Patience, Princess Catherine by Carolyn Meyer Page B

message my eyes held for him:
I shall be your friend.
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    Scarcely a month after that somber occasion, Maria de Salinas flew into my chambers with the latest court rumor. Maria was being courted by the duke of Derby, a grandson of the king's stepfather, and so was privy to much gossip. "Catalina, imagine this," she whispered excitedly. "King Henry is in search of a new wife!"
    I was mending some table linens that had fallen into disrepair. "So soon?" I bit off the end of a thread. "The good queen has been dead for little more than a month."
    "The king believes that he must tend to this matter immediately. He fears that some disaster might befall the new prince of Wales, as it did Arthur, and he will be left with only daughters. A new wife might produce yet another son for him."
    I was not much surprised that King Henry wished to marry. I understood his concerns, for the death of my brother had left my parents without a male heir. But I gave no further thought to the king's predicament until the duke of Estrada strutted into my chambers puffed and preening with his own importance.
    "What now, good sir," I gibed, "another order to begin imaginary packing for yet another phantom ship?"
    But the duke saw no humor in my little jest and began one of his lengthy speeches. At last he reached his point: "King Henry the Seventh has informed me that he wishes to marry you, my lady princess."
    I was shocked speechless. A look of horror must have crossed my face. I could not imagine myself wed to a man thirty years older than I, his teeth already blackened, his eyes rheumy, his skin like old parchment.
I, marry King Henry ?
    "Does my mother, the queen, know?" I asked in a voice quavering with distress when I was again able to speak.
    "She knows, madam. And she has refused to entertain his suit. The queen has said she would rather return you to Spain than allow such a marriage."
    I nearly fainted with relief.
    But it was the ambassador, Don Rodrigo, who supplied the practical details that the more refined duke had omitted: "The marriage would not be useful to Spain. Your sons would be in line for the throne after the new prince of Wales. You would have little power or influence over either the present or the future king. That power and influence is naturally what your parents require of your marriage."
    I sat with bowed head, listening to his blunt but honest words. Whatever my mother's reasons, I was deeply grateful.
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    In April I observed the first anniversary of my husband's death. I was more than ready to throw off the mourning garments I had worn for a year and to seek some mild diversions in the life of the English court. Though Doña Elvira continued to cling to me like a shadow and to rule my days with an unbending will, there was no point in confronting her. With so little money in the household coffers, there was nothing at all to spend on pleasure anyway. The Great Feast of Easter was scarcely different from any other meal at my table—a little bread, a little meat, some poor wine.
    When Juan de Cuero, my treasurer, refused to permit me to sell two or three pieces of plate in order to feed my household and to meet my obligations to my servants, I wrote to my parents yet again, pleading with them. My father answered that letter swiftly with a firm negative: The plate had to be preserved as part of my dowry and could not be touched.
    But what, please God, was I to do in the meantime?
    ***
    At last, on the twenty-third of June, five days before Henry's twelfth birthday, a marriage treaty was signed, betrothing me to the new prince of Wales. Certain agreements had been reached: The dowry—always the dowry!—would remain unchanged; the wedding would take place when Henry reached the age of fifteen, providing the pope granted the proper dispensations, and providing the balance of my dowry had been paid over to King Henry—100, 000 escudos, part in gold coin and part in jewels and plate.
    The day after the