She intrigued him in a way because she was different from the other ladies of the Court; he had liked the way she had spoken English and he had fancied that she had liked him very much when she had first come. He knew that she was anxious about her future and that quite a number of her attendants were too, for he had made a point of discovering all about her that her servants could tell him and the latter always liked to have an answer for him. He knew for instance that it was a long time since she had had a new dress and even this one she was wearing for such an important ceremony was one she had brought with her from Spain.

His father was present with his grandmother. They both looked stern and serious. He would have liked to say: “I will not betroth myself to this Princess who prefers her own Court of Spain to mine.”

To mine! His father would be angry at that. He had reminded him once or twice that he was not king yet.

He took Katharine’s right hand and said the lines he had had to learn off by heart to make sure that he did not leave out anything and that he said them in the right manner.

He rejoiced, he said, to contract matrimony with Katharine and to have her for his wife, forsaking all others during the term of their lives.

Katharine had turned to him and she was saying the same thing in rather halting English, which in a way was endearing.

Then she smiled at him, a little fearfully, almost appealingly and all his rancor vanished.

She was beautiful; he liked her maturity; more fervently than ever he wished he were seventeen. Alas, he was a few days from twelve and he must needs wait, but his feelings of chivalry had overcome his resentment. He was foolish to listen to Margaret. She was just annoyed because she had to go away to Scotland.

Katharine was his affianced wife; she looked to him for protection, and chivalrous knight that he was she should not look in vain.

Henry’s moods changed quickly and it was in one of pride and joy that hand in hand with Katharine he emerged from the Bishop’s House into the sunshine of Fleet Street on that June day.

The Prince Discovers His Conscience

She was indeed charming, dressed in green velvet and seated on a white palfrey, and her entourage was magnificent. It was one of those occasions when Dudley and Empson had persuaded the King that to be parsimonious about the Princess’s equipage would be a false economy. They must remember that it was a political occasion and the Scots must realize that the King of England—miser though he might be called—was very rich indeed.