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January 7, 1536
-IN THE end, the great Katharine of Aragon was defeated. None of her ladies would tell her so to her face; she had so few ladies left to her, and so little dignity.
But she knew it well. And though she had held up, and fought valiantly in the battle for so long, and used her pride and dignity and iron will as her shield...it the end they proved to be worthless.
Katharine lay back on her bed and closed her eyes, trying to sleep. She felt light-headed, sick and not well at all. She had been feeling so for a while now. Her ladies fussed on her...but deep inside Katharine knew she wouldn't recover.
She begun to die, slowly, from the moment Henry left her.
It still shocked her; never would it cease to. Henry VIII, her King and husband, rode out with Anne Boleyn one day and left Katharine behind. She hadn't known he'd left; she'd sent a message to him, wishing him well and hoping he'd return safe.
The reply was brutally blunt. It asked that Katharine be gone from the castle she resided in, and go ahead to The More, an estate far off from Henry, far from Mary; in isolation.
Katharine had looked at the messenger in shock, unable to speak. They'd also asked for her jewels! The jewels that signified her as Queen!
And so she was forced to abdicate. She hoped at least she would be able to see Mary; but alas, she was forbidden. Katherine left with a heavy heart but raised her head high, swallowing back the tears fiercely. She took one last look behind her, at the receding castle and the waving, cheering townspeople.
He'd never even said goodbye. Perhaps, it might have been slightly more bearable if he'd bid her a proper farewell; a goodbye kiss or a tight hug. Was it really too much to ask for the daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand? Was it really too much to ask, when she had stayed with him for more than twenty years?
Henry had never told her, straight to her face, what his real motives were. He'd suddenly seemed to take interest in the fact that she'd married his brother before him. Katharine should already have sensed something then; in fact, she had, but she had refused to accept it meant anything, refused to accept that her golden young cub was growing rapidly into a fierce, unmanageable lion.
So began the long, most tiring years of Katharine's life.
It tired her and hurt her even as she thought of them as she lay in her deathbed, even when it was all truly over. After years of pestering the Pope, after years of fruitless letters appealing for help from her nephew the great Holy Roman Emperor, after having to see Henry parade Anne Boleyn around like some treasured prize...after suffering through humiliation and injured pride, after trying to hold strong for herself, for Mary, for her mother, for her royal lineage, for Henry...persisting she and Arthur didn't consummate the marriage, persisting she was a virgin when she came to Henry's bed; persisting, all the time, that she was the true wife and the true Queen of England...
It all came down to one thing. It came down to Anne Boleyn taking Katharine's seat and Katharine being reduced to a Dowager Princess of Wales, since her first husband, Arthur of cherished memory, Henry's own brother, was Prince of Wales.
Katharine sighed. She had been doing as much lately.
She couldn't see Mary, she couldn't see Henry, her dear friend Thomas More was executed, just because he spoke up for her, and the same went for good Bishop Fisher...Katharine couldn't believe what on earth was happening. What happened to Henry, her young, jovial, handsome Henry who loved nothing more than a good joke and laughter around him? What made him so...different?
YOU ARE READING
The Six
Historical Fiction'Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived." In this way, the six wives of Henry VIII were remembered not for how they lived, but in the way they died. It is impossible to know exactly what they were thinking or had to go through, in h...
