did want to marry me!’

‘An oath sworn before a bishop that he was not acting of his own free will would be enough to secure his release from his promise.’

‘So all these years that I have been betrothed to him, and acted on that premise, all these years that I have waited and waited and endured…’ She could not finish. ‘Are you telling me that for all these years, when I believed that we had them tied down, contracted, bound, he has been free?’

The ambassador nodded; her face was so stark and shocked that he could hardly find his voice.

‘This is…a betrayal,’ she said. ‘A most terrible betrayal.’ She choked on the words. ‘This is the worst betrayal of all.’

He nodded again.

There was a long, painful silence. ‘I am lost,’ she said simply. ‘Now I know it. I have been lost for years and I did not know. I have been fighting a battle with no army, with no support. Actually – with no cause. You tell me that I have been defending a cause that was gone long ago. I was fighting for my betrothal but I was not betrothed. I have been all alone, all this long time. And now I know it.’

Still she did not weep, though her blue eyes were horrified.

‘I made a promise,’ she said, her voice harsh. ‘I made a solemn and binding promise.’

‘Your betrothal?’

She made a little gesture with her hand. ‘Not that. I swore a promise. A deathbed promise. Now you tell me it has all been for nothing.’

‘Princess, you have stayed at your post, as your mother would have wanted you to do.’

‘I have been made a fool!’ burst out of her, from the depth of her shock. ‘I have been fighting for the fulfilment of a vow, not knowing that the vow was long broken.’

He could say nothing, her pain was too raw for any soothing words.

After a few moments, she raised her head. ‘Does everyone know but me?’ she asked bleakly.

He shook his head. ‘I am sure it was kept most secret.’

‘My Lady the King’s Mother,’ she predicted bitterly. ‘She will have known. It will have been her decision. And the king, the prince himself, and if he knew, then the Princess Mary will know – he would have told her. And his closest companions…’ She raised her head. ‘The king’s mother’s ladies, the princess’s ladies. The bishop that he swore to, a witness or two. Half the court, I suppose.’ She paused. ‘I thought that at least some of them were my friends,’ she said.

The ambassador shrugged. ‘In a court there are no friends, only courtiers.’

‘My father will defend me from this…cruelty!’ she burst out. ‘They should have thought of that before they treated me so! There will be no treaties for England with Spain when he hears about this. He will take revenge for this abuse of me.’

He could say nothing, and in the still silent face that he turned to her she saw the worst truth.

‘No,’ she said simply. ‘Not him. Not him as well. Not my father. He did not know. He loves me. He would never injure me. He would never abandon me here.’

Still he could not tell her. He saw her take a deep breath.

‘Oh. Oh. I see. I see from your silence. Of course. He knows, of course he knows, doesn’t he? My father? The dowry money is just another trick. He knows of the proposal to marry Prince Harry to Princess Eleanor. He has been leading the king on to think that he can marry Juana. He ordered me to encourage the king to marry Juana. He will have agreed to this new proposal for Prince Harry. And so he knows that the prince has broken his oath to me? And is free to marry?’

‘Princess, he has told me nothing. I think he must know. But perhaps he plans…’

Her gesture stopped him. ‘He has given up on me. I see. I have failed him and he has cast me aside. I am indeed alone.’

‘So shall I try to get us home now?’ Fuensalida asked quietly. Truly, he thought, it had become the very pinnacle of his ambitions. If he could get this doomed princess home to her unhappy father and her increasingly deranged sister, the new Queen of Castile, he would have done the best he could in a desperate situation. Nobody would marry Catalina of Spain now she was the daughter of a divided kingdom. Everyone could see that the madness in her blood was coming out in her sister. Not even Henry of England could pretend that Juana was fit to marry when she was on a crazed progress across Spain with her dead husband’s coffin. Ferdinand’s tricky diplomacy had rebounded on him and now everyone in Europe was his enemy, with two of the most powerful men in Europe allied to make war against him. Ferdinand was lost, and going down. The best that this unlucky princess could expect was a scratch marriage to some Spanish grandee and retirement to the countryside, with a chance to escape the war that must come. The worst was to remain trapped and in poverty in England, a forgotten hostage that no-one would ransom. A prisoner who would be soon forgotten, even by her gaolers.

‘What shall I do?’ Finally she accepted danger. He saw her take it in. Finally, she understood that she had lost. He saw her, a queen in every inch, learn the depth of her defeat. ‘I must know what I should do. Or I shall be hostage, in an enemy country, with no-one to speak for me.’

He did not say that he had thought her just that, ever since he had arrived.

‘We shall leave,’ he said decisively. ‘If war comes they will keep you as a hostage and they will seize your dowry. God forbid that now the money is finally coming, it should be used to make war against Spain.’

‘I cannot leave,’ she said flatly. ‘If I go, I will never get back here.’

‘It is over!’ he cried in sudden passion. ‘You see it yourself, at last. We have lost. We are defeated. It is over for you and England. You have held on and faced humiliation and poverty, you have faced it like a princess, like a queen, like a saint. Your mother herself could not have shown more courage. But we are defeated, Infanta. You have lost. We have to get home as best we can. We have to run, before they catch us.’

‘Catch us?’

‘They could imprison us both as enemy spies and hold us to ransom,’ he told her. ‘They could impound whatever remains of your dowry goods and impound the rest when it arrives. God knows, they can make up a charge, and execute you, if they want to enough.’

‘They dare not touch me! I am a princess of royal blood,’ she flared up. ‘Whatever else they can take from me, they can never take that! I am Infanta of Spain even if I am nothing else! Even if I am never Queen of England, at least I will always be Infanta of Spain.’

‘Princes of royal blood have gone into the Tower of London before and not come out again,’ the ambassador said bleakly. ‘Princes of the royal blood of England have had those gates shut behind them and never seen daylight again. He could call you a pretender. You know what happens in England to pretenders. We have to go.’

Catalina curtseyed to My Lady the King’s Mother and received not even a nod of the head in return. She stiffened. The two retinues had met on their way to Mass; behind the old lady was her granddaughter the Princess Mary and half a dozen ladies. All of them showed frosty faces to the young woman who was supposed to be betrothed to the Prince of Wales but who had been neglected for so long.

‘My lady.’ Catalina stood in her path, waiting for an acknowledgement.

The king’s mother looked at the young woman with open dislike. ‘I hear that there are difficulties over the betrothal of the Princess Mary,’ she said.

Catalina looked towards the Princess Mary and the girl, hidden behind her grandmother, made an ugly grimace at her and broke off with a sudden snort of laughter.

‘I did not know,’ Catalina said.

‘You may not know, but your father undoubtedly knows,’ the old woman said irritably. ‘In one of your constant letters to him you might tell him that he does his cause and your cause no good by trying to disturb our plans for our family.’

‘I am very sure he does not…’ Catalina started.

‘I am very sure that he does; and you had better warn him not to stand in our way,’ the old woman interrupted her sharply, and swept on.

‘My own betrothal…’ Catalina tried.

‘Your betrothal?’ The king’s mother repeated the words as if she had never heard them before. ‘Your betrothal?’ Suddenly, she laughed, throwing her head back, her mouth wide. Behind her, the princess laughed too, and then all the ladies were laughing out loud at the thought of the pauper princess speaking of her betrothal to the most eligible prince in Christendom.

‘My father is sending my dowry!’ Catalina cried out.

‘Too late! You are far too late!’ the king’s mother wailed, clutching at the arm of her friend.

Catalina, confronted by a dozen laughing faces, reduced to helpless hysteria at the thought of this patched princess offering her bits of plate and gold, ducked her head down, pushed through them, and went away.

That night the ambassador of Spain and an Italian merchant of some wealth and great discretion stood side by side on a shadowy quayside at a quiet corner of the London docks, and watched the quiet loading of Spanish goods on to a ship bound for Bruges.

‘She has not authorised this?’ the merchant whispered, his dark face lit by flickering torchlight. ‘We are all but stealing her dowry! What will happen if the English suddenly say that the marriage is to go ahead and we have emptied her treasure room? What if they see that the dowry has come from Spain at last, but it never reached her treasure room? They will call us thieves. We will be thieves!’

‘They will never say it is to go ahead,’ the ambassador said simply. ‘They will impound her goods and imprison her the moment that they declare war on Spain, and they could do that any day now. I dare not let King Ferdinand’s money fall into the hands of the English. They are our enemies, not our allies.’

‘What will she do? We have emptied her treasury. There is nothing in her strong-room but empty boxes. We have left her a pauper.’

The ambassador shrugged. ‘She is ruined anyway. If she stays here when England is at war with Spain then she is an enemy hostage and they will imprison her. If she runs away with me she will have no kind welcome back at home. Her mother is dead and her family is ruined and she is ruined too. I would not be surprised if she did not throw herself into the Thames and drown. Her life is over. I cannot see what will become of her. I can save her money, if you will ship it out for me. But I cannot save her.’

I know I have to leave England; Arthur would not want me to stay to face danger. I have a terror of the Tower and the block that would be fitting only if I were a traitor, and not a princess who has never done anything wrong but tell one great lie, and that for the best. It would be the jest of all time if I had to put my head down on Warwick’s block and die, a Spanish pretender to the throne where he died a Plantagenet. That must not happen. I see that my writ does not run. I am not such a fool as to think I can command any more. I do not even pray any more. I do not even ask for my destiny. But I can run away. And I think the time to run away is now.

‘You have done what?’ Catalina demanded of her ambassador. The inventory in her hand trembled.

‘I took it upon my own authority to move your father’s treasure from the country. I could not risk…’

‘My dowry.’ She raised her voice.

‘Your Grace, we both know it will not be needed for a wedding. He will never marry you. They would take your dowry and he would still not marry you.’

‘It was my side of the bargain!’ she shouted. ‘I keep faith! Even if no-one else does! I have not eaten, I have given up my own house so as not to pawn that treasure. I make a promise and I keep to it, whatever the cost!’

‘The king would have used it to pay for soldiers to fight against your father. He would have fought against Spain with your father’s own gold!’ Fuensalida exclaimed miserably. ‘I could not let it happen.’

‘So you robbed me!’

He stumbled over the words. ‘I took your treasure into safe-keeping in the hopes that…’

‘Go!’ she said abruptly.

‘Princess?’

‘You have betrayed me, just as Dona Elvira betrayed me, just as everyone always betrays me,’ she said bitterly. ‘You may leave me. I shall not send for you again. Ever. Be very sure that I shall never speak to you again. But I shall tell my father what you have done. I shall write to him at once and tell him that you have stolen my dowry monies, that you are a thief. You will never be received at the court in Spain.’

He bowed, trembling with emotion, and then he turned to leave, too proud to defend himself.

‘You are nothing more than a traitor!’ Catalina cried as he reached the door. ‘And if I were a queen with the power of the queen I would have you hanged for treason.’

He stiffened. He turned, he bowed again, his voice when he spoke was ice. ‘Infanta, please do not make a fool of yourself by insulting me. You are badly mistaken. It was your own father who commanded me to return your dowry. I was obeying his direct order. Your own father wanted your treasury stripped of every valuable. It is he who decided to make you a pauper. He wanted the dowry money returned because he has given up all hope of your marriage. He wanted the money kept safe and smuggled safely out of England.

‘But I must tell you,’ he added with weighty malice, ‘he did not order me to make sure that you were safe. He gave no orders to smuggle you safely out of England. He thought of the treasure but not of you. His orders were to secure the safety of the goods. He did not even mention you by name. I think he must have given you up for lost.’

As soon as the words were out he wished he had not said them. The stricken look on her face was worse than anything he had ever seen before. ‘He told you to send back the gold but to leave me behind? With nothing?’

‘I am sure…’

Blindly, she turned her back to him and walked to the window so that he could not see the blank horror on her face. ‘Go,’ she repeated. ‘Just go.’

I am the sleeping princess in the story, a snow princess left in a cold land and forgetting the feel of the sun. This winter has been a long one, even for England. Even now, in April, the grass is so frosty in the morning that when I wake and see the ice on my bedroom windows the light filtering through is so white that I think it has snowed overnight. The water in the cup by my bed is frozen by midnight, and we cannot now afford to keep the fire in through the night. When I walk outside on the icy grass, it crunches thickly under my feet and I can feel its chill through the thin soles of my boots. This summer, I know, will have all the mild sweetness of an English summer; but I long for the burning heat of Spain. I want to have my despair baked out of me once more. I feel as if I have been cold for seven years, and if nothing comes to warm me soon I shall simply die of it, just melt away under the rain, just blow away like the mist off the river. If the king is indeed dying, as the court rumour says, and Prince Harry comes to the throne and marries Eleanor, then I shall ask my father for permission to take the veil and retire to a convent. It could not be worse than here. It could not be poorer, colder or more lonely. Clearly my father has forgotten his love for me and given me up, just as if I had died with Arthur. Indeed, now, I acknowledge that every day I wish that I had died with Arthur.

I have sworn never to despair – the women of my family dissolve into despair like molasses into water. But this ice in my heart does not feel like despair. It feels as if my rock-hard determination to be queen has turned me to stone. I don’t feel as if I am giving way to my feelings like Juana; I feel as if I have mislaid my feelings. I am a block, an icicle, a princess of constant snow.

I try to pray to God but I cannot hear Him. I fear He has forgotten me as everyone else has done. I have lost all sense of His presence, I have lost my fear of His will, and I have lost my joy in His blessing. I can feel nothing for Him. I no longer think I am His special child, chosen to be blessed. I no longer console myself that I am His special child, chosen to be tested. I think He has turned His face from me. I don’t know why, but if my earthly father can forget me, and forget that I was his favourite child, as he has done, then I suppose my Heavenly Father can forget me too.

In all the world I find that I care for only two things now: I can still feel my love for Arthur, like a warm, still-beating heart in a little bird that has fallen from a frozen sky, chilled and cold. And I still long for Spain, for the Alhambra Palace, for al-Yanna; the garden, the secret place, paradise.

I endure my life only because I cannot escape it. Each year I hope that my fortunes will change; each year when Harry’s birthday comes around and the betrothal is not made marriage, I know that another year of my fertile life has come and gone. Each midsummer day, when the dowry payment falls due and there is no draft from my father, I feel shame: like a sickness in my belly. And twelve times a year, for seven years, that is eighty-four times, my courses have come and gone. Each time I bleed I think, there is another chance to make a prince for England wasted. I have learned to grieve for the stain on my linen as if it is a child lost. Eighty-four chances for me to have a son, in the very flush of my youth; eighty-four chances lost. I am learning to miscarry. I am learning the sorrow of miscarriage.

Each day, when I go to pray I look up at the crucified Christ and say: ‘Your will be done’. That is each day for seven years, that is two thousand, five hundred and fifty-six times. This is the arithmetic of my pain. I say: ‘Your will be done’; but what I mean is: ‘make Your will on these wicked English councillors and this spiteful, unforgiving English king, and his old witch of a mother. Give me my rights. Make me queen. I must be queen, I must have a son, or I will become a princess of snow’.

21st April 1509

‘The king is dead,’ Fuensalida the ambassador wrote briefly to Catalina, knowing that she would not receive him in person, knowing that she would never forgive him for stealing her dowry and naming her as a pretender, for telling her that her father had abandoned her. ‘I know you will not see me but I have to do my duty and warn you that on his deathbed the king told his son that he was free to marry whoever he chooses. If you wish me to commission a ship to take you home to Spain, I have personal funds to do so. Myself, I cannot see that you will gain anything by staying in this country but insult, ignominy, and perhaps danger.’

‘Dead,’ Catalina said.

‘What?’ one of her ladies asked.

Catalina scrunched the letter into her hand. She never trusted anyone with anything now. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I am going for a walk.’

Maria de Salinas stood up and put Catalina’s patched cloak about her shoulders. It was the same cloak that she had worn wrapped around in the winter cold when she and Arthur had left London for Ludlow, seven years earlier.

‘Shall we come with you?’ she offered, without enthusiasm, glancing at the grey sky beyond the windows.

‘No.’

I pound alongside the river, the gravelled walk pricking the soles of my feet through the thin leather, as if I am trying to run away from hope itself. I wonder if there is any chance that my luck might change, might be changing now. The king who wanted me, and then hated me for refusing him, is dead. They said he was sick; but God knows, he never weakened. I thought he would reign forever. But now he is dead. Now he has gone. It will be the prince who decides.

I dare not touch hope. After all these years of fasting, I feel as if hope would make me drunk if I had so much of a drop of it on my lips. But I do hope for just a little taste of optimism, just a little flavour which is not my usual diet of grim despair.

Because I know the boy, Harry. I swear I know him. I have watched him as a falconer wakes with a tired bird. Watched him, and judged him, and checked my judgement against his behaviour again and again. I have read him as if I were studying my catechism. I know his strengths and his weaknesses, and I think I have faint, very faint, reason for hope.

Harry is vain, it is the sin of a young boy and I do not blame him for it, but he has it in abundance. On the one hand this might make him marry me, for he will want to be seen to be doing the right thing – honouring his promise, even rescuing me. At the thought of being saved by Harry, I have to stop in my stride and pinch my nails into the palms of my hands in the shelter of my cloak. This humiliation too I can learn to bear. Harry may want to rescue me and I shall have to be grateful. Arthur would have died of shame at the thought of his little braggart brother rescuing me; but Arthur died before this hour, my mother died before this hour; I shall have to bear it alone.

But equally, his vanity could work against me. If they emphasise the wealth of Princess Eleanor, the influence of her Hapsburg family, the glory of the connection to the Holy Roman Emperor – he may be seduced. His grandmother will speak against me and her word has been his law. She will advise him to marry Princess Eleanor and he will be attracted – like any young fool – to the idea of an unknown beauty.

But even if he wants to marry her, it still leaves him with the difficulty of what to do with me. He would look bad if he sent me home, surely he cannot have the gall to marry another woman with me still in attendance at court? I know that Harry would do anything rather than look foolish. If I can find a way to stay here until they have to consider his marriage, then I will be in a strong position indeed.

I walk more slowly, looking around me at the cold river, the passing boatmen huddled in their winter coats against the cold. ‘God bless you, Princess!’ calls out one man, recognising me. I raise my hand in reply. The people of this odd, fractious country have loved me from the moment they scrambled to see me in the little port of Plymouth. That will count in my favour too with a prince new-come to his throne and desperate for affection.

Harry is not mean with money. He is not old enough yet to know the value of it, and he has always been given anything he might want. He will not bicker over the dowry and the jointure. I am sure of that. He will be disposed to make a lordly gesture. I shall have to make sure that Fuensalida and my father do not offer to ship me home to make way for the new bride. Fuensalida despaired long ago of our cause. But now I do not. I shall have to resist his panic, and my own fears. I must stay here to be in the field. I cannot draw back now.

Harry was attracted to me once, I know that. Arthur told me of it first, said that the little boy liked leading me into my wedding, had been dreaming that he was the bridegroom and I was the bride. I have nurtured his liking, every time I see him I pay him particular attention. When his sister laughs at him and disregards him, I glance his way, ask him to sing for me, watch him dance with admiration. On the rare occasions that I have caught a moment with him in private I ask him to read to me and we discuss our thoughts on great writers. I make sure that he knows that I find him illuminating. He is a clever boy, it is no hardship to talk with him.

My difficulty always has been that everyone else admires him so greatly that my modest warmth can hardly weigh with him. Since his grandmother My Lady the King’s Mother declares that he is the handsomest prince in Christendom, the most learned, the most promising, what can I say to compare? How can one compliment a boy who is already flattered into extreme vanity, who already believes that he is the greatest prince the world has known?

These are my advantages. Against them I could list the fact that he has been destined for me for six years and he perhaps sees me as his father’s choice and a dull choice at that. That he has sworn before a bishop that I was not his choice in marriage and that he does not want to marry me. He might think to hold to that oath, he might think to proclaim he never wanted me, and deny the oath of our betrothal. At the thought of Harry announcing to the world that I was forced on him and now he is glad to be free of me, I pause again. This too I can endure.

These years have not been kind to me. He has never seen me laughing with joy, he has never seen me smiling and easy. He has never seen me dressed other than poorly, and anxious about my appearance. They have never called me forwards to dance before him, or to sing for him. I always have a poor horse when the court is hunting and sometimes I cannot keep up. I always look weary and I am always anxious. He is young and frivolous and he loves luxury and fineness of dress. He might have a picture of me in his mind as a poor woman, a drag upon his family, a pale widow, a ghost at the feast. He is a self-indulgent boy, he might decide to excuse himself from his duty. He is vain and light-hearted and might think nothing of sending me away.

But I have to stay. If I leave, he will forget me in a moment, I am certain of that, at least. I have to stay.

Fuensalida, summoned to the king’s council, went in with his head held high, trying to seem unbowed, certain that they had sent for him to tell him to leave and take the unwanted Infanta with him. His high Spanish pride, which had so much offended them so very often in the past, took him through the door and to the Privy Council table. The new king’s ministers were seated around the table, there was a place left empty for him in the plumb centre. He felt like a boy, summoned before his tutors for a scolding.

‘Perhaps I should start by explaining the condition of the Princess of Wales,’ he said diffidently. ‘The dowry payment is safely stored, out of the country, and can be paid in…’

‘The dowry does not matter,’ one of the councillors said.

‘The dowry?’ Fuensalida was stunned into silence. ‘But the princess’s plate?’

‘The king is minded to be generous to his betrothed.’

There was a stunned silence from the ambassador. ‘His betrothed?’

‘Of the greatest importance now is the power of the King of France and the danger of his ambitions in Europe. It has been thus since Agincourt. The king is most anxious to restore the glory of England. And now we have a king as great as that Henry, ready to make England great again. English safety depends on a three-way alliance between Spain and England, and the emperor. The young king believes that his wedding with the Infanta will secure the support of the King of Aragon to this great cause. This is, presumably, the case?’

‘Certainly,’ said Fuensalida, his head reeling. ‘But the plate…’

‘The plate does not matter,’ one of the councillors repeated.

‘I thought that her goods…’

‘They do not matter.’

‘I shall have to tell her of this…change…in her fortunes.’

The Privy Council rose to their feet. ‘Pray do.’

‘I shall return when I have…er…seen her.’ Pointless, Fuensalida thought, to tell them that she had been so angry with him for what she saw as his betrayal that he could not be sure that she would see him. Pointless to reveal that the last time he had seen her he had told her that she was lost and her cause was lost and everyone had known it for years.

He staggered as much as walked from the room, and almost collided with the young prince. The youth, still not yet eighteen, was radiant. ‘Ambassador!’

Fuensalida threw himself back and dropped to his knee. ‘Your Grace! I must…condole with you on the death of…’

‘Yes, yes.’ He waved aside the sympathy. He could not make himself look grave. He was wreathed in smiles, taller than ever. ‘You will wish to tell the princess that I propose that our marriage takes place as soon as possible.’

Fuensalida found he was stammering with a dry mouth. ‘Of course, sire.’

‘I shall send a message to her for you,’ the young man said generously. He giggled. ‘I know that you are out of favour. I know that she has refused to see you, but I am sure that she will see you for my sake.’

‘I thank you,’ the ambassador said. The prince waved him away. Fuensalida rose from his bow and went towards the Princess’s chambers. He realised that it would be hard for the Spanish to recover from the largesse of this new English king. His generosity, his ostentatious generosity, was crushing.

Catalina kept her ambassador waiting, but she admitted him within the hour. He had to admire the self-control that set her to watch the clock when the man who knew her destiny was waiting outside to tell her.

‘Emissary,’ she said levelly.

He bowed. The hem of her gown was ragged. He saw the neat, small threads where it had been stitched up, and then worn ragged again. He had a sense of great relief that whatever happened to her after this unexpected marriage, she would never again have to wear an old gown.

‘Dowager Princess, I have been to the Privy Council. Our troubles are over. He wants to marry you.’

Fuensalida had thought she might cry with joy, or pitch into his arms, or fall to her knees and thank God. She did none of these things. Slowly, she inclined her head. The tarnished gold leaf on the hood caught the light. ‘I am glad to hear it,’ was all she said.

‘They say that there is no issue about the plate.’ He could not keep the jubilation from his voice.

She nodded again.

‘The dowry will have to be paid. I shall get them to send the money back from Bruges. It has been in safe-keeping, Your Grace. I have kept it safe for you.’ His voice quavered, he could not help it.

Again she nodded.

He dropped to one knee. ‘Princess, rejoice! You will be Queen of England.’

Her blue eyes when she turned them to him were hard, like the sapphires she had sold long ago. ‘Emissary, I was always going to be Queen of England.’

I have done it. Good God, I have done it. After seven endless years of waiting, after hardship and humiliation, I have done it. I go into my bedchamber and kneel before my prie-dieu and close my eyes. But I speak to Arthur, not to the risen Lord.

‘I have done it,’ I tell him. ‘Harry will marry me, I have done as you wished me to do.’

For a moment I can see his smile, I can see him as I did so often, when I glanced sideways at him during dinner and caught him smiling down the hall to someone. Before me again is the brightness of his face, the darkness of his eyes, the clear line of his profile. And more than anything else, the scent of him, the very perfume of my desire.

Even on my knees before a crucifix I give a little sigh of longing. ‘Arthur, beloved. My only love. I shall marry your brother but I am always yours.’ For a moment, I remember, as bright as the first taste of early cherries, the scent of his skin in the morning. I raise my face and it is as if I can feel his chest against my cheek as he bears down on me, thrusts towards me. ‘Arthur,’ I whisper. I am now, I will always be, forever his.

Catalina had to face one ordeal. As she went into dinner in a hastily tailored new gown, with a collar of gold at her neck and pearls in her ears, and was conducted to a new table at the very front of the hall, she curtseyed to her husband-to-be and saw his bright smile at her, and then she turned to her grandmother-in-law and met the basilisk gaze of Lady Margaret Beaufort.

‘You are fortunate,’ the old lady said afterwards, as the musicians started to play and the tables were taken away.

‘I am?’ Catalina replied, deliberately dense.

‘You married one great prince of England and lost him; now it seems you will marry another.’

‘This can come as no surprise,’ Catalina observed in flawless French, ‘since I have been betrothed to him for six years. Surely, my lady, you never doubted that this day would come? You never thought that such an honourable prince would break his holy word?’

The old woman hid her discomfiture well. ‘I never doubted our intentions,’ she returned. ‘We keep our word. But when you withheld your dowry and your father reneged on his payments, I wondered as to your intentions. I wondered about the honour of Spain.’

‘Then you were kind to say nothing to disturb the king,’ Catalina said smoothly. ‘For he trusted me, I know. And I never doubted your desire to have me as your granddaughter. And see! Now I will be your granddaughter, I will be Queen of England, the dowry is paid, and everything is as it should be.’

She left the old lady with nothing to say – and there were few that could do that. ‘Well, at any rate, we will have to hope that you are fertile,’ was all she sourly mustered.

‘Why not? My mother had half a dozen children,’ Catalina said sweetly. ‘Let us hope my husband and I are blessed with the fertility of Spain. My emblem is the pomegranate – a Spanish fruit, filled with life.’

My Lady the King’s Grandmother swept away, leaving Catalina alone. Catalina curtseyed to her departing back and rose up, her head high. It did not matter what Lady Margaret might think or say, all that mattered was what she could do. Catalina did not think she could prevent the wedding, and that was all that mattered.

Greenwich Palace, 11th June 1509

I was dreading the wedding, the moment when I would have to say the words of the marriage vows that I had said to Arthur. But in the end the service was so unlike that glorious day in St Paul’s Cathedral that I could go through it with Harry before me, and Arthur locked away in the very back of my mind. I was doing this for Arthur, the very thing he had commanded, the very thing that he had insisted on – and I could not risk thinking of him.

There was no great congregation in a cathedral, there were no watching ambassadors, or fountains flowing with wine. We were married within the walls of Greenwich Palace in the church of the Friars Observant, with only three witnesses and half a dozen people present.

There was no rich feasting or music or dancing, there was no drunkenness at court or rowdiness. There was no public bedding. I had been afraid of that – the ritual of putting to bed and then the public showing of the sheets in the morning; but the prince – the king, I now have to say – is as shy as me, and we dine quietly before the court and withdraw together. They drink our healths and let us go. His grandmother is there, her face like a mask, her eyes cold. I show her every courtesy, it doesn’t matter to me what she thinks now. She can do nothing. There is no suggestion that I shall be living in her chambers under her supervision. On the contrary she has moved out of her rooms for me. I am married to Harry. I am Queen of England and she is nothing more than the grandmother of a king.

My ladies undress me in silence, this is their triumph too, this is their escape from poverty as well as mine. Nobody wants to remember the night at Oxford, the night at Burford, the nights at Ludlow. Their fortunes as much as mine depend on the success of this great deception. If I asked them, they would deny Arthur’s very existence.

Besides, it was all so long ago. Seven long years. Who but I can remember that far back? Who but I ever knew the delight of waiting for Arthur, the firelight on the rich-coloured curtains of the bed, the glow of candlelight on our entwined limbs? The sleepy whispers in the early hours of the morning: ‘Tell me a story!’

They leave me in one of my dozen exquisite new nightgowns and withdraw in silence. I wait for Harry, as long ago I used to wait for Arthur. The only difference is the utter absence of joy.

The men-at-arms and the gentlemen of the bedchamber brought the young king to the queen’s door, tapped on it and admitted him to her rooms. She was in her gown, seated by the fireside, a richly embroidered shawl thrown over her shoulders. The room was warm, welcoming. She rose as he came in and swept him a curtsey.

Harry lifted her up with a touch on her elbow. She saw at once that he was flushed with embarrassment, she felt his hand tremble.

‘Will you take a cup of wedding ale?’ she invited him, she made sure that she did not think of Arthur bringing her a cup and saying it was for courage.

‘I will,’ he said. His voice, still so young, was unsteady in its register. She turned away to pour the ale so he should not see her smile.

They lifted their cups to each other. ‘I hope you did not find today too quiet for your taste,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I thought with my father newly dead we should not have too merry a wedding. I did not want to distress My Lady, his mother.’

She nodded but said nothing.

‘I hope you are not disappointed,’ he pressed on. ‘Your first wedding was so very grand.’

Catalina smiled. ‘I hardly remember it, it was so long ago.’

He looked pleased at her reply, she noted. ‘It was, wasn’t it? We were all little more than children.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Far too young to marry.’

He shifted in his seat. She knew that the courtiers who had taken Hapsburg gold would have spoken against her. The enemies of Spain would have spoken against her. His own grandmother had advised against this wedding. This transparent young man was still anxious about his decision, however bold he might try to appear.

‘Not that young; you were fifteen,’ he reminded her. ‘A young woman.’

‘And Arthur was the same age,’ she said, daring to name him. ‘But he was never strong, I think. He could not be a husband to me.’

Harry was silent and she was afraid she had gone too far. But then she saw the glimpse of hope in his face.

‘It is indeed true then, that the marriage was never consummated?’ he asked, colouring up in embarrassment. ‘I am sorry…I wondered…I know they said…but I did wonder…’

‘Never,’ she said calmly. ‘He tried once or twice but you will remember that he was not strong. He may have even bragged that he had done it, but, poor Arthur, it meant nothing.’

‘I shall do this for you,’ I say fiercely, in my mind, to my beloved. ‘You wanted this lie. I shall do it thoroughly. If it is going to be done, it must be done thoroughly. It has to be done with courage, conviction; and it must never be undone.’

Aloud, Catalina said: ‘We married in the November, you remember. December we spent most of the time travelling to Ludlow and were apart on the journey. He was not well after Christmas, and then he died in April. I was very sad for him.’

‘He was never your lover?’ Harry asked, desperate to be certain.

‘How could he be?’ She gave a pretty, deprecatory shrug that made the gown slip off one creamy shoulder a little. She saw his eyes drawn to the exposed skin, she saw him swallow. ‘He was not strong. Your own mother thought that he should have gone back to Ludlow alone, for the first year. I wish we had done that. It would have made no difference to me, and he might have been spared. He was like a stranger to me for all our marriage. We lived like children in a royal nursery. We were hardly even companions.’

He sighed as if he were free of a burden, the face he turned to her was bright. ‘You know, I could not help but be afraid,’ he said. ‘My grandmother said…’

‘Oh! Old women always gossip in the corners,’ she said, smiling. She ignored his widened eyes at her casual disrespect. ‘Thank God we are young and need pay no attention.’

‘So, it was just gossip,’ he said, quickly adopting her dismissive tone. ‘Just old women’s gossip.’

‘We won’t listen to her,’ she said, daring him to go on. ‘You are king and I am queen and we shall make up our own minds. We hardly need her advice. Why – it is her advice that has kept us apart when we could have been together.’

It had not struck him before. ‘Indeed,’ he said, his face hardening. ‘We have both been deprived. And all the time she hinted that you were Arthur’s wife, wedded and bedded, and I should look elsewhere.’

‘I am a virgin, as I was when I came to England,’ she asserted boldly. ‘You could ask my old duenna or any of my women. They all knew it. My mother knew it. I am a virgin untouched.’

He gave a little sigh as if released from some worry. ‘You are kind to tell me,’ he said. ‘It is better to have these things in the light, so we know, so we both know. So that no-one is uncertain. It would be terrible to sin.’

‘We are young,’ she said. ‘We can speak of such things between ourselves. We can be honest and straightforward together. We need not fear rumours and slanders. We need have no fear of sin.’

‘It will be my first time too,’ he admitted shyly. ‘I hope you don’t think the less of me?’

‘Of course not,’ she said sweetly. ‘When were you ever allowed to go out? Your grandmother and your father had you mewed up as close as a precious falcon. I am glad that we shall be together, that it will be the first time, for both of us, together.’

Harry rose to his feet and held out his hand. ‘So, we shall have to learn together,’ he said. ‘We shall have to be kind to each other. I don’t want to hurt you, Catalina. You must tell me if anything hurts you.’

Easily she moved into his arms, and felt his whole body stiffen at her touch. Gracefully, she stepped back, as if modestly shrinking but kept one hand on his shoulder to encourage him to press forwards until the bed was behind her. Then she let herself lean back until she was on the pillows, smiling up at him, and she could see his blue eyes darken with desire.

‘I have wanted you since I first saw you,’ he said breathlessly. He stroked her hair, her neck, her naked shoulder, with a hurried touch, wanting all of her, at once.

She smiled. ‘And I, you.’

‘Really?’

She nodded.

‘I dreamed that it was me that married you that day.’ He was flushed, breathless.

Slowly, she untied the ribbons at the throat of her nightgown, letting the silky linen fall apart so that he could see her throat, her round, firm breasts, her waist, the dark shadow between her legs. Harry gave a little groan of desire at the sight of her. ‘It might as well have been,’ she whispered. ‘I have had no other. And we are married now, at last.’

‘Ah God, we are,’ he said longingly. ‘We are married now, at last.’

He dropped his face into the warmth of her neck, she could feel his breath coming fast and urgent in her hair, his body was pushing against hers, Catalina felt herself respond. She remembered Arthur’s touch and gently bit the tip of her tongue to remind herself never, never to say Arthur’s name out loud. She let Harry push against her, force himself against her and then he was inside her. She gave a little rehearsed cry of pain but she knew at once, in a heart-thud of dread, that it was not enough. She had not cried out enough, her body had not resisted him enough. She had been too warm, too welcoming. It had been too easy. He did not know much, this callow boy; but he knew that it was not difficult enough.

He checked, even in the midst of his desire. He knew that something was not as it should be. He looked down at her. ‘You are a virgin,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I hope that I do not hurt too much.’

But he knew that she was not. Deep down, he knew that she was no virgin. He did not know much, this over-protected boy, but he knew this. Somewhere in his mind, he knew that she was lying.

She looked up at him. ‘I was a virgin until this moment,’ she said, managing the smallest of smiles. ‘But your potency has overcome me. You are so strong. You overwhelmed me.’

His face was still troubled, but his desire could not wait. He started to move again, he could not resist the pleasure. ‘You have mastered me,’ she encouraged him. ‘You are my husband, you have taken your own.’ She saw him forget his doubt in his rising desire. ‘You have done what Arthur could not do,’ she whispered.

They were the very words to trigger his desire. The young man gave a groan of pleasure and fell down on to her, his seed pumping into her, the deed undeniably done.

He doesn’t question me again. He wants so much to believe me that he does not ask the question, fearing that he might get an answer he doesn’t like. He is cowardly in this. He is accustomed to hearing the answers he wants to hear and he would rather an agreeable lie than an unpalatable truth.

Partly, it is his desire to have me, and he wants me as I was when he first saw me: a virgin in bridal white. Partly it is to disprove everyone who warned him against the trap that I had set for him. But more than anything else: he hated and envied my beloved Arthur and he wants me just because I was Arthur’s bride, and – God forgive him for a spiteful, envious, second son – he wants me to tell him that he can do something that Arthur could not do, that he can have something that Arthur could not have. Even though my beloved husband is cold under the nave of Worcester Cathedral, the child that wears his crown still wants to triumph over him. The greatest lie is not in telling Harry that I am a virgin. The greatest lie is in telling him that he is a better man, more of a man than his brother. And I did that too.

In the dawn, while he is still sleeping, I take my pen-knife and cut the sole of my foot, where he will not notice a scar, and drip blood on the sheet where we had lain, enough to pass muster for an inspection by My Lady the King’s Grandmother, or any other bad-tempered, suspicious enemy who might still seek to discomfort me. There is to be no showing of the sheets for a king and his bride; but I know that everyone will ask, and it is best that my ladies can say that they have all seen the smear of blood, and that I am complaining of the pain.

In the morning, I do everything that a bride should do. I say I am tired, and I rest for the morning. I smile with my eyes looking downwards as if I have discovered some sweet secret. I walk a little stiffly and I refuse to ride out to hunt for a week. I do everything to indicate that I am a young woman who has lost her virginity. I convince everyone. And besides, no-one wants to believe anything other.

The cut on my foot is sore for a long, long time. It catches me every time I step into my new shoes, the ones with the great diamond buckles. It is like a reminder to me of the lie I promised Arthur that I would tell. Of the great lie that I will live, for the rest of my life. I don’t mind the sharp little nip of pain when I slide my right foot into my shoe. It is nothing to the pain that is hidden deep inside me when I smile at the unworthy boy who is king and call him, in my new admiring voice: ‘husband’.

Harry woke in the night and his quiet stillness woke Catalina.

‘My lord?’ she asked.

‘Go to sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s not yet dawn.’

She slipped from the bed and lit a taper in the red embers of the fire, then lit a candle. She let him see her, nightgown half-open, her smooth flanks only half-hidden by the fall of the gown. ‘Would you like some ale? Or some wine?’

‘A glass of wine,’ he said. ‘You have one too.’

She put the candle in the silver holder and came back to the bed beside him with the wine glasses in her hand. She could not read his face, but suppressed her pang of irritation that, whatever it was, she had to be woken, she had to inquire what was troubling him, she had to demonstrate her concern. With Arthur she had known in a second what he wanted, what he was thinking. But anything could distract Harry, a song, a dream, a note thrown from the crowd. Anything could trouble him. He had been raised to be accustomed to sharing his thoughts, accustomed to guidance. He needed an entourage of friends and admirers, tutors, mentors, parents. He liked constant conversation. Catalina had to be everyone to him.

‘I have been thinking about war,’ he said.

‘Oh.’

‘King Louis thinks he can avoid us, but we will force war on him. They tell me he wants peace, but I will not have it. I am the King of England, the victors of Agincourt. He will find me a force to be reckoned with.’

She nodded. Her father had been clear that Harry should be encouraged in his warlike ambitions against the King of France. He had written to her in the warmest of terms as his dearest daughter, and advised her that any war between England and France should be launched, not on the north coast – where the English usually invaded – but on the borders between France and Spain. He suggested that the English should reconquer the region of Aquitaine which would be glad to be free of France and would rise up to meet its liberators. Spain would be in strong support. It would be an easy and glorious campaign.

‘In the morning I am going to order a new suit of armour,’ Harry said. ‘Not a suit for jousting, I want heavy armour, for the battlefield.’

She was about to say that he could hardly go to war when there was so much to do in the country. The moment that an English army left for France, the Scots, even with an English bride on their throne, were certain to take advantage and invade the north. The whole tax system was riddled with greed and injustice and must be reformed, there were new plans for schools, for a king’s council, for forts and a navy of ships to defend the coast. These were Arthur’s plans for England, they should come before Harry’s desire for a war.

‘I shall make my grandmother regent when I go to war,’ Harry said. ‘She knows what has to be done.’

Catalina hesitated, marshalling her thoughts. ‘Yes indeed,’ she said. ‘But the poor lady is so old now. She has done so much already. Perhaps it might be too much of a burden for her?’

He smiled. ‘Not her! She has always run everything. She keeps the royal accounts, she knows what is to be done. I don’t think anything would be too much for her as long as it kept us Tudors in power.’

‘Yes,’ Catalina said, gently touching on his resentment. ‘And see how well she ruled you! She never let you out of her sight for a moment. Why, I don’t think she would let you go out even now if she could prevent you. When you were a boy, she never let you joust, she never let you gamble, she never let you have any friends. She dedicated herself to your safety and your wellbeing. She could not have kept you closer if you had been a princess.’ She laughed. ‘I think she thought you were a princess and not a lusty boy. Surely it is time that she had a rest? And you had some freedom?’

His swift, sulky look told her that she would win this.

‘Besides,’ she smiled, ‘if you give her any power in the country she will be certain to tell the council that you will have to come home, that war is too dangerous for you.’

‘She could hardly stop me going to war,’ he bristled. ‘I am the king.’

Catalina raised her eyebrows. ‘Whatever you wish, my love. But I imagine she will stop your funds, if the war starts to go badly. If she and the Privy Council doubt your conduct of the war they need do nothing but sit on their hands and not raise taxes for your army. You could find yourself betrayed at home – betrayed by her love, I mean – while you are attacked abroad. You might find that the old people stop you doing what you want. Like they always try to do.’

He was aghast. ‘She would never work against me.’

‘Never on purpose,’ Catalina agreed with him. ‘She would always think she was serving your interest. It is just that…’

‘What?’

‘She will always think that she knows your business best. To her, you will always be a little boy.’

She saw him flush with annoyance.

‘To her you will always be a second son, the one who came after Arthur. Not the true heir. Not fitted for the throne. Old people cannot change their minds, cannot see that everything is different now. But really, how can she ever trust your judgement, when she has spent her life ruling you? To her, you will always be the youngest prince, the baby.’

‘I shall not be limited by an old woman,’ he swore.

‘Your time is now,’ Catalina agreed.

‘D’you know what I shall do?’ he demanded. ‘I shall make you regent when I go to war! You shall rule the country for me while I am gone. You shall command our forces at home. I would trust no-one else. We shall rule together. And you will support me as I require. D’you think you could do that?’

She smiled at him. ‘I know I can. I won’t fail,’ she said. ‘I was born to rule England. I shall keep the country safe while you are away.’

‘That’s what I need,’ Harry said. ‘And your mother was a great commander, wasn’t she? She supported her husband. I always heard that he led the troops but she raised the money and raised the army?’

‘Yes,’ she said, a little surprised at his interest. ‘Yes, she was always there. Behind the lines, planning his campaigns, and making sure he had the forces he needed, raising funds and raising troops, and sometimes she was in the very forefront of the battles. She had her own armour, she would ride out with the army.’

‘Tell me about her,’ he said, settling himself down in the pillows. ‘Tell me about Spain. About what it was like when you were a little girl in the palaces of Spain. What was it like? In – what is it called – the Alhambra?’

It was too close to what had been before. It was as if a shadow had stretched over her heart. ‘Oh, I hardly remember it at all,’ she said, smiling at his eager face. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘Go on. Tell me a story about it.’

‘No. I can’t tell you anything. D’you know, I have been an English princess for so long, I could not tell you anything about it at all.’

In the morning Harry was filled with energy, excited at the thought of ordering his suit of armour, wanting a reason to declare war at once. He woke her with kisses and was on her, like an eager boy, while she was waking. She held him close, welcomed his quick, selfish pleasure, and smiled when he was up and out of bed in a moment, hammering at the door and shouting for his guards to take him to his rooms.

‘I want to ride before Mass today,’ he said. ‘It is such a wonderful day. Will you come with me?’

‘I’ll see you at Mass,’ Catalina promised him. ‘And then you can breakfast with me, if you wish.’

‘We’ll take breakfast in the hall,’ he ruled. ‘And then we must go hunting. It is too good weather not to take the dogs out. You will come, won’t you?’

‘I’ll come,’ she promised him, smiling at his exuberance. ‘And shall we have a picnic?’

‘You are the best of wives!’ he exclaimed. ‘A picnic would be wonderful. Will you tell them to get some musicians and we can dance? And bring ladies, bring all your ladies, and we shall all dance.’

She caught him before he went out of the door. ‘Harry, may I send for Lady Margaret Pole? You like her, don’t you? Can I have her as a lady-in-waiting?’

He stepped back into the room, caught her into his arms and kissed her heartily. ‘You shall have whoever you want to serve you. Anyone you want, always. Send for her at once, I know she is the finest of women. And appoint Lady Elizabeth Boleyn too. She is returning to court after her confinement. She has had another girl.’

‘What will she call her?’ Catalina asked, diverted.

‘Mary, I think. Or Anne. I can’t remember. Now, about our dance…’

She beamed at him. ‘I shall get a troupe of musicians and dancers and if I can order soft-voice zephyrs I will do that too.’ She laughed at the happiness in his face. She could hear the tramp of his guard coming to the door. ‘See you at Mass!’

I married him for Arthur, for my mother, for God, for our cause, and for myself. But in a very little while I have come to love him. It is impossible not to love such a sweet-hearted, energetic, good-natured boy as Harry, in these first years of his reign. He has never known anything but admiration and kindness, he expects nothing less. He wakes happy every morning, filled with the confident expectation of a happy day. And, since he is king, and surrounded by courtiers and flatterers, he always has a happy day. When work troubles him or people come to him with disagreeable complaints he looks around for someone to take the bother of it away from him. In the first few weeks it was his grandmother who commanded; slowly, I make sure that it is to me that he hands the burdens of ruling the kingdom.

The Privy Councillors learn to come to me to ascertain what the king would think. It is easier for them to present a letter or a suggestion, if he has been prepared by me. The courtiers soon know that anything that encourages him to go away from me, anything that takes the country away from the alliance with Spain will displease me, and Harry does not like it when I frown. Men seeking advantage, advocates seeking help, petitioners seeking justice, all learn that the quickest way to a fair, prompt decision is to call first at the queen’s rooms and then wait for my introduction.

I never have to ask anyone to handle him with tact. Everyone knows that a request should come to him as it were fresh, for the first time. Everyone knows that the self-love of a young man is very new and very bright and should not be tarnished. Everyone takes a warning from the case of his grandmother who is finding herself put gently and implacably to one side, because she openly advises him, because she takes decisions without him, because once – foolishly – she scolded him. Harry is a king so careless that he will hand over the keys of his kingdom to anyone he trusts. The trick for me is to make sure that he trusts only me.

I make sure that I never blame him for not being Arthur. I taught myself – in the seven years of widowhood – that God’s will was done when He took Arthur from me, and there is no point in blaming those who survive when the best prince is dead. Arthur died with my promise in his ears and I think myself very lucky indeed that marriage to his brother is not a vow that I have to endure; but one I can enjoy.

I like being queen. I like having pretty things and rich jewels and a lap dog, and assembling ladies-in-waiting whose company is a pleasure. I like paying Maria de Salinas the long debt of her wages and watching her order a dozen gowns and fall in love. I like writing to Lady Margaret Pole and summoning her to my court, falling into her arms and crying for joy to see her again, and having her promise that she will be with me. I like knowing that her discretion is absolute; she never says one word about Arthur. But I like it that she knows what this marriage has cost me, and why I have done it. I like her watching me make Arthur’s England even though it is Harry on the throne.

The first month of marriage is nothing for Harry but a round of parties, feasts, hunts, outings, pleasure trips, boating trips, plays, and tournaments. Harry is like a boy who has been locked up in a school room for too long and is suddenly given a summer holiday. The world is so filled with amusement for him that the least experience gives him great pleasure. He loves to hunt – and he had never been allowed fast horses before. He loves to joust and his father and grandmother had never even allowed him in the lists. He loves the company of men of the world who carefully adapt their conversation and their amusements to divert him. He loves the company of women but – thank God – his childlike devotion to me holds him firm. He likes to talk to pretty women, play cards with them, watch them dance and reward them with great prizes for petty feats – but always he glances towards me to see that I approve. Always he stays at my side, looking down at me from his greater height with a gaze of such devotion that I can’t help but be loving towards him for what he brings me; and in a very little while, I can’t help but love him for himself.

He has surrounded himself with a court of young men and women who are such a contrast to his father’s court that they demonstrate by their very being that everything has changed. His father’s court was filled with old men, men who had been through hard times together, some of them battle-hardened; all of them had lost and regained their lands at least once. Harry’s court is filled with men who have never known hardship, never been tested.

I have made a point of saying nothing to criticise either him or the group of wild young men that gather around him. They call themselves the ‘Minions’ and they encourage each other in mad bets and jests all the day and – according to gossip – half the night too. Harry was kept so quiet and so close for all his childhood that I think it natural he should long to run wild now, and that he should love the young men who boast of drinking bouts and fights, and chases and attacks, and girls who they seduce, and fathers who pursue them with cudgels. His best friend is William Compton, the two go about with their arms around each other’s shoulders as if ready to dance or braced for a fight for half the day. There is no harm in William, he is as great a fool as the rest of the court, he loves Harry as a comrade, and he has a mock-adoration of me that makes us all laugh. Half of the Minions pretend to be in love with me and I let them dedicate verses and sing songs to me and I make sure that Harry always knows that his songs and poems are the best.

The older members of the court disapprove and have made stern criticisms of the king’s boisterous lads; but I say nothing. When the councillors come to me with complaints I say that the king is a young man and youth will have its way. There is no great harm in any one of the comrades; when they are not drinking, they are sweet young men. One or two, like the Duke of Buckingham who greeted me long ago, or the young Thomas Howard, are fine young men who would be an ornament to any court. My mother would have liked them. But when the lads are deep in their cups they are noisy and rowdy and excitable as young men always are and when they are sober they talk nonsense. I look at them with my mother’s eyes and I know that they are the boys who will become the officers in our army. When we go to war their energy and their courage are just what we will need. The noisiest, most disruptive young men in peacetime are exactly the leaders I will need in time of war.

Lady Margaret, the king’s grandmother, having buried a husband or two, a daughter-in-law, a grandson and finally her own precious prince, was a little weary of fighting for her place in the world and Catalina was careful not to provoke her old enemy into open warfare. Thanks to Catalina’s discretion, the rivalry between the two women was not played overtly – anyone hoping to see Lady Margaret abuse her granddaughter-in-law as she had insulted her son’s wife was disappointed. Catalina slid away from conflict.

When Lady Margaret tried to claim precedence by arriving at the dining-hall door a few footsteps before Catalina, a Princess of the Blood, an Infanta of Spain and now Queen of England, Catalina stepped back at once and gave way to her with such an air of generosity that everyone remarked on the pretty behaviour of the new queen. Catalina had a way of ushering the older woman before her that absolutely denied all rules of precedence and instead somehow emphasised Lady Margaret’s ungainly gallop to beat her granddaughter-in-law to the high table. They also saw Catalina pointedly step back, and everyone remarked on the grace and generosity of the younger woman.

The death of Lady Margaret’s son, King Henry, had hit the old lady hard. It was not so much that she had lost a beloved child; it was more that she had lost a cause. In his absence she could hardly summon the energy to force the Privy Councillors to report to her before going to the king’s rooms. Harry’s joyful excusing of his father’s debts and freeing of his father’s prisoners she took as an insult to his father’s memory, and to her own rule. The sudden leap of the court into youth and freedom and playfulness made her feel old and bad-tempered. She, who had once been the commander of the court and the maker of the rules, was left to one side. Her opinion no longer mattered. The great book by which all court events must be governed had been written by her; but suddenly, they were celebrating events that were not in her book, they invented pastimes and activities, and she was not consulted.

She blamed Catalina for all the changes she most disliked, and Catalina smiled very sweetly and continued to encourage the young king to hunt and to dance and to stay up late at night. The old lady grumbled to her ladies that the queen was a giddy, vain thing and would lead the prince to disaster. Insultingly, she even remarked that it was no wonder Arthur had died, if this was the way that the Spanish girl thought a royal household should be run.

Lady Margaret Pole remonstrated with her old acquaintance as tactfully as she could. ‘My lady, the queen has a merry court but she never does anything against the dignity of the throne. Indeed, without her, the court would be far wilder. It is the king who insists on one pleasure after another. It is the queen who gives this court its manners. The young men adore her and nobody drinks or misbehaves before her.’

‘It is the queen who I blame,’ the old woman said crossly. ‘Princess Eleanor would never have behaved like this. Princess Eleanor would have been housed in my rooms, and the place would have run by my rules.’

Tactfully, Catalina heard nothing; not even when people came to her and repeated the slanders. Catalina simply ignored her grand-mother-in-law and the constant stream of her criticism. She could have done nothing that would irritate her more.

It was the late hours that the court now kept that were the old lady’s greatest complaint. Increasingly, she had to wait and wait for dinner to be served. She would complain that it was so late at night that the servants would not be finished before dawn, and then she would retire before the court had even finished their dinner.

‘You keep late hours,’ she told Harry. ‘It is foolish. You need your sleep. You are only a boy; you should not be roistering all night. I cannot keep hours like this, and it is a waste of candles.’

‘Yes; but my lady grandmother, you are nearly seventy years old,’ he said patiently. ‘Of course you should have your rest. You shall retire whenever you wish. Catalina and I are only young. It is natural for us to want to stay up late. We like amusement.’

‘She should be resting. She has to conceive an heir,’ Lady Margaret said irritably. ‘She’s not going to do that bobbing about in a dance with a bunch of feather-heads. Masquing, every night. Whoever heard of such a thing? And who is to pay for all this?’

‘We’ve been married less than a month!’ he exclaimed, a little irritated. ‘These are our wedding celebrations. I think we can enjoy good pastimes, and keep a merry court. I like to dance.’

‘You act as if there was no end to money,’ she snapped. ‘How much has this dinner cost you? And last night’s? The strewing herbs alone must cost a fortune. And the musicians? This is a country that has to hoard its wealth, it cannot afford a spendthrift king. It is not the English way to have a popinjay on the throne, a court of mummers.’

Harry flushed, he was about to make a sharp retort.

‘The king is no spendthrift,’ Catalina intervened quickly. ‘This is just part of the wedding festivities. Your son, the late king, always thought that there should be a merry court. He thought that people should know that the court was wealthy and gay. King Harry is only following in the footsteps of his wise father.’

‘His father was not a young fool under the thumb of his foreign wife!’ the old lady said spitefully.

Catalina’s eyes widened slightly and she put her hand on Harry’s sleeve to keep him silent. ‘I am his partner and his help-meet, as God has bidden me,’ she said gently. ‘As I am sure you would want me to be.’

The old lady grunted. ‘I hear you claim to be more than that,’ she began.

The two young people waited. Catalina could feel Harry shift restlessly under the gentle pressure of her hand.

‘I hear that your father is to recall his ambassador. Am I right?’ She glared at them both. ‘Presumably he does not need an ambassador now. The King of England’s own wife is in the pay and train of Spain. The King of England’s own wife is to be the Spanish ambassador. How can that be?’

‘My lady grandmother…’ Harry burst out; but Catalina was sweetly calm.

‘I am a princess of Spain, of course I would represent the country of my birth to my country by marriage. I am proud to be able to do such a thing. Of course I will tell my father that his beloved son, my husband, is well, that our kingdom is prosperous. Of course I will tell my husband that my loving father wants to support him in war and peace.’

‘When we go to war…’ Harry began.

‘War?’ the old lady demanded, her face darkening. ‘Why should we go to war? We have no quarrel with France. It is only her father who wants war with France, no-one else. Tell me that not even you will be such a fool as to take us into war to fight for the Spanish! What are you now? Their errand boy? Their vassal?’

‘The King of France is a danger to us all!’ Harry stormed. ‘And the glory of England has always been…’

‘I am sure My Lady the King’s Grandmother did not mean to disagree with you, sire,’ Catalina said sweetly. ‘These are changing times. We cannot expect older people always to understand when things change so quickly.’

‘I’m not quite in my dotage yet!’ the old woman flared. ‘And I know danger when I see it. And I know divided loyalties when I see them. And I know a Spanish spy…’

‘You are a most treasured advisor,’ Catalina assured her. ‘And my lord the king and I are always glad of your advice. Aren’t we, Harry?’

He was still angry. ‘Agincourt was…’

‘I’m tired,’ the old woman said. ‘And you twist and twist things about. I’m going to my room.’

Catalina swept her a deep, respectful curtsey, Harry ducked his head with scant politeness. When Catalina came up the old woman had gone.

‘How can she say such things?’ Harry demanded. ‘How can you bear to listen to her when she says such things? She makes me want to roar like a baited bear! She understands nothing, and she insults you! And you just stand and listen!’

Catalina laughed, took his cross face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. ‘Oh, Harry, who cares what she thinks as long as she can do nothing? Nobody cares what she says now.’

‘I am going to war with France whatever she thinks,’ he promised.

‘Of course you are, as soon as the time is right.’

I hide my triumph over her, but I know the taste of it, and it is sweet. I think to myself that one day the other tormentors of my widowhood, the princesses, Harry’s sisters, will know my power too. But I can wait.

Lady Margaret may be old but she cannot even gather the senior people of court about her. They have known her forever, the bonds of kinship, wardship, rivalry and feud run through them all like veins through dirty marble. She was never well-liked: not as a woman, not as the mother of a king. She was from one of the great families of the country but when she leapt up so high after Bosworth she flaunted her importance. She has a great reputation for learning and for holiness but she is not beloved. She always insisted on her position as the king’s mother and a gulf has grown between her and the other people of the court.

Drifting away from her, they are becoming friends of mine: Lady Margaret Pole of course, the Duke of Buckingham and his sisters, Elizabeth and Anne, Thomas Howard, his sons, Sir Thomas and Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, dearest William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Talbot, Sir Henry Vernon that I knew from Wales. They all know that although Harry neglects the business of the realm, I do not.

I consult them for their advice, I share with them the hopes that Arthur and I had. Together with the men of the Privy Council I am bringing the kingdom into one powerful, peaceful country. We are starting to consider how to make the law run from one coast to another, through the wastes, the mountains and forests alike. We are starting to work on the defences of the coast. We are making a survey of the ships that could be commanded into a fighting navy, we are creating muster rolls for an army. I have taken the reins of the kingdom into my hands and found that I know how it is done.

Statecraft is my family business. I sat at my mother’s feet in the throne room of the Alhambra Palace. I listened to my father in the beautiful golden Hall of the Ambassadors. I learned the art and the craft of kingship as I had learned about beauty, music, and the art of building, all in the same place, all in the same lessons. I learned a taste for rich tiling, for bright sunlight falling on a delicate tracery of stucco, and for power, all at the same time. Becoming a Queen Regnant is like coming home. I am happy as Queen of England. I am where I was born and raised to be.

The king’s grandmother lay in her ornate bed, rich curtains drawn close so that she was lulled by shadows. At the foot of the bed an uncomplaining lady-in-waiting held up the monstrance for her to see the body of Christ in its white purity through the diamond-cut piece of glass. The dying woman fixed her eyes on it, occasionally looking to the ivory crucifix on the wall beside the bed, ignoring the soft murmur of prayers around her.

Catalina kneeled at the foot of the bed, her head bowed, a coral rosary in her hands, praying silently. My Lady Margaret, confident of a hard-won place in heaven, was sliding away from her place on earth.

Outside, in her presence chamber, Harry waited for them to tell him that his grandmother was dead. The last link to his subordinate, junior childhood would be broken with her death. The years in which he had been the second son – trying a little harder for attention, smiling a little brighter, working at being clever – would all be gone. From now on, everyone he would meet would know him only as the most senior member of his family, the greatest of his line. There would be no articulate, critical old Tudor lady to watch over this gullible prince, to cut him down with one quiet word in the very moment of his springing up. When she was dead he could be a man, on his own terms. There would be no-one left who knew him as a boy. Although he was waiting, outwardly pious, for news of her death, inside he was longing to hear that she was gone, that he was at last truly independent, at last a man and a king. He had no idea that he still desperately needed her counsel.

‘He must not go to war,’ the king’s grandmother said hoarsely from the bed.

The lady-in-waiting gave a little gasp at the sudden clarity of her mistress’s speech. Catalina rose to her feet. ‘What did you say, my lady?’

‘He must not go to war,’ she repeated. ‘Our way is to keep out of the endless wars of Europe, to keep behind the seas, to keep safe and far away from all those princeling squabbles. Our way is keep the kingdom at peace.’

‘No,’ Catalina said steadily. ‘Our way is to take the crusade into the heart of Christendom and beyond. Our way is to make England a leader in establishing the church throughout Europe, throughout the Holy Land, to Africa, to the Turks, to the Saracens, to the edge of the world.’

‘The Scots…’

‘I shall defeat the Scots,’ Catalina said firmly. ‘I am well aware of the danger.’

‘I did not let him marry you for you to lead us to war.’ The dark eyes flared with fading resentment.

‘You did not let him marry me at all. You opposed it from the first moment,’ Catalina said bluntly. ‘And I married him precisely so that he should mount a great crusade.’ She ignored the little whimper from the lady-in-waiting, who believed that a dying woman should not be contradicted.

‘You will promise me that you will not let him go to war,’ the old lady breathed. ‘My dying promise, my deathbed promise. I lay it on you from my deathbed, as a sacred duty.’

‘No.’ Catalina shook her head. ‘Not me. Not another. I made one deathbed promise and it has cost me dearly. I will not make another. Least of all to you. You have lived your life and made your world as you wished. Now it is my turn. I shall see my son as King of England and perhaps King of Spain. I shall see my husband lead a glorious crusade against the Moors and the Turks. I shall see my country, England, take its place in the world, where it should be. I shall see England at the heart of Europe, a leader of Europe. And I shall be the one that defends it and keeps it safe. I shall be the one that is Queen of England, as you never were.’

‘No…’ the old woman breathed.

‘Yes,’ Catalina swore, without compromise. ‘I am Queen of England now and I will be till my death.’

The old woman raised herself up, struggled for breath. ‘You pray for me.’ She laid the order on the younger woman almost as if it were a curse. ‘I have done my duty to England, to the Tudor line. You see that my name is remembered as if I were a queen.’

Catalina hesitated. If this woman had not served herself, her son and her country, the Tudors would not be on the throne. ‘I will pray for you,’ she conceded grudgingly. ‘And as long as there is a chantry in England, as long as the Holy Roman Catholic Church is in England, your name will be remembered.’

‘Forever,’ the old woman said, happy in her belief that some things could never change.

‘Forever,’ Catalina agreed.

Then, less than an hour later, she was dead; and I became queen, ruling queen, undeniably in command, without a rival, even before my coronation. No-one knows what to do in the court, there is no-one who can give a coherent order. Harry has never ordered a royal funeral, how should he know where to begin, how to judge the extent of the honour that should be given to his grandmother? How many mourners? How long the time of mourning? Where should she be buried? How should the whole ceremonial be done?

I summon my oldest friend in England, the Duke of Buckingham, who greeted me on my arrival all those years ago and is now Lord High Steward, and I ask for Lady Margaret Pole to come to me. My ladies bring me the great volume of ceremonial, The Royal Book, written by the king’s dead grandmother herself, and I set about organising my first public English event.

I am lucky; tucked inside the cover of the book I find three pages of handwritten instructions. The vain old lady had laid out the order of the procession that she wanted for her funeral. Lady Margaret and I gasp at the numbers of bishops she would like to serve, the pallbearers, the mutes, the mourners, the decorations on the streets, the duration of the mourning. I show them to the Duke of Buckingham, her one-time ward, who says nothing but in discreet silence just smiles and shakes his head. Hiding my unworthy sense of triumph I take a quill, dip it in black ink, cut almost everything by a half, and then start to give orders.

It was a quiet ceremony of smooth dignity, and everyone knew that it had been commanded and ordered by the Spanish bride. Those who had not known before realised now that the girl who had been waiting for seven years to come to the throne of England had not wasted her time. She knew the temperament of the English people, she knew how to put on a show for them. She knew the tenor of the court: what they regarded as stylish, what they saw as mean. And she knew, as a princess born, how to rule. In those days before her coronation, Catalina established herself as the undeniable queen, and those who had ignored her in her years of poverty now discovered in themselves tremendous affection and respect for the princess.

She accepted their admiration, just as she had accepted their neglect: with calm politeness. She knew that by ordering the funeral of the king’s grandmother she established herself as the first woman of the new court, and the arbiter of all decisions of court life. She had, in one brilliant performance, established herself as the foremost leader of England. And she was certain that after this triumph no-one would ever be able to supplant her.

We decide not to cancel our coronation, though My Lady the King’s Grandmother’s funeral preceded it. The arrangements are all in place, we judge that we should do nothing to mar the joy of the City or of the people who have come from all over England to see the boy Harry take his father’s crown. They say that some have travelled all the way from Plymouth, who saw me come ashore, a frightened seasick girl, all those years ago. We are not going to tell them that the great celebration of Harry’s coming to the throne, of my coronation, is cancelled because a cross old lady has died at an ill-judged time. We agree that the people are expecting a great celebration and we should not deny them.

In truth, it is Harry who cannot bear a disappointment. He had promised himself a great moment of glory and he would not miss it for the world. Certainly not for the death of a very old lady who spent the last years of her life preventing him from having his own way in anything.

I agree with him. I judge that the king’s grandmother seized her power and enjoyed her time, and now it is time for us. I judge that it is the mood of the country and the mood of the court to celebrate the triumph of Harry’s coming to the throne with me at his side. Indeed, for some of them, who have long taken an interest in me, there is the greatest delight that I shall have the crown at last. I decide – and there is no-one but me to decide – that we will go ahead. And so we do.

I know that Harry’s grief for his grandmother is only superficial; his mourning is mostly show. I saw him when I came from her privy chamber, and he knew, since I had left her bedside, that she must be dead. I saw his shoulders stretch out and lift, as if he were suddenly free from the burden of her care, as if her skinny, loving, age-spotted hand had been a dead weight on his neck. I saw his quick smile – his delight that he was alive and young and lusty, and that she was gone. Then I saw the careful composing of his face into conventional sadness and I stepped forwards, with my face grave also, and told him that she was dead, in a low sad voice, and he answered me in the same tone.

I am glad to know that he can play the hypocrite. The court room in the Alhambra Palace has many doors; my father told me that a king should be able to go out of one and come in through another and nobody know his mind. I know that to rule is to keep your own counsel. Harry is a boy now, but one day he will be a man and he will have to make up his own mind and judge well. I will remember that he can say one thing and think another.

But I have learned something else about him too. When I saw that he did not weep one real tear for his grandmother I knew that this king, our golden Harry, has a cold heart that no-one can trust. She had been as a mother to him; she had dominated his childhood. She had cared for him, watched over him, and taught him herself. She supervised his every waking moment and shielded him from every unpleasant sight, she kept him from tutors who would have taught him of the world, and allowed him to walk only in the gardens of her making. She spent hours on her knees in prayer for him and insisted that he be taught the rule and the power of the church. But when she stood in his way, when she denied him his pleasures, he saw her as his enemy; and he cannot forgive anyone who refuses him something he wants. I know from this that this boy, this charming boy, will grow to be a man whose selfishness will be a danger to himself, and to those around him. One day we may all wish that his grandmother had taught him better.

24th June 1509

They carried Catalina from the Tower to Westminster as an English princess. She travelled in a litter made of cloth of gold, carried high by four white palfreys so everyone could see her. She wore a gown of white satin and a coronet set with pearls, her hair brushed out over her shoulders. Harry was crowned first and then Catalina bowed her head and took the holy oil of kingship on her head and breasts, stretched out her hand for the sceptre and the ivory wand, knew that, at last, she was a queen, as her mother had been: an anointed queen, a greater being than mere mortals, a step closer to the angels, appointed by God to rule His country, and under His especial protection. She knew that finally she had fulfilled the destiny that she had been born for, she had taken her place, as she had promised that she would.

She took a throne just a little lower than King Henry’s, and the crowd that cheered for the handsome young king coming to his throne also cheered for her, the Spanish princess, who had been constant against the odds and was crowned Queen Katherine of England at last.

I have waited for this day for so long that when it comes it is like a dream, like the dreams I have had of my greatest desires. I go through the coronation ceremony: my place in the procession, my seat on the throne, the cool lightness of the ivory rod in my hand, my other hand tightly gripping the heavy sceptre, the deep, heady scent of the holy oil on my forehead and breasts, as if it is another dream of longing for Arthur.

But this time it is real.

When we come out of the Abbey and I hear the crowd cheer for him, for me, I turn to look at my husband beside me. I am shocked then, a sudden shock like waking suddenly from a dream – that he is not Arthur. He is not my love. I had expected to be crowned beside Arthur and for us to take our thrones together. But instead of the handsome, thoughtful face of my husband, it is Harry’s round, flushed beam. Instead of my husband’s shy, coltish grace, it is Harry’s exuberant swagger at my side.

I realise at that moment, that Arthur really is dead, really gone from me. I am fulfilling my part of our promise, marrying the King of England, even though it is Harry. Please God, Arthur is fulfilling his part: to watch over me from al-Yanna, and to wait for me there. One day, when my work is done and I can go to my love, I will live with him forever.

‘Are you happy?’ the boy asks me, shouting to make himself heard above the pealing of the bells and the cheering of the crowds. ‘Are you happy, Catalina? Are you glad that I married you? Are you glad to be Queen of England, that I have given you this crown?’

‘I am very happy,’ I promise him. ‘And you must call me Katherine now.’

‘Katherine?’ he asks. ‘Not Catalina any more?’

‘I am Queen of England,’ I say, thinking of Arthur saying these very words. ‘I am Queen Katherine of England.’

‘Oh, I say!’ he exclaims, delighted at the idea of changing his name, as I have changed mine. ‘That’s good. We shall be King Henry, and Queen Katherine. They shall call me Henry too.’

This is the king but he is not Arthur, he is Harry who wants to be called Henry, like a man. I am the queen, and I shall not be Catalina. I shall be Katherine – English through and through, and not the girl who was once so very much in love with the Prince of Wales.