Free Six Wives by David Starkey Page A

the first possible English port, Plymouth, far to the west.
        Catherine's first act was to go in procession to the church, to offer up thanks for her safe arrival. There, as one of the Spaniards piously observed, 'it is to be hoped that God gave her possession of all these realms for . . . long enough to enable her to enjoy life and to leave heirs to the throne'. They were fine hopes. But they were cruelly to be disappointed. Were the storms, as Catherine is later supposed to have seen them, an evil omen? 5

11. Arrival

    T here were no signs of such gloomy thoughts when the towns folk of Plymouth welcomed ashore their future Princess of Wales and Queen. 'She could not have been received with greater rejoicings if she had been the Saviour of the World,' Isabella was told in a phrase that must have swelled her mother's heart with blasphemous pride. The English took early to Catherine, and her hold on popular affection always remained secure. 1
        What makes it the more impressive is that Plymouth's welcome was entirely spontaneous. The English of course had made elaborate preparations for Catherine's reception. But everything had been based on the assumption that she would land at Southampton. So when she came ashore instead at Plymouth, the townsmen and local gentry were left to their own devices to offer their own, impromptu welcome. The town had already begun to enjoy the prosperity which, in the course of the next century, made it home to Francis Drake and the Pilgrim Fathers – those two contrasting products of the Reformation and English Imperialism that were to be the nemesis of Catherine, her House and her country. For now, however, Catherine benefited from the profits of Plymouth's trade and fishing, staying in 'the goodly house towards the haven' built by 'one Painter, a rich merchant'. 2
        She remained there over a week, as the arrangements for her official welcome were hastily revised. Plymouth is one hundred and fifty miles from Southampton, where the official welcoming party under Lord Willoughby de Broke was assembled. So it was decided that Catherine should be met part-way, at Exeter. First the slowest moving element of the cavalcade – a relatively plain horse litter, for Catherine, and twelve palfreys (or riding horses) for her ladies – was despatched to Honiton. Then Broke himself followed in post, with a new, hastily drafted schedule that itself bore traces of further alterations as Henry VII's administrators adjusted to events on the ground. Having picked up the advance horses and litter, Broke was to arrive at Exeter on 17 October 'at the furthest'. By this time, Catherine had already left Plymouth with an escort of local gentry and nobles. The escorts had also been organised by Broke, who, fortuitously, was the most powerful landowner round Plymouth, and they had been instructed to cover the forty-four miles from Plymouth to Exeter to get Catherine there on the 19th for her formal reception. 3
        Broke was an obvious choice for the honour of receiving Catherine and conducting her to London. As one of the handful who had shared Henry Tudor's exile in Brittany before he became King, he was a member of the inner circle of Tudor government. He was also, as Lord Steward, the senior officer and administrator of the King's Household. And he was most carefully briefed. The rendezvous went according to plan – as did the rest of the new itinerary, which was stuck to with impressive precision. Catherine would have been struck immediately. Her parents were mighty monarchs, more powerful by far than the English King. But their domestic life and etiquette were relatively informal. Now she was in a different world. Instead of her summer ramble across Spain, there was the military precision of her English journey: she was being inducted into one of the most pompous and ceremonialised courts of Europe. 4
        Catherine's route to London followed roughly the line of the present A30.