So the two girls lived at Eltham, made habitable by their grandfather, and went in and out under his device (the rose en soleil) on the doorway,[ [22] and afterwards at Baynard's Castle, Westminster Palace, Richmond, Windsor, Greenwich, wherever the Court was, going from one place to another by river in the Queen's great barge with its white and green awnings and 21 rowers in livery, and taking two days to get from Greenwich to Richmond.[ [23] Once out of the nursery they were with their mother's ladies, and with their aunts, the Lady Katharine Courteney, Countess of Devon, and the Lady Bridget of York, who, after the Queen's death, became a nun.[ [24] They knew Lady Katharine Gordon, the unfortunate widow of Perkin Warbeck, whose position at Court must have been a curious one; she was one of the Queen's ladies. Among the others were Lady Anne Howard, Lady Elizabeth Stafford, Lady Alyanore Verney, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Pole, whose husband, Sir Rauf, became chamberlain to Mary as Princess of Castile, and whose daughter-in-law, Dorothy, was one of her ladies. Dame Joan Guildford, sister of Sir Nicholas Vaux of Calais, and protégé of the Countess of Richmond, whose husband was controller of the household; Anne Weston, of the same Westons as Francis, who came to so tragic an end in the Boleyn catastrophe; Anne Browne, who went through so much misery before Charles Brandon married her; Eleanor Jones represented Wales, beloved of Henry and his mother; and the two Baptistes, Elizabeth and Françoise, were French waiting-maids.[ [25]
When Mary was six years old her father attained his ambition, and the alliance with Spain, for which he had wrought so hard since 1488, constantly handicapped by conspiracies and rebellions, was affirmed by the marriage, in November 1501, of Katharine of Aragon and Arthur of Wales. Mary and her sister had new gowns for the occasion. Margaret, because she was six years older than Mary, and was about to be betrothed to James IV. of Scotland, and had to look her best in the presence of the Scots Commissioners, had her first gown of cloth of gold: "tawnay cloth of gold tissue trimmed with ermine backs and furred within with ermine wombes." She had another of purple velvet, made very long, with tabard sleeves furred with the same, two new hoods made in the French fashion, one of crimson and one of black velvet, two kirtles, one of tawny, one of russet satin, two pairs of sleeves, one of crimson satin and one of white cloth of gold of damask lined with blue sarcenet. Margaret's joy can be easily read in the light of her later open pleasure in fine clothes, for when in Scotland, despoiled of all by the Duke of Albany, and too ill to move, she had the new gowns sent by her brother brought in to her room time and again, so that she might admire them. Mary had no cloth of gold. She had two gowns, one of russet velvet trimmed with ermine backs and furred within with miniver, and another of crimson velvet with tabard sleeves trimmed with the same; a kirtle of tawny satin with a pair of green satin sleeves. The whole Court got new clothes, and on the day of the marriage the King's henchmen in their crimson cloaks, bordered with black satin,[ [26] the Duke of York's followers in yellow and blue, with the guard in the King's own livery of white and green, and the minstrels and "trompettes" with their banner-hung instruments also dressed in the King's colours, the King and the Queen and their children in cloth of gold or tawny satin and ermine, must have made a fine sight as the procession passed along the blue cloth laid down from the bishop's palace to the cathedral door.[ [27]
But in a few months cloth of gold was exchanged for black satin, for Arthur died in Wales on 2nd April 1502, though in November, when Mary received her half-yearly supply of clothes, she was given a crimson velvet kirtle, possibly in anticipation of Margaret's marriage with the King of Scots on 25th January 1503. At the same time Elizabeth Langton, wardrobe maid, received linen for smocks, rails (nightgowns) and night kerchiefs for the princess and for Jane Popincourt.[ [28] This is the first time rails are mentioned in the list. Did small children go to their "naked bed'? The Queen was going to have another child, and about three weeks after Margaret's marriage she died in child-birth in the Tower (11th February). Her French nurse[ [29] had not been a success after all. She is reported to have comforted Henry on Arthur's death with the promise of more children, saying God had given them so many "and we are both young enough, and God is where he was." Her child was a daughter, named Catherine, who only lived a few days.
FROM THE PAINTING IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY (FLEMISH SCHOOL)
At once the atmosphere of the Court changed, and from now on it lived in a bustle of match-making, for father, son and daughter were all in the market. First there was Katharine of Aragon, whose destiny was so uncertain. The Spanish alliance brought Henry the European position that he coveted, and he neither wanted to risk losing it by restoring the Princess to her parents, or to lose the chance of widening his sphere of influence by binding Henry of York to marry her. However, the main thing for the moment was to hold on to Spain, so in July 1503 a dispensation for Katharine's marriage with her husband's brother was applied for. It only arrived in Spain in November 1504, when Isabella of Castile lay on her death-bed. It comforted the Queen, who had been horrified at Henry's interim proposal to marry the Princess himself. The death of Isabella (who is always called Elizabeth in England) and the question of the succession to Castile opened wider plans to Henry's imagination. Already, in 1500, Henry had had an interview with Philip of Burgundy in St Peter's Church, outside Calais, and Mary's marriage with Philip's son, Charles, Duke of Luxemburg, then four months old, had been mooted, as well as the Duke of York's to a Flemish princess. Then, in 1505, Henry thought of marrying Margaret of Angoulême, or her mother, Louise of Savoy, and suggested that Mary should marry the Dauphin.[ [30] Henry, in his underhand way, also said she was asked in marriage by the son of the King of Portugal,[ [31] but this is doubtful. But the King in 1506 finally concentrated his ambitions on Flanders and Castile, and in 1506 fortune came to him from the sea. Philip of Burgundy and his wife Joanna, now King and Queen of Castile, were on their way to take possession of their new kingdom to Ferdinand of Aragon's despite, when they were storm-driven into Weymouth harbour. Hall says that Philip had been so battered about and seasick that he insisted on landing, though his councillors warned him that if he once put his foot on shore, courtesy and perhaps force would demand a longer visit. And so it turned out, for Henry sent him a cordial invitation to visit him at Windsor, and thither went Philip, followed later by Joanna, who showed no haste to meet her sister Katharine. This is the occasion on which we see the Princess Mary dancing and playing the lute before Philip in the King's dining-room at Windsor. "And when the King heard that the King of Castile was coming [from his appartments in the Castle] he went to the door of the great chamber and there received him.... And so both together went through that chamber, the King's dining chamber, and from thence to an inner chamber where was my lady Princess and my lady Mary, the King's daughter, and divers other ladies. And after the King of Castile had kissed them and communed with them, and communed a while with the King and ladies all, they came into the King's dining chamber, where danced my lady Princess and a Spanish lady with her in Spanish array, and after she had danced two or three dances she left; and then danced my lady Mary and an English lady with her: and ever and anon the lady Princess desired the King of Castile to dance, which, after he had excused himself once or twice, answered that he was a mariner; but yet,' said he, 'you would cause me to dance,' and so he danced not, but communed still with the King. And after that my lady Mary had danced two or three dances, she went and sat by my lady Princess on the end of the carpet which was under the cloth of estate and near where the King and the King of Castile stood. And then danced one of the strange lords and a lady of England. That done, my Lady Mary played on the lute, and after upon the claregulls, who played very well, and she was of all folks there greatly praised that in her youth in everything she behaved herself so very well."[ [32]
The upshot of this visit was a contract of marriage between Mary and Charles, and between Henry VII. and Philip's sister, the Duchess of Savoy, not long a widow for the second time, provided the lady consented. The lady would not consent, and Jehan le Sauvage, President of Flanders, wrote to Maximilian, her father, the King of the Romans, that though he had laboured daily with her for a full month, she still decidedly refused.[ [33] Again and again Maximilian, in need of money and help against the Duke of Gueldres, pressed his daughter to consent, if only to amuse the King of England with promises, but she always answered "that although an obedient daughter she will never agree to so unreasonable a marriage."[ [34] So Henry was fain in the end to be content with the marriage of Philip's son Charles, Duke of Luxemburg, to his daughter Mary.
September 1506 saw Henry's horizon suddenly widen. Philip of Castile died in that month. Henry would marry his widow Joanna and control Castile. Fortune this time favoured Ferdinand, who had been none too well pleased by the marriage projects; Joanna went mad, and though Henry said he did not mind that, seeing that she could still bear children, it gave Ferdinand an excuse for delaying negotiations. Mad or sane, Henry wanted to marry her, and de Puebla, the Spanish agent in England, suggested that marriage with such a man as Henry would restore her to sanity.[ [35] Margaret of Savoy[ [36] had obeyed her father in "amusing" Henry, and the King played off one marriage against the other, telling Ferdinand that he must decide soon about Joanna, for Margaret of Savoy was waiting to marry him,[ [37] while to Margaret he said that there were so many other great and honourable matches daily offered to him on all sides[ [38] that he could hardly choose which to have. It is true Margaret of Savoy had come to the Netherlands, but not as the prospective wife of the King of England waiting to cross the channel at his nod. She had been appointed Governess of the Netherlands and guardian to her nephew Charles, Prince of Castile. By her means a treaty was concluded in 1507 with England, and the marriage of the children was to have taken place at once, but Henry's illness prevented it. France, Spain and Austria were to meet at Cambrai in December 1508 for the adjustment of their claims in Italy, and Henry, in pursuance of his policy, tried hard, by means of Wolsey, to get the Bishop of Gurk, Maximilian's secretary, to help him to weaken Aragon by detaching France from him, so that Ferdinand, who was maintaining himself in a usurped Castile by French support, would find it impossible to continue to hold the kingdom. Henry's desires had no weight at Cambrai, and England, having no stake in Italy, was ignored. But on December 16, 1508, the marriage between Charles of Castile and Mary of England was celebrated at Richmond.
While these events were passing, Mary, to judge by her clothes, was growing up. They became more elaborate. Her mourning for her mother did not last long, for in June 1503 (three months after Elizabeth's death) she was wearing a gown of blue cloth edged with black velvet, and another of the same colour lined with miniver and edged with ermine. Her kirtle was of blue damask bordered with black velvet, and her bonnets were of "ermines powdered" and black velvet. She tied her hair with tawny silk ribbon. Her stockings were white, and she was now allowed 300 pins. Jane Popincourt's allowance was practically the same; she, too, had a blue gown edged with black velvet, white stockings, shoes, gloves, and pins. In the autumn Mary had 1000 pins. Her allowance comes to two gowns, kirtles, bonnets, etc., in the half year—not excessive for a princess.[ [39]