Six Wives by David Starkey Page A

visitors to the King's hunting lodge on the edge of the village. So they cannot have been too surprised to find themselves pressed as extras into a Tudor photoopportunity. 'The true and loving English people', as a few dozen villagers became in the reporter's grandiloquent phrasing, 'pleasantly perceive[d] the pure and proper Prince Arthur . . . solemnly to salute his sage father . . . which was great gladness to all trusty hearts'. 3
        Father and son, whose relationship under the hype was real and close, then spent the night together in the hunting lodge. The following morning they rode out together to 'the plains' – that is, to the flat heath land round Farnborough and Aldershot. Somewhere in the middle of the scrubby wilderness, the King and Prince met with the advance party of Catherine's suite.
        Henry had sent word to Catherine at Dogmersfield that he was coming to see her. Catherine responded by sending the senior ambassador accompanying her to say that that was impossible; the orders of her father, the King of Spain, were clear: she was not 'to have any meeting, nor use any manner of communication [with her husband's family] . . . unto the inception of the very day of solemnisation of marriage'.
        Henry's response was categorical. He summoned his councillors and they held a meeting there and then, on horseback and in the open air. Their decision was unanimous. Ferdinand might be King in Spain but Henry was King in England. And Catherine and her suite were now 'so far entered into [Henry's] Empire and realm' that they were subject to the English King and to English customs. It was a case of: when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Catherine and her advisers acquiesced graciously. They had, after all, no choice. 4
        Leaving his son behind, the King rode forward, as the advance guard, to lay siege to the Infanta in her castle. Catherine tried a final ruse. She would proclaim herself the Sleeping Beauty and send word to Henry that she was 'in her rest' after her journey. Henry refused to be put off. 'If she were in her bed he would see and commune with her, for that was the mind and the intent of his coming,' he said. He gave her a few moments to get herself ready; then, booted and spurred, strode into her 'third' (that is, her most private) chamber. Each spoke 'the most goodly words' in their own language.
        The ice maiden had melted. The King withdrew to change out of his riding dress and the Prince of Wales arrived at the manor house at Dogmersfield. A second meeting now took place, between the young couple themselves. They had been betrothed and married repeatedly by proxy. Now they renewed their vows in person, with the bishops of both sides interpreting English and Spanish into their common language of Latin.
        There followed supper and an impromptu ball. Catherine summoned her minstrels and danced with her ladies. Arthur then danced 'right pleasant and honourably' with Joan, Lady Guildford. 5
        Joan was the wife of one of the King's leading ministers; she was also daughter of Queen Margaret of Anjou's most faithful lady-in-waiting. Through her mother, who was a native of Piedmont, she had acquired a skill in languages that was unusal in the Tudor court: as well as her fluent French she spoke good enough Latin for Erasmus to be impressed by her conversation, and she probably had Spanish too. These skills gave her an important role in the marriages of the early Tudors – though her fanatical devotion to the royal children meant that it was not always a happy one. 6
        But Joan was a mature woman, who was, moreover, married to someone else. Why did not Arthur dance with his own bride-to-be? It can hardly have been repulsion. For Catherine did not have the dark eyes and hair and sallow, creamy complexion of most of her ladies-in-waiting. Instead, with the looks inherited from her English ancestry, she corresponded closely to contemporary ideals of