half of this he had already paid, and as Henry the Seventh listened to his overtures for the second marriage with affected indifference, he, to quicken the determination, now objected to pay the other half, which so alarmed the moneygrasping English monarch, that he at length opened the negotiation ; and, on the twenty-third of June, 1503, it was arranged that, on the arrival of a dispensation from the Pope, Katherine should be contracted to Ηι-ητν, that the marriage should be completed when the young Prince bad completed his fourteenth year, and that Ferdinand should previously transmit to London the other half of Katherinc's marriage portion, Katherine, although not consulted in this matter, wrote to her father that she had no inclination for a second marriage in England, but requested that her sufferings and wishes might be kept out of view. What her sufferings were at this time has not been recorded: probably, now that she was eighteen, she felt repugnance at entering the matrimonial state with a boy five years her junior. She certainly could not have considered, as some writers have supposed, that by her union with Henry either tbc laws of God or man would be violated, as she never once alluded to the subject in her letters home, whilst, before her second marriage was contemplated, she more than once was heard to declare that her marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; and Henry the Eighth, in thefirst years of his reign, Tcpeatcdly declared that she was a virgin when he married her. But, however this may be, she was affianced to Prince Henry on the twenty-fifth of June, 1503, at the Bishop of Salisbury's mansion, in Fleet Street ; and shortly afterwards her mother, Isabella, Queen of Castile, died, without a male heir. CHAPTEE II. Seifishpolicy of Henry the Seventh—He compels Prince Henry to protest against his betrothment, andforbids him to see Katherine—On his death, Henry the Eighthresolves to marry Katherine—The council approve of the match—The nuptials are solemnized—Person and manners of the King at the period of his accession—His attachment to Katherine—Their coronation—Death of the Countess of Richmond— Katherine humours her husband's tastes for frolics, martial fetes, andfestivals— Marching of the City watch—Birth of an heir; extraordinary rejoicings—Theroyal infant dies—Henry invades France—Katherine rectrix and governor of the realm—Her letters to Wolsey—Henry returns and surprises her—His amours with Lady Tallbois—Marriage of his sister Mary—May Bay festival—Birth of Princess Mary—Evil May Day—Field of the Cloth of Gold—Friendship between Katherine and the French Queen, Claud—Henry's decorous conduct—Entertains the Emperor at Calais—The Amphitheatre blotvn down—Returns with Katherine to England. ENRY THE SEVENTH having lost his Queen soon after the death of Prince Arthur, he now became desirous to again enter the wedded state. After hav ing in vain cast his eyes upon several wealthy widows, tho miserly King fixed his fancy on Margaret's sister Joanna, widow of the Archduke Philip, and, Bince tho death of her mother, Isabella, Queen of Castile ; and that he might not offend the public feeling by a father and two sons marrying two sisters, he caused Prince Henry, on the day before he completed his fourteenth year—the canonical age of puberty—to solemnly protest that h e had neither d one, nor meant to do, anything to render the contract made during his nonage binding in law. This protest, although kept secret for years afterwards, was the germ from which the future misfortunes of Katherine sprung. As for Prince Henry, he had