Catherine of Aragon (11 page)

Portrait, supposed to be of Catherine of Aragon, painted by Michiel Sittow in 1503/4.

 

Portrait of Henry VIII painted in the mid-1520s.

 

Stained glass portrait of Arthur, Prince of Wales, Catherine of Aragon's first husband. Arthur died in 1502 within a few months of his wedding. Catherine married his younger brother, Henry, in 1509.

 

A banquet in the Presence Chamber of Hampton Court Palace.

 

A view of Windsor Castle during the reign of Henry VIII's daughter, Elizabeth I.

 

An engraving showing a picnic during a royal hunt in the sixteenth century.

 

A jester wearing a traditional costume with cap and bells.

 

 

Vividly imagined accounts of life in the past.

 

Turn the page for an extract from
My Story: Anne Boleyn and Me
by Alison Prince

 

 

13th August 1525
Richmond Palace

This is the diary of Elinor Valjean, aged eleven.

Today is my sister Rosanna's birthday. Mama gave her a beautiful diary to write in, because Rosanna is sixteen, the same age as Mama was when she came to England with Catherine of Aragon, our queen. I am going to write a diary as well, only I do not have a proper one, so I have to write it on scraps of paper. I will keep them in the back of my Latin book, so they will be private.

I am not jealous of Rosanna. Of course she must have nice things for her birthday. I gave her a beaded cap that I'd sewn myself, with some help from Mama. But I will have to wait a long time before I am sixteen, and I want to start writing my diary now. Mama began hers because she was leaving Spain and going on a dangerous sea voyage to a strange country. She showed Rosanna and me her diary, with its close-packed lines of neat Spanish writing. Mine will not look like that. I keep trying to make my writing smaller and more tidy, but I never seem to manage it.

Papa would laugh if he knew about my diary pages. He isn't unkind, but he laughs at everything. I suppose it is because he is the court jester, “Mr John”, as they call him. He says he has to remember that things are funny because if he starts to think they are serious or sad, he would lose his job. I want to be a jester, too, but I am a girl, so I have to wear long dresses that make it hard to jump and tumble as he does. I wish I had been a boy. My brothers have far more fun, learning archery and fighting with swords and quarter-staves. Little William is not much good at it yet, being only four and not very strong, but Daniel, at seven, thinks himself quite the man.

Mama reminds me that I am lucky. She and Queen Catherine were childhood friends, so we live as members of the royal court, in whichever palace King Henry VIII chooses to have his household. Mama and Papa both serve the King and Queen, he as the jester and she as Catherine's friend and favourite lady, and we children will be royal servants when we are old enough. Meanwhile, we ourselves are served by a great army of people who work in the barns and the yards and the smoky kitchens, tending livestock, washing clothes, and preparing and serving food.

Yes, we are lucky. We do not put in long hours of work in the fields, digging and sowing and reaping. We do not cart dung or pick stones or undertake the horrible work of slaughtering and skinning and plucking. Our food arrives ready-cooked, served on gold dishes if the King is entertaining guests. We play music and sing and dance, and every summer we go with the royal party on progress to other parts of the country while the palace where we have spent the winter is cleaned. When we come back in the autumn, we find the soot gone from the walls and the grease and filth scrubbed off the floors. There are fresh rushes scattered in the dining hall, sweet to tread on, and the bed-linen is washed and aired. I always love those first weeks after our return, while all the rooms still smell clean.

I would not have chosen to be a girl, but I enjoy some very nice things that the boys do not share. Sometimes Mama lets me join her when she and Maria de Salinas spend afternoons with the Queen. They talk together in Spanish, which I understand though I am not good at writing it, and they do their fine embroidery. Mostly it is Spanish style, black on white, as richly patterned as the bright sparkle of sunshine through dark leaves. It is very beautiful, but secretly I prefer the English use of reds and purples, blues and browns and gold. The Queen has all these colours, though she seldom uses them, and I love arranging the hanks of silk like a rainbow in their lacquered box. Queen Catherine said I could. She is a wonderful lady. Although she is the Queen of England, she is so kind.

I wish I was better at embroidery. I try hard, but my fingers seem sticky and awkward, and the thread makes itself into grubby knots. Perhaps I will find it easier when I am older. Meanwhile, I am always glad if Papa comes to join us, playing his lute or viol for the Queen and telling funny rhymes, for then I can lay the work down and listen. He can only be with us if King Henry does not need his services, for, like everyone else in the court, he has to obey orders.

This morning he could not come. To my amazement, Queen Catherine asked me to play instead, and handed me her own lute. I was very nervous, but she smiled, and when I had finished she clapped her hands. Papa must have told her I can dance as well, and that I make up my own stories, for she asked me to do these things, and afterwards she laughed and applauded again. She said I take after my father.

It was the greatest compliment she could pay me, for I would love to be like him. My brother Daniel would laugh if he knew I wanted to be a jester, and little William would laugh as well without understanding why. Even Mama and Rosanna might be shocked, so I never mention it. But I dream of it all the same, and then I feel warm and excited inside.

I must be careful not to get married, or I will never do anything but work as a wife and mother. Some girls have their first baby when they are only twelve, specially if they belong to the titled families. They could never be jesters, poor things.

Princesses have no say in choosing their husbands. The Queen's daughter, Princess Mary, is nine years old, two years younger than I am, but she was betrothed when she was six to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who is a grown-up man. He is the Queen's nephew, so I should not be rude about him – but he is such a funny-looking person. I saw him when he came here for the betrothal ceremony, and he has a long, pointed chin that sticks out so he can hardly close his mouth. He belongs to the Habsburg family, and Mama says all of them look rather like that. Mary was sent off to Ludlow Castle last month, with a huge retinue of horses and servants, to live in a separate household there. I don't know why.

I must stop writing now. Mama is calling. She wants me to get William ready for bed. I tell him a story every night, and he will not go to sleep without it.

14th August 1525

Rosanna told me why Princess Mary went to live in Ludlow Castle. It's all to do with the King's son, Henry Fitzroy. He is six years old, and his mother is not Queen Catherine, she is called Bessie Blount. The little boy was brought here to Richmond Palace in June, and there was a big ceremony while the King made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Then he was sent to the north of England to be head of a great household. Rosanna says the Queen was annoyed because her own daughter, Mary, had not been given any such honours, and she told Henry she was not pleased. In fact, there was a frightful argument between them. So Mary has now been given her own household, to be equal with her half-brother.