Philippa Gregory: The Constant Princess

“Well, you couldn’t have come overland,” Henry said flatly, thinking of the parlous state of France and the enmity of the French king. “You’d be a priceless hostage for a king who was heartless enough to take you. Thank God you never fell into enemy hands.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “Pray God I never do.”

“Well, your troubles are over now,” Henry concluded. “The next boat you are on will be the royal barge when you go down the Thames. How shall you like to become Princess of Wales?”

“I have been the Princess of Wales ever since I was three years old,” she corrected him. “They always called me Catalina, the Infanta, Princess of Wales. I knew it was my destiny.” She looked at Arthur, who still sat silently observing the table. “I have known we would be married all my life. It was kind of you to write to me so often. It made me feel that we were not complete strangers.”

He flushed. “I was ordered to write to you,” he said awkwardly. “As part of my studies. But I liked getting your replies.”

“Good God, boy, you don’t exactly sparkle, do you?” asked his father critically.

Arthur flushed scarlet to his ears.

“There was no need to tell her that you were ordered to write,” his father ruled. “Better to let her think that you were writing of your own choice.”

“I don’t mind,” Catalina said quietly. “I was ordered to reply. And, as it happens, I should like us always to speak the truth to each other.”

The king barked out a laugh. “Not in a year’s time you won’t,” he predicted. “You will be all in favor of the polite lie then. The great savior of a marriage is mutual ignorance.”

Arthur nodded obediently, but Catalina merely smiled, as if his observations were of interest but not necessarily true. Henry found himself piqued by the girl, and still aroused by her prettiness.

“I daresay your father does not tell your mother every thought that crosses his mind,” he said, trying to make her look at him again.

He succeeded. She gave him a long, slow, considering gaze from her blue eyes. “Perhaps he does not,” she conceded. “I would not know. It is not fitting that I should know. But whether he tells her or not: my mother knows everything anyway.”

He laughed. Her dignity was quite delightful in a girl whose head barely came up to his chest. “She is a visionary, your mother? She has the gift of Sight?”

She did not laugh in reply. “She is wise,” she said simply. “She is the wisest monarch in Europe.”

The king thought he would be foolish to bridle at a girl’s devotion to her mother, and it would be graceless to point out that her mother might have unified the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon but that she was still a long way from creating a peaceful and united Spain. The tactical skill of Isabella and Ferdinand had forged a single country from the Moorish kingdoms; they had yet to make everyone accept their peace. Catalina’s own journey to London had been disrupted by rebellions of Moors and Jews who could not bear the tyranny of the Spanish kings. He changed the subject. “Why don’t you show us a dance?” he demanded, thinking that he would like to see her move. “Or is that not allowed in Spain either?”

“Since I am an English princess, I must learn your customs,” she said. “Would an English princess get up in the middle of the night and dance for the king after he forced his way into her rooms?”

Henry laughed at her. “If she had any sense she would.”

She threw him a small, demure smile. “Then I will dance with my ladies,” she decided, and rose from her seat at the high table and went down to the center of the floor. She called one by name, Henry noted, María de Salinas, a pretty, dark-haired girl who came quickly to stand beside Catalina. Three other young women, pretending shyness but eager to show themselves off, came forwards.

Henry looked them over. He had asked Their Majesties of Spain that their daughter’s companions should all be pretty, and he was pleased to see that however blunt and ill-mannered they had found his request, they had acceded to it. The girls were all good-looking, but none of them outshone the princess, who stood composed and then raised her hands and clapped, to order the musicians to play.

He noticed at once that she moved like a sensual woman. The dance was a pavane, a slow ceremonial dance, and she moved with her hips swaying and her eyes heavy-lidded, a little smile on her face. She had been well schooled. Any princess would be taught how to dance in the courtly world where dancing, singing, music, and poetry mattered more than anything else; but she danced like a woman who let the music move her, and Henry, who had some experience, believed that women who could be summoned by music were the ones who responded to the rhythms of lust.

He went from pleasure in watching her to a sense of rising irritation that this exquisite piece would be put in Arthur’s cold bed. He could not see his thoughtful, scholarly boy teasing and arousing the passion in this girl on the edge of womanhood. He imagined that Arthur would fumble about and perhaps hurt her, and she would grit her teeth and do her duty as a woman and a queen must, and then, like as not, she would die in childbirth; and the whole performance of finding a bride for Arthur would have to be undergone again, with no benefit for himself but only this irritated, frustrated arousal that she seemed to inspire in him. It was good to see she was desirable, since she would be an ornament to his court; but it was a nuisance that she should be so very desirable to him.

Henry looked away from her dancing and comforted himself with the thought of her dowry, which would bring him lasting benefit and come directly to him, unlike this bride, who seemed bound to unsettle him and must go, however mismatched, to his son. As soon as they were married her treasurer would hand over the first payment of her dowry: in solid gold. A year later he would deliver the second part in gold and in her plate and jewels. Having fought his way to the throne on a shoestring and uncertain credit, Henry trusted the power of money more than anything in life—more even than his throne, for he knew he could buy a throne with money, and far more than women, for they are cheaply bought; and far, far more than the joy of a smile from a virgin princess who stopped her dance now, swept him a curtsey, and came up smiling.

“Do I please you?” she demanded, flushed and a little breathless.

“Well enough,” he said, determined that she should never know how much. “But it’s late now and you should go back to your bed. We’ll ride with you a little way in the morning before we go ahead of you to London.”

She was surprised at the abruptness of his reply. Again, she glanced towards Arthur as if he might contradict his father’s plans; perhaps stay with her for the remainder of the journey, since his father had bragged of their informality. But the boy said nothing. “As you wish, Your Grace,” she said politely.

The king nodded and rose to his feet. The court billowed into deep curtseys and bows as he stalked past them, out of the room. “Not so informal at all,” Catalina thought as she watched the King of England stride through his court, his head high. “He may boast of being a soldier with the manners of the camp, but he insists on obedience and on the show of deference. As indeed he should,” added Isabella’s daughter to herself.

Arthur followed behind his father with a quick “Good night” to the princess as he left. In a moment all the men in their train had gone too, and the princess was alone but for her ladies.

“What an extraordinary man,” she remarked to her favorite, María de Salinas.

“He liked you,” the young woman said. “He watched you very closely, he liked you.”