Isabella of Castile, Juana and Katherine’s mother. With a finger in a book of hours possibly at the page for the office for the day, she presents an image of the virtuous, pious, and dedicated ruler. (Illustration Credit 1.1)

Ferdinand of Aragon, Isabella’s husband, was Juana and Katherine’s father. Crafty, devious, yet able, he was a model for Machiavelli’s “Prince.” (Illustration Credit 1.2)

Spain, from a contemporary map of 1582. (Illustration Credit 1.3)

The Alhambra and the city of Granada, 1582. Boabdil’s palace and the gardens of the Generalife are on the left, labeled numbers 9 and 5. (Illustration Credit 1.4)

The Court of Myrtles, the Alhambra, Granada. (Illustration Credit 1.5)

The gardens of the Generalife, the Alhambra, Granada. (Illustration Credit 1.6)

A Catholic antiphonary from Castile of the sort familiar to Isabella and her daughters. An antiphon was a verse from the Bible often sung before or after a psalm. (Illustration Credit 1.7)

While the identity of the sitter remains unproven, the letter “K” in the necklace adds weight to the belief that it is indeed Katherine of Aragon. (Illustration Credit 1.8)

Juana, Archduchess of Burgundy and Queen of Castile. There is a suggestion that this may be a portrait of Katherine, although the consensus favors the sitter as being Juana. The similarities of facial features between the two women are marked. (Illustration Credit 1.9)

Juana, Archduchess of Burgundy and Queen of Castile. (Illustration Credit 1.10)

The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Juana’s father-in-law, a wily, shrewd ruler who could easily match Ferdinand of Aragon in duplicity and deceit. (Illustration Credit 1.11)

Philip, Archduke of Burgundy, Juana’s husband, a portrait that suggests his sensual, hedonistic nature. (Illustration Credit 1.12)

Henry VII, King of England. With his pursed lips and deeply hooded eyes, Henry personifies political calculation and chicanery. (Illustration Credit 1.13)

Lady Margaret Beaufort, the “King’s Mother,” the pious and austere matriarch who was such a formidable presence in her son Henry VII’s court. (Illustration Credit 1.14)

Prince Arthur, from a nineteenth-century stained-glass window at the parish church of St. Lawrence, Ludlow, the church in which his coffin rested until its final journey to Worcester Cathedral. (Illustration Credit 1.15)

The gatehouse at Ludlow Castle. Katherine and Prince Arthur passed through the gatehouse when they arrived at Ludlow in 1502. (Illustration Credit 1.16)

The round chapel at Ludlow Castle. A stone’s throw from Prince Arthur’s apartments, this tiny chapel may be where he and Katherine worshipped. (Illustration Credit 1.17)

Prince Arthur’s tomb, Worcester Cathedral. (Illustration Credit 1.18)

Prince Arthur’s Tudor rose and Katherine’s pomegranate emblem from the carved tracery around Arthur’s tomb in Worcester Cathedral. (Illustration Credit 1.19)

King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, a portrait of the middle-aged Henry that hints at the merciless, gross figure that he would soon become. (Illustration Credit 1.20)

Jousters on horseback. (Illustration Credit 1.21)

A miniature from a treatise on falconry dedicated to Katherine’s father, Ferdinand, and which he may well have owned. Like her father, Katherine reveled in the sport of falconry. (Illustration Credit 1.22)

Baynard’s Castle, London, which became part of Katherine’s dowry when she married Henry VIII. (Illustration Credit 1.23)

The children of Philip and Juana. Princes Charles and Ferdinand are on the left, their sisters, Eleanor, Isabella, Maria, and Catalina, are on the right. (Illustration Credit 1.24)

St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. It was at Windsor, in 1506, that Katherine and Juana met for the last time. (Illustration Credit 1.25)

Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, executed for treason in 1521. (Illustration Credit 1.26)

William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury: an engraving after Hans Holbein the Younger. (Illustration Credit 1.27)

Juana’s son, the Emperor Charles V, also King of Aragon and Castile. (Illustration Credit 1.28)

Prince Ferdinand, Juana’s second son, who eventually succeeded his brother Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor. (Illustration Credit 1.29)

King Francis I of France, the rival of Charles V and Henry VIII. (Illustration Credit 1.30)

The entrance to the Royal Convent of St. Clare at Tordesillas, founded in 1363. (Illustration Credit 1.31)

Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. (Illustration Credit 1.32)

Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s councillor and chancellor, later beheaded for refusing to accept Henry as Supreme Head of the Church in England. (Illustration Credit 1.33)

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Margaret Beaufort’s favorite cleric and Katherine’s staunch champion at the Blackfriars Court in 1529, who was executed in 1535. Engraving after Hans Holbein the Younger. (Illustration Credit 1.34)

Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s second chief minister, who masterminded the divorce proceedings after Wolsey’s fall. (Illustration Credit 1.35)

An eighteenth-century depiction of Cardinal Wolsey surrendering the Great Seal after the failure of the Blackfriars Court. (Illustration Credit 1.36)

The tiny chapel in the Franciscan monastery at the Alhambra where the bodies of Ferdinand and Isabella lay until their removal to the specially built Royal Chapel in the town of Granada. (Illustration Credit 1.37)

Exterior view of the Royal Chapel, Granada. (Illustration Credit 1.38)

Juana and Philip’s mausoleum in the Royal Chapel, Granada. (Illustration Credit 1.39)

Katherine’s tomb, Peterborough Cathedral. She rests under the unmarked stone slab in the foreground. The gold letters spelling out her name date from the nineteenth century. (Illustration Credit 1.40)

The tomb of Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, in the Church of St. Michael, Framlingham, Suffolk. (Illustration Credit 1.41)

Framlingham Castle, Suffolk, from where Katherine’s daughter, Mary, launched her successful bid for the crown against the forces of Lady Jane Grey in 1553. (Illustration Credit 1.42)

Philip II of Spain, Juana’s grandson, and his wife, Mary I of England, Katherine’s daughter. (Illustration Credit 1.43)