“I? You cannot mean that!”

“I do. Remember our mother. What would Portugal have done without her? You remind me of her.”

“I…remind you of her! Pedro, you cannot mean that. She was a great woman.”

“Catherine, you are too.”

This seemed preposterous, and if I had not been so anxious about him I should have laughed.

“Always you have been too modest,” he said. “Listen to me. The people love you. They admire you. They call you their savior.”

“It was the English who saved the country, not I.”

“Without you there could have been no alliance. They do not forget. If you will not do this, I shall have to rouse myself and…I know I cannot last long without rest.”

“I cannot believe this.”

“You must.”

Maria Sophia was watching me. “You do not realize how the people regard you,” she said. “They will say you saved them once and they will believe you can do it again.”

“Then they endow me with qualities I do not possess.”

“It is what they believe,” she said. And I remembered a remark of Charles’s. “If the people believe it, then it is the truth…at least to them.”

I had been living in comfortable peace…serenely quiet. How could I…innocent and without art — the words of Charles’s song came back to me — how could I take on this tremendous task?

“You must,” said Maria Sophia. “If you do not, what will become of us? What will become of our country?”

“You will have your advisors.”

“You mean I shall be a sort of figurehead?”

“You have wisdom, Catherine,” said Pedro. “You are our mother again. Remember her. God will help you and with His help you will do it.”


* * *

HOW STRANGE IT WAS.

I, Catherine, Regent of Portugal. On every occasion the people cheered me in the streets. They proclaimed their belief in me.

History repeated itself. When my mother had been Regent, the Spaniards attacked; and now here again was a woman, and they attacked once more.

Those days were filled with activity. I gave myself entirely to the task. I felt as though my mother were beside me, applauding. She had believed once that I would save Portugal by my marriage…and Portugal had been saved. Now I was to save my country through my government.

I swear that God was on my side. He gave me the wisdom. I could not believe this was myself…that Catherine who had made so little impression on the English court. But at least that Catherine had won the love of the most amorous man in the world — a special love — a tender love which I allowed myself to believe he never gave to any other.

Our armies were victorious. When I rode through the streets, I was treated with something like idolatry.

I wished that Charles could have lived to see this. How he would have delighted in my achievement.

Pedro recovered his health and came out of retirement. He and Maria Sophia showed their gratitude and love in every way.

How fortunate I was at the end of my life to come to glory!

That can happen to few.


* * *

I AM NOW IN BELEM and well into my sixties. It has been a long life, and when, through my pen, I recall it all…the dreams…the disillusion…the humiliations of the past…the triumphs of the present…I long to be back in Charles’s court, the most licentious of Europe — dominated as it was, and I shall ever be, by the King and the pleasures of love.

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