Henry VII’s accession had presented Ferdinand with another opportunity for dynastic diplomacy. Here was another ‘New Prince’ who had reunited his country after a long civil war. Henry Tudor had inherited England’s traditional enmity to France. And he had a son. What England had to offer and Ferdinand to give fitted like a plug and socket. Ferdinand made the first move and sent Spanish commissioners to England in 1488. The following year an English Embassy went to Spain to conclude matters. They agreed to a treaty of alliance and an engagement to marry Henry’s son Arthur to Ferdinand’s youngest daughter Catherine. As was usual at the time, the marriage agreement provided for a set of reciprocal financial arrangements: Catherine’s parents were to pay Henry VII a marriage portion of 200,000 crowns (about £40,000) in two instalments while, in return, Henry was to settle one third of the lands of the Prince of Wales on Catherine to generate a ‘dower’ or income for her in the event of Arthur’s death. The treaty was signed in March 1489 at Medina del Campo and it was there, as we have seen, that the English envoys had caught their first glimpse of the little Princess who was to be their Queen.1
The English pressed for Catherine to be sent immediately. But over a decade was to elapse before she set foot on English soil and, many times during that period, it seemed likely that the marriage would be abandoned. For neither King had got what he wanted from the treaty. A joint intervention in Brittany had failed. Then, after many hesitations (after all, the French had effectively placed him on the throne) Henry VII had invaded France in 1492. But he invaded alone. After only a few weeks campaigning, he made the separate Peace of Étaples with France and called off his invasion in return for a pension (as the French called it) or tribute (as the English preferred to name it). Ferdinand riposted by making his own settlement with France, which recognised his gains in the Pyrenees.
Still worse, Henry’s grasp on the throne soon looked shaky. A young Fleming called Perkin Warbeck managed to pass himself off as Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower, and won widespread support, both within England and abroad. To try to counter his claims, Henry had his second son Henry, born in 1491, made Duke of York. The boy, though only three, was already able to ride a great horse to the ceremony. The King invested him with the coronet, the sword and the rod of a duke, then, in an uncharacteristically impulsive gesture of fatherly pride, picked him up in his arms and stood him on the table where everybody could see him.2
Perkin Warbeck, meanwhile, had been taken up by the young, ambitious King of Scots, James IV. James married Perkin to his relative, Lady Catherine Gordon, and, hostile as usual to his southern neighbour, swore to help him recover the English throne. In return, Perkin promised to cede Berwick and other disputed borderlands to Scotland.
Things now looked bad both for the Anglo-Spanish treaty and for Henry VII himself. But circumstances suddenly changed. Ferdinand, about to begin a life-and-death struggle with the French in Italy, discovered a new interest in the English alliance in the hope that Henry might be persuaded, once more, to distract the French in the north while he attacked them in the south. And Ferdinand’s ambassador to England, Dr De Puebla, decided to help in the solution of Henry’s domestic problems.
De Puebla had been one of the original ambassadors who had come to England to negotiate the alliance in 1488, and he was sent back there as resident ambassador in 1495. This time he stayed. He liked England and he respected the English King even more. Indeed, he had–or so his many enemies in the Spanish diplomatic service whispered–become more English than Spanish. The truth probably is that De Puebla had come to think that English and Spanish interests were so closely interwoven that by serving the one he automatically advanced the cause of the other.3
In October 1496 the Anglo-Spanish treaties were renewed. Emboldened by this diplomatic backing, Henry VII decided to punish James IV for his support of Perkin by invading Scotland the following spring. The armies were marshalled but, just as they were marching north, the Cornish rose in a great revolt to protest against the taxation which had been imposed to finance the Scottish war. With the King’s armies already on the way to Scotland, there was nothing between the rebels and London. Henry shadowed them to the north while Queen Elizabeth hastened to London and took refuge in the Tower with her second son, Henry Duke of York. The rebels marched round the city to the south and met the King, who by this time had gathered his forces, at Blackheath on 17 May. The King was victorious. But it had been a close-run thing.4
Meanwhile, De Puebla, working in concert with the Spanish ambassador in Scotland, had got James IV to wash his hands of Perkin. The Pretender was despatched with his wife and a few ships and made first for Ireland, which for once failed to rise, and then for Cornwall, in the hope of taking advantage of the aftermath of revolt. By the time he landed in September, however, it was too late and, after a forlorn attempt to besiege Exeter, he surrendered on 5 October. ‘This day came Perkin Werbek,’ Henry’s account book noted exultantly. Henry wrote personally to De Puebla with the glad tidings. His letter is addressed ‘To our most beloved…De Puebla’ and, in his gratitude, he sought permission (which was not given) from Ferdinand and Isabella to reward their ambassador with an English bishopric.5
From this moment, Catherine’s possible English destiny turned into a certainty.