Six Wives (7 page)
Authors: David Starkey
Communications established, Elizabeth then turned to more serious matters. First to be addressed was the problem caused by Catherine's ignorance of modern languages. Ladies in England did not speak Latin, much less Spanish, the Queen and Lady Margaret explained to De Puebla. But they did speak French. They therefore suggested that Catherine should take advantage of the presence in Spain of her Frenchspeaking sister-in-law, Margaret of Burgundy. They 'wish that [Catherine] should always speak French with the Princess Margaret . . . in order to learn the language and to be able to converse in it when she comes to England', De Puebla reported. Margaret was to remain in Spain for another two years, till 1499. And during this time she and Catherine became close. Though Margaret was five years the senior, they even shared Alessandro Geraldini's services as tutor for some five months. Thanks to this intimacy, Catherine's French came on rapidly. But English was still, as it was long to remain, foreign territory to 'our English Infanta'.
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Then there was the question of the bevy of ladies who would accompany Catherine to England. They should be of high birth ('the English', the Spanish ambassador explained, 'attach great importance to good connexions'). They should also, King Henry and Queen Elizabeth hinted in more informal conversations, be 'beautiful, or at least that none of them be ugly'. And, though Elizabeth did not fully spell it out, it is clear that, if push came to shove, looks were to be preferred to lineage. The English Queen's position was hardly feminist. But it was practical. For ladies-in-waiting were the chorus line of queenly spectacle: they were there to sing, dance and, above all, look nice.
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* * *
While these discussions for the real wedding were going on, a couple of extraordinary charades were enacted. These were the two proxy weddings between Arthur and Catherine on which the Catholic Kings insisted before they would trust their last-remaining daughter to the fickle English. We have already encountered De Puebla's role as proxy for Catherine at the betrothal; he played the same part, with increasing zest, at the proxy weddings. The first took place on 19 May 1499 at Bewdley, the pleasant country retreat which Henry VII had built for his son in the Welsh Marches. Arthur played himself; his Chamberlain, Sir Richard Pole, played the priest; and De Puebla played Catherine. Arthur and De Puebla joined their right hands and Pole held their hands between his. Then Arthur declared that he accepted De Puebla in Catherine's place as his lawful wife, and De Puebla, speaking for Catherine again, declared that she accepted Arthur as her lawful husband. This ceremony was known in contemporary Canon or Church Law as a 'contract
per verba de praesenti
' – that is to say that 'it was to be henceforth indissoluble'. To make doubly sure, the knot was tied a second time in December 1500. Here the playacting extended to the point of treating De Puebla as the bride at the ensuing feast. He was 'placed at table above the Prince of Wales, and at his right hand'; he was also served first. The little ambassador was delirious with joy at such treatment. 'In general,' he boasted, 'more respect was paid to him than he had ever before received in his life.'
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* * *
Finally, between the two proxy weddings, there took place the remaining preparations for the marriage. These were different: real, strictly masculine and absolutely offstage. They were the solution to the dynastic threat presented by Perkin Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick to the Tudors and, by extension, to the marriage between Catherine and Arthur.
Warbeck was a Pretender; but Warwick was a real claimant to the throne, since he was the son of Edward IV's brother George, Duke of Clarence. If the Yorkist line were the true line, as most people thought, and if the succession belonged to males, as was again the common assumption, then Warwick was rightful King. He had been feared accordingly by both Richard III and Henry VII: Richard had held him at Sheriff Hutton Castle, his northern fastness; and, on his accession, Henry had immediately removed him to the Tower where, in the fullness of time, Warbeck was also imprisoned. Thence, in November 1499, it was alleged, the real and pretend Yorkist claimants had plotted their escape. Both were condemned: Perkin was hanged, Warwick beheaded.
Henry VII wept crocodile tears, while De Puebla, who had been openly encouraging the executions, rejoiced. 'England has never before been so tranquil and obedient as at present,' he wrote in his New Year despatch to Ferdinand and Isabella in January 1500. 'There have always been Pretenders to the crown of England; but now that Perkin and the son of the Duke of Clarence have been executed, there does not remain a drop of doubtful royal blood.'
Catherine, of course, knew little of this. But eventually she, too, was to discover that her marriage to Arthur had been made in blood – Warwick's royal blood.
8. Delays
W
ith the executions of Perkin Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick, the English had done all that they could – and more than they should – to hasten Catherine's arrival in England. But still she delayed in Spain.
ith the executions of Perkin Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick, the English had done all that they could – and more than they should – to hasten Catherine's arrival in England. But still she delayed in Spain.
The treaty had specified that Catherine should marry Arthur at 'the end of his fourteenth year': that is, in September 1500. But this was the
latest
date provided for, and Ferdinand and Isabella had fed expectations that she would arrive sooner. En route to his posting in the Netherlands, Don Juan Manuel, the Spanish diplomat and brother of Dona Elvira, Catherine's duenna, had borne news that the Princess would be sent in spring 1500. But March came and went and still there was no firm word. 'The sums spent in preparation for the Princess are enormous,' De Puebla reported. The English, he continued, were on tenterhooks and Henry VII was getting impatient. For the English King did not like spending money 'on spec'.
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latest
date provided for, and Ferdinand and Isabella had fed expectations that she would arrive sooner. En route to his posting in the Netherlands, Don Juan Manuel, the Spanish diplomat and brother of Dona Elvira, Catherine's duenna, had borne news that the Princess would be sent in spring 1500. But March came and went and still there was no firm word. 'The sums spent in preparation for the Princess are enormous,' De Puebla reported. The English, he continued, were on tenterhooks and Henry VII was getting impatient. For the English King did not like spending money 'on spec'.
1
None of this, of course, was Catherine's fault. Instead, she was – as so often – the victim of her relatives and of circumstances.
The first problem lay in the relationship between her father, Ferdinand, and her future father-in-law, Henry VII. Both were too clever by half. They both, as it happens, wanted the marriage. But, since deceit was their second nature, neither could quite believe in the other's good intentions. The result was that Catherine's marriage – a prize for the grasping – nearly dropped through the slippery fingers of the two royal intriguers. For Ferdinand first to raise and then to dash hopes of Catherine's departure was an obvious negotiating tactic. But it was an increasingly dangerous one. The more nearly adult Arthur got, the more valuable a prize he became – and there were other eager royal fathers with eligible daughters. The risk was real that Ferdinand, in his desire to strike a hard bargain, might find himself an underbidder – which would leave Catherine, still in Spain indeed, but also on the shelf.
The motives of Catherine's mother, Queen Isabella, in helping to delay her daughter's departure were more honourable. The deaths, first of her heir and only son, Don Juan, in 1496 and then in 1500 of her grandson by her daughter Isabella, Dom Miguel (who was her next heir), plunged her into a physical and emotional decline. Her energies, once inexhaustible, waned, and her religiosity deepened and became more morbid. She spent longer and longer at her devotions, and under her robes of state – once so rich and gaudy – she wore the coarse habit of a Franciscan nun. This drove a wedge between her and her husband and, after the departure of her third daughter, Maria, to marry Manoel of Portugal, all that was left to her was Catherine, her youngest and dearest child. The bond between mother and daughter, always close, got stronger. So when the Catholic Kings protested that they would send Catherine as soon as 'the state of health of the Queen [Isabella] would permit it', they are for once to be taken at their word.
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But finally circumstances, stronger even than Ferdinand's deceit or Isabella's depression, took control. Already, in March 1500, a rumour had reached England via Genoese merchants. Her parents, it was said, had other 'very great and pressing occupations': the Moors of the Alpujarras had rebelled. The Alpujarras, a region of wild and craggy mountains and rich valleys to the south-east of Granada, had been given as a little fiefdom to Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Granada. Now its people rose in a savage and at first successful Revolt. The Christian general sent against them was killed and his troops massacred. Ferdinand and Isabella had to fight one more campaign together, which was to be their last, to preserve the Reconquest. Isabella raised troops and Ferdinand led them into action himself.
In April the English were formally told of the Revolt and its consequences for Catherine's departure: the Spanish royal family had been at Burgos, in the north of Spain, to speed Catherine on her way. But the news of the Revolt forced them to turn south and to abandon plans for the Princess's journey.
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The Revolt exposed the hollowness of the settlement with the Moors; it also casts a searching light on the nature of Catherine's own religious beliefs.
9 . Dogma
A
t first sight, the terms agreed for the surrender of Granada back in 1492, while Catherine as a child was staying with her parents in the stone-built camp-cum-city of Santa Fé from which the siege was directed, were fair, even generous. The Moorish inhabitants were granted freedom of worship, language and dress. They were to retain their property, including most mosques, and, after a three years' exemption from imposts, they were to be taxed as they had been under their own rulers.
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t first sight, the terms agreed for the surrender of Granada back in 1492, while Catherine as a child was staying with her parents in the stone-built camp-cum-city of Santa Fé from which the siege was directed, were fair, even generous. The Moorish inhabitants were granted freedom of worship, language and dress. They were to retain their property, including most mosques, and, after a three years' exemption from imposts, they were to be taxed as they had been under their own rulers.
1
All this amounted effectively to a guarantee of autonomy. It is certain that Ferdinand and Isabella never intended to keep the bargain. For their goal was not simply to restore the territorial integrity of Spain; they were determined also to unify it ethnically and religiously: to make it purely Spanish and purely Catholic.
The obstacles were overwhelming. Seven hundred years of Moorish occupation and five hundred years of creeping Reconquest had left Spain the most culturally rich and diverse of European societies. There were four main groups: the Catholic Spaniards; the Islamic Moors; the large Jewish minority, which had flourished under the tolerant rule of the Caliphs; and lastly, and most controversially, there were the New Christians or
Conversos
. These were former Moors or Jews who had converted, more or less sincerely and more or less completely, to the now dominant Christian religion. To fuse so diverse a mass into a unity required a formidable force. Ferdinand and Isabella acquired it in the Spanish Inquisition.
Conversos
. These were former Moors or Jews who had converted, more or less sincerely and more or less completely, to the now dominant Christian religion. To fuse so diverse a mass into a unity required a formidable force. Ferdinand and Isabella acquired it in the Spanish Inquisition.
The Inquisition was not a Spanish invention, any more than twentieth-century concentration camps were a German one. But the Spanish, like the Germans, perfected what they had borrowed.
Heresy – that is, sustained, large-scale dissent from the teachings of the Church – had first appeared in western Europe, in southern France and northern Italy, in the thirteenth century. Heresy was seen as a menace to Church, State and society and to combat it special tribunals were established to enforce uniformity of Christian belief and practice. They were called Inquisitions (from the Latin verb
inquiro
, 'inquire into') because they were able to take the initiative in investigating and prosecuting, without waiting for complaints. The judges, known as inquisitors, were appointed directly by the Pope and were answerable only to him. They were usually drawn from either the Dominican or the Franciscan Order of Friars, who were often fanatical in their fervour and intolerance. The inquisitors were authorised to use torture in their investigations, and they could impose a formidable range of penalties, ranging from the confiscation of property, through life imprisonment, to death by burning. In theory, the last, ultimate penalty was not inflicted by the Church, which was forbidden to shed blood; instead, the condemned were 'handed over to the secular arm' (that is, the State) to be burned alive.
inquiro
, 'inquire into') because they were able to take the initiative in investigating and prosecuting, without waiting for complaints. The judges, known as inquisitors, were appointed directly by the Pope and were answerable only to him. They were usually drawn from either the Dominican or the Franciscan Order of Friars, who were often fanatical in their fervour and intolerance. The inquisitors were authorised to use torture in their investigations, and they could impose a formidable range of penalties, ranging from the confiscation of property, through life imprisonment, to death by burning. In theory, the last, ultimate penalty was not inflicted by the Church, which was forbidden to shed blood; instead, the condemned were 'handed over to the secular arm' (that is, the State) to be burned alive.
In the mid-thirteenth century the Inquisition was introduced into Aragon, which had strong trading and political links with southern France and shared something of the problem of heresy. But the Aragonese Inquisition suffered from the weakness common to most forms of authority in that chaotic kingdom: one inquisitor was poisoned and the heretics even managed to strike back and avenge themselves by martyring a prominent Catholic, Bernardo Travasser.
Ferdinand and Isabella resolved on a fresh start and in 1478 they got papal authority to establish the Inquisition in Castile. Under their direct patronage, it started work in Seville. Its proceedings were so harsh and extra-legal that the Pope threatened to revoke its powers and imprison the inquisitors. Ferdinand and Isabella managed to save it. But they made one concession by agreeing to replace the discredited inquisitors. In their place the Pope appointed another royal nominee, the Dominican Tomás de Torquemada, who in 1483 was made Grand Inquisitor of both Castile and Aragon.
Torquemada's appointment was decisive. Not only was he a man of passionate Faith (not without reason is such conviction described as 'burning'), he was also an organisational genius. He created a network of provincial tribunals, all answerable to himself and his other creation, the High Council, which acted as a Court of Appeal. He issued statutes to guide investigations and refine procedure. And he supplied energy and leadership. There were, in short, three monarchs in Spain: Ferdinand and Isabella and Torquemada. And there is no doubt whose powers were the more absolute. The Catholic Kings exercised their authority through a patchwork of different kingdoms and principalities. The powers of Torquemada's Inquisition, on the other hand, stretched without interruption from the Bay of Biscay to the Straits of Gibraltar, and from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. It was the one national Spanish institution and it created a nation in its own image.
Torquemada's influence reached a peak in 1492 with the expulsion of the Jews. Torquemada and others of his ilk had long found the presence in Spain of a large Jewish population an offence against God and man. Had not Jews cried 'Crucify Him', when Pilate offered them a choice of the life of Jesus Christ or the life of the robber Barabas? Many Jews in Spain in the fifteenth century were also sufficiently rich and well placed to protect their
Conversos
brethren from Torquemada's officers. So, like those other persecutors, the Nazis, Torquemada persuaded himself of a Jewish conspiracy to Hebraize Spain; and he managed to persuade Isabella, who was only too willing to be convinced, that her victory over Granada required a thank-offering to God. The chosen sacrifice was the Jews, who were offered a choice between conversion and exile. Most opted for the latter, to the inestimable benefit of Spain's neighbours and rivals, from Venice to Ottoman Turkey. The comparative few who remained became easy pickings for the Spanish Inquisition.
Conversos
brethren from Torquemada's officers. So, like those other persecutors, the Nazis, Torquemada persuaded himself of a Jewish conspiracy to Hebraize Spain; and he managed to persuade Isabella, who was only too willing to be convinced, that her victory over Granada required a thank-offering to God. The chosen sacrifice was the Jews, who were offered a choice between conversion and exile. Most opted for the latter, to the inestimable benefit of Spain's neighbours and rivals, from Venice to Ottoman Turkey. The comparative few who remained became easy pickings for the Spanish Inquisition.
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