R. Storry Deans - The Trials of Five Queens: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette and Catherine of Brunswick

THE TRIALS OF FIVE QUEENS

KATHERINE OF ARAGON, ANNE BOLEYN, MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, MARIE ANTOINETTE AND CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK

R. Storry Deans

R. Storry Deans 1909

R. Storry Deans has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in 1909 by Methuen & Co. Ltd

This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

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MARGARET

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

IT was the practice of ancient divines, when they sought to bring home to their hearers the full measure of the bliss of the faithful, to picture the tortures of the damned; and to assure the congregation that they, looking on from the regions of the blessed, would find additional felicity in watching the distress of the lost writhing in the flames and reek. It may be that this argument appealed to some feeling in the human heart; for happiness, after all, is comparative; and the cosy room, the warm fire, the comfortable easy chair, seem cosier, warmer and more comfortable when the night outside is wet and cold.

We, who have lived our lives under the golden rule of Victoria the Great and Edward the Peacemaker, who have seen royalty happy, fortunate and beneficent, can with difficulty imagine times when subjects rebelled; and when kings and queens were sent to the scaffold. And when we think of the perfect regularity and amiable family life of Windsor, Balmoral, Osborne and Sandringham, we are unable to realise the miserable domestic tyranny of a Henry VIII. or the escapades of a George IV.

It is a long time ago since I thought of writing this book. It was on a day when the country was stirred to its depths; for it was engaged in a distant war, whence tidings came almost hourly of victory and defeat, of triumph and disaster. One afternoon the news arrived in the City that Queen Victoria was about to drive into London, to show herself to her faithful people.

THE DIVORCE OF KATHERINE OF ARAGON

CHAPTER I - THE HISTORY UP TO TRIAL

THE childhood of Katherine of Aragon was passed amid the clash of arms. She died amid the clamours of controversy-As a girl she witnessed the consolidation of Spain and the bringing of the whole Iberian peninsula under the spiritual supremacy of him who filled the chair of St. Peter. As a woman she saw, and was even the occasion of, the splitting off of her adopted country from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Pontiff.

It was in the year 1485 that Katherine first saw the light. Her mother, Isabella of Castile, was then busily engaged in the great enterprise that made the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the most notable epoch in Spanish history. But Isabella the Catholic was obliged by the exigencies of motherhood to turn aside from the conquest of Granada, and retire to the convent of de Henares. Here was born, somewhat prematurely, it is said, the little girl whose matrimonial fortunes were to have such momentous consequences.

The babe was hardly three weeks old ere the indefatigable mother once more hastened to the scene of action, where her courage and energy were needed to sustain alike the courage and the patience of the soldiers of the Cross. The infant Katherine was borne along with her mother, and her first nursery was built in the midst of the camp of the besiegers of Granada. As the child grew, she played her infant games what time the interminable siege went on skirmish and sally, attack and retreat. A strange childhood.

As the manner of the time was, a treaty of marriage was early set afoot. Indeed, Henry VII. of England, almost as soon as a son was born heir to the joint pretensions of York and Lancaster, approached Ferdinand and Isabella with proposals for the espousals of Arthur and Katherine. The prospective bridegroom was then a year and eight months old; the prospective bride just over four years. The proposal was acceptable to the Spanish sovereigns, and the marriage was agreed to; though not without a good deal of sharp bargaining between the wily Ferdinand and the equally astute Henry Tudor. Seldom have royal diplomatists been so equally matched. I doubt if Henry had any equal among the crowned heads of Europe except Ferdinand; and I doubt also if Ferdinand could not easily outwit and delude any of his brother rulers except Henry. The records of the time reveal both monarchs to us as greedy, grasping, not to say avaricious men. When, therefore, they came to settle the question of dowry, the bargaining was close and keen. Very few Yorkshire horse copers could give much start to either of the royal fathers when it came to the point of beating down the price. At last it was settled that the princess should marry the Prince of Wales at the earliest possible date; and that her dowry should be 200,000 scudos in hard cash half on Katherines arrival and the other half two years afterwards.

Before this, the Spanish ambassador, Dr. de Puebla, who had been sent to negotiate the marriage, had seen the young Prince of Wales, first dressed, and then stripped to the skin. The boy was of exquisite form, and beautiful complexion; and the ambassador reported in rapturous terms to his sovereigns of the beauty of the future husband of their daughter.

A proposal to send Katherine to England immediately, to be educated, was not embraced by the Spanish sovereigns; but they consented to send her to England at an early age, so that her habits might easily become English and not Spanish. Queen Isabella, looking on the match as a certain thing, began to educate her daughter for the position she was to occupy; and especially saw to it that Katherine learnt to speak French fluently, because Spanish was not understood at the English court. There can be no doubt that Katherine was highly educated and most accomplished according to the standard of that time. Latin she wrote and spoke with correctness and fluency before her sixteenth year; and she was well read in divinity and the classics. As might be expected in the daughter of Isabella the Catholic, her religious training had been most strict; and she was, even as a girl, somewhat of a devotee. Her tastes were of the quiet order she loved to sew or embroider, listening the while to the singing and playing of her ladies, rather than the more robust occupations of dancing, hunting and hawking.

The definite treaty of marriage was not signed for many a long year after the kings, Ferdinand and Henry, had expressed their approval of the project. The two wiliest politicians in Europe were a little afraid of each other. On Ferdinand's part there was the lurking fear that some pretender (one remembers Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel), set up by the remains of the Yorkish party, might oust Henry VII. from his kingdom. In such a case, either the match would be nought, or else the Spanish power must be lent to keep Henry on his throne. And all rulers have objections to spending their strength and treasure in sympathetic wars. Henry, on the other hand, knowing Ferdinand's overweening ambition, and his desire to extend his borders at the expense of France, feared that he might be drawn into some war on Ferdinands account. At last, however, in 1496, the treaty was definitely concluded; Arthur being then nine and Katherine eleven years of age.

Historians have been puzzled by the fact that Arthur was twice betrothed by proxy to Katherine once when he was twelve (1499) at Bewdley, in Worcestershire, and a second time when he was fourteen at Ludlow Castle (1501). The explanation is this: Ferdinand had procured a dispensation from the Pope, allowing the marriage to be solemnised when the prince attained the age of twelve, two years earlier than the canon law allowed. Hence the first betrothal. But as some question might, conceivably, arise as to the validity of such a dispensation, Henry insisted on a repetition of the ceremony after the canonical age had been reached. Such a ceremony had all the effect, in the eyes of the Church, of a marriage; but it was agreed that a further marriage ceremony should be performed by the parties in person.