Page:The Queens of England.djvu/291

 KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 251 to spend the period of her mourning. Happy had it been for her had she returned to her native land, as her parents desired ; but the wish to retain the portion of her fortune already re- ceived, and to secure the remaining one, as also to save the dower which as widow of the Prince of Wales she was en- titled to claim from England, induced Henry the Seventh to propose a marriage between her and his second son, now heir to his crown. That the two persons most interested in this proposed union felt no desire for it, may readily be conceded when the youth of Henry is considered, he being too young to experience the tender passion, or to excite it ; and although Katharine yielded obedience to the desire of her parents in contracting it, she nevertheless wrote to them that she had no inclination for a second marriage in England. When, however, all was arranged for the pair being affianced, Henry the Seventh, with whom the measure originated, was guilty of an artifice which reflects eternal dishonor on his name, and which, in after years, involved in misery the life of his daughter-in- law. A dispensation had been obtained from Pope Julius the Second for the marriage six years previous to its fulfilment, and this dispensation had been followed by a solemn contract between Henry and Katharine, in June, 1503. What, then, can be thought of the dishonorable conduct of Henry the Seventh, who, two years after this solemn betrothment, on the day before the prince completed the fourteenth year of his age, caused him to sign an act protesting against it, and renouncing the con- tract he had made him formerly sign ! Various have been the motives assigned for this base proceeding : many persons as- serted that it was caused by a desire of alarming Ferdinand, and extorting from him more advantageous conditions for this second marriage, whenever it might be deemed expedient to carry it out ; but the real cause seems to have been Henry the Seventh's own desire to marry Joanna, Katharine's elder sister, himself. Such a connection as father and son married to two sisters, was too much even for these times. But Henry's scheme for himself failed, through the proved insanity of Joanna ; and he then dropped the idea of breaking his son's en- gagement. But out of this proceeding sprang all Katharine's future troubles; for so soon as it was a matter of convenience to Henry the Eighth to get rid of Katharine, he immediately returned to this his boyish protest as a matter of conscience. If motives of pecuniary interest had, too, entered into the pro-