Free Six Wives by David Starkey

nation. But Catherine was to stick to the old ways of her native Spain. The result was that the daughter of the unimpeachably orthodox Isabella became a dissenter in her adoptive country, and the persecutrix (at least by complicity) found herself a victim.

10. The journey

    B y 1500 the Moors of Las Alpujarras were crushed. Another rebellion broke out around the city of Ronda, perched defensively on its great ravine. But Ferdinand bought the new rebels off. He had more important business in hand: to bid farewell to his last child remaining in Spain, Catherine, the daughter whom he claimed to be his favourite. For Ferdinand and Isabella had, at last, given Henry VII a definite promise that Catherine would leave Spain for England on the Feast of St John the Baptist, 24 June 1501. 1
        But the sea voyage would be only the last leg of her journey, since Catherine was with her parents in the rebellious Moorish province of Andalusia in the extreme south of Spain. This meant she had to traverse over five hundred miles of mountain passes, river valleys and the vast central plateau known as the meseta – dusty, dry and featureless under the summer sun – before she even reached her port of embarkation on the northern coast.
        On 15 May Ferdinand returned from the front to join his wife and daughter in Granada. But Catherine herself was too unwell to leave immediately. Her illness was described as 'an ague' or fever. It might equally have been the pain of departure, since she knew that she would, almost certainly, never see her parents or her country again. 2
        On the 21st she was fit to begin her journey. She travelled without Ferdinand and Isabella, since it was hoped that her comparatively small suite could journey more quickly unencumbered by the vast, slowmoving entourage of her parents' Court. And – also for speed – it was planned that she would lodge modestly, 'at inns and small villages' en route. But haste and the Spanish climate do not agree. 'The heat', Ferdinand and Isabella reported to England, 'is so great that she cannot make long [daily] journeys.' The pace indeed was snail-like: by 5 July she had only reached Guadalupe, the monastery and pilgrimage-site to the south-west of Toledo. After six weeks she was still less than half way to the coast. And she did not arrive in the maritime province of Galicia till early August. The fleet to escort her to England had been assembled in the port of Coruna for months. But she had one last duty to perform in her native land: a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela to benefit from the indulgence which had been granted for the Jubilee year of 1501, when the Feast of St James (25 July) fell on a Sunday. The final ceremonies were performed and last farewells said and on 17 August she set sail. 3
    * * *
    Within three weeks, she was in Spain once more, driven back by appalling Biscayan storms. The fleet had come near to foundering and had barely made land at Laredo, near Bilbao. The leading nobles escorting her, the Archbishop of Santiago and the Count of Cabra, managed to get word to England. But Henry VII had already heard of their plight and had despatched one of his best captains, Stephen Brett, 'to be on the look for the Princess, and to convey her in the best way to England'.
        On Monday, 27 September at 5 o'clock in the afternoon Catherine and her fleet set sail again. The weather was reasonable until they rounded Cape Ushant, which juts into the Atlantic at the western tip of Brittany. Then, as they swung into the Channel, they were struck by gusting southern winds, huge seas and 'thunderstorms every four or five hours'. 'It was impossible not to be frightened,' one of Catherine's suite wrote to her mother. 4
        The intention had been that Catherine should land at Southampton, since, Isabella had heard, it was 'the safest harbour in England'. But needs must and at 3 p.m. on Saturday, 2 October, the fleet gratefully put in at