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 KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 279 Katharine of Arragon, the courtly daughter of the great Isa- bella of Spain, has left a name inferior to none in the English annals of female royalty. There was a queenly dignity and a womanly piety about her that forced even her most deadly enemies to respect her. Her masculine abilities and her lofty and assured temperament, set at defiance all the arts of her savage husband, and of the subtle tools he had around him. The pride of Wolsey quailed before her genuine majesty, and the sanguinary fury of Henry the Eighth was kept at bay. She was regarded by the nation in which she was a persecuted stranger with the deepest sentiments of respect and affection. Not a stain was any one able to find on her reputation, and the fine portrait which Shakespeare has drawn of her in his Henry the Eighth is as just as it is an enduring monument of her "rare qualities" and "true nobility."