Page:Catherine of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, & queen-consort of England.djvu/39

Rh trees, and dangled their purple bunches. The arbutus and the oleander, the mimosa and magnolia, made the hill slopes and the valleys one vast paradise. At night the nightingale sent her sobbing thrill from the thickets, and by day the great bustards flapped their slow flight northwards where the mountain summits still held their snow. Beautiful rivers took their twining way through the wild gorges. The medley of colour in trees and plants and flowers bewildered the eye. Even in Catherine's convent garden she might see the tulip-trees unwrap their leaves round their white flowers, and the Judas-tree blush its rosy shame.

When she was eighteen the second grief of her life befell her. The first had been her brother Theodozio's death. Some expressions in her will, more than forty years after, show how deeply she had loved this elder brother, and how she remembered him through her life. Now she was to have another loss, even more vital to her than his.

For some time her father, King João, had been in bad health. He was threatened with dropsy, and his constitutional lack of initiative was increased by his ailments. He had so far overpowered the hosts of Spain and discouraged them, that if he had had the courage and enterprise to push on to Madrid with his advantage, he might have taken the city, and become master of Spain. But he had neither spirit nor initiative enough. He grew weaker and more ill, and finally, on November 6, 1656, he breathed his last. He left to Catherine the Island of Madeira, the city of Lanego, and the town of Moura, with all their privileges, territories, rents and tributes, to be enjoyed by her. He also gave her other places, and other sources of income, but he provided that in case of her marriage out of the kingdom, she should give them back to the crown, on receiving a just equivalent. These gifts were made her for the maintenance of her court. He also made provision for the removal of the bones of his eldest son Theodozio from the Church