close enough to smell her breath. There were a number of hidden hazards attached to long-distance courtship and Henry, always a prudent man, was guarding against as many as he could think of.
Meanwhile, the terms of the marriage contract between Catherine and young Henry were being finalized. Their betrothal was solemnized at the Bishop of Salisbury’s house in Fleet Street on 25 June 1503, three days before the prince’s twelfth birthday, and it was agreed that the wedding day should be set as soon as he had completed his fourteenth year - conditional on the necessary dispensation being forthcoming from Rome and on Spain being able to prove that the second half of the bride’s dowry was in London ready for payment.
Marriage was in the air that summer. Two days after seeing his son betrothed, the King set out from Richmond to escort his elder daughter, thirteen-year-old Margaret, on the first stage of her journey to the Scottish Border. As father and daughter travelled north through those long-ago June days they naturally had no conception of the far-reaching consequences which were to flow from the marriage of Margaret Tudor and James IV of Scotland; nor could they have foreseen that exactly one hundred years later Margaret’s great-grandson would be making his journey south to be crowned at Westminster. It is true that when the Scottish marriage project was first being discussed at the council table, some councillors had put the case that ‘if God should take the King’s two sons without issue, then the kingdom of England would fall to the King of Scotland, which might prejudice the monarchy of England’; but Henry had replied that if such a thing were to happen, ‘Scotland would be but an accession to England, and not England to Scotland, for the greater would draw the less.’ This prescient piece of political wisdom ‘passed as an oracle’, at least according to Francis Bacon, and seems to have silenced any further criticism. In any case, the solid advantages of an alliance which would break the long-standing bond between England’s ancestral enemies, Scotland and France, and secure her vulnerable land frontier, as well as put an end to the costly and destructive nuisance of organized Border raiding, obviously outweighed future imponderables and must be welcomed by all sensible men. The King, long-sighted though he was, could scarcely have envisaged the political complications or the personal tragedies which this union of ‘the thistle and the rose’ would inflict on his immediate descendants.
Henry accompanied the bridal party as far as his mother’s house at Collyweston, which lay just south of Stamford, conveniently close to the Great North Road. Here the family goodbyes were said and young Margaret was handed over to the charge of the Earl and Countess of Surrey who would be responsible for delivering her safely to her husband. The King was sending his daughter off in style (apart from anything else, this was an excellent opportunity to show the Tudor flag in the seldom visited North Country) and as well as the Surreys and their train, ‘there was appointed many great lords, nobles, knights, ladies, squires, gentlewomen and others for to convey her from place to place’. In addition to the regular escort, ‘the nobles of the country, governors of towns, other officers of the lordships, mayors, sheriffs, aldermen, burgesses, and citizens of the towns through which she should pass’ came out to greet the princess and ‘make her all honour and reverence’. It was only to be expected, of course, that the county magnates, royal officers and civic dignitaries would be meticulous in paying their respects, but everywhere along the route the ordinary people left their harvesting to crowd the roadside to see the noble company, bringing ‘great vessels full of drink’ which they pressed on the thirsty travellers in a spontaneous gesture of hospitality. In every town and village the church bells pealed a
Meanwhile, the terms of the marriage contract between Catherine and young Henry were being finalized. Their betrothal was solemnized at the Bishop of Salisbury’s house in Fleet Street on 25 June 1503, three days before the prince’s twelfth birthday, and it was agreed that the wedding day should be set as soon as he had completed his fourteenth year - conditional on the necessary dispensation being forthcoming from Rome and on Spain being able to prove that the second half of the bride’s dowry was in London ready for payment.
Marriage was in the air that summer. Two days after seeing his son betrothed, the King set out from Richmond to escort his elder daughter, thirteen-year-old Margaret, on the first stage of her journey to the Scottish Border. As father and daughter travelled north through those long-ago June days they naturally had no conception of the far-reaching consequences which were to flow from the marriage of Margaret Tudor and James IV of Scotland; nor could they have foreseen that exactly one hundred years later Margaret’s great-grandson would be making his journey south to be crowned at Westminster. It is true that when the Scottish marriage project was first being discussed at the council table, some councillors had put the case that ‘if God should take the King’s two sons without issue, then the kingdom of England would fall to the King of Scotland, which might prejudice the monarchy of England’; but Henry had replied that if such a thing were to happen, ‘Scotland would be but an accession to England, and not England to Scotland, for the greater would draw the less.’ This prescient piece of political wisdom ‘passed as an oracle’, at least according to Francis Bacon, and seems to have silenced any further criticism. In any case, the solid advantages of an alliance which would break the long-standing bond between England’s ancestral enemies, Scotland and France, and secure her vulnerable land frontier, as well as put an end to the costly and destructive nuisance of organized Border raiding, obviously outweighed future imponderables and must be welcomed by all sensible men. The King, long-sighted though he was, could scarcely have envisaged the political complications or the personal tragedies which this union of ‘the thistle and the rose’ would inflict on his immediate descendants.
Henry accompanied the bridal party as far as his mother’s house at Collyweston, which lay just south of Stamford, conveniently close to the Great North Road. Here the family goodbyes were said and young Margaret was handed over to the charge of the Earl and Countess of Surrey who would be responsible for delivering her safely to her husband. The King was sending his daughter off in style (apart from anything else, this was an excellent opportunity to show the Tudor flag in the seldom visited North Country) and as well as the Surreys and their train, ‘there was appointed many great lords, nobles, knights, ladies, squires, gentlewomen and others for to convey her from place to place’. In addition to the regular escort, ‘the nobles of the country, governors of towns, other officers of the lordships, mayors, sheriffs, aldermen, burgesses, and citizens of the towns through which she should pass’ came out to greet the princess and ‘make her all honour and reverence’. It was only to be expected, of course, that the county magnates, royal officers and civic dignitaries would be meticulous in paying their respects, but everywhere along the route the ordinary people left their harvesting to crowd the roadside to see the noble company, bringing ‘great vessels full of drink’ which they pressed on the thirsty travellers in a spontaneous gesture of hospitality. In every town and village the church bells pealed a
Similar Books
