Then, as now, the finer points of wedding preparations tended to belong to the female sphere. So, soon after Catherine’s formal betrothal, her future mother-in-law, Elizabeth of York, started a flow of more-or-less helpful advice from England. And behind Queen Elizabeth was the formidable figure of her mother-in-law, Lady Margaret Beaufort.
Lady Margaret, who enjoyed quasi–Queen Mother status as ‘my lady the King’s Mother’, was a termagant. She was an unlovely mixture of dévôte and snob, equally committed to precise religious observance, on the one hand, and to the finest nuances of social punctilio, on the other. She also fancied herself as an expert in household management. She was, in short, the mother-in-law from hell.
Catherine was to be much more fortunate in her mother-in-law. For Elizabeth, everybody agreed, was a real lady: ‘the most distinguished and the most noble lady in the whole of England’, as the Spanish ambassador (who belonged to a culture which had high standards in such matters) observed. She was beautiful, gracious, intelligent and, above all, a reconciler and healer in a royal family otherwise characterised by assertive and aggressive personalities. In short, hers was advice worth taking.1
Elizabeth began with a ‘get to know you’ letter to Queen Isabella in December 1497. She begged Isabella to write ‘very often’, both about herself and Catherine. And she promised to keep up a similar flow of information to Spain about her beloved Arthur. The letter was written in Latin. But that does not mean that it was an impersonal communication drafted by a Humanist scribe. For when letters came back from Isabella and Catherine, Elizabeth took personal charge of the replies. ‘The Latin Secretary [said] afterwards that he was obliged to write the said letters three or four times, because the Queen had always found some defects in them.’ Was the effort worth it? ‘They are not things of great importance in themselves,’ De Puebla commented in forwarding them to Spain, ‘but they show great and cordial love.’ Clearly, Elizabeth had struck the right note.2
Communications established, Elizabeth then turned to more serious matters. First to be addressed was the problem caused by Catherine’s ignorance of modern languages. Ladies in England did not speak Latin, much less Spanish, the Queen and Lady Margaret explained to De Puebla. But they did speak French. They therefore suggested that Catherine should take advantage of the presence in Spain of her French-speaking sister-in-law, Margaret of Burgundy. They ‘wish that [Catherine] should always speak French with the Princess Margaret…in order to learn the language and to be able to converse in it when she comes to England’, De Puebla reported. Margaret was to remain in Spain for another two years, till 1499. And during this time she and Catherine became close. Though Margaret was five years the senior, they even shared Alessandro Geraldini’s services as tutor for some five months. Thanks to this intimacy, Catherine’s French came on rapidly. But English was still, as it was long to remain, foreign territory to ‘our English Infanta’.3
Then there was the question of the bevy of ladies who would accompany Catherine to England. They should be of high birth (‘the English’, the Spanish ambassador explained, ‘attach great importance to good connexions’). They should also, King Henry and Queen Elizabeth hinted in more informal conversations, be ‘beautiful, or at least that none of them be ugly’. And, though Elizabeth did not fully spell it out, it is clear that, if push came to shove, looks were to be preferred to lineage. The English Queen’s position was hardly feminist. But it was practical. For ladies-in-waiting were the chorus line of queenly spectacle: they were there to sing, dance and, above all, look nice.4
While these discussions for the real wedding were going on, a couple of extraordinary charades were enacted. These were the two proxy weddings between Arthur and Catherine on which the Catholic Kings insisted before they would trust their last-remaining daughter to the fickle English. We have already encountered De Puebla’s role as proxy for Catherine at the betrothal; he played the same part, with increasing zest, at the proxy weddings. The first took place on 19 May 1499 at Bewdley, the pleasant country retreat which Henry VII had built for his son in the Welsh Marches. Arthur played himself; his Chamberlain, Sir Richard Pole, played the priest; and De Puebla played Catherine. Arthur and De Puebla joined their right hands and Pole held their hands between his. Then Arthur declared that he accepted De Puebla in Catherine’s place as his lawful wife, and De Puebla, speaking for Catherine again, declared that she accepted Arthur as her lawful husband. This ceremony was known in contemporary Canon or Church Law as a ‘contract per verba de praesenti’–that is to say that ‘it was to be henceforth indissoluble’. To make doubly sure, the knot was tied a second time in December 1500. Here the playacting extended to the point of treating De Puebla as the bride at the ensuing feast. He was ‘placed at table above the Prince of Wales, and at his right hand’; he was also served first. The little ambassador was delirious with joy at such treatment. ‘In general,’ he boasted, ‘more respect was paid to him than he had ever before received in his life.’5
Finally, between the two proxy weddings, there took place the remaining preparations for the marriage. These were different: real, strictly masculine and absolutely off-stage. They were the solution to the dynastic threat presented by Perkin Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick to the Tudors and, by extension, to the marriage between Catherine and Arthur.
Warbeck was a Pretender; but Warwick was a real claimant to the throne, since he was the son of Edward IV’s brother George, Duke of Clarence. If the Yorkist line were the true line, as most people thought, and if the succession belonged to males, as was again the common assumption, then Warwick was rightful King. He had been feared accordingly by both Richard III and Henry VII: Richard had held him at Sheriff Hutton Castle, his northern fastness; and, on his accession, Henry had immediately removed him to the Tower where, in the fullness of time, Warbeck was also imprisoned. Thence, in November 1499, it was alleged, the real and pretend Yorkist claimants had plotted their escape. Both were condemned: Perkin was hanged, Warwick beheaded.
Henry VII wept crocodile tears, while De Puebla, who had been openly encouraging the executions, rejoiced. ‘England has never before been so tranquil and obedient as at present,’ he wrote in his New Year despatch to Ferdinand and Isabella in January 1500. ‘There have always been Pretenders to the crown of England; but now that Perkin and the son of the Duke of Clarence have been executed, there does not remain a drop of doubtful royal blood.’
Catherine, of course, knew little of this. But eventually she, too, was to discover that her marriage to Arthur had been made in blood–Warwick’s royal blood.6