The Spanish Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon Read online

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  To my friends in Chelan, Washington, and in loving remembrance of

  Omar Carl Kiger

  Edna Maree Webber Kiger

  Morton Webber Kiger

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Note to the Reader

  Also by Carolly Erickson

  About the Author

  Copyright

  In any retreat, the wounded are left behind. Their suffering is the price of victory.

  —Queen Isabella of Castile

  1

  It was the hiss and crackle of the evening camp fires that I remember most vividly, when I think of my childhood. The sounds of the soldiers singing together and the boy choristers of the royal chapel chanting as the bishop carried the host in procession through the camp, the soldiers bowing low in reverence. The horizon turning to fiery red and then to blue in the gathering dusk. The sparks flying up from the fires into the night sky as the first of the stars came out.

  And most of all, I remember my mother, warming herself at the fire along with her soldiers, praising them for their courage, scolding them when they drank too freely of the coarse wines of the south, smiling and nodding when they cheered for her. I remember her, her face alight with happiness, her thick curling red-brown hair coming free from under her headdress, her skin aglow, contentment in her eyes.

  I can almost hear her clear, strong voice as she gathered her commanders and gave them their orders for the following day.

  “How many more men are we going to need?” she would ask, her expression serious, her tone urgent. “The guns,” she would say. “How are the guns? What defenses do they have? What of their supplies? How long can they hold out against us?”

  My valiant mother, Queen Isabella of Castile, was already famed as a warrior queen when I was very young. But what I remember far better than her renown—for what is that to a young child?—is how she often took me aside, as the camp fires were snapping and hissing, and told me my favorite story.

  It was the story of how, during the long series of battles against the heathen Moors, she had continued to put on her heavy armor and lead her army, exhorting the men to attack bravely for the cause of Christ, even when she knew she was carrying me in her belly.

  “I carried you for nearly nine long months, Catalina,” she would say. “All through that hot spring season and the baking hot summer, with the scorching sun drying up every drop of moisture from the barren plains of Andalus, and the mules dying from thirst, and our enemies growing ever stronger. I carried you when my belly swelled larger and larger and I had to have my armorer make me new cuirasses to fit over my swollen shape.

  “We had been fighting against the enemies of Christendom for four strenuous, exhausting years, your father and I, and our fight was nowhere near its end. Its outcome was uncertain, though we never lost hope.

  “With all the strain and hardship I knew I might lose you, Catalina, as I had lost many of the babes I carried. Only your brother and your three sisters lived, out of all the times I hoped for a child, and I was very much afraid that you would never live to take your first breath.”

  Even though I had heard the story again and again, I always listened keenly for every word, watching the expressions of worry and sadness and courageous hope cross my mother’s everchanging face. I could not wait for the last part of the story. The best.

  “When raw weather came in the fall,” she said, “and the rains came, and strong winds began to blow across the plains, I received a message from the Archbishop of Toledo. Come to my castle at Alcala de Henares, he wrote. It is a strong fortress. You will be safe there behind its old stone walls. Rest there until your child is born.

  “So I did,” she went on, tenderly cupping my cheeks in her hands as she spoke, and smiling. “I traveled north to Alcala, and rested there as winter began. And in the Advent season, you were born. Oh, Catalina, that was a wild night! With the winds keening around the castle walls, and the fires burning low, and the air so very cold. All the midwives prayed for me—and for you. But at last I heard you cry, and cough, and then I heard someone say ‘A girl.’ And then I began to cry, I was so very weary, and my pains had been so great.”

  Telling this part of the story always brought tears to her green eyes, with their hint of blue. And seeing her tears, I always cried with her.

  But that was not the end of her tale. There was always one last part.

  “When your father heard you were a girl, and not the son he wanted, he blamed me. He took his revenge. Oh yes, he took his revenge! Her name was Francesca, and she had breasts like ripe melons and the face of an angel. She was only nineteen.”

  She lowered her voice. “I wanted to scratch that angel’s face with my nails, Catalina, until she screamed for mercy. But I couldn’t. He protected her. So I nursed you, and prayed that you would live. And you did! Long before you were weaned, your father had found another girl. And so it has gone ever since.”

  I have said it was my favorite story, this tale of my birth. But I must add that I took no pleasure in hearing of my mother’s sadness, and seeing her sorrow etched on her face. She had paid a heavy price for my birth, in weariness and pain. At times I wished, for her sake, that I had been born a boy. But more often I wished for the chance to meet the angel-faced Francesca, and shout at her, and call on the royal guardsmen to seize her and throw her into my mother’s dungeons where she would starve, alone and in darkness.

  But of course I never did meet her, and if I had, I would have tried to follow Our Lord’s teaching and forgive her. Whether my mother ever forgave her, I cannot say.

  * * *

  My early memories of my father are quite different from those of my mother. I saw much less of him, and he rarely talked to me or even took much notice of me when I was very young. My brother Juan was his favorite. My splendid, handsome, athletic, chivalrous brother, who was the heir to Castile and Aragon and all my father’s lesser kingdoms combined. It was not until Juan died that my father, angry that his only son should be taken from him when he was barely nineteen, began to look at me and say a few words to me.

  He sent for me early one morning when he was preparing to go hawking.

  “Catalina,” he said in his abrupt way, taking in at a glance my compact, sturdy young body and the earnest look on my face—my habitual expression at that age—“Catalina, you are aware, I trust, of what will soon be expected of you. Not long from now the time will come when you must be sent to England.”

  I had always known that I would one day leave my family and make the long journey to England, which I believed to be a distan
t cold island full of warlike people. There I would become the wife of Prince Arthur, Prince of Wales. I dreaded that day, knowing that it would mean leaving my mother. Sometimes I prayed that I would not have to leave. That something would happen to make it possible for me to stay home. But I knew very well where my duty lay. My father did not need to remind me.

  “Yes, father. I am well aware of it.”

  “Prince Arthur will soon be fourteen years old, and he expects to marry you then.”

  “Yes, father. I know.”

  Something in my tone of voice must have irritated him, for he turned to look at me then, and I thought I saw in his usually dull brown eyes a flicker of irritation.

  I had often heard it said that my father was a fine-looking man, but I never thought him so. He had a hefty, strong body, a body that served him well to deflect the buffeting of blows in the tiltyard and to dodge weapons hurled at him from the high walls of fortresses by enemies. But his face was fleshy and jowly, his eyes set close together and his thick black hair fell untidily over his short forehead and wide cheeks. I remember feeling glad that I did not resemble him. I was especially thankful that I did not inherit his large nose or his full red lips. My sister Juana, the beauty of our family, did resemble him, so perhaps he was a fine-looking man after all.

  “It would be a shame to have to send you away, perhaps to Azuaga, to await your departure for England,” he said curtly. “But I assure you that is what will happen if I hear the least hint of defiance or sulking from you.”

  He knew that I dreaded Azuaga, a lonely castle in the barren hills far from our court at Granada to which only criminals and outcasts were sent. He knew how to alarm me.

  “No, father,” I answered, my voice tremulous. “Of course not, father.” I looked down at the tiled floor. I waited a moment, then added, “I am eager to go to my new home, and to meet my husband.”

  He turned back to his pier glass and put on his velvet cap with its trailing feathers.

  “Indeed I have many questions about my new home,” I added, doing my best to keep any hint of defiance out of my tone.

  “What is it really like there? Have you ever been to England? Is it as cold as they say? Is the court there as splendid as ours? Does it move from place to place as we do, and do the English have to fight against the enemies of Christ as we do?”

  With a final glance at his image in the pier glass my father turned to me and held up one plump hand, the many rings on his fingers glittering.

  “Remember, Catalina, that you are being sent to England for only one purpose: to have sons. Sons that will one day rule that realm—and be yoked by blood to our own lands of Aragon and Castile. That is all that matters: not the weather, or the splendor of the court—though they do say that the English king is very rich—or anything else. You will marry the prince and strive to obey and please him and bear his sons.”

  And with that he shouted for his grooms and strode from the room, without another word to me.

  I did my best not to anger my father over the next few months, as the preparations for my journey were made. There was a great deal to do, from the choosing of my many attendants and servants to the sewing of my wedding clothes to the packing of my possessions in heavy trunks. But while all this was under way, I continued to have questions, not only about England but about the prince I was pledged to marry.

  I went to my almoner John Reveles, a tall, good-looking Englishman who had been sent to our court to join my household and to teach me the English tongue.

  “Master Reveles, have you seen Prince Arthur?”

  “Indeed I have, many times,” was his answer.

  I hesitated. “Can you tell me what he is like? I have the letters he sends me, as you know. But they are so formal, so very polite and full of praise. They do not tell me anything about the prince, how he is different from all others.”

  “You have his portrait as well as his letters, do you not?” he answered with a smile. “That should tell you much.”

  A portrait had been sent to me two years earlier, of a young blond boy with a thin face and pale skin. A boy with frightened eyes, I thought, though I was not going to say that to the almoner.

  “Can you not see a future king in that portrait?” Master Reveles asked.

  I did not know how to answer him. At length he sighed and led me to a window embrasure where we both sat.

  “The prince is very unlike his father King Henry,” he began. “The king is forceful, while the prince is—thoughtful. The king scowls and bellows, while Arthur—plays chess, and reads.”

  “What does he read?”

  “Tales of chivalry, I believe. Unless I am mistaken, he also writes them.”

  “But that pleases me very much!” I cried. “I have always loved the old romances, ever since my mother first read them to me. What else does he like to do?”

  “He has been trained in the joust, he has some fine Barbary horses in his stables, he dances a little—”

  “But is he daring, and strong, yet kind, like my brother Juan was?” I wanted to know.

  The almoner took his time in replying. In the end he said, “He is amusing.”

  “Amusing! Do you mean that he is like a fool? Like one of my mother’s dwarves, that dresses up in ridiculous gowns and turns somersaults?”

  “Not like that. The prince is witty. He likes puns, and word-play.”

  I was stunned into silence.

  “Your mother would like him. Your father—” He made an equivocal gesture, and frowned. His meaning was clear.

  “But then, the prince is young yet,” Master Reveles went on, putting his hands on his knees and getting up from where we sat. “He will grow into manhood, and become kingly.”

  He looked at me. “Until then, I hope you will keep what I have confided to you locked away in your heart.”

  I nodded.

  There was another visitor to our court who had seen my future husband. A Siennese, Maestre Antonio. He had been summoned to England by the English king, my future father-in-law, to paint the walls of a chapel. When I asked him about the prince he seemed reluctant to answer me—and not only because his grasp of our Castilian tongue was limited.

  “Ah, Infanta Catalina,” he answered with a shrug, “what can I say? The fair young prince—”

  “Yes, yes?”

  “Is—” He looked uncomfortable, unable to say what he thought, and apologetic for thinking it.

  “Have you seen him riding in the tiltyard?”

  “No, Infanta.”

  “Riding to the hunt?”

  “No, Infanta.”

  “Would you say he is amusing, that his company is lively?”

  The Siennese shook his head slowly while keeping his eyes on my face.

  “There must be something you can remember about him!”

  “When I saw him,” he said softly after a long pause, “they were carrying him in a litter. There were three physicians with him, in long black gowns.”

  I took this in, but did not know what to make of it.

  “Perhaps he was injured in the tiltyard,” I managed to say. “My sister’s husband was thrown from his horse while competing in the lists. It is often the bravest and most daring of jousters who suffer injury.”

  But Maestre Antonio merely shrugged again, and told me nothing more.

  * * *

  In the end most of my questions about Prince Arthur and England went unanswered. I realized I would just have to wait and find the answers for myself once I arrived.

  At last all the preparations for my journey were complete. My officials and servants were assembled, their possessions packed, our supplies loaded onto carts, the archers and knights of my escort armed and alerted, awaiting the order to move northward.

  All that remained was for me to say my goodbyes to those I was leaving behind.

  To my surprise my duenna, Doña Elvira Manuel, came to me with a message.

  Doña Elvira, who had known me and looked after me sin
ce I was a baby, was a plump woman with quick brown hands that were never still and bright searching eyes. She was restless that afternoon, and her strong voice held a slight quaver.

  “Your mother asks for you, Infanta Catalina,” she said.

  “What is it? Is she not ready to leave?”

  Much to my comfort, my mother was to accompany my traveling party to La Coruña, where our ships were waiting to cross the sea to England. We were to have several more weeks to be together. Her serving women had been busying themselves making ready for her departure for many days.

  “I do not know, mistress. All I know is that she is asking for you.”

  I got up from where I had been sitting and went toward the doorway.

  “If you please, mistress,” Doña Elvira said, “I know it will delight her to see you—wearing your wedding gown.”

  I was puzzled. No one but my dresser, Maria de Caceres, and Doña Elvira, and my dressmaker and seamstresses had seen me in the full-skirted gown of heavy white silk, its many yards of softly shimmering tissue belling out from bodice and sleeves as well as from my waist.

  “But everyone knows it is bad fortune to wear a wedding dress before the wedding day! No one must see it but the seamstress and fitters!”

  “I have seen it,” Doña Elvira reminded me mildly.

  “You do not count. You are my shadow.”

  She was quiet a moment. When she spoke again her voice was soft.

  “I believe you must do this, Infanta Catalina.”

  “Why? What is wrong?”

  Instead of answering she summoned Maria de Caceres, who stood, eyes downcast, waiting for me to speak. I could tell that both women knew something, or sensed something, and that I needed to heed their unspoken urging.

  “Very well, bring me my wedding dress. But be quick! All the carts are loaded and we are ready to leave!”

  My mother was waiting for me in the Alhambra, in the cool green garden of the Court of Myrtles, sitting on a marble bench in the shade of a tall palm. Fountains plashed nearby, their waters sparkling in the afternoon sunshine. From the city spread out below us, in the distance, came the first sound of the call to prayer—for Granada was home to many Moors and despite my parents’ warmaking, not all of them had yet become converts to the Christian faith.