Despite its extraordinary beginnings, Catherine’s second pregnancy was smoother than her first. The King went on a summer Progress to the south of England. But wisely Catherine opted out of part of it and spent July with her ladies at Eltham. By the end of October the couple were back at Richmond, where they were to remain. In November, the formal preparations for the lying-in and birth began and the Prior of Canterbury, who kept the great silver font which was used for royal christenings, was warned that it would shortly be needed again. Catherine took to her Chamber before the Christmas festivities and, on New Year’s Eve, went into labour. The Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal sang prayers for her safe delivery and, at 1.30 in the morning of New Year’s Day, her child was born. It was a boy.1
The King and England went mad with joy. Two hundred and seven pounds of gunpowder was spent firing salute after salute in the Tower. Bonfires burned; fountains ran with wine and processions of thanksgiving wound through the streets of London. For greater ceremony, the christening was ‘deferred’ until Sunday the 5th. It took place in the church of the Observant Friars (Catherine’s favourite Order) at Richmond Palace. Rails and posts were erected from the Great Hall to the church to make a processional way, twenty-four feet wide. This was gravelled and hung with tapestry. Inside the church, the great silver font stood on a high, stepped platform. The boy’s godfather was King Louis XII of France and his godmother the Archduchess Margaret. And he was christened Henry. The heralds cried his name and titles–‘Prince Henry, first son of our sovereign lord King Henry VIII’–and the proud father rewarded them with the extravagantly large sum of £20.2
As protocol dictated, neither Catherine nor Henry was present at the christening. Instead, Catherine remained within her Chamber. After the christening, her son was brought back to her in procession, preceded by his baptismal gifts. These were carried in the order of the rank of the giver and were headed by the magnificent presents from his godfather, Louis XII: a great salt, weighing fifty-one ounces, and a cup, weighing forty-eight ounces, both of fine gold. The gifts and the child were presented to the Queen by her ladies.
But the reunion between mother and son was brief. Immediately, as protocol again dictated, the child was borne to the nursery and handed over to the Lady Mistress, Elizabeth Denton, and the wet-nurse, Elizabeth Poyntz. The latter was clearly Catherine’s own choice. The husband of the wet-nurse was John Poyntz, the second son of Sir Robert Poyntz of Iron Acton in Gloucestershire. Sir Robert was Catherine’s Vice-chamberlain and John had followed him into the Queen’s service. The French ambassador, D’Arizolles, who was in charge of distributing Louis XII’s largesse at the christening, was clearly surprised at Elizabeth’s social standing. He had been told, he reported, ‘that it would be well to present a chain of 200 crowns [£40] to the Prince’s nurse, and tell her that the King prays her to nurse well his godson. She is a gentlewoman of good house.’3
Meanwhile, Henry also left Catherine, to go on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. Walsingham, on the north Norfolk coast, is a round trip of over two hundred miles from London. Henry set out from the Tower on the 12th and took about ten days to reach his goal. At Walsingham he said his prayers, kissed the relic of the Virgin’s milk and made offerings of £1 13s and 4d. On the way back, he sent a messenger to Catherine, with a present of two does, which he had probably killed en route. He arrived back at the Tower on the 31st and rejoined his wife at Richmond at the beginning of February.4
Henry’s absence on pilgrimage had, happily, coincided with the boring aftermath of Catherine’s pregnancy. This was now out of the way. Catherine was churched and out of her confinement and back in his bed. And it was almost time for the celebratory jousts. Henry had proclaimed these on the day of the christening itself. The King, with three aides, challenged all comers to meet him at Westminster on 12 and 13 February. The tournament was the most splendid of Henry’s reign and it is recorded, uniquely, by a sixty-foot-long illuminated vellum roll. Here the various scenes of the pageant are represented in vivid colour and burnished gold-leaf.5
The roll begins with the mounted procession to the lists on the second day of the tournament. First comes the Master of the Armoury, with his staff on foot carrying the lances; then follow the trumpeters and the gallants of the Court. The trumpeters puff out their cheeks and the gallants preen. More sober are the heralds, who are in charge of both the ceremony and the sport. They directly precede the King’s three aides, each of whom rides under a canopied pavilion. Their pavilions are magnificent. But they pale before the splendour of the King’s, which is made of broad strips of cloth of gold alternating with blue velvet. The blue velvet is thickly strewn with golden letters of ‘K’ for Catherine.
The central portion of the roll shows Henry jousting before Catherine. Catherine is housed in a grandstand, which is elaborately painted and gilded with royal badges and livery colours. She sits under a canopy of cloth of gold, with Henry’s sister Mary next to her. The Queen’s face is notably plumper and her figure full and maternal. She applauds enthusiastically as Henry breaks his lance on his opponent’s helmet, jerking the head sharply backwards and upwards. The trapper of Henry’s horse is also made of blue velvet, sprinkled with more golden ‘K’s. As well, there are large golden hearts and, along the lower border, other golden letters spell out ‘Loyall’. This is Henry’s chivalric name for the tournament: he is Catherine’s ‘Coeur Loyal’, ‘Sir Loyal Heart’. Never, I believe, had Henry been so in love with Catherine as at that moment; never would he be so fully again.
For, ten days later, on the 22nd, Prince Henry was dead. The baby was brought from Richmond and buried in state at Westminster Abbey on the 27th. Catherine was heartbroken: ‘like a natural woman, [she] made much lamentation’. According to the chronicler, Henry took it like a man, concealing his feelings the better to comfort his wife. But D’Arizolles tells a different story. He had been advised by the Council, he reports, not to present Louis XII’s letters of condolence on the death of the Prince, ‘or say a word about it at present, as it would only revive the King’s grief ’.6