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ambassador, her godfather, felt called upon to remind her of her duties as queen and wife.
King Charles was the most witty, fascinating prince in Europe, thoroughly good-natured, brave, reckless, devoted to pleasure, and devoid of religious and moral principles. The free and easy manners of his court shocked the innocent, virtuous little queen to such a degree that she would have preferred not to appear in public at all. But her naivete amused her husband, who devised all sorts of pleasures for her entertainment.
But Catharine's dream of happiness was soon to end in a rude awakening, when her tender, loving husband became unkind and unreasonable. There was a very bad woman at the English court, named Lady Castlemaine, whose husband was living in France This woman had managed by her wicked intrigues to gain great influence over the king, and she was universally despised by everybody excepting his majesty. The queen-mother in Portugal had heard of this creature, and warned her daughter to have no communication with her whatever. Therefore, when Charles, most unreasonably, presented her name, at the head of the list of ladies whom he recommended for appointments in the royal household, the queen crossed it off. Charles remonstrated, but Catharine was firm; thereupon Charles asserted his authority as king and husband. Catharine became excessively indignant, and passionately refused to have Lady Castlemaine among her ladies. The matter was dropped for the moment; but the king assumed an injured air, and made himself disagreeable for a few days after; without the slightest warning he introduced the objectionable party to the queen before her whole court. He knew that he was wrong, and, like many a man before and since, felt angry with his wife because such was the case. He reproached her with being stubborn and undutiful, and used threats that he never meant to put into execution. She burst into tears, told him that he was tyrannical and unkind, and declared that she would go back to Portugal.
One would suppose that the sight of a young, pretty woman in distress would have moved the sympathies of the gay, light-hearted king; but he was not accustomed to being ruled in that way, so he merely replied: "That she would do well first to learn whether her mother would receive her, and he would soon give her an opportunity for knowing, for he would forthwith send home all her Portuguese servants, who had, he knew, encouraged her in her perverseness."
Everybody at court knew that the king and queen had quarrelled, for they scarcely looked at each other. If Catharine had known how to manage her husband she might have won him; but she was too honest to flatter him more than he deserved, and loved him too well to let him suppose she could justify his conduct when she knew how much he had been to blame. She spent hours at a time in her room weeping, while he amused himself with his friends and treated his wife with indifference. He was more deeply offended at her wishing to leave him than at any of her angry reproaches, and sent Lord Clarendon to talk to her in his behalf. She was very penitent, but insisted that she ought to have the privilege of selecting her own servants, and would on no account consent to the presence of an objectionable person.
After that King Charles brutally upbraided her with the non-performance of the marriage treaty with regard to her dowry,—though she was not to blame for it,—and insulted the Portuguese ambassador on her account. Diego Silvas was thrown into prison because he was unable to complete arrangements for paying the sum of money which was, in reality, not yet due. Catharine knew that these indignities were aimed at herself, and felt very unhappy that others should be made to suffer on her account.
A temporary reconciliation was effected between the royal couple by the visit of Queen Henrietta, who declared that she had come to England with the express intention of offering her congratulations on their marriage. She set up her court at Greenwich Palace, and on the day after her arrival the young couple paid their first state visit together. Queen Henrietta awaited them at the first door of the palace after they ascended the stairs; and when she took the poor, neglected, almost heart-broken Catharine in her arms, and folded her in a motherly embrace, the young woman must have felt that she had found a friend at last. The queen-mother could speak no Spanish, and Catharine little English, but the king and the Duke of York acted as interpreters. It is probable that Queen Henrietta meant to intimate to her son, and to all the courtiers present, the respect due the young queen when she said: "That she should never have come to England again, except for the pleasure of seeing her, to love her as a daughter, and serve her as a queen." Catharine replied with gratified pleasure, "That in love and obedience, neither the king nor any of her children should exceed her." This visit lasted four hours, and seems to have had a good effect, for on their return to Hampton Court the king and queen supped in public, much to the delight of their court; and the next evening, when the king returned from a trip to London, her majesty went some distance on the road with her household to meet him.