Philippa Gregory: The Constant Princess

The lie was the starting place of the novel, but the surprise in the research was the background of Catalina of Spain. I enjoyed a wonderful research trip to Granada to discover more about the Spain of Isabella and Ferdinand, and came home with an abiding respect both for their courage and for the culture they swore to overthrow: the rich tolerant and beautiful land of the Moslems of Spain, el Andalus. I have tried to give these almost forgotten Europeans a voice in this book and to give us today, as we struggle with some of the same questions, an idea of the conviviencia —a land where Jews, Moslems, and Christians managed to live side by side in respect and peace as People of the Book.

A NOTE ON THE SONGS

“Alas, Alhama!,” “Riders gallop through the Elvira gate…,” and “There was crying in Granada…” are traditional songs, quoted by Francesca Claremount in Catherine of Aragon (see book list below). “A palm tree stands in the middle of Rusafa,” is by Abd al Rahman, translated by D. F. Ruggles and quoted by Maria Rosa Menocal in The Ornament of the World (see book list below).

The following books have been most helpful in my research into the history of this story:

Bindoff, S. T. Pelican History of England: Tudor England . London: Penguin, 1993.

Bruce, Marie Louise. Anne Boleyn . London: Collins, 1972.

Chejna, Anwar, G. Islam and the West: The Moriscos, A Cultural and Social History . Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

Claremont, Francesca. Catherine of Aragon . London: Robert Hale, 1939.

Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Darby, H. C., ed. A New Historical Geography of England Before 1600 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

Dixon, William Hepworth. History of Two Queens . Vol. 2, Anne Boleyn . London: Hurst and Blackett, 1874.

Elton, G.R. England Under the Tudors . London: Methuen, 1955.

Fernández-Arnesto, Felipe . Ferdinand and Isabella . London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975.

Fletcher, Anthony. Tudor Rebellions . London: Longmans, 1968.

Goodwin, Jason. Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire . London: Vintage, 1989.

Guy, John. Tudor England . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Haynes, Alan. Sex in Elizabethan England . Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1997.

Loades, David. Henry VIII and His Queens . Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2000. ———. The Tudor Court . London: Batsford, 1986.

Lloyd, David. Arthur Prince of Wales . Ludlow, Wales: Fabric Trust for St.

Laurence, 2002.

Mackie, J. D. Oxford History of England: The Earlier Tudors: 1485–1558. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952.

Mattingly, Garrett. Catherine of Aragon . London: Jonathan Cape, 1942.

Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Ornament of the World . London: Little, Brown, 2002.

Mumby, Frank Arthur. The Youth of Henry VIII: A Narrative in Contemporary Letters. London: Constable, 1913.

Núñez, J. Agustín, ed. Muslim and Christian Granada . Granada: Ediciones Edilux, 2004.

Paul, John E. Catherine of Aragon and Her Friends . London: Burns and Oates, 1966.

Plowden, Alison. The House of Tudor . London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976.

———. Tudor Women: Queens and Commoners . Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1998.

Randell, Keith. Henry VIII and the Reformation in England . London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993.

Robinson, John Martin. The Dukes of Norfolk . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Scarisbrick, J. J. Yale English Monarchs: Henry VIII . New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997.

Scott, S. P. The History of the Moorish Empire in Europe. Vol.1. New York: AMS Press, 1974.

Smith, Lacey Baldwin. A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard . London: Cape, 1961.

Starkey, David. Henry VIII:

A European Court

in England . London: Collins and Brown, 1991.

———. The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics . London: G. Philip, 1985.

———. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII . London: Vintage, 2003.

Tillyard, E.M.W. The Elizabethan World Picture . London: Pimlico, 1943.

Turner, Robert. Elizabethan Magic: The Art and the Magus. Boston: Element Books, 1989.

Walsh, William Thomas. Isabella of Spain . London: Sheed and Ward, 1931.

Warnicke, Retha M. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn . Cambridge and New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1989.

Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: King and Court . London: Pimlico, 2002.

———. The Six Wives of Henry VIII . London: Pimlico, 1997.

Youings, Joyce. Penguin Social History of Britain : Sixteenth Century England . London: Penguin, 1991.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Philippa Gregory Limited

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gregory, Philippa.

The constant princess / Philippa Gregory.

p. cm.

“A Touchstone book.”

1. Catherine of Aragon, Queen, consort of Henry VIII, King

of England, 1485–1536—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History—

Henry VIII, 1509–1547—Fiction. 3. Henry VIII, King of England,

1491–1547—Fiction. 4. Queens—Great Britain—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6057.R386C66 2005

823'.914—dc22 2005052303

ISBN: 0-7432-8248-5

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