Page:Catherine of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, & queen-consort of England.djvu/118

86 was a most agreeable lady, and painted well." ^ She now began to receive people in her cabin, and sent the Conde de Ponteval, the Marquez de Sande, and Dom Pedro Francesco de Correa to return the visit the Duke of York had made her. The Duke repeated his visit to her every day, and they became very friendly. He went so far as to ask her to put on the Portuguese dress that he might see how she looked in it. So she received him in it one day, when he came, and he declared she "looked very well in it." ^ This directly contradicts Clarendon's remarks about her adherence to the Portuguese costume with senseless obstinacy. His account is worth quoting.

"There was a numerous family of men and women that were sent from Portugal, the most improper to promote that conformity in the Queen that was necessary for her condition and future happiness that could be chosen. The women for the most part old, and ugly, and proud, incapable of any con- versation with persons of quality and a liberal educa- tion, and they desired, and indeed had conspired so far to possess the Queen themselves, that she should neither learn the English language nor use their habit, nor depart from the manners and customs of her own country in any particular." And again, " she could not be persuaded to be dressed out of the ward- robe the King had sent her, but would wear the clothes she had brought until she found the King was dis- pleased, and would be obeyed, whereupon she con- formed against the advice of her women who continued their opiniatrety without any of them receding from their own mode, which exposed them the more to reproach."

Now Catherine was dressed in English costume when she received the Duke of York, and we have seen that it was only at his instance that she resumed her national costume. She landed in English dress, according to Stoop's plates, and in it she made her
 * Diary. * Hist Casa Real Portuguese.