Katharine, The Virgin Widow - Plaidy Jean (книга регистрации .txt) 📗

Francesca gave loud voice to her grievances; Maria was filled with melancholy. Only Maria de Salinas and Inez de Venegas alternately soothed and scolded them. They were unhappy, but what of the Infanta? How much harder was her lot. Imagine, it might well be that she would have to submit to the will of the old King of England.

* * *

AT LAST CAME the news from Spain. Katharine saw the messengers arrive with the dispatches and had them brought to her immediately.

Her mother wrote as affectionately as ever, and the very sight of that beloved handwriting made the longing for home more intense.

Isabella did not wish her daughter to marry the King of England. She was eager for a match between Katharine and the young Prince of Wales. She was writing to the King of England suggesting that he look elsewhere for a bride.

Katharine felt limp with relief, as though she had been reprieved from a terrible fate.

Unless some satisfactory arrangement could be made for Katharine’s future in England, Isabella wrote, she would demand that her daughter be returned to Spain.

This made Katharine almost dizzy with happiness and, when her maids of honor came to her, they found her sitting at her table smiling dazedly at the letter before her.

“I am not to marry him,” she announced.

Then they all forgot the dignity due to an Infanta and fell upon her, hugging and kissing her.

At last Maria de Rojas said: “Does she give her consent to my marriage?”

“Alas,” Katharine told her, “there is no mention of it.”

* * *

HENRY SAT for a long time listening to Puebla’s account of his instructions from Spain. So the Sovereigns did not want him for a son-in-law. He read between the lines. They would be delighted if their daughter became the Queen of England, but he was old and she was young; they believed that he could not live for a great number of years and, when he died, she would be merely the Dowager Queen, who would play no part in state affairs. Moreover even as Queen, she would have no power, for Henry was not the man to allow a young wife to share in his counsels.

Isabella was emphatic in her refusal of this match.

“Her Highness,” Puebla told the King, “suggests that it might be well if the Infanta returned to Spain.”

This was high-handed indeed. Henry had no wish to send the Infanta back to Spain. With their daughter living in semiretirement in England he had some hold over the Sovereigns. He wanted the rest of her dowry, and he was determined to get it.

“These are matters not to be resolved in an hour,” replied Henry evasively.

“Her Highness suggests that, since you are looking for a wife, the Queen of Naples, now widowed, might very well suit you.”

“The Queen of Naples!” Henry’s eyes were momentarily narrowed. It was not a suggestion to be ignored. Such a marriage should give him a stake in Europe; so if the widow were young and handsome and likely to bear children, she would be a good match; and Henry, ever conscious of his age, was eager to marry soon.

He therefore decided to send an embassy to Naples immediately.

It was rather soon after his wife’s death and he did not wish to appear overeager.

Puebla was whispering: “The Infanta might write a letter to the Queen of Naples, to be delivered into her hands and hers alone. This would give some messenger on whom you could rely the opportunity of looking closely at the Queen.”

Henry looked with friendship on the Spaniard who had ever seemed a good friend to him.

It was an excellent idea.

“Tell her to write this letter at once,” he said. “You will find me a messenger on whom I can rely. I wish to know whether she be plump or lean, whether her teeth be white or black and her breath sweet or sour.”

“If Your Grace will leave this matter with me I will see that you have a description of the lady which shall not prove false. And, Your Grace, you will remember that it is the hope of the Sovereigns that there should be a betrothal between their daughter and the Prince of Wales.”

“The Prince of Wales is one of the most eligible bachelors in the world.”

“And therefore, Your Grace, well matched to the Infanta of Spain.”

Henry looked grave. “The wars in Europe would seem to be going more favorably for the French than the Spaniards. It might be well if the Infanta did return to Spain.”

Puebla shook his head. “If she returned, the Sovereigns would expect you to return with her the hundred thousand crowns which constituted half of her dowry.”

“I see no reason why I should do that.”

“If you did not, Your Grace, you would have a very powerful enemy in the Sovereigns. Where are your friends in Europe? Do you trust the French? And who in Europe trusts Maximilian?”

Henry was silent for a few moments. But he saw the wisdom of Puebla’s advice.

He said: “I will consider this matter.”

Puebla was jubilant. He knew that he had won his point. He would soon be writing to the Sovereigns to tell them that he had arranged for the betrothal of their daughter with the Prince of Wales.

* * *

PRINCE HENRY CAME IN, hot from the tennis court. With him were his attendants, boys of his own age and older men, all admiring, all ready to tell him that they had never seen tennis played as he played it.

He could never have enough of their praises and, although he knew they were flattery, he did not care. Such flattery was sweet, for it meant they understood his power.

Each day when he awoke—and he awoke with the dawn—he would remember that he was now his father’s only son and that one day there would be a crown on his head.

It was right and fitting that he should wear that crown. Was he not a good head taller than most of his friends? It was his secret boast that, if anyone had not known that he was the King’s heir, they would have selected him from any group as a natural leader.

It could not be long before he was King. His father was not a young man. And how he had aged since the death of the Queen! He was in continual pain from his rheumatism and was sometimes bent double with it. He was growing more and more irritable and Henry knew that many were longing for the day when there would be a new King on the throne—young, merry, extravagant, all that the old King was not.

Henry had no sympathy for his father, because he who had never felt a pain in his life could not understand pain. The physical disabilities of others interested him only because they called attention to his own superb physique and health.

Life was good. It always had been. But during Arthur’s lifetime there had been that gnawing resentment because he was not the firstborn.

He made his way now from the tennis court to the apartments of his sister Margaret. He found her there and her eyes were red from weeping. Poor Margaret! She was not the domineering elder sister today. He did feel a little sorry. He would miss her sorely.

“So tomorrow you leave us,” he said. “It will be strange not to have you here.”

Margaret’s answer was to put her arms about him and hug him tightly.

“Scotland!” she whimpered. “It is so cold there, I hear. The castles are so drafty.”

“They are drafty here,” Henry reminded her.

“There they are doubly so. And how shall I like my husband, and how will he like me?”

“You will rule him, I doubt not.”

“I hear he leads a most irregular life and has many mistresses.”

Henry laughed. “He is a King, if it is only King of Scotland. He should have mistresses if he wishes.”

“He shall not have them when he has a wife,” cried Margaret fiercely.

“You will make sure of that, I’ll swear. So there will only be one sister left to me now. And Mary is little more than a baby.”

“Always look after her, Henry. She is wayward and will need your care.”

“She will be my subject and I shall look after all my subjects.”